Over the years, I’ve had a good many really fine – and some extraordinary – musical coaches, teachers, and mentors. As I was practicing today, one of their bits of sage advice popped into my brain, and I’ve interrupted my D major/minor scale and arpeggios practice to share it with you. This one comes courtesy of the great pianist and teacher and coach Leon Fleisher. I studied at the Peabody Conservatory, where he’s taught for over 50 years (he began teaching at the Peabody in 1959), for two years, but didn’t get the opportunity to play for him until I was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the Berkshires of western Massachesetts. We were working on Brahms’ great g minor Piano Quartet, when he suddenly stopped us and demanded
“Are you making that choice out of convenience, or out of conviction?”
When the ensuing pregnant pause didn’t give birth to an answer, he said “that’s what I thought!”. It’s a question that I ask myself all the time. As an orchestral musician, where one is learning new repertoire virtually every week – often multiple programs – the answer is often one of convenience. It’s a shame, because when one makes musical decisions based upon personal conviction, the resulting musical product is ever so much more compelling.