The academy gave me a grounding in discipline and hard work that has sustained me throughout my life, and the lessons I learned there I now try to impress on young people.

I have a theory that there is something abnormal about children who like to practice instruments They are either geniuses or, more often, completely untalented. I certainly did not like to practice, and the teacher who hit me, and the view of the park, did not help to improve my attitude.

I can only hope that neither of them was scarred by their upbringing.

My entire learning process is slow, because I have no visual memory.

But one day, when I was still young, I was parted from my family and left my native country. I hunted and searched for music, and destiny turned me into the object of my hunt. The circumstances of life became my 'antlers' and prevented me from returning home.

Friends are very important to me, and I have always had many of them. There are probably many reasons why this is so, but two seem to me more valid than any of the others I am a naturally friendly person, and I hate to be alone.

Fight the tendency to become complacent and do one kind of music - that is the death of a musician.