To be perfectly honest, I was never really aware that I had any special abilities. When you have what you have, you don't really think about what you don't have; you simply work with what you have.
Marc-Andre HamelinI never considered myself more able than anybody because I had problems just like anybody else. When I practiced, I solved problems, like any of my fellow students. I looked at my own work, and looked ahead, with blinders, almost.
Marc-Andre HamelinThat is my way of doing things, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to anybody else; if you need to do technical exercises, you do them. The whole point of practicing is to get to know yourself, to know your weaknesses and to zero in on them and target them. It's not really about employing anybody else's formulas, because you really have to find what is best for you and what you need.
Marc-Andre HamelinIt's the vision of the composer that we have to determine, and not the absolute mathematical adherence of the score. In my experience, there have been occasions where I feel that a composer has not notated something as they meant to have it represented.
Marc-Andre Hamelin