Music study presents a natural, here-and-now route to selfknowledge and self-integration.

If you have played "six times wrong, one time right" the problem is not quite corrected.

Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.

When the good student chooses the honest path, free of perfectionism and faking, music study becomes something refreshingly new: a calm oasis of self-acceptance for those who are so used to driving themselves and trying to please others.

Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses.

If we're not actively making things better, chances are we're making them worse.

The reason so many of us lose our bearings about practising early in life is that we practice in living rooms with other family members in earshot - and healthy practice would simply sound too obnoxious, intrusive, repetitious and unmusical for others to hear without annoyance.