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.

[perfectionism leads to] a tendency to apologize preemptively for one's efforts, knowing from experience that there's sure to be something wrong with them.

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.

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

Music, the most abstract and uncanny art, is an eternal river of sound moving through time. We can free ourselves from whatever may be holding us back, and join that flowing river.

. .the most crucial ingredient by far for success in music is . . .what happens in the practice room.