Don't we ALL wish every single one of our students could/should/would do that???????



Ha! I'm lucky if they touched the piano at all during the week.

I have to agree with Malkin: that WAS a very nice post, KeyString! I had started to react to other things that I believe do not work so well, and failed to stay with the original topic, about which I do have strong opinions.

I would like to comment upon the last part of that particular post, which holds a fairly common theme of yours -- That there was sort of a Dark Ages of Musical Information that existed prior to this wide-spread popularity of the Internet. Furthermore, your implications that discussion forums like this one, and search engines, somehow raised the veil of musical ignorance, and made it possible for amateur musicians, once again, to progress.

As well as I can remember, good, solid, reliable, valid information has been readily available since Guttenberg inked his typefaces. In fact, the QUALITY of the information available in the past through traditional printed matter, on average, was much higher, due to the fact that authors were held accountable for their facts, and publishers employed editors, whose job it was to weed-out stuff that was not correct. Before it was made public, written information was scrutinized, and reviewed, and revised, helping to ensure that mis-information never made it into print. There were lots of highly-trained, talented, and competent music teachers. There were fully functioning conservatories, graduating professors and teachers, as well as professional musicians. There was a recording industry that brought the sound of great music into every home that had a radio, or a television, or a record player.
In short, there was no dearth of excellent information, nor of musical talent, nor of great performances - all three have been there all along. The fact that you did not, or could not, avail yourself of some of those things does not mean they were missing.

Ed

I've had similar situations, Brinestone, with children who are clearly terrified of me (though I can't see any reason why). Somehow I don't see them coming online to ask a question, at the tender age of 6.

For the grown-ups who are nervous about asking, honestly, they should just get over it. It does depend on the kind of question though.