When my family would gather at Thanksgiving to express gratitude for their various blessings, we children were required to display the results of our hours spent practising the piano. My sister would quite properly play a piece of mid-level difficulty, receiving polite applause. I, in turn, would play a less difficult piece and the assembled would say things like, “I didn’t know a piano could make that kind of noise.” I knew then that I was not destined for a career in music, but free to pursue other options.
In the years since, I have come to think that the ability to perform music at a ...
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