When I was in Kindergarten, my mom signed me up for orchestra. In orchestra, I played the violin, and I also had a private teacher. Orchestra moved very slow. There were lots of kids and we were trying to play very basic pieces, all in a 4/4 time signature, all with about four notes in them. With my private teacher, I was working on much more complicated pieces. But, because I couldn’t read music, I would read tablature.  

In third grade, at school we started working on a piece called Pachelbel’s Canon, which I had known since about first grade. I was very restless in class, because I had played the song so many times and the teacher was moving at a very slow pace. So, the orchestra teacher talked to my mom and said that maybe orchestra wasn’t a very good fit for me. My mom was on my side. After all, I was eight years old. A lot of eight-year-olds are restless, especially when they’re unchallenged. She totally understood and thought that the teacher was being outrageous. Around the beginning of second semester, right after the Winter Concert, I quit orchestra, knowing that I could join the advanced orchestra the next year.

Over the next two years, my violin teacher really pushed me to read music. One day, after we had finished a piece with tablature we were working on, my teacher gave me a piece of music called Andante Grazioso without tablature. I had mixed feelings about this: on one hand it is a very good talent to learn, on the other hand, it would require very hard work. I worked on it every day, and gradually, it became easier. Then, one day I was able to play Andante Grazioso without any mistakes. As my fingers guided me through the piece, I felt overjoyed. I had pulled it off! I wasn’t playing notes out of key or off tune; I wasn’t pausing or redoing notes. I was reading music!

After I nailed the piece, I got more pieces without tablature, but over time I got better and better at it. Eventually, I could play a piece of music without reading tablature in about a week. I did take advanced orchestra and it wasn’t really a good fit. When I think back on  the school orchestra, I realize that it might not be the greatest place for learning music, because you only go as fast as the slowest few people in the class. With my private teacher, I could go at my own pace, and actually have fun learning music, because, with my private teacher, I was the priority. The focus of our lessons wasn’t just to play without making mistakes, it was to become a better musician.

This I believe: If you have a situation where you can be challenged and go at your own pace, you can learn to do anything.