Pablo Massa <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Jeremey Mc Millan:
>
>>I heard that being open to different genres helps
>>out if you are a piano major.  Is that true?
>
>Sincerely I don't think so.  Being open to different genres may help your
>own enjoyment of music.  It may also help your inventive if you want to be
>a composer.  However, you will be a piano major if you have discipline and
>talent enough for it, no matter how open or not can be your musical taste.

Can't quite agree with Pablo here.  I think that one of the reasons that
Rubinstein was a great pianist was his openness not only to other genres
of music, but to other genres of art and life for that matter.  He once
said that unless you spent more of your life "living" than practicing,
you would never be able to fully communicate through your music, as you
would have had no experiences to relate.  (or words to that effect.) I
agree with this.  I have seen too many pianists, singers, violinists,
etc who know nothing about anything other than their own literature.  Not
only are they uninteresting as musicians, they are also boring people.

Kevin Sutton
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