Unexpected Teacher

By Scott Coulter When I was 15 years old, I had my first music lesson with Art. Art is a jazz pianist who lives in my hometown of Boulder, CO, and just happens to be one of the most brilliant musical minds in the country. For reasons that are still not completely known to me, Art is not a household name in the jazz listening community. He is, however, a household name in the community of professional jazz musicians, all of whom revere him as one of the finest musicians to inhabit this earth. Art didn't mince words. If you played something mindlessly, if you got lazy, if you didn't put the kind of intention into the music that the music deserved, Art would tell you. In fact, his first words to me were, and I quote, "that was bull****, now play it again and MEAN it this time." It sounds harsh, but here's the thing: He was RIGHT. I was trying to impress him, and playing something totally outside of what was actually inside of me. And he caught it. He said exactly the right thing. It knocked me out of trying to "impress" him (as if a 15-year-old kid could "impress" a living legend of jazz, anyway), and brought me back to myself. He was much nicer after my second attempt, though he still had quite a few pointers on what I could have done better. Art's style was that of a skillful Zen teacher. He said things directly, he didn't offer false praise, and he did what any good teacher SHOULD do: He pruned away the stuff that wasn't working in his students' playing, and gave us the tool...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs