The Day I Became a Composer

When I was eight or nine I'd been taking piano lessons for a couple of years. One day I arrived at my weekly lesson unprepared and my teacher noted the fact that it seemed as though I hadn't practiced much since our previous lesson.

 

At first I was shy to admit it but eventually she teased it out of me.

 

I had started to make things up at the piano through improvisation. And had been having too much fun playing my own "songs" to practice my Mozart.

 

As I look back this was a key turning point in my life as a musician.

 

Some teachers may have responded to my confession with anger. But Ruth Steincraus Cohen did something so simple and so inspired that it changed me forever.