Letter from Boston A Time To Quit By MASAKO YAMADA	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
雅子さんは、20年近く続けてきたピアノのレッスンをやめることにしました。7歳から習い始め、上達するほどに楽しくなっていったピアノですが、ここにきて限界を感じ、以前のように真剣に練習する気持ちにもなれないためです。先日、大学時代の室内楽クラブ仲間に会いましたが、彼女もチェロのレッスンをやめたと言います。

A few days ago at the New England Conservatory, I saw an old chamber music partner from college, Cathy, coming out of the main auditorium. We've only seen each other a few times since graduating in 1996, but it has always been in some sort of musical context: our going to a friend's concert together, or my attending one of Cathy's concerts.

She told me that her orchestra was having a concert that night, and that they had just had a rehearsal. She then asked me what I was doing at the conservatory: "Well, I quit piano lessons," I started explaining.

"Yes, I thought so," she replied. "But I accompany a friend of mine who sings," I explained. "Oh, so you're at least doing something." "Yes, barely."

After almost 20 years of taking piano lessons, I recently decided to quit. I've decided not to participate in any chamber music programs, or to take on odd jobs as an accompanist, either. It was hard to make this decision, but now I think I've made the right choice.

I started taking lessons when I was seven, which was extremely common among the Japanese people in my neighborhood, and I was not a remarkable pianist. I didn't particularly love music, either.

However, for some strange reason, I continued long after most of my friends had quit. They were too busy studying, or too busy socializing, or too busy looking for a job, or too busy working.

I never found myself "too busy" for anything to quit, and I found that I enjoyed myself more and more as I improved and became a part of the music community. I didn't take any private piano lessons in my last year of college, but that was only because my music professor went away on sabbatical.

I remained extremely active in the Chamber Music Society, attending practice and rehearsals almost every day. Immediately after I entered graduate school, I was too busy to look for a new teacher. But after a year, I found a new teacher, resumed private lessons and continued with him for three years, until now.

Actually, I had been thinking about quitting for a long time. There are numerous reasons I thought it would be a good idea, and at some point, all those reasons seemed to point to one direction: stop now.

Lessons were extremely expensive; I didn't have time to practice properly; the (little) practice that I did prevented my working on my thesis; I wasn't improving.

It was the last reason — lack of growth — that really forced me to think. The whole point of playing music is to play beautifully, and I felt that I simply wasn't getting any better at the game. I couldn't justify paying over $60 (¥7,080) an hour for a lesson that didn't help much.

I seriously considered changing piano teachers, but I decided that my lack of musical growth was not my teacher's fault; I simply didn't have the time and the willpower to dedicate myself to practicing. Unfortunately, boring practice is essential for improvement.

Cathy seemed very understanding about my decision. But, of course, my quitting piano lessons was nothing compared to her quitting her cello lessons. I was shocked when she told me several months ago that she'd quit.

She attended the Juilliard Pre-College Program — a world-famous incubator for aspiring pro fessionals — when she was young, and she decided that she really wanted to pursue the performance track after college. She took lessons with some of the most famous cello teachers in Boston, and she even got a graduate degree in performance.

But now she is the manager of the orchestra that was playing at the New England Conservatory a few days ago, not a performer. Apparently, she still plays as a hobby with friends, but not in any kind of competitive or professional manner. She told me that her dream is to found a music foundation or a music school, but that she'd be doing the business side of things, not the performance side.

She looked very happy and calm, probably much more so than when she was practicing scales for hours a day and unsure of her future. However, I was afraid to ask what was going through her mind when she decided to quit her cello lessons. I could list my own reasons for quitting, but I couldn't imagine how she would even start to explain her own.

Shukan ST: Feb. 2, 2001

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