“Itzhak” filmed by Alison Chernick (If you have Amazon prime, you can watch for free.)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B085KWYHHJ/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
Itzhak Perlman is my all time idol. This is a documentary about his musical life. I usually don't like documentaries, but I love this one. It will tell you a lot of the behind the scenes stories. It speaks to me.
One of the parts is about how we learn. When I was in Taiwan, or China, the teachers would tell not me the “why” of doing things. I don’t think the teacher really wanted to let us think, only tell us what to do. That only fixes the surface problem. It doesn’t fix the long term problem. When I went to the Formosa Chamber Music Festival I met my teacher Jasmine and the entire quartet. They taught us how to think. That’s WHEN I started to understand the “WHY” and try to apply to my playing. Now As a teacher, just like an artist, how would I form these children into a piece of a masterpiece. Every student means a lot to me. I think about why the universe brought them to me. I nurture them by love. I look to see how they learn. Some are good at thinking, some are good at doing, some are good at entertaining, some are good at expressing themself, some like to be quiet, some are lazy, some are good at visuals, some are good at listening. As for me, I am always good at doing things, I love to use my hands doing something.
Funny thing is, I’m playing music. I am supposed to be better at listening. But I don’t think my ear truly opened until I came to Chicago because my teacher was truly trying hard to fix my problem with intonation. The violin’s intonation is so hard. I tried so hard to listen and figure it out but it was not easy.
I always love to talk to piano technicians. I ask about tuning and there are different ways of tuning a piano. Again it’s about intonation. I’m still learning. The more that I hear, and play the more I know.
I was really moved when he said “He was really late for listening.” I felt I’m not alone. I thought I was the only bad one.
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