A story about my start in music.

A story about my start in music.

“Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside.”
Ludwig van Beethoven

People always ask - "how come your playing looks so easy", "how old were you when you started", "why don't you look at the keys" etc.
So here are a few answers. :)

My mum, who is a a classical piano teacher (in a music school), always had great ambitions which she couldn't realise due to the lack of performer's talent.
And coming from such poor family and such small town that she had trouble getting the education she wanted.
But she appeared to be a very good teacher and many of her students, including me,  became professional musicians.

My mum showing me that the only real value is books :)

Before I was even conceived - she already had a plan for me to become a classical pianist and to achieve all her ambitions she had for herself, namely, becoming a "second Evgenij Kisin" (very famous Russian classical pianist who became known as a child).
When mum was pregnant with me - she played classical music for me and read Pushkin to her belly. :)

I think, the fact that I was a child prodigy - was my way of "protecting myself", coz if I were to not have any discernable talents - i don't think i could bear my mum's disappointment, so I had no choice but to develop quickly and early. :)))

My first word was "a book", i was 9 months old,  and my first phrase was "The moon is just like a dandelion".
By the age of 4 I started playing and reading.

My father showing me first moves on a piano

By the age of 5 I was accepted in the music school.
I know, in a modern western world it's not even early enough, but back then, in a tiny soviet town, that wasn't even marked on a map (it was a part of a defence industry, we had a uranium mine) and where any sort of "being not like everyone else" was discouraged - it was pretty unusual.
When I had to go to the regular school, at 7 years old  - I was already educated enough to skip the first 3 grades, but my mum was talked out of it by the school board, they feared that I wouldn't cope psychologically and also since my mum always knew that I'd go to music college and it was in another city, by the time I'd have to go (after the 9th grade) - I would've been only 11 and impossible to accommodate at college.

So they decided to "start me up" from the 1st grade where I was incredibly bored and also ridiculed for being "different" and a "smart ass". )))
I think, few years later I learnt to pretend and conform as to avoid constant conflict with the classmates.

Soviet Union style. :) (I'm on the left).

And after I went to college at 14 - I became adored by my ex classmates, who seek me out to this day, LOL. :)

Ok, back to music.
back then, in Soviet Union, behind the iron curtain and in our tiny town - we've hardly heard of jazz, only some restaurant musicians (we had 1 (ONE) restaurant in our "village) - knew some tunes.
My mum's friend, a gifted pianist and accordionist - has seen "The moon valley serenade" and he showed me how to play "Blue moon" when I was 7 years old.
I was hooked on it straight away and knew it was something wonderful and different from what was imposed on me by my mum without any motivation.
The best she could come up with "you will play this because I said so". :)
oh, and there's also such great motivation to play piano - as spanking!
When I've grown a little  - the spanking was replaced by occasional beating with a phone cable and a Mozart book on a head. :)

Also my mum's great strategy was to never tell me that I had a talent, because she was afraid that I'd become conceited and lazy.
So i was kept unaware of the fact that I had any musical gifts till I was 13 years old.
I gave a solo concert in my music schools and one of the teachers, my mum's greatest enemy, came to congratulate me and said - "Evelina, you are so amazingly talented, that's all we've been talking about for the past few years, how does it feel being a prodigy?"
I was puzzled and I didn't know what to say, because all I heard from my mum - is that I was "giftless" and "a piece of idiot". :)))))

During my years of music school - I noticed that it's extremely easy for me to pick up any tune from a movie or a song from the radio and i tried and played those, I also noticed that I had a knack for taking a tune and playing it with unusual chords or in different style, but I was greatly discouraged as mum was afraid that improvising and playing popular tunes would distract me from classical music.
I still continued to do that, but in secret. :)

My last year of music school - from 13 to 14 I was on a payroll in my school as an accompanist, playing with violin players and i was earning almost half my mum's salary. :)
And at the age of 14 I went to a nearby big city, Dnipropetrovsk, to a Music college, where I started "finding my groove", but it's another story...

Stay tuned!!! :)


P.S. My mum and I are great friends now, our relationship has completely transformed (although it took many years of work) and she even helps me write with he knowledge of music theory (which I half missed in college, I was too busy working. :))
And now I'm really greatful for the choice she made for me.
Music.