{"id":116,"date":"2013-05-29T06:00:40","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/?p=116"},"modified":"2013-05-30T18:37:39","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T01:37:39","slug":"thank-you-jacquie-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/archives\/116","title":{"rendered":"Thank You, Jacquie D."},"content":{"rendered":"

Arriving back in Los Angeles from a regional piano competition that had only two prizes, I called my teacher.<\/p>\n

“It’s Jim!”<\/p>\n

“How did you do?”<\/p>\n

“I took second prize!”<\/p>\n

“Why not first?”<\/p>\n

To him, and to me his disciple, anything but first was “losing.” From practicing six hours a day, six days a week, I was plunged into crisis, and did not touch the piano for many months.<\/p>\n

For the first six months, I had no scheduled activity. I played basketball and visited courtrooms to watch civil trials—keeping body and mind functioning. And I learned one big thing: A few weeks is all the nothing<\/i> I can tolerate.<\/p>\n

Then I worked for a year programming at System Development Corporation, where I found lots of other musicians, because SDC had discovered that musicians were a good bet for training as programmers.<\/p>\n

Three of us who worked together walked occasionally to a local bar after work for a beer and conversation, sometimes with our significant others, one of whom was an operating-room nurse. She explained O.R. facts of life when I jokingly made like a TV surgeon. “Scalpel!” I said; and she said balefully, “If he says that, he gets<\/i> the scalpel, brother! Slapped across his palm so he won’t forget it.”<\/p>\n

On another occasion, our conversation touched on music, and I contributed a sentence or two. She looked surprised, turned to her husband, and said in a whisper meant for me, “Why didn’t you tell<\/i> me he’s like this when he talks about music?” In that moment, I saw something important and objective about myself, and how that something might relate to how I’d always known myself inside. I saw what I might have to offer society; and where I might fit in.<\/p>\n

During those months of not practicing, I’d also gradually discovered something else important: that I hadn’t stopped playing because I’d lost that competition, but because I’d won<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Those months weren’t dead but fallow. Soon, the crop became visible.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arriving back in Los Angeles from a regional piano competition that had only two prizes, I called my teacher. “It’s Jim!” “How did you do?” “I took second prize!” “Why not first?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}