I started taking piano lessons when I was seven years old and continued for the next 20 years off and on. And truly I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't making music, either on piano or some other instrument. In my adult life I had a series of events that caused me to change from studying electrical engineering to studying music. I've been teaching music in schools for 40+ years. I remember a young man named Matt who played baritone sax in my symphonic band. Sometimes I'd give him a ride home with his sax in the back of my truck. Truly I don't remember treating him any differently from my other students. Several years after he left for high school I ran into him while Christmas shopping. He told me he would be graduating in June, and that he intended to go to college and study music and become a band director. He said, "You were my inspiration." That humbled me beyond words.
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