Teacher's Diary: Musings Before My Master Class
I had a breakfast companion in Spain. Well, we breakfasted at the same place for a long time before he would speak to me, so I hung on his every syllable when he did speak. My friends made fun of me, What's wrong with you? The way you wait on that old guy, he might as well be God! Are you going to stay there forever and watch him breathe?
It was true. I was an idiot.
We didn't know who he was at the time, but deep in my heart I understood that he was somebody. If he spoke, I might learn from him.
He taught me a lesson that fills my memory to this day. It will likely be lost on the vast majority of our dear audience, because I am not good at imparting this, students. You'd need a blood transfusion to get it from me for real. But for the lone possibility that someone may be listening who can intuit this, in spite of my poverty of soul:You see, (after months of not talking and waiting for him to talk, he says to me), you have to feel all that.
I nod.Do you know why?
I do, I said.(You'd think I was getting married, it was so important to me to get this right).
Then, he said. Say it with me... Say... it with me. Ah? He tapped his heart.We two alternated speaking next, slower than slowly, becoming one nervous system:
The nuances ... in the rhythms ...are the result (no, son los resultados) ...the results ...of the lack of respect... the delicate lack of respect that we may have ...for the rhythm. But, in this lack of respect, you may define ... the good artist and the bad artist.Before I learned who he was, before he ever spoke, I'd grasped his lesson. He gave me more than love that day. There's a word in Spain for it. Duende. If I were able to teach you anything about teaching, my class, I'd teach you that one thing. I could die in peace -- I could live, even! (We always laugh at that in class).
Gracias, Andrés, mil gracias por todos.
For Segovia.
