Playing Again with Both Hands
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All the time I was playing with one hand, Mario was looking for some way to help me get back to playing with both hands. After three years, he found out about Dorothy Taubman, a teacher from New York.
I went to a two week master class she gave in Amherst and after seeing me, she told me I could play again if I dropped my earlier technique and relearned to play the piano her way. I was also told to drop all my repertoire and start afresh, because if I didn’t, I would relapse into bad habits and risk injury again.
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I decided immediately to do it to continue with the piano that I followed her advice and I embarked in 4 years of study with Nina Scolnik, a teacher at UC Irvine who had studied with Mrs. Taubman and knew very well her technique. This culminated in my reappearance playing with both hands a program of music by Mexican composers. |
I could practice again for several hours a day, which is indispensable to being a pianist, although when I wasn’t careful, I would get a bit of discomfort and swelling where the injury had occurred.
But something else happened in 1995. Something radical that would change my life and my musical career forever:
I started to compose.