I must have been about fourteen then, and I dismissed the incident with the easy careless of youth. But the words, Carl Walter spoke that day, came back to me years later, and ever since have been of inestimable value to me.

Carl Walter was my piano teacher. During one of my lessons he asked how much practicing I was doing, I said three or four hours a day.

“Do you practice in long stretches, an hour at a time?”

“I try to.”