It wasn't long before the instructor interrupted him, waving his hands in disapproval.
"Don't play, tha-tha-tha," he corrected, mimicking my father's apathy with a half-closed eyelid and a limp wrist in the air. "You must play, BA-BA-BA!"
The instructor pounded his fist against his palm with each BA. Then, in a swell of passion, plunged a pencil straight through my father's sheet music, tearing a hole in it.
My dad's wide eyes darted from the pencil sticking out of his music, to his instructor's flaring nostrils, and back to the dynamic marking in the first measure—fortissimo.
His heart began to race as he realized he'd better start playing like he meant it. He puffed his cheeks, raised his shoulders, and summoned all the breath his lungs to play with the enthusiasm that the piece called for. Finally, his instructor was pleased.
