Dear Friends,
It's 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside today and I'm enjoying a cozy fire indoors. We've just finished the first week of the semester. It's been wonderful to see my students and colleagues again!
Today I am thinking about an oft-cited quote: "Comparison is the thief of joy." The origin of this quotation is unclear, although it's frequently attributed to Theodore Roosevelt.
In essence, this quote means that constantly measuring yourself against other people drains the happiness out of your own life. When you stay focused on your own path instead of someone else’s, it’s much easier to feel satisfied, proud, and at peace.
I've been thinking about this quote because last month, the pianist and teacher Gary Graffman passed away at the age of 97.
Graffman had a long and distinguished musical career, beginning as a prodigy and developing into an internationally acclaimed concert artist. After a hand injury interrupted his concert career in 1979, he joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music (where he had studied as a child), and became a highly-respected pedagogue. He later served as director and president of Curtis and taught students including Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, all while continuing to perform and commission works for piano left hand alone.
After his death, tributes poured in from all corners of the piano world. The Steinway and Sons Facebook tribute to Gary Graffman begins: “Teaching isn’t the only thing, it’s everything.”
Especially when used in reference to someone who had a major concert career, that's a striking statement. It suggests that in the end, what endures is not our résumé, but the human relationships we build as a musician and artist, through which music is passed down.
Graffman studied with Isabelle Vengerova, Rudolph Serkin, and, informally, with Vladimir Horowitz. He then taught many of the leading pianists of the next generation. Those students are not only concert artists; many of them now teach their own students, who will teach the next generation, and so on.
You can find many interviews with Graffman online. In this interview on the program Living the Classical Life, it's clear from the very first question, about what it takes to foster a first-rate talent, that he saw his work as shaping the very top pianists in the field.
Most of us are not internationally acclaimed concert pianists, and most of us are not training the next generation of superstars. It's easy to feel that if you did not become a concert pianist, or if you came to the piano later in life, you have somehow fallen short. I frequently hear from people who tell me they wish they had started younger or had more musical opportunities, and underneath that is often a painful comparison to someone else’s path.
But what if music-making is not shaped like a pyramid, with a large base of teachers at the bottom and a sharp point with a few concert pianists at the top? What if, instead, it looks more like a web of connections, where learning, generosity and community matter more than striving to prove yourself as the best of the best?
It is wonderful that pianists at the highest level move the art form forward and bring it to the most elite concert halls in the world. But most pianists will never be that, and that is perfectly fine. We each have our own ways of finding meaning, beauty, and purpose in the work we do.
As a student, I had many wonderful opportunities: enrolling in competitive programs, attending prestigious festivals, working with high-level teachers, and participating in international competitions. Ultimately, though, I discovered that the pursuit of trying to be better than the others around me felt hollow and empty. I have learned that I derive great meaning and joy from teaching students who may never become full-time concert pianists, but who find real reward in the discipline, hard work, and self-improvement that music study requires.
Whether you are a professional performer, a professor, a local teacher, someone taking up the piano for the first time, or someone returning after decades away, please know that your work at the instrument has inherent value.
So today I encourage you to notice when comparison tries to steal your joy, and to remember this instead: any time you sit down to play the piano, even if it's just for fun, that is already success!
👋 Happy practicing,
Kate