Copied from my website’s blog (original post here). Enjoy. :)

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I just realized something today. I haven’t posted on here for almost 9 months.

Time flies… A lot of things can happen in 9 months—

—oh wait, just FYI:

 I’m not pregnant.

Admit it. You were totally thinking that. Dirty-minded readers…

All kidding aside , yes, a lot of things have happened in the past 9 months. I graduated, visited California (where I grew up), and went on a fantastic tour with my quintet.

I was looking at the last blog post that was on here and only thought it appropriate to post up an interview I did with my old piano teacher in California. For anyone who has wondered where most of my teaching techniques come from, they’re actually inherited from this wonderful woman, Carmencita Aspiras. Take a look (interview starts at 1:15). :) 

When I was 14, I invited her to a concert where I was performing the Hungarian Pastoral Fantasy (by Franz Doppler) with the Fremont Youth Symphony (which unfortunately… doesn’t exist anymore. Sadness!). She had told me earlier that if my heart was with the flute, I should pursue my passion with full force rather than splitting my energy up with piano lessons.

How many piano teachers do that??

She’s one of the main reasons why I’m now so dedicated to private flute teaching. I’ve nabbed as many teaching and practicing techniques from her as possible, but I know that I don’t even know half of the tricks up her sleeve.

That’s why I decided to interview her. This one is a little different from the rest of my silly videos… I think we both got a little more personal here than we had intended, but that’s just how interviews roll when it’s between two old friends.

I had initially begun the interview with the mission to find out how and from where Mrs. Aspiras gained her knowledge and know-how of music-making. But as we kept talking, I started to realize that the interview had really nothing to do with music. We were just talking about her life. We even ended up talking about my life.

 It just so happened that both of our lives have a lot to do with music.

By the end, I realized that, all this time, Mrs. Aspiras had been using music merely as a medium to teach me how to breathe, move, feel… live.

Mrs. Aspiras had never taught with strategy. She taught not because she loved the music, but because she loved us, her little insignificant students who didn’t know the first thing about real music-making, let alone anything about life in general. She taught not because she wanted us to play the right notes, but because she wanted us to live through the music.

Now, I hear music everywhere. I can’t not hear it. I can’t help but tap my foot or bust out a little dance move when I hear a good beat. I don’t have the ability to care about wrong notes, but I’m always devastated for weeks when I come away from a performance knowing I didn’t put my whole being into it. I even subconsciously rate pop song mashups based on how much it sounds like a Bach fugue.

As much as I try not to be a nerd, I can’t help but breathe music now.

It’s all your fault, Mrs. Aspiras.

I kid. ;)

But seriously, thank you, Mrs. Aspiras. I’m sure a lot of those lessons back then felt like pulling teeth. I’ll admit that there was (and still are) plenty of things you taught me that I didn’t understand until years later. Thank you so much for teaching those things anyway and enduring all my blank stares and sorry imitations of your wonderful playing.

 I’ve spent over an hour here, trying to think of something really special to say, but I don’t think words can even describe how grateful and blessed I feel to have had the privilege of studying under you. I owe my whole music career to you.

 Thank you for loving me for who I am and not for my piano-playing [dis]abilities. I hope you don’t mind that your piano studio turned out a YouTubing, flute-playing weirdo like me.

Much love,
Joanna