Dear all,
Here is my exam concert from last month.
However, before you listen, I'd like to tell the story.
I'm one of those students who never had a God-given talent. My talent was that I was crazily hard working, and with that gained up on the more naturally talented students. I usually didn't practice less than 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. It got me quite far, and I got accepted into a somewhat prestigious school in central Europe.
Last September, I decided to take it even further, and started planning for competitions, and an actual career. I played basically anything that was difficult - Symphonic etudes, Dante, Liszt and Chopin etudes, Prokofiev's 3rd concerto....
Then, in December, my hand started feeling funny. "Nothing some more practicing can't fix", I though. And lets add Scriabin sonatas to the list of pieces...
As you might think, it didn't quite work. One day in January, I woke up and couldn't move my second and third finger on my left hand. This was After I had been to an "expert" in this field, who for sure knew the problem.
So, obviously I kept practicing.
The hand then got slightly better, but still about the same level as my 5 year old student.
I then heard of this hospital in my city, that only helps musicians. I went there, quite sure about that they'd say that it's a tension and that I just need to rest.
Well, no... After a very vague analysis of my hand, they highly suspected that I had focal dystonia. It's a thing that happens to about 1% of all musicians, and almost always ruins their career. So one would expect that they would be supportive, right?
Wrong. they gave me a paper and told me that I most probably never would be able to play again. Then they send me to this other expert, who did a very quick scan of my hand, put (literally) some wires around my fingers and asked if it felt better.
When I politely, while trying to swallow my tears, said no, he replied with an "oh, then there is nothing I can do. That'll be 150 euros, please"
I got a new appointment at the hospital with their "Hand expert", to which they were 20 minutes late. They wanted me to show them the problem, but as the main doctor was on the phone, I had to be quiet. So I showed the expert the best I could, and was simply told "Oh, hehe, that's weird" Then the other doctor joined, and told me "maybe you can wear gloves while playing. And also try to put a mirror between the hands, to tell your brain how it should look. It will sound different, but what to do right?" Then they kicked me out, since they had other things to do. They then asked me to first go to a guy in Belgium and then one in Germany. All this without a single proper scan.
After that, I couldn't play a single note. Even my right hand started worrying me, and I pretty much stopped playing. When Schubert op 90 was proven too difficult for my left hand, it just crashed. From being able to play almost anything, I suddenly could play nothing.
I went back to my home country, and was told about this other doctor. Since I always had the feeling that the previous ones just wanted my money, I gave this one more try.
She looked at my hand
...
And politely cursed the previous doctors. "This is not how this works! There is nothing here that is similar to focal dystonia! It's nothing but a bloody tension, that slowly needs to be practiced away!"
Again crying, but from joy, I started playing again. Slowly, with focus on every movement, it got better bit by bit. Though, I hadn't had a proper lesson in weeks, and the summer had arrived. So I went again back to my home country, and visited a chiropractor. He also did a scan, and also he cursed the first doctors, for a poor job.
He treated me for some time, and it started feeling okay again.
Then, I got this mail from my school. Obviously I had to postpone my exam, but now had to do it again.
I expected to do it sort of now, or even in December.
School officials thought differently.
One mail said basically: "You haven't finished, so you will have to pay for another year!", while the other said "Your exam will be the 10th of September".
So from not getting any lessons on them (since you know, I couldn't use my hand), let alone practiced them, for about 3 months, I now had to make them concert ready in a month.
I managed to sign up for a short masterclass in my city, and crazy work, but I managed to pass my exam.
So after about 5 lessons on my whole program, here is my short bachelor final concert (they agreed to make it about 20 minutes shorter, due to the circumstances)
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Topic: Mozart, Liszt and Scriabin (And a whole lot of text)