Originally Posted by
Mike Buesseler
Not quite sure where this thread should go, but this seems like a good choice.
My youngest son played percussion in his high school band (and later graduated from Berklee College of Music). At one of his HS band concerts the teacher did a brilliant (I thought) demonstration for the audience. First he pointed out to us that in every subject at school a 94% was an A, which I’m sure we all knew. He then had the orchestra play a short piece for us in which he had written in a deliberate 6% error, that is, only 94% of the notes played were the correct ones. 6% were deliberately ½ step flat or sharp. The result, of course, was an obvious disaster to anyone listening. His point was that music students are held to a higher standard than in any other class, perhaps not in actual grading, but in their performance before an audience.
I loved the whole demonstration and I still think that teacher was a gift to the school if not the planet.
That experience opened my eyes a bit to why musicians strive to be such perfectionists (or at least why do!).