R. H. Haweis gives an experience that would be good for all learners:
He (Oury) taught me Rode’s Air in G--that beautiful melody
which has been, with its well-known variations, the _pièce de
résistance_ of so many generations of violinists and soprani. I
was drilled in every note, the bowing was rigidly fixt for me,
the whole piece was marked, bar by bar, with slur, _p_ and _f_,
_rall._ and _crescendo_. I was not allowed to depart a hair’s
breadth from rule. When I could do this easily and accurately,
Oury surprized me one day by saying:
“Now you can play it as you like; you need not attend to a
single mark!”
“How so?” I said.
“Don’t you see,” he said, “the marks don’t signify: that is
only one way of playing it. If you have any music in you, you
can play it in a dozen other ways. Now, I will make it equally
good,” and he took the violin and played it through, reversing
as nearly as possible all the _p’s_ and _f’s_, “bowing” the slur
and slurring the “bow,” and it sounded just as well. I never
forgot that lesson.
(1153)
=Free Will=--See WILL, THE.