Finding a good teacher was never but I managed to find them in the end.  I
had one crazy old man in England who didn't like electric light, and only
had candles in his second floor living room where the Kirkmann harpsichord
was.  (Downstairs there was electricity and a new English harpsichord!)
What's was really frustrating was that when you used to get it right on the
harpsichord, he'd make you go to the clavichord (and it always sounded like
hell!) I ALWAYS looked forward to my Sunday morning lessons!  TO a young
English boy, it was looking back on it, a bit like taking lessons with the
husband Madame Sousatska (MOVIE) never had!

Then I moved to the USA (Southern California) and hunted out a woman named
Ilse Foerstel Bliss (some prodigy from New York who never really made it big
I guess)  She was really nice, and had a HUGE Rutkowski and Robinnette which
was gorgeous looking.  Always encouraging, and would usually stop for a
coffee break!

At Cornell I met Joyce Lindorff , she was a great woman and now teaches at
some university in PA.

More recently I have been studying with Irena Rees, the very talented young
Russian harpsichordist.  We have become very close friends even though I
have put my harpsichord playing on hold for a year while I focus on my
architectural practice.

It has never been very easy to dig out a good teacher (for me!) but somehow
I always managed! But I never had a BAD teacher (what would make a bad
teacher I wonder?)  I had a few bad lessons with another New York teacher 7
years ago - she had studied with Koopman (which excited me) but I really
couldn't handle rigid fingering requirements, and she got VERY nasty about
it!! LOL  So I figured it was a bad match!  For me a good teacher is one
that really encouraged, and my current one is amazing at that!

Nicholas Bunning
Architect

-----Original Message-----
From: Harpsichords and Related Topics
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of James
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2001 5:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bad teachers, was junk instruments, was Opera hpschds


At 04:24 PM 4/8/01 -0400, Judy wrote:

>Knock BAD teachers all you like. People shouldn't hire them.


I seem to have run into more than my share of them, perhaps they were the
only ones available where I was at the time.  But that brings up the
question of how to find good teachers?

JB