FEE has a great one from Jeff Tucker:
Johannes Brahms is regarded as one of the greatest composers in history. I never tire of his sonatas for violin or cello, and his piano works are pure magic. I go through whole periods of listening and marveling at his capacity for melodic development. I can’t read enough biographies. Beyond his incurable love for Clara Schumann – I’m convinced his over-the-top adoration of her acted like a narcotic that fired up his creativity to generate such astonishing melodies – one strange fact stands out to me.
Even as a performer, he could never make a go of it. His true love Clara travelled all over Europe – even though she was the mother of eight kids! – and packed the concert halls. People paid her astonishing amounts of money to play. The crowds went wild. But Johannes? No such luck. He never achieved any fame as a performer. No, he was a piano teacher. He knew it, and he was sad about it.
As a teacher, however, he also produced some incredible books of student exercises. You look at them today and wonder how anyone could play them at all given their technical demands. It just goes to show you that no matter how phenomenal you are, you can never stop practicing, doing exercises, and studying under the great masters.
I point out this tiny snippet from musical history to observe this: as difficult as it is to believe, it all happened without the Federal Trade Commission!
There's more:
What’s the FTC got to do with it? Well, early in 2016, the agency took it upon itself to intervene heavily in the market for piano teaching.The FTC sent a small nonprofit – the Music Teachers National Association – a letter accusing it of promoting anticompetitive trade practices. This is all because their manual discourages teachers from aggressively poaching students from other teachers.
An article , well worth your time.
