Everybody, who has already sounded a musical instrument, crooned all the way home in the late night on unfrequented streets, or simply flapped different rhythms on the thigh, knows that making music is joy, challenge, excitement, play.

You play for your own joy in the boundless empire of fantasy. Later on you invite guests, let the visitors enter this empire. You stand there alone with your instrument and sense that playing is no longer your solitary pleasure but a source of joy for others, too. Then you come to understand that you have the power to shape how your audience feels about your music and you draw them into your magic circle of joy.

Once you are the leader you have to understand that joy, sorrow, loneliness, tenderness, strength, coquettishness, desire, satisfaction are all in your hands. The moment you sense from where you have to take away sorrow and add more joy, where to double the tenderness and halve the strength, if you are able to be one moment a lion and another moment a cricket, then you are near to being a performing artist.

However, you also have to learn how to lead others to these empires and how to use your musical instrument as the best tool for this. In order to learn how to do all this I chose the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.