I worked feverishly at my symphony. My dad told me stories of famous composers, and I tried to copy their working habits. It distressed me though that it took Brahms thirty years to finish his first symphony. I comforted myself by saying, “1 have already written my first symphony.” That didn’t help much because I would think how it had been lost.
While I was working on my symphony, I was going through my parents’ records one day and came across one that had harpsichord music on it, played by Wanda Landowska. I started to play it. I had already memorized the Bach record I had so now I started on the harpsichord one. I particularly liked the “Turkish March” by Mozart. I decided I needed a harpsichord. I asked Dad if we could get one, but I knew we couldn’t. We already had a piano, an organ, several violins, and a recorder. We had enough instruments to keep us busy.
The best way I knew to get something was to make it myself. So I made a harpsichord. It was really just a piece of plywood that I spray painted gold, and then I made some cardboard keys. I placed this on a box, and there I had it, a harpsichord. (It was just pretend, like most of my music writing was, but I lived in a pretend world, so what did it matter.) I had fun entertaining my family by playing the harpsichord record on the stereo, while moving my fingers on the cardboard keys of my harpsichord.
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