Don't Stop; Don't Quit

Paderewski, the famous composer-pianist, was scheduled to perform at a great concert hall in America…Present in the audience that evening was a mother with her fidgety nine-year-old son. Weary of waiting, he squirmed constantly in his seat. His mother was in hopes that her boy would be encouraged to practice the piano if he could just hear the immortal Paderewski at the keyboard. So—against his wishes—he had come.

As she turned to talk with friends, her son could stay seated no longer. He slipped away from her side, strangely drawn to the ebony concert-grand Steinway and its leather-tufted stool on the huge stage floored with blinding lights. Without much notice from the sophisticated audience, the boy sat down at the stool, staring wide-eyed at the black and white keys. He placed his small, trembling fingers in the right location and began to play “Chopsticks.” The roar of the crowd was hushed as hundreds of frowning faces turned in his direction. Irritated and embarrassed, they began to shout: “Get that boy away from there.” “Who’d bring a kid that young in here?” “Where’s his mother?” “Somebody stop him!”

Backstage, the master overheard the sounds out of front and quickly put together in his mind what was happening. Hurriedly, he grabbed his coat and rushed toward the stage. Without one word of announcement, he stepped over behind the boy, reached around both sides, and began to improvise a countermelody to harmonize and enhance “Chopsticks.” As the two of them played together, Paderewski kept whispering in the boy’s ear: “Keep going. Don’t quit, son. Keep on playing….Don’t stop….Don’t quit.” –1001 Great Stories & Quotes, R. Kent Hughes (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1998), 137-138.