Not all flowers are sunflowers

"McCarthy, I am going to paint, goodbye!" In the memory of childhood, what Nicholas McCarthy most wants to see is that her sister Anna is carrying a picture clip to learn to paint, which not only means that he will stay alone. At home, he makes him feel inferior. Because McCarthy had no right hand when he was born, and his right arm had only a short section of the elbow, which made him look like an amputee.

Anna is very talented in painting. A sunflower she painted won the prize in the province's competition. The whole family was proud of her. My father deliberately put the picture on it and hang it in the living room. No one noticed. How lost is the expression to McCarthy. Until one day, my father returned from work and saw McCarthy's sweating in front of the drawing board. His left hand was covered with paint. Under his feet was a pile of crumpled paper. He could see that he wanted to paint sunflowers, but he tried. Many times have failed.

McCarthy’s frustration looked like his father’s self-blame. He took out a thick floral picture and told his son: “You see, this is a rose, this is a lily. They are not sunflowers, but each has its own It’s beautiful and beautiful. It’s like Anna is good at drawing, but you can enjoy things other than painting. There is no need to compare...”

In the days that followed, McCarthy remembered his father's words and began to try new life. The first thing McCarthy wants to do is to challenge the bicycle. If you conquer it, you can go to school yourself. Learning to ride a bicycle is not too difficult, but it is a problem for McCarthy. In order to grasp the balance of the car with his left hand, he does not know how many times he fell. The mother is so distressed that she can’t stand it, and she repeatedly asks for help. McCarthy refused. Two months later, McCarthy tasted the joy of victory. He became the first child in the community to ride a bicycle.

The success of the first battle, let McCarthy gradually no longer feel inferior. On his 14th birthday, his father bought him a keyboard as a gift. From that day on, McCarthy began to learn how to use the left hand and the broken right arm to play the piano. He found that he could use the broken right arm to pop out the single-key notes, so he used the knowledge he learned in the school music class to teach himself to learn the spectrum, relying on the CD. Learn to play Beethoven and Mozart's music.

One day, when McCarthy was practicing the piano, his father chatted with his neighbors downstairs. He shouted: "The sound of the sound is turned off, it is a bit noisy." McCarthy put his head out of the window and said, "I didn't open." Sound, this is what I am playing the piano!" Father was obviously taken aback, he was silent for a long time, suddenly realized that his own son, perhaps a musical genius!

Soon, my father invited a tutor to teach McCarthy to study the piano. After a period of hard work, he was eager to take the test. When McCarthy walked into the examination room, the examiner found that he had only one hand and could not help but ask: "Can you play the piano?" McCarthy replied: "Of course!" He sat in front of the piano and bounced smoothly. Halfway through the bullet, I secretly looked at the examiner's face and found that the other person's expression had changed from "stunning" to "smiling smile." In the end, McCarthy passed the first piano test with a high score.

In order to make his piano more exquisite, McCarthy enrolled in the weekend training class at the Gedhold Conservatory in London, where he met the teacher who changed his destiny, the famous pianist, Coach Palham. The teacher told McCarthy that there are many beautiful pieces in the world dedicated to left-handed playing, the most famous of which is Ravel's D major piano concerto. She asked McCarthy to stop using the broken right arm instead of the left hand. Play "Left Music".

McCarthy was very sad to learn that he had to give up Beethoven and Mozart, but Parham’s attitude was very firm. She explained: “With the help of the broken right arm, even if it succeeds, it will be regarded as a 'freak. Show. If you only play with your left hand, you may be able to find a new world."

In the end, McCarthy decided to follow the teacher's advice and began to practice left-handed hard work. In August 2019, 23-year-old McCarthy graduated from the Royal College of Music and became the first solo piano in the 130 years since its establishment. Family. While playing the piano, he also wrote his own story, hoping to bring some inspiration to people with disabilities who are similar to his situation. He once wrote in the article: "Not all flowers are sunflowers, as long as Willing, like me, who only have a left hand, can have a brilliant life..."