Mr. Stubner was as thrilled as I with my new violin. Not that it came as a surprise to him. I learned Dad had called him for advice.

He was less pleased, though, with how I played it that first lesson after holiday break. I'd gone hoping to surprise him with the start of a sonata I'd heard a fantastic violinist play at one of the holiday concerts Mom and I attended. At intermission I'd even bought one of the violinist's CDs so I could study just how she put so much emotion into each phrase.

I'd practiced and practiced, and when I played it for Mr. Stubner I watched for his nod of approval. I wanted to see his pleasure and pride in me.

Instead I saw mirth.

"What's funny?" I asked.

He named the soloist I'd admired so much. "Right?"

"Yes."

"Tess, what you played was very nice, but it was her not you."

"What do you mean?"

"The grief and anguish! Surely you can come up with something more honest than that."

"I thought it sounded honest," I said.

"It was when she played it, because she took a piece of music begun by a composer and finished it with skill and with what was inside her But when you play, I want to hear what's inside you!"

"I don't think there's anything in there all that special," I told him.

"Well, well," Mr. Stubner said, smiling although his eyes looked sympathetic. "That is a problem, isn't it?"

I got in the last word, though, when I thought of it a few minutes later I broke off in the middle of an exercise to say, "And the listener The listener has something to do with how a piece of music is completed, too."

Mr. Stubner looked surprised. Then he said, "Right you are, Tess. And sometimes, the listener is the most important part, and the easiest part to forget."

THE REST OF January slid by in a blur of work and exams and tense, anxious faces. I didn't see my friends to talk to except at lunch, and then our conversations mostly ended up in our endless game of What If?

Even Ben got caught up in it: What if I'd started playing/dancing/acting younger than I did? "What if I'd taken up a different instrument? Had a better teacher early on? Been born with perfect pitch instead of just almost? Came from a family already in the music business?

When we weren't playing What If?, then we were on to What's Next? We learned it from seniors stressing over choosing between college and a music conservatory, sweating out acceptances, applying for scholarships or jobs, making frantic last efforts to stand out above super-talented peers.

We had a third game, too, but it was one that we mostly kept private. It was the game of What's After That?

For some of us—the violinists and cellists and pianists—who played solo instruments, a career as a concert soloist who traveled the world hung out there as the biggest, brightest prize.

Others wanted a regular job with a good orchestra. Sometimes I thought about that cellist I'd heard practicing the time Mom and I toured Lincoln Center and I wondered if he was doing what he wanted. I wondered if maybe he'd rather be a concert soloist but didn't have the personality to connect with audiences. You heard about that, how some performers had a way about them and others didn't.

And we all knew that some of us would be making a career of teaching, either aiming for or drifting into it. Growing into it, maybe Teachers like Mr. Stubner had done it all—had solo careers, played in orchestras and ensembles—and now were respected masters passing on their skill and knowledge.

But when I thought back to my first year in New York and the defeated orchestra teacher at that one school I briefly attended, I wondered which ones of us would end up like him.

I told Ben about him, and Ben surprised me by saying, "I've been thinking about teaching junior or senior high myself. I'd still have time to do some composing."

Then, looking a bit embarrassed, he said, "I like the idea of opening students' eyes to what music can be. The people who buy season tickets to symphony orchestras already know, and they're likely to see that their children do. But most kids—if they don't run into a good music teacher someplace, they might never find out."

All the What If? and What's Next? and What's After That? games left me mixed-up and feeling at odds with myself.

Sometimes I imagined myself as one of the lucky ones, a big-name soloist.

More often I just wished we could keep on right where we were, with nothing more changing except that the worried games would go away.