Arriving as a student at the Royal Academy of Music I found myself becoming progressively more confused and even angry. I had passed my audition and was accepted as a violinist and composer. I quite naturally imagined that I would have a brilliant experience. I had not expected that the teachers at the RAM wouldn't know how to teach. They had appointed famous names who could play brilliantly but who had no training background. They taught their students as they themselves had been taught by bullying and abuse. This, it turned out, was the norm, and as a consequence so much talent was wasted.  

 

I wrote this back then to describe profoundly unexpected shock.  Shocks like these are known as "Black Swan Events".