Aretha Franklin: I started out playing by ear, and my dad wanted me to take lessons, and I didn’t want to take lessons, so I would run and hide every time the teacher came — hide in the closet behind the coats — and once I thought she was gone, I would come out. But I wish today that I had taken the lessons. Now I plan to go to Juilliard sometime soon and hopefully do at least a couple of years there. So I really wish that I had learned the fundamentals then.