Min Kym: A Music Prodigy’s Inside Story

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People.
We are in a mission to make you remarkable. Helping me today is Min Kym.
I read about Min in Susan Cain's book, Bittersweet.
The story of Min's relationship to her Stradivarius was so remarkable and fascinating that I had to bring it to you.
Have you ever bonded with an object, a camera, a car, a surfboard, or a Min's case, a musical instrument so much so that it completes you and becomes part of your soul? What a great sensation.
Min began playing the violin at the age of six, and by the age of seven, she was accepted as the youngest student ever at the Purcell School of Music.
At age sixteen, she was the youngest ever foundation scholar at the Royal College of Music.
She was gifted a Stradivarius made in 1696, and she devoted her life to making remarkable music with it.
Unfortunately in 2010, Min was eating with her boyfriend at a restaurant in a London railway station and her violin was stolen. Kym suffered intense trauma and grief from this.
Min's book gone, Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung explores her experiences when her violin was stolen, when it was recovered after she had settled with her insurance company and how she now feels about someone else owning it.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People. And now here is the remarkable Min Kym.
I found myself envious of the fact that you could find a calling and a physical device like your Strad, that meant so much to you.
Now, some people might say, "Guy, that's so shallow, things don't make you happy." But when I read your book and your relationship with your Strad, you and the Strad were inseparable, it made you, you made it. It was a beautiful thing.
I wish everybody could find something in their life that just becomes you and you become it. It was a beautiful story.
Min Kym:
I think everybody does though. Really what it boiled down to was that it just happened to be the passion in my life. Starting off as a musician, starting off as a violinist aged six and a half years old, I was in love with the violin and music for as long as I can remember.
And so I think when I found my Strad at the age of twenty-one, it was almost like that feeling of I'm grown up now.
And it took me a really long time to actually grow into a full-size violin anyway, because I was a very tiny child and I graduated to a full-size instrument maybe a little bit later than would be considered average.
And so when I did find my Strad, it was only the third or something full size violin that I played on. And of course Stradivarius, wasn't it? It was just incredible, it was a magical moment when I found it.
And I just knew from the first moment that it was the one, it was just that chemistry. I know it sounds like I'm talking about a person, but it is actually, it's that sort of relationship.
Guy Kawasaki:
I can totally understand. I can understand without having gone through the experience as much as you have. But I think it's a very understandable emotion in a very limited way, not to draw comparison.
I love to go surfing, I love to surf, and I think people develop a relationship with a particular board just like this. And you spend years searching for that magic board, just like you spend years searching for that magic violin.
And at some point that board becomes you and it's an extension of you and it empowers you. I don't want to compare a board to a Strad, but…
Min Kym:
I think that's a really good analogy actually because it does become you. And especially because you're spending so much time alone practicing with this violin, you become so familiar with absolutely every millimeter of this.
It does become an extension of your being, your physicality. And every violin is unique, that's just the way these instruments are, there is a personality, there's a heart, there's a soul.
Even if you try to clone one if you like, and there are violins. In fact, I've got one right now, which was actually a copy, which is a copy of my violin teacher’s.
And even though it is the exact replica, if you like, it has a completely different personality, has a completely different heart and soul. I thought a little bit about Dolly the Sheep.
Guy Kawasaki:
The clone sheep.
Min Kym:
So it's using the same cells and everything, but it has a different heart and different soul. And that's the thing about violins and particularly stringed instrument.
But for me as a violinist, I can only speak about the violin in that way and my relationship with the violin and it becomes a living thing. It has its own voice and it's my job as the violinist to actually find the voice in the violin and actually enhance it.
My job is actually to bring out the violin's voice because it will never change for me. It will have strops, it'll have good days, bad days and I have to work around it. And I think the challenge of that is part of the reward of becoming so close to an instrument.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's bizarre this conversation we're having.
Min Kym:
I'm completely mad, it's fine.
Guy Kawasaki:
Me knew about a piece of foam and you about a piece of wood, but I can absolutely relate. And just as there are, well, not made in the 1700’s, my favorite surfboard is made by a guy named Bob Pearson and he's a Strad of his day and he makes boards, but everyone is different and it's ... Anyway, we're just going down his hole.
Min Kym:
The thing is, again, I think that's a really good comparison because you are in the sea, the ocean, you are part of nature.
Music is nature. Music is the universal language, isn't it? I think that's a great analogy.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. There you go. You don't even have to give me credit.
Min Kym:
I love it. I love where this conversation is going.
Guy Kawasaki:
My second fanboy moment here is I am not a musician and it was difficult for me to appreciate all of the technical aspects of your book.
But I will say, even though I was named after the Guy Lombardo, if you know who he is, but he's a big band leader in Canada. But as a writer, I have to say, I admire you as much. So is this your first book?
Min Kym:
It is my first book. I've always loved writing though. And I've always loved just free streaming my thoughts actually. The book actually came about because during the whole period of the theft and the aftermath and just dealing with all the emotions of it, I was talking to the liaising officer who was dealing with the case and he would phone me every Friday after work, five o’ clock on the dot and he would just give me some sort of update on what was happening with the violin.
Well, mostly he had actually nothing really going at the time, but it was just hearing his voice that was so reassuring and a kind of therapy.
And it was actually detective Rose who suggested that I start writing down my thoughts as a way of therapy and so I did, and I'm very glad I did, when I read them back years later, several years later, gosh, it took me right back to where I was in my head.
And I realized actually that a lot of the things that I'd almost skipped over like my childhood, my early adult life, I've lived through it in a rush because I was always performing. I didn't have time to think about things. I didn't have time to think about my life and where I was going. I was so kind of single minded about the violin, my career, music.
Guy Kawasaki:
You were being an Asian, from one Asian to another, I can say that.
Min Kym:
If I ever wanted to talk about my feelings or my emotions or my dear mother, bless her, she would say, "No navel gazing."
I kept these thoughts, but I've always lived in my inner world. I'm very dreamy and I'm always daydreaming.
Guy Kawasaki:
First of all, you listeners, if you're getting the impression that this is an airy, very granola Birkenstock kind of stream of consciousness book, it's not, it is clean. It is organized.
Perhaps there's a writer named John McPhee and he would do things like writing about how a craftsman makes a birch canoe and stuff. And your writing style is very similar. I have to do fifty-two of these interviews a year, which means I read about fifty-two books a year.
When I read most non-fiction books, I'm looking for subheads and bullet points and how to do this, step one, step two, step three. And your book has no subheads. It has pages with very long paragraphs. And usually I hate that, but I got to tell you, I just love your book.
Bottom line man is, if this violin thing doesn't work out you should be a writer.
Min Kym:
Oh, thank you.
I have to say pages and pages ended up on the cutting floor. Actually, to be honest, a lot of it was actually because I didn't intend in the first place for it to be such a sort of raw memoir. And when I started-
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I hate to hear you say all this…
Min Kym:
So it started off really because I was so bottled up and I just didn't feel like I could talk about it. And then it became like when you opened the wound if you like, and it just all came pouring out and then I couldn't stop talking about it.
I think I finally stopped talking about it, now I think I've processed a lot of what was going on, but yeah, it was cathartic.
Guy Kawasaki:
And I know the answer to this question, but sometimes in a podcast you have to ask a question you know the answer to, and there's a part of me that says, oh God, if she wrote this book using handmade Tibetan parchment using a seventeenth century fountain pen with the gold nib, that would just be perfect. But I think you use Microsoft Word.
Min Kym:
I actually do most things in long hand.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, good. Yay.
Min Kym:
I have to say, sometimes it causes problems with my contemporaries because I think very few people write in long hand anymore, is that right?
Guy Kawasaki:
I can tell you that you and Julia Cameron do, and that is very good company.
Min Kym:
And it's the same with writing music as well, I do everything long hand. It's just ingrained in my psyche or something. And I actually tried to find some manuscript paper and I could not find any make. I'd run out of my pads and pads and pads of manuscript paper, I couldn't find it anywhere.
I looked on Amazon. How can you not find ... Obviously I could find it on Amazon, but it would take four weeks to arrive and things like that. It was like an emergency, so I ended up getting the last page and just photocopying it fifty times. It's the times we live in, right?
Guy Kawasaki:
There's no manuscript paper department that you can just use?
Min Kym:
Oh no, this was an emergency. I needed it within the hour, I'd run out that I got for the last page. So yeah, I'm also writing paper as well there. What do you call it?
Those pads of letter writing paper that you used to be able to buy with the envelopes. God, this is really dating me, can we cut this? This is making me a child of the nineties.
Guy Kawasaki:
So you wrote it out in long hand on this beautiful paper.
Min Kym:
Well, it wasn't so beautiful.
Guy Kawasaki:
And then what happened? You sent it to your editor and somebody typed it in?
Min Kym:
Yes, obviously I had editors basically cutting it down to size and I think that's a really important process really, isn't it? Because you always need the outside perspective. I remember fighting over what I thought were really important paragraphs and really important chapters that I really felt were integral to where I was at the time.
I write about when I was thirteen, I was in a car accident with my violin teacher in Switzerland and I fractured my cheekbone and ended up in intensive care in a hospital in Switzerland.
And the course of the accident was actually that my teacher was actually driving on the wrong side of the road. And there was all sorts of difficulties around that because he didn't want to call the police. I was then taken to hospital.
My parents were in London, they weren't around. I was in the state of shock. I was delirious I think.
And for me it was about highlighting that incredibly intense relationship that you have actually as a child with your tutor. I don't mean, it certainly was not inappropriate in any way, I have to make that clear, but there is a closeness that happens.
It's like being an elite athlete with your coach. They're the person in your head in order to take you to the next levels. And he was the closest person in my life at the time, he was preparing me for concerts and that's actually why I was in Switzerland with him at the time.
And it was the first time that the cracks of the relationship between teacher and student appeared because I realized that the bottom line was he didn't want to do the normal things because it would actually impact his insurance. It was about him.
Guy Kawasaki:
It was about him.
Min Kym:
And it was a really big moment in my life because I'm sure you've picked up on the book that the whole sort of narrative really is about. And I didn't even realize until much later that my entire sort of childhood two young adulthood was dictated by older, very charismatic men.
Guy Kawasaki:
Russian.
Min Kym:
Who had a direction for me, my life, they'd had my life entirely mapped out for me. And I felt that was my destiny too, so it worked.
But then of course they're human as I am. And I think that balance that the human side of the relationship and the career side of the relationship and the musical side of the relationship, to get that balance is really hard and I so appreciate that.
And I think my parents not being musicians and not really being part of that scene, they really had to let me go. As soon as I started playing the violin and I went to a world class teacher who was able to take me to that next level, in a way I had to leave my parents behind because they weren't part of that world anymore.
And so a lot of my care, even daily care, he would dictate my diet. He would dictate my days’ timetable schedule. It was a very sort of almost codependent relationship that I had with my teacher that as I say that was ... I've totally gone on of tangent here by the way.
Guy Kawasaki:
But this leads to the obvious question, which is, all things considered, be careful what you ask for, being a child prodigy may not be all that it's cracked up to be or?
Min Kym:
Oh, I don't think anybody was asked to be a child prodigy, you don't have a choice.
In fact, it took me really a long time to even be comfortable with the words child prodigy. I remember giving an interview when I was twelve and the interviewer asked me, "So what's it like to be a child prodigy?"
And I looked at him and he writes in his article, "Min looked at me blankly, not understanding the meaning of the word perhaps."
But that was not the case. What I was thinking was, I don't know how to answer that. That is such a loaded question.
It's like saying, what's it like to be? Because I remember being ten, eleven years old and being singled out by adult musicians. And as I say, being put in the fast lane. And this is not false modesty, I would hear myself play and I would think, but I'm really not as good as I could be.
I'm comparing myself to adult musicians. And I think maybe that was also part of the kind of psyche of being a child prodigy was that I never really felt like a child and actually to compare myself to other children in terms of the musical and technical ability, that's not where I was.
I would play with other children and had lots of friends and then I would leave, I would park the violin and the music side, that wouldn't come into it.
But when it actually came to performing music, the violin, no, there was an ideal that I had in my mind and my job was to bridge that gap between what I heard in my head and to make it reality. And that remains my ambitions.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you telling me at eight, nine, ten years old, you're trying to compare yourself to Heifetz?
Min Kym:
Yeah, I wouldn't say so much comparing the playing. Well, I suppose it's really about, as I say, the ideal voice, the ideal violinist, the finished product if you like.
But of course I knew that there's no such thing. What I realized as I got better and I improved was that the more I improved, the more I realized that I couldn't play and that would make me want to improve more.
And then I would realize just how much further. And this started really from when I first started playing the violin, age six, I just always knew that there was so much more to go. There was so much further to go.
And when I skipped the grades, my grade four I think after about four, five months or something like that, and I remember getting my prize, so I got the highest mark in the country for this growth.
And so I had to go and collect this prize and I'm standing there and I'm realizing that I'm like six and a half years old or something. And the rest of the people who are standing there are like fifteen or something.
And I'm thinking, okay, well, that's interesting. But I think because it was normal to me, I think any first experiences that you have, it's new. And then it crystallizes as, well, that's normal for me.
And it continued to be that way until I got to that very difficult age where you are no longer a child prodigy anymore, but you're not actually an adult.
So it's that in between bridging the gap between child, we all go through it.
Guy Kawasaki:
This may be too personal question, but would you want to have a child prodigy?
Min Kym:
Oh, what a question? I would like to think that if I did, let's put it this way, if a child prodigy was under my care either as my child or as a pupil, I would like to think that my experiences will enable me to guide the child. But really ultimately it is the child guiding you.
My wonderful teacher, he once said to me “There's no such thing as a good teacher. There are only good students.”
The other thing he used to always say was only because he was a child prodigy himself and he used to always joke and say, people used to come up to him in later life and say, "Hey, you used to be Ruggiero Ricci."
And things like that. And people used to compare his adult self to his younger self, all sorts of crazy sort of things, which he took in his stride and was very humorous about. And I really got it, I mean, even now I remember things he used to say to me like, "Oh yeah, that's right. Pearls of wisdom."
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so Ricci was a prodigy, but Felix and Zhislin were not. Should a prodigy have a prodigy teacher or should a prodigy not have a prodigy teacher?
Min Kym:
Wow. You are good. You have good questions. Wow. Okay, I shouldn't be surprised by that.
Okay, so I've had both. And I'm very glad that I had both. I think that, I would actually say that Felix was probably a prodigy actually. It's just that he had such a gift of recognizing the artist in his students and really nurturing that side of things.
And I've been told that one of the reasons why he didn't pursue a concert career, he's never actually told me this himself, so this is hearsay, that he got stage fright.
And when he used to show me things on my tiny little half sized violin, because he didn't have a violin of his own, so he'd take my violin and he'd show me and demonstrate. And he had the most beautiful sound.
Even now I'm coming up in goosebumps remembering just his artistry. So yeah, I would say that he definitely had that gift for communication. I'm not saying that Zhislin didn't, but Zhislin was very much from the Soviet school of things, so it was very textbook. He was very technique led.
It was “You hold your bow like this, you hold the violin like this” and any deviation is wrong.
And I didn't really follow that way of thinking. I think it was good for my own discipline actually to be honest, I think it's good sometimes to have that sort of, okay, so this is textbook.
I don't play like that necessarily. And this works for me, but it's probably good to know what textbook is. And then of course when I met Ricci, he said to me, "I don't care if you play with your feet as long as it works."
Guy Kawasaki:
As a child prodigy, or is the proper term former child prodigy. And you address this in your book, but I'm just curious your current thinking. Are scales important or not?
Min Kym:
They are very important. There's an art to scales as well. Scales is music really. Music is scales just in a different order. It took me a really long time to really appreciate scales I have to say to start.
I never played scales until I was fifteen. I played maybe one G major scale over and over. Felix was not about scales, he was about the music. But I learned to appreciate the beauty of scales in the way that one appreciates the beauty of math.
And it did take a while, but even today I will actually always start a practice session with scales. It's just the most efficient way to warm up. It's as I say the music in every note, when you can actually really get to the heart of every note and you can actually play a scale with every note singing, you've warmed up.
It's a really good sort of barometer to know where you are that particular day. And of course there's always on and off days, but scales yeah, scales are grounding. Scales are good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Part of my ignorance, but just by listening to someone play scales, can you make a judgment about their level of talent?
Min Kym:
I can, yeah. I don't want to assume because as I say, I think it would be really unfair if somebody really was having a rough day or there's all sorts of reasons why somebody might not.
But by and large, you can tell within a second, you can actually really tell within two notes whether somebody's a musician or not. But I think that's a universal thing though, I really do, because sometimes we don't know why something feels so good and why something feels natural and magical, but it just does.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's interesting. Not that I view everything in the world through surfing and I'm not a master.
I mean, I'm certainly no Felix, but I think that you can watch someone simply paddle his or her board a few strokes and make a judgment whether that person is a good surfer without catching a wave, just how they paddle out.
But anyway, I digress.
Min Kym:
That's kind of what I was saying. I just have been in situations where you sometimes make a snap judgment of something. I think we're talking levels though, right?
It's pretty obvious within a couple of seconds whether somebody can surf or whether somebody can play the violin, but it's how good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Many places in your book, you talk about the multiple Mins.
Min Kym:
Right.
Guy Kawasaki:
So there's Min the person, there's Min with the violin, Min without the violin, Min with the Strad, Min without the Strad, Min with the Amati, Min without the Amati. How many Mins are there now?
Min Kym:
Oh, so many that sometimes my apartment can't fit them all in. I think all these different hats that you wear throughout the switching process.
I don't know, does everybody have that? I don't know, it's so difficult to know what's going on in somebody else's mind in that way.
I do tend to change my mind a lot. I'll feel incredibly strongly about one interpretation, one moment. And then the next day be completely different or even the next five minutes will be completely different.
But I think that's part of the creative process. And I think eventually actually I do find that it does center somewhere. I might be schizophrenic, I don't know, I haven't been diagnosed.
But I do have lots of different personas. I think a lot of my friends do, so we never know which Min's going to turn up today. Not quite sure how to take that.
Guy Kawasaki:
But if somebody said in one sentence, explain who you are, what do you say today?
Min Kym:
I'm a human being.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. Okay.
Min Kym:
Right.
Guy Kawasaki:
We figured that out. But are you a musician? Are you a soloist? Are you part of a quartet?
Min Kym:
I'm a musician.
Guy Kawasaki:
What are you?
Min Kym:
I would say I'm a musician. Because it's where I started, it's where I will end. And it's been all the bits in between. I've had so many different identities, as you say, as a soloist, as a quartet member. I'm now writing my own music and collaborating with other composers and musicians. There's a lot of things, that's what keeps life exciting. And I never choose by the way. It's not like a conscious decision.
Again, this might sound a little bit wishy washy to your listeners out there, but there is a sort of organized chaos, but that's the way I like to think about it, because the way my mind works, it always does end up finding the center.
And there's such a pull that it's so much bigger than me. It's almost like a kind of ... I have to go with that feeling, or I have to go with that melody, or I have to go with that idea, or it kind of pulls me there.
And sometimes it takes a while, as I say, to get rid of the chaff and to get rid of the noise, to get them, there's a lot of noise, trust me. And I think you probably figured out.
But it's good, I really enjoy the process of weeding out what's unnecessary because it's interesting, it's really interesting.
And sometimes you come back to that sort of the clutter if you like, and having gone through the clutter, you're like, "Oh yeah, there's that." And then you come back to it later, so I never think of it as wasted time.
As I say, it's organized chaos. I know where everything is, but yeah, I'll come back to it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. What violin is your current partner?
Min Kym:
Right. Okay. I'm going to take my time answering this question because I'm slightly playing the field. Is that a good answer?
Guy Kawasaki:
Is there a Tinder for violins or something?
Min Kym:
Yes. Actually, do you know what? I have, it's funny you say that because I do liken it to a bit of a dating agency or something because I think dealers are like matchmakers.
A really good dealer who knows you are playing really well and has a number of instruments that they think might suit you, it is like matchmaking.
I'm still playing on the Amati that you mentioned earlier. It doesn't belong to me though. It belongs to a very dear friend of mine, but it's not mine.
And it's I think just that degree of separation matters to me. I will not say it matters to every violinist, but it seems to matter to me. Anyway, I've had a violin commissioned and as I mentioned earlier, it's a replica of Ruggiero Ricci's del Gesu.
And it is a beautiful violin, but it's modern. It was literally made during the first lockdown.
I got it in 2020 and I've been playing it ever since. It takes a really long time to play into these instruments and it's very different to the Amati. So I'm Amati dating, what can I say?
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Min Kym:
Look, maybe one day I'll be reunited with my Strad, who knows? I never say never.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's an interesting question because in a sense, did you not decide not to be reunited?
Min Kym:
It was a series of events, which I won't go into too much detail here. It's all in the book.
It was insurance matters. It'd been three years since the violin had been stolen and I had already bought another violin in the meantime because I had no idea if my violin was going to come back or not or whatever. I actually didn't have the means to buy my violin back.
And that's why it went to auction and it was sold. And when I look back, I think there are things that could have been done. I made a series of decisions that hindsight is 2020.
I could have reached out for more help. I could have done this. I could have done that, could have, would've, should have, all of those cliches.
But it happened, and as I said, at the time and actually I still feel this now, what was important after those three incredibly long years of not knowing where my violin was and if it had even been destroyed, I think a lot of people thought it had been destroyed in the police to begin with, because it was too hot, like ‘you need to get rid of it’.
But it wasn't because I think the fees actually realized the value of the violin, the press and everything.
It was well meaning I think everybody wanted to help get the violin back. But yes, as you say, it put a whole other meaning to the violin.
So when it came back, not knowing what happened to it, I always knew, I have to say at the back of my mind, I never believed that being destroyed. It was just always alive, that connection was still always alive for me. You always think, is that just wishful thinking? Is that just me trying to convince myself?
But no, I will absolutely say that I just felt that it was there, the connection was still there. And so when it came back and we knew that it was alive, if you like, that was the most important thing to me. And that remains the most important thing to me actually. As I say, it does belong to somebody else.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you know who it is?
Min Kym:
I know who it is by name because he's publicized it. I haven't looked anything up. I think it would be too painful, it really would be too painful, without making it akin to a lover or a partner or anything like that but it is, for me it really was my life partner.
It was everything, it represented my career, my livelihood, but more than that it was my life partner and it was taken from me, not by choice.
We didn't go through a divorce. It was taken from me. And so to want kind of look it up and find out, it's a bit like stalking your ex on a Facebook, I don't want to know.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh my. When I say this, I think this is true for me, but let's say that I was the buyer. And then let's say that I learned all of this backstory. And furthermore if I am the buyer, I'm probably a billionaire, so I can honestly tell you if I had bought it and I learned all this backstory, I would give it back to you.
The universe would go back into synchrony, the access of the earth would shift back to where it should be if you had that Strad, I would do it.
Min Kym:
Wow, you're a good person.
Guy Kawasaki:
Talk is cheap, but yeah, I really think so. But anyway, if I may ask, what's the status of Matt? Is he still in your life?
Min Kym:
No.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's good.
Min Kym:
I can only relate to my experiences from my experiences. And I wrote about that relationship very honestly, maybe almost too honestly in some ways, because it was very raw, it was very painful.
Actually a lot of my friends think that he got off lightly.
They're like, "Oh my goodness, this happened and this happened and you haven't written that in the book."
But it was really important for me to be, as I almost went completely the other side, I didn't want it to be a kind of dire tribal, that's not what it was about.
It was actually about examining how I allowed things to get so bad because I do take responsibility for every decision that I've made. I take responsibility for getting into that.
I'm not saying that getting into a toxic relationship that I blame myself, I'm not saying that at all, but I do take responsibility that I did find myself in that situation.
And I stayed there far too long. I think anybody who has been in the toxic relationship will recognize the stages that it takes to get there. Nobody enters into a bad relationship. If you say, "Oh, this is a bad relationship." Nobody goes, "Oh great, I'll go there."
Birthday or Christmases, not once, no, it's death by a thousand cuts.
Guy Kawasaki:
I got to say, when I read that story about him wanting a commission, when you bought that replacement violin that he was discussing with his father a commission or something, that is just beyond words.
Min Kym:
Yeah. But as I say, the curious thing about being in a relationship like that is that your reality becomes altered or twisted.
It's really difficult to describe because even at the time, of course my instincts were screaming, this is wrong, this is wrong. And in my gut I'm thinking, I can't reconcile the way I think, and any decent person I think would think.
But then when somebody is arguing with you that it's business and you have to separate personal from business. And I think there was also an element of, I'm really not in a good state of mind, I'm pretty fragile.
And when you have a lot of pressure from somebody you're actually in a relationship with you, you'll almost say anything just to be left alone. And of course he didn't get the commission.
I was still enough sound of mind to say, "Oh, I don't think so." But the fact that it even got to that stage, I honestly believe though that he won't even now perhaps, I don't think he will think there's anything wrong.
I think there are lots of people out there who do think that actually it's fair game. I don't want to be in a relationship with that person anymore by the way. I actually don't want anything to do with that way of thinking.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Okay. Let's get off Matt.
Min Kym:
You see. Oh gosh. This is off the record, okay. Wow, I don't talk about Matt, let's move on.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now I have an out of the box off the wall thought for you. And I wish we had known each other back when this happened, because I think, and you can tell me I'm full of shit and you just, "Guy, what the hell are you talking about?"
I can give you all that caveats, all those whatever. If I were the CMO of Sony Music, when this all happened. And Sony Korea had the first license and it didn't do well and all that, they're idiots in how they marketed.
What they should have done in my humble opinion is market it as, you've heard this famous case of the stolen violin, this is the last recording of that violin by Min Kym.
And I think people would've said, "Holy shit, we've got to get this. This is the precursor to NFTs. This is a limited-edition recording, we got to get this."
Which is very different from what happened, right? This is a great ... I don't mean in a happy way, but this is a very interesting story, that's how I would've marketed that last recording.
Min Kym:
Well, that's because you're a marketing genius.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know about that.
Min Kym:
The record was actually released two months, no, maybe even less than that. So the violin was stolen in November. It was actually supposed to have been released in November.
I was actually sitting in the police station the night that my violin was stolen and I get an email from Sony saying, "Oh, this is a schedule of blah, blah. This is what needs to be done." And I just went automatically into professional mode and I wrote back just a one liner, don't worry, everything's fine.
That's not even addressing any of the things that they said in this email. It was just almost autopilot. Don't worry. Everything's fine.
And so the record is actually released in December, so it was like weeks after the theft. So not a lot of time at all. I couldn't promote anything, I can't speak for the people who were in charge of the record.
I can't speak for the strategy. All I know was where I was in my head at the time, which was “I can't deal with this. I just can't deal with this.”
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. It's easy for me to say, I wasn't there, I'm not you, et cetera, et cetera. But as a marketing person, I would've made the sunshine. I would've said, "Holy shit." But anyway.
Min Kym:
Yeah, it's a difficult call to make. I was an artist of moderate success. I wasn't one of their huge million selling album artists. I'm a classical artist. Classical artists generally are unless you are like a superstar classical. And again, this is not false modesty.
I'm just saying it as it is. I had a very nice career, but I wasn't in the stratosphere of Itzhak Perlman or I wasn't that level of famous. And so I suppose there's a judgment call that comes with that and they made the call. You're looking very skeptical.
I'm sure you're right. Maybe I am convincing myself that it was, I don't know.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would've marketed it so hard, people would be accusing you of, it wasn't really stolen, this is all a PR.
Min Kym:
Okay, so here's a question for you then, if you don't mind.
Okay, so you are in charge of the marketing thing. Okay, you're dealing with somebody who is basically on the verge of a nervous breakdown. How do you handle that?
Guy Kawasaki:
If I'm Sony, I say, "This is freaking horrible thing. Perhaps we can spin this into something positive. Perhaps this publicity will help you get back to violin faster. This is exposure. We can try to turn a lemon into lemonade, et cetera."
Now, this is very callous for me to say, and with a lot of hindsight, and I know you're like just crushed by this. You never eat in a Pret A Manger again, I know all that, but to take another analogy. For crying out of loud, the football that Tom Brady threw his last touchdown with right in the last game he was going to retire sold for half a million dollars. There's something about getting the last thing that this world class person did with this Strad, there's a story there.
Maybe that's exactly it. I think what happened at that time, and I can say this now because it is in the past and I have moved on from it and I do feel I'm in a much better head space, but I think even what I just said a few moments ago when I put myself back into that space, I lost confidence. I lost confidence in myself.
This record is the recording with the bronze and you're quite right. This was a really important album. It was the second one that I had with Sony.
My first album was the Beethoven and they did well. And that's what I mean by it was modestly successful.
But this was the one that was supposed to really put me on the map. It was me as an adult, fully grown adult violin as musician, ex child prodigy.
And it was meant to be my arrival if you like. And I lost confidence. And as I say, I can't speak for the powers that be at the time. But maybe it was, because obviously I wouldn't have been able to fulfill any of the touring engagements.
I wouldn't have been able to fulfill any of the promotion.
So in a way, is it better to almost wait until something else big happens? Well, otherwise, I'm just putting a different angle in it.
Guy Kawasaki:
What the hell do I know?
Min Kym:
And by the way this is exactly what happened. So you are absolutely correct in that it was the last album with this violin. And it was actually the last recording that I made as a concerto soloist. Those two things are completely right. By the way, the album's still available.
Guy Kawasaki:
There should be movies starring Michelle Yeoh as you, have you seen that movie, everywhere, everything, every something? Michelle Yeoh's.
Min Kym:
It was showing just around the corner to me. I just passed it today.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, go see it.
Min Kym:
And I thought, oh, I want to see that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, go see it. And if you can understand it, please reach out to me and explain it to me because I walked out that movie saying, "What the hell was that?"
But anyway, I know Jon M. Chu too, I can introduce you to him if you want to make a movie based on Gone.
Two practical questions. Parents are listening to this talented, if not prodigies are listening to this and they say, "What is optimal practice?"
At some point in the book you say two hours is optimal practice. On the other hand, there're people who are thinking you dedicate six hours per day. Kristi Yamaguchi skates for six hours a day.
What's your concept of optimal practice?
Min Kym:
I still stick by the whole, if you have to practice more than two hours in order to stay on top of things, it's going to be a really hard life. That's not to say that sometimes you don't want to practice more than two hours or you've got a whole load of work that you really need to get through.
You're not going to be able to cover it in two hours, but I'm just talking about keeping your fingers in shape, keeping on top of things.
I think certainly when I was younger, I really didn't practice very much when I was younger, I think that's probably why people called me a prodigy because I literally didn't practice.
I was allergic to rosin, that was actually the problem. I was actually allergic to rosin so if I used to play the violin, I would start wheezing and have an asthma attack.
I eventually grew out of it when I was in my mid-teens.
And by then, I think I'd learned how to practice in a most efficient way, if you like. And it really is about just getting into the zone, because I think a lot of time that's wasted in practicing is just the faffing around.
And I think what regular practice does, it helps the brain be able to tune in to the zone quicker. So you are able to go from me talking to you right now and going, "Boom, I'm in the zone."
And that sometimes takes time to get your head from ... Mind you it, sometimes it is quite nice to doodle as I say, you're just doodling around. I'm being facetious when I say wasting time, because actually sometimes spending the whole day practicing isn't the most pleasurable thing you'll want to do.
But actually practicing itself, I can say, yeah, once you get into it, it's fine.
Practicing is so boring, it really is. Playing music is wonderful, but practicing because sometimes you are practicing the same bar thousands of times really. Literally thousands of times.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really, literally?
Min Kym:
Yeah. Because you get into a head space, you get into the zone, as I say, and you start hearing the most micro things and you're changing things in such a subtle way, but it makes all the difference.
And once you are there, it does become obsessive. I just say to anybody who's listening, who's practicing, just keep at it really, because it does yield dividends.
Now that sounded really boring. I shouldn't make practicing sound really boring because actually it is really necessary. Fritz Kreisler, the great violinist Fritz Kreisler.
He said he got to a point where he was performing so often, he was performing twice a night that he said he didn't need to practice, whether there's truth in that. But then I've heard other people saying, "If I don't practice one night, I notice. If I don't practice two days, my pianist noticed. And if I don't practice three days, the audience notices." I don't know.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh wait, who said that? Was it an Israeli musician? I've heard that quote. I love that quote.
But just to be clear, because there are tiger moms and tiger dads listening to this and they're thinking, oh, my kid has to put in a minimum of five hours of practice per day to be a world class anything. You're kind of refuting that, no?
Min Kym:
I think it really is different for different people. I'm not copying out with a question, but I do really believe that because as I said, I suppose what I'm saying is that in order to get to the standard, if you have to practice more than a couple of hours, that's one thing.
But when it becomes about really honing the playing and that's limitless, once you are there, once you are on that level, maintaining it is key. When I talk about the two hours maintenance, that's what I'm really talking about is that if you need more than a couple of ounce maintenance, then it's going to be really hard.
It is hard, any discipline, any physical discipline to maintain that level of physical because it is athletically, your fingers have its muscle memories and all that kind of stuff. And God, why would anybody want to live a life that is so grueling.
Maybe I'm just really lazy, I don't know.
Guy Kawasaki:
You tell me, you did it.
Min Kym:
I just think that it's nice to hear the bird sing and I don't want to just be stuck in a room practicing. Sometimes you're playing a really beautiful piece of music and you want to be in that zone, but no, you want to have a life as well, definitely.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. One of the little interesting factoids that I learned, which just that was a shock to me, was that you write it and this is completely as an aside.
I just thought about it as you use the word maintenance. I had no idea to maintain a Strad, it's about $5,000 a year
Min Kym:
Minimum, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
And I thought you just closed the case and put it in a safe place.
Min Kym:
The insurance alone-
Guy Kawasaki:
5,000 a year to maintain a violin.
Min Kym:
But then there are also other things. Violins are like thoroughbreds. They take a lot of grooming, especially the very old instruments. And my violin had actually been through the wars, it had pieces missing and all sorts of things, repairs and stuff.
And you can't use just super glue. There's a special glue, believe it or not. So it's very fragile and any kind of humidity, any kind of tiny knock can just get it out of whack.
So each time it's almost going to the GP surgery and having it looked over, maintained, sometimes it's got to have minor surgery. Hopefully it's not going to be major surgery. So yeah, it takes constant care.
Guy Kawasaki:
Other than being talented, I can completely relate to much of what you're saying.
of the questions that I don't know if you knew, or when you finished the manuscript, but you allude to the fact that when the Strad was recovered, when your Strad was recovered, it might have needed major surgery.
Min Kym:
It did happen.
Guy Kawasaki:
So did that happen?
Min Kym:
It did happen. So they needed to take the top off. I think probably, and it's difficult to know because obviously I don't know how they kept it or whatever.
We do know that a fight broke out between the thieves and the family of the thieves. And this is just a theory that the police have is that somebody grabbed it by the body of the instrument. Normally you just handle the violin by the neck.
You almost never touch the body because it's so fragile. And so there was a little crack down the side of the base bar I believe. And it had already had surgery on the top quarter of it that had been repaired and that was actually replaced.
So yeah, it was pretty major surgery. It recovered though I hear.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Min Kym:
As I said, I'm just glad it's alive. I don't know how often it's being played, but yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Maybe the current owner or the personal assistant of the current owner will hear this podcast and say, "Yes, I'm going to take the high road. I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to give it back to her." That would be a great story.
Min Kym:
I mean, let's hope. I don't know, from what I hear, he takes great pride in playing it himself. And I get that for him it's his own journey with what he will now think of as his filing.
And that's why I keep making the analogy like a marriage or a second marriage or a divorce or whatever, because the last thing, and I'm really trying hard to have a perspective of this, because of course I have my own feelings and my own kind of wishes and desires and all that.
I do try and really understand that for him he has his own relationship with his violin. He doesn't want to think about the ex hanging around waiting for them to split up.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, but the metaphor breaks down because this was not sort of no-fault divorce, that was stolen from you, it got to him in an unethical immoral way.
So to write the universe and correct the wrong, it should go back to you.
Min Kym:
From his point of view, I guess he will think that he bought it fair and square at auction. Look, I'm with you. Of course I'm with you. As far as I'm concerned, spiritually we belong to each other.
Guy Kawasaki:
What you're saying is because it was recovered and he bought it, it's not like he bought it from the thief and he kept it. He bought it, it was a legitimate purchase. It's not like it was a hot violin.
Min Kym:
I mean, I struggle with it Guy, trust me. It takes every ounce of my sort of sense of, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I'm affirming your struggle.
Min Kym:
Well, I suppose I decided that I didn't want the rest of my life to be dominated with feeling the way I do. That's something that I live with every day. It's true. I'll never really get it. I'm grown to live with that feeling. I have to have a sense of humor about it.
Otherwise, God, I don't want to think about the alternatives. But yeah, it's not something that I want to obsess and that was it. I didn't want it to be my purpose in life. But my purpose in life was, yes, when I was with my violin, we had a purpose in life.
And when I lost my violin, I felt like I lost my purpose in life.
And I had to find, I had to rediscover my life, my purpose, what had meaning for me and I did.
And so you get what I'm saying?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes, I do. Okay, last topic.
Last topic is, a listener is a talented person, perhaps prodigy, parent of prodigy, friend of prodigy, whatever, friend of highly talented person.
And so you certainly have perspective on this. How do I find the right teacher, coach, mentor?
Min Kym:
Okay. Speaking from my own experience, I don't regret anything. I don't regret any of the teachers I had because I learned from every single one of them. The only thing that I perhaps would change, not even necessarily learning from a teacher or another, but it's actually to recognize sooner if the chemistry doesn't work.
Even as I said that, I thought, yeah, but how do ... I know now that because the chemistry didn't work and I stay too long. But I think that in any relationship, particularly with something as important as ... because it's a one-to-one relationship of course with violins with a teacher.
And so it is very close and it is very intense in a sense they become almost like a primary caregiver for your musical life, that's the way I think of it. And if the chemistry doesn't work, then it's not really going to work.
I would say that's the most important thing is that you click. For a parent, if they see their child clicking with, that's not to say that the teacher must never be critical, but that is part of the nurturing process.
In order to thrive, you have to be able to observe and give perspective and actually nurture the talent. But that's the key word really and is nurturing the talent.
And I think that's what I would say is the most important of course and I'm stating the obvious really.
But sometimes it just doesn't work between people and it's not because either party is not talented. It just sometimes people don't work.
And actually sometimes what I certainly learned from my experience of being taught by teachers that I didn't necessarily click with was, okay, you don't always get on with everybody in life, but actually you learn to rub along.
But I actually know that apart from just rubbing along, there's so much greater out there. There's so much greater relationships that you can have and that you can go with.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's say you're quote unquote ‘not clicking’.
How do you determine if it's because it's not the right person for you, or it's a growth process and eventually you will click.
Min Kym:
I think that's the key word, it's growth. Obviously it's a natural process that you will hit a wall at times. But if you keep hitting the wall, if you keep hitting it, that's not a good sign.
So yeah, it's the growth process. I think it's a very different times now, certainly when I was growing up, because if I look at some of the methods that some of my teachers use, I mean that would just be illegal now.
We're talking hardcore. I don't know about you, but certainly when I was growing up in Korea, I went to school very briefly in Korea, they were still whacking students on the hands, corporal punishment and all sorts of bullying tactics, so we don't need to go that far.
I laugh but it's actually a very serious subject.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. My very last question for you I promise is, your advice for how to get into the flow, how to get into the zone, because when you're up there, you're in a zone, you're in the flow, so how do I get in that?
Min Kym:
Search me, you just do. I don't mean to be facetious, but you just do, for me, I can't speak for everybody of course, something just takes over. I suppose that's the bit that I call my violin brain. The violin brain just takes over and the violin is the conduit, the music is the vessel.
And therefore as an extension, I'm the vessel. But I suppose it really is about just getting out of the way. If you get out the way, then you allow it to happen.
Guy Kawasaki:
Huh, that's a great metaphor. So the music is in you and you just have to get out of the way of it coming up.
Min Kym:
It's actually through you, music is around everywhere, music is just part of the universe. And I suppose that's what I mean by getting out of the way it's allowing the music to channel through you into the instrument, whether it's your voice or whether it's the voice of the violin or piano, but it is about getting out the way so the music can go through you.
And by that point, hopefully you've got the muscle memory so that you've got the skills, you've got the skill set in order to allow that to happen. But yeah, I think that would be the block.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, one of the consequences of this explanation is the realization that it's not about you.
Min Kym:
Of course.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's about the music, right?
Min Kym:
But isn't that the same thing about everything? It's not to say that we have to have a sense of self. Of course I'm not saying that because otherwise we'd be like babies with absolutely no concept or separation or anything like that. I'm not saying that's a great state.
I would love to be a baby again. And I think the only time that we ever really experienced that is when we experience different cultures for the first time or different countries for the first time. And I always think that about the baby brain kicking in.
Whenever I go to a new country or explore a different language or anything like that, it's like the baby brain kicks in and you suddenly feel yourself.
It's just the wonderment, you feel so empowered but vulnerable at the same time because you're not a baby anymore, and so there is no sense of awareness there. But I think that's exactly it, and it's a state that it's so inspiring.
Guy Kawasaki:
I know the feeling.
Min Kym:
I think you do. I think we all do though, right?
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know.
Min Kym:
That's the other thing actually about the idea that I just think everybody experiences the same thing I really do. It's just that everybody has different skill sets.
My skillset happens to be playing the violin and being a musician.
And I always say I'm like a one trick pony. That is my way of communicating with the world. But everybody has their own way of communicating with the world. And I think that really is exactly what you're talking about, that feeling of just something greater than you or me or it's ... We don't need to say anymore on it.
Guy Kawasaki:
I get it. I get it. I absolutely get it. I have to say that this has been the most remarkable interview, this is very enjoyable.
Min Kym:
I'll take that as a compliment.
Guy Kawasaki:
You should. And I hope you enjoyed it too. I hope we went to, no one has ever asked you about.
Min Kym:
That was only my hesitation actually, because I was like, "Wow, you are so good at just getting right in there."
I think that was the other thing I learned about the book was that I was so scared. I was so frightened of writing things that I thought were secret and private and all that.
And of course I didn't say everything because some things you do want to keep private. There were so many things like, oh, I can't say. And I realized that, you know what? It's not that big a deal. And everybody feels this anyway. And that was the great realization about writing this.
But it was like everybody actually has these secrets, which is that ... I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I think I just want to keep that veneer between not wanting to express too much emotion and not having the courage to actually say, "This is how I feel. This is how I feel."
I don't know whether that's the Asian thing in me either by the way, my mother would say, "Keep face." And of course I live in England and it's a combination of having a Korean mother and having an English culture, we're little bit more reserved here.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's the problem. I think you threaded the needle.
Listen, I hope my former guests don't listen to this, but let me think about this. I've had about 140 guests, not all of them have written a book, but let's say there's a hundred books involved, this book here, this is the first one I'm going to tell my wife, "You have got to read this book."
Min Kym:
That means so much. Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is a brilliant book. I just don't care if there's no subheads, bullet points.
Min Kym:
She's not going to need no bullet points.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's right. Guy Kawasaki said, "There were no subheads and bullet points and that's okay." That's how good this book is.
Min Kym:
I think that's going to be-
Guy Kawasaki:
Maybe I should write that review for you on Amazon.
Min Kym:
That's going to be my next book title, no bullets points.
Guy Kawasaki:
What? No bullets.
Min Kym:
No bullets. Love it.
Guy Kawasaki:
The NRA will hate you, but okay.
And you know what? I don't know who picked the title, but the title is brilliant. One word, Gone. That is a freaking truly brilliant title, really. I say that author to author.
Min Kym:
That was actually because those were the words that I said when my violin was “Gone, it's gone.”
The unstrung bit, actually I have to credit my editor for, because originally it was, Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's clever.
Min Kym:
She added unstrung.
Guy Kawasaki:
Unstrung. Okay. That's icing on the cake, but the cake is gone, and if nothing else, whenever I sit in Pret A Manger, I'm going to wrap my backpack, little strap around my leg. How's that?
Min Kym:
Yeah. It took me a long time to go to Pret A Manger. I haven't gone back to that one I have to say. It's going to take me longer to get back to that one, but they do great sandwiches, so what can I say?
Guy Kawasaki:
They do. But just to show you the depths of my culinary taste buds, I have to say that my favorite place to eat in London is-
Min Kym:
I love Wagamama.
Guy Kawasaki:
... Wagamama.
Min Kym:
Do you have that in America?
Guy Kawasaki:
I love Wagamama, is that a bad thing? Yeah.
Min Kym:
Okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think there's one in Boston.
Min Kym:
I love Wagamama.
Guy Kawasaki:
When I'm in London, I can eat Wagamama every day.
Min Kym:
I've got one just down the road.
Guy Kawasaki:
I swear.
Min Kym:
It's absolutely fantastic. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Ah. Do you live near Selfridges?
Min Kym:
No. I live miles away from Selfridges. I live just by the Portobello Road.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh.
Min Kym:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is it costly to live near Portobello Road because you go every week.
Min Kym:
London is London. But during lockdown, gosh, the restaurants with other delivery companies are available, but just thriving with the delivery and things like that.
I discovered local places like Wagamamas and Tokyo. There's an amazing place called-
Guy Kawasaki:
I love Wagamamas.
Min Kym:
I think it's called Eat Tokyo just around the corner, which is absolute fantastic. It's great. If you come to London, you must come to my local Wagamama. I'll take you to the local Wagamama.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. You and I will go to Wagamamas. And if you come to the San Francisco area-
Min Kym:
Oh, I'd love that.
Guy Kawasaki:
... I will take you surfing.
Min Kym:
I'd love that. I've never been.
Guy Kawasaki:
We can recreate The Washington Post. I hope this is a true story, The Washington Post Joshua Bell story about how he went into the-
Min Kym:
Tell me.
Guy Kawasaki:
Did you ever hear this story? This story that The Washington Post, they tried to experiment where they had Joshua Bell play the violin in the DC Metro, and you go, "We'll have you play violin on the Cliff at Santa Cruz. And we'll see if people recognize." People said, "Oh, that's a really talented Asian violinist over there."
Min Kym:
I bet he hadn't practiced that day.
Guy Kawasaki:
And it's freaking Min Kym.
Min Kym:
I bet he played badly on purpose or something. I mean, look, he's a good looking charismatic.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's why he didn't get tips. Isn't this a fascinating story? I hope it's a movie someday.
The Queen's Gambit meets Stradivarius.
The lesson of Min's story may be that sometimes you just have to move on.
But I ask you a theoretical question, do you think the current owner of the Stradivarius should return it to Min?
I do.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People. My thanks to Jeff Sieh, Peg Fitzpatrick, Shannon Hernandez, the drop in queen of California, Madisun Nuismer, Alexis Nishimura and Luis noserider Magana.
Until next time, Mahalo and Aloha.