Class 9 English Chapter 14: A Friend Found in Music

A comparison that refuses to keep the two things apart — it says one thing is another, rather than that it is like it. All four of this poem's comparisons are of this kind.

A comparison using like or as, which keeps the two things separate and states only that they resemble each other. Turning this poem's metaphors into similes weakens every one of them.

The pattern of rhymes across a stanza, written with letters. Here it is ABCB, so only the second and fourth lines chime and the poem is held loosely rather than locked.

The feeling a poem leaves in a reader. This one is thoughtful: it is working something out about a life rather than recalling a particular occasion.

To the innermost part. It marks the difference between a passing pleasure and something that reaches the centre of a person.

It claims that music is the ocean which pulls the speaker to the shore, and the rhythm which moves her to the core. The two images work in opposite directions. The ocean draws her outward, towards something vast and beyond herself, while the rhythm reaches inward as far into a person as anything can go. Between them they claim the whole range of what music does to her: it takes her out of herself, and it also arrives at her centre. The phrase to the core is doing real work here, since it marks the difference between a passing pleasure and something that changes a person.

Because its four elements run in order rather than sitting side by side: a low point when she feels blue, a remedy applied to it in the form of therapy, a lift as her spirits rise, and then survival as she pulls through. The last stage is the important one, since the stanza ends not with a feeling but with an outcome — music does not merely console her, it gets her out the other side. Its central idea, of the four offered, is that music brings comfort during sadness.

Its first two lines are about happiness rather than trouble. A reader arriving from a stanza about sadness naturally expects more consolation, and instead is told that when the speaker was at her most cheerful, music was there — unnoticed at the time, and obvious only looking back. This strengthens the poem because it converts music from a remedy into a companion, which is a much larger claim. Something that helps in trouble is useful; something present in the good times as well is a friend.

The poet says music is the ocean, the rhythm, the therapy and the needed friend. As similes these become: music is as vast as an ocean, as steady as a rhythm, as healing as a therapy, and as loyal as a friend. What the rewriting costs is force. A simile compares two things while keeping them apart, whereas a metaphor refuses to separate them at all. To say that music is as loyal as a friend is to concede that it is not one; to say that music is the needed friend concedes nothing.

ABCB in each stanza, so that only the second and fourth lines rhyme — shore with core, blue with through, and there with care — while the first and third run free. What it contributes is looseness. A full scheme across twelve short lines would have produced something closer to a jingle than to a statement, whereas this arrangement lets the rhyme arrive as a small resolution at the end of each thought and nowhere else, which suits a poem that is thinking rather than singing.

The mood is thoughtful. Nostalgic is the tempting wrong answer, but nostalgia requires a particular past being missed and this poem recalls no occasion at all; amused and playful both fail because nothing in it is light. As for the speaker, two things point to the poet herself. The first person is used throughout, with no other pronoun for a speaker anywhere, and there is no narrative frame — nobody is described, no scene is set, and no second person appears — so no distance exists between the voice and the writer.

The first stanza offers two images, and they are not repetitions of one another. Music is the ocean that pulls the speaker to the shore, drawing her outward towards something vast; and music is the rhythm that moves her to the core, reaching inward as far into a person as anything can go. Between them they claim the entire range of an effect. The phrase to the core carries the weight, since it distinguishes a passing pleasure from something that arrives at the centre of a person. And the word moves is figurative throughout: music is given the power to act on somebody, so nothing here concerns motion.

The second stanza narrows to a single situation and works through it in order. There is a low point, when she feels blue. There is something applied to it, the therapy. There is a lift, as her spirits rise. And there is an outcome, as she pulls through. That final stage matters more than it looks, because the stanza declines to end with a feeling. Music is not merely consoling in this account; it carries her out the other side of the difficulty. Its central idea is accordingly that music brings comfort during sadness.

The third stanza then does something a reader will not expect. Arriving from a stanza about being low, one anticipates further consolation, and instead the poem turns to happiness: the times when she was most cheerful, it is clear that music was there. The detail is that she did not notice at the time — the presence is obvious only in retrospect. This converts music from a remedy into a companion, which is a far larger claim, since anything useful helps in trouble while only a friend is there in the good times too.

And the poem then names it. The word friend has been in the title from the start, and the poem waits until its very last line to use it, so that a reader arrives at the word rather than being handed it. Having earned it, the poem ends on the word care and says nothing further.

The three claims therefore widen as they go: music reaches her, music heals her, music stays with her. The first two describe an effect; the last describes a relationship.

The poem contains four comparisons, and every one of them is a metaphor. The poet never says that music is like something; she says that it is. Music is the ocean, the rhythm, the therapy and the needed friend — two in the first stanza, one in the second and one in the third.

The exercise that asks for these to be rewritten as similes is more instructive than it looks, because the rewriting demonstrates what is being given up. Music is as vast as an ocean, as steady as a rhythm, as healing as a therapy, as loyal as a friend: every one of these is weaker than its original. A simile draws a comparison and then leaves the two things standing apart, whereas a metaphor refuses to separate them. To say that music is as loyal as a friend is to concede, in the act of praising it, that music is not actually a friend. To say that music is the needed friend concedes nothing whatever — and since the poem's whole business is to argue that music occupies the place a friend would occupy, the metaphor is not decoration but the argument itself.

The repetition works to the same end. The word music opens six of the twelve lines and occurs eight times in a poem of roughly sixty words, which in so short a piece is extraordinary. It is not ornament: it is the structure. Every claim the poem makes is another sentence beginning with the same subject, so that the poem reads as a list of offices which one thing performs.

Three things follow. The repetition gives the poem insistence, since each recurrence is another item of evidence rather than a restatement. It makes music the grammatical subject of nearly every sentence, which means the speaker is consistently the one being acted upon — she does not seek music out, it reaches her. And it substitutes for a rhyme scheme that operates only half the time, giving the ear something regular to expect where the rhyme does not.

So both devices do the same work by different means: they close the distance between the speaker and the thing she is describing, until by the final line no comparison is needed at all.

The rhyme scheme is ABCB in every stanza. Shore chimes with core, blue with through, and there with care, while the first and third lines of each stanza are left free. Only half the lines rhyme, and the effect is that the poem is held loosely rather than locked. A full scheme across twelve short lines would have produced something closer to a jingle, and a jingle is not what a poem making serious claims about consolation can afford to sound like. As it stands, the rhyme arrives once at the end of each stanza as a small resolution — a thought completed rather than a pattern completed.

The mood is thoughtful. Of the four options the exercise offers, nostalgic is the tempting error, but nostalgia requires some particular past to be missed, and this poem recalls no occasion at all: no place, no date, no scene, no remembered evening. Amused and playful fail more obviously, since nothing in the poem is light. What it actually sounds like is a person working something out in the present tense, and arriving at a conclusion in the final line.

The speaker is the poet herself, and two pieces of evidence establish it. The first person runs throughout — I, me, my — and no other speaker is ever indicated. More telling is the absence of any narrative frame: nobody is described, no scene is set, and no second person appears anywhere in the poem. There is nothing standing between the voice and the writer, and no character for her to be hiding behind.

These three features work together. A loosely rhymed poem sounds like speech rather than song. A thoughtful mood suits a claim being reasoned rather than an experience being relived. And an undisguised first-person speaker makes the poem a statement rather than a story. All of which matters, because the poem is not describing an occasion on which music helped somebody. It is making a general claim about a life — and its form is chosen to let that claim be heard as sincere.

A verb of two parts — the first a verb, the second a preposition or an adverb — whose combined meaning is different from either part. Knowing both words is no help at all in guessing what the pair means.

A wistful return to something past. It is not the same as elation, which is a high delight: nostalgia looks backwards, and delight does not have to.

Acute, intense suffering. It differs from despondence, which is flat and low — anguish is sharp, and a despondent person is not in pain so much as without hope.

A gentle, settled sadness, often not unpleasant. Despair is its opposite in temperature: despair has given up, while melancholy is content to sit with itself.

Openly and loudly glad, as at a celebration. Euphoric is stronger and more private — an overwhelming state rather than a shared occasion.

The positive ones are lifts my spirits, meaning to make somebody more cheerful, and most cheerful, meaning at the happiest. The single negative one is feel blue, meaning to be sad or low. What the sorting reveals is a proportion: sadness is named once and happiness twice, and even the sadness is named only in order to say what cures it. A poem genuinely about being low would have given the low mood more room than the remedy, and this one does the reverse.

Nostalgia for the familiar tune carrying listeners back; anguish for the ballad expressing the intensity of feeling; melancholy for the ambience a soulful melody creates; and jubilant for the tones of a festive symphony on a joyous occasion. The pattern is that in every case the rejected word is not wrong in meaning but wrong in degree or direction. Elation does not look backwards, despondence is flat rather than intense, despair is not something one creates deliberately, and euphoria is private where the occasion is public. That is precisely why the exercise supplies whole sentences instead of isolated words.

A phrasal verb is a verb of two parts, the first a verb and the second a preposition or an adverb, whose combination conveys a meaning entirely different from either part. The poem's example is pull through. Pull on its own means to move or remove something; through on its own means from one end or side to the other; and pull through means to succeed in doing something very difficult. Knowing both words separately is no help at all, since nothing about moving something and nothing about crossing from one side to another adds up to surviving a hardship. A phrasal verb therefore has to be learned as a unit.

Move out is to leave a place where one has been living. Move in is to begin living in a new home or place. Move on is to start doing or discussing something new. Move over is to shift position to make space for somebody. Move along is to shift somewhere else, particularly so that others have room. And move off is to start moving, to leave. The pair most often confused is move over and move along, and the difference is who is being addressed: move over is asked of one person, usually seated, and makes room beside you, while move along is said to a crowd and clears the space rather than sharing it.

The phrase feel blue indicates sadness — a low or downcast state. The line showing that music makes the poet happy is the one in which music lifts her spirits, and not the line before it, since that names a treatment being applied while the lift is the effect, and only an effect can show somebody actually being made happy. And the last line signifies that music does more than console: it carries her through the difficulty to the other side. Pulling through is survival rather than comfort, so the stanza ends on an outcome rather than a feeling.

That music brings comfort during sadness. The option about music being a necessity in times of happiness fails because the extract is entirely about a low mood, and happiness belongs to the third stanza rather than this one. The option about improving an ability to pull heavy loads fails because it takes the phrasal verb apart and reads its two words separately — which is exactly the error the phrasal verb section exists to prevent, and the reason both exercises appear in the same lesson. And the option about knowledge and excitement fails because the extract concerns neither.

The first describes a familiar tune producing a rush of feeling and transporting listeners back to cherished moments from their past. The answer is nostalgia, and the giveaway is the phrase about transporting them back: nostalgia is a wistful return to something past. Elation is rejected not because it is too weak but because it points the wrong way — a high delight need not look backwards at all, and the sentence is about direction rather than intensity.

The second describes a soulful ballad expressing a singer's feeling and leaving an audience moved by its intensity. The answer is anguish, and the sentence supplies its own test in that very word. Anguish is acute, sharp suffering. Despondence is flat and low — a despondent person is not so much in pain as without hope — and nothing about despondence could be called intense.

The third describes a pianist playing a soulful melody and creating an ambience. The answer is melancholy, and the word to weigh is ambience. Melancholy is a gentle, settled sadness, often not unpleasant, and an atmosphere of it can be created quite deliberately. Despair has given up, and nobody sets out to fill a room with it.

The fourth describes a festive symphony filling the air with tones and lifting the spirits of everyone present on a joyous occasion. The answer is jubilant — openly and loudly glad, as at a celebration. Euphoric is stronger and more private, an overwhelming internal state rather than a shared one, and tones reaching everyone present are public by definition.

What unites all four is that the rejected word is never wrong in meaning. Each names a feeling of the right family, and fails only in degree or in direction. That is exactly why the exercise supplies whole sentences rather than isolated words: no dictionary could settle any of these, and only the context can.

A phrasal verb consists of two parts. The first is a verb; the second is a preposition or an adverb. When they come together in such a combination, the verb conveys a meaning entirely different from either of its parts, and multi-word verbs of this kind are what the term names.

The poem supplies the clearest possible demonstration. Pull, taken alone, means to move or remove something. Through, taken alone, means from one end or side to the other. Pull through means to succeed in doing something very difficult. Nobody could arrive at the third from the first two, because surviving a hardship has nothing to do with either moving an object or passing from one side of something to the other. This is why a phrasal verb has to be learned as a unit rather than assembled: it is effectively a new word that happens to be written with a space in the middle.

The six verbs built from move make the same point six times over. To move out is to leave a place where one has been living. To move in is to begin living in a new home or place. To move on is to start doing or discussing something new. To move over is to shift position to make space for somebody or something. To move along is to shift somewhere else, particularly so that others have room. And to move off is to start moving, to leave.

Two observations are worth adding. The pair most often confused is move over and move along, and what separates them is the audience: move over is asked of a single person, usually seated. Makes room beside you, whereas move along is said to a crowd, usually by somebody in authority, and clears the space rather than sharing it. And move on and move off, which look like a matched pair, are not related in the least — one concerns subjects and stages, the other a vehicle or a body beginning to travel.

The further task extends the principle to put, get, look and break, each of which produces a great many such verbs, and none of them deducible either.

The phrase about feeling blue indicates sadness — a low or downcast state. It is the poem's only negative feeling phrase, and it exists in the stanza so that something can be said to cure it.

The line which shows that music makes the poet happy is the one in which music lifts her spirits. It is worth being careful here, because the line immediately before it is about therapy and looks like a candidate. But therapy names a treatment being applied, whereas the lift is what results, and only an effect can show somebody actually being made happy. The distinction is exactly the one a reader has to make throughout this stanza.

The last line signifies that music does more than console her: it carries her through the difficulty and out the other side. Pulling through is survival rather than comfort, which means the stanza ends on an outcome rather than on a feeling — and the claim is correspondingly stronger than a claim about consolation would have been.

The statement that music plays a vital role in the poet's life is true. The entire poem is a list of the offices music performs for her, and there is no line anywhere in it that does not attribute something to music.

And the central idea of the extract is that music brings comfort during sadness. Each of the other three options fails for its own reason. That music is a necessity in times of happiness is wrong because this stanza is entirely about a low mood; happiness belongs to the third stanza. That music improves our ability to pull heavy loads is wrong in an instructive way, since it takes the phrasal verb apart and reads its two words separately — precisely the error the phrasal verb section exists to prevent, which is why both exercises sit in the same lesson. And that music is a source of knowledge and excitement is wrong because the extract concerns neither.

Answering questions before hearing a recording, then playing it to check. The guess gives a listener something to test, so attention hunts for specifics instead of receiving a stream of facts.

An exercise in which each speaker is given a position rather than a script. Here nobody is simply right, and one of the four positions is allowed to change during the discussion.

A personal letter asking somebody to attend an event. Its format is fixed, and its close identifies the relationship: Yours affectionately belongs to family and nobody else.

An ancient text elaborating the healing properties of music. It is the second stanza of this poem stated as a tradition rather than as a personal claim.

A note of Indian classical music. There are seven, and the task is to ask a music teacher about their origin — a reminder that everything in nature, including a heartbeat, has a rhythm.

The six questions are printed before the recording and answered by guessing, and only then is the conversation played so that answers can be checked and corrected. The arrangement works because a guess gives a listener something to test. Without one, a recording is simply a stream of facts to be absorbed and the attention drifts wherever it likes; with one, every detail that arrives is either evidence for the guess or evidence against it, so the listener is hunting rather than receiving. It also changes what is retained, since a detail that overturns a commitment sticks far better than one heard neutrally.

The two speakers are parent and child — a mother and her son. The conversation takes place at a music centre which is about to close for the day. The instrument causing the difficulty is the santoor. The problem is the irregularity of the class, since the teacher attends only twice a week and regular practice is therefore missing. The unsuccessful solution was watching videos about playing the instrument. And the final decision is to obtain an instrument, borrowing a friend's until one can be purchased.

Because he is neither unwilling nor unable. He volunteers that he is more than ready for the hard work, so the obstacle is not effort; and nothing in the conversation suggests he cannot manage the instrument. What he lacks is access — his teacher comes to the centre only twice a week, so regular practice is missing. He has also already tried the obvious remedy and can say precisely why it failed, which is the mark of somebody who genuinely attempted it rather than looking for an excuse.

First she defends the instrument, saying that santoor music is fabulous and that every instrument requires dedicated practice — so she does not begin by treating his choice as a mistake. Second she proposes a solution, that he watch videos about playing it. And third, when that is refused on good grounds, she finds another rather than repeating herself, offering to borrow a friend's instrument until one can be purchased. What the exchange models is how a difficulty is actually solved: a plan is offered, evidence is produced against it, and the plan is changed.

A music teacher who encourages the student to take up classes; Student 1, confused and afraid that music will take time from studies; Student 2, a learner convinced that music is beneficial and that time can be managed; and a parent, doubtful at first and supportive afterwards. What the cues require is that nobody be simply right. The worry about time is genuine rather than a misunderstanding to correct, so a group that treats it as foolish will produce a flat scene. Student 2 must answer it with experience rather than enthusiasm, since praising music does not address a question about hours. And the parent is the only position allowed to change, which is what makes the exercise a discussion at all.

The format is the sender's address, the date, a salutation beginning Dear, the body, the complimentary close Yours affectionately, and the sender's name. The body asks after the reader's well-being, mentions the event with its date, time and venue, and then requests them to attend. The language is first and second person — I, we and you — in a warm and personalised style. The close matters because it names the relationship: Yours affectionately is used for family and nobody else, so a student who writes Yours sincerely has produced a perfectly correct letter addressed to the wrong kind of reader.

It opens with a mother noticing that her son is upset, and telling him that she knows instantly because she is his mother. She tells him to pack up, since the music centre is about to close, and says they will talk on the way home.

His trouble comes out at once. He says he should have chosen another instrument, and that he is facing difficulties after having chosen the santoor.

Her first response is worth attention, because it is not sympathy. She defends the instrument — santoor music is fabulous — and adds that every instrument requires dedicated practice, before asking what the problem actually is. That order matters. Had she begun by questioning his choice, the rest of the conversation would have become a defence of his decision rather than a search for a remedy.

His answer makes clear that the difficulty is practical. He is more than ready for the hard work, he says; but the teacher who teaches santoor comes to the centre only twice a week, so regular practice is missing.

She proposes a solution: watching videos about playing the instrument. He has already tried it, and can say why it failed — playing an instrument is a hands-on skill, and watching did not help much. He adds that he really wants to learn to play well and is sad that he may have to change his choice of instrument.

And here she does the thing that makes the exchange work. Instead of repeating herself or insisting on the videos, she finds another route altogether: a friend of hers used to play the santoor, and she will ask to borrow the instrument until they purchase their own, so that he can practise at home and keep his learning fresh.

His last words are not simply thanks. He asks her to remember to place her request that same day.

What the conversation models is how a difficulty is genuinely solved. A plan is offered, evidence is produced against it, and the plan is changed. Neither speaker repeats an argument that has already been answered, which is why so short an exchange settles anything at all.

The speaking task is a role play with four positions. A music teacher urges the student into music classes. Student 1 is confused, and feels a music class may take time away from studies. Student 2 is already a music learner, convinced that music is beneficial and that the time can be managed. And a parent begins doubtful and becomes supportive after the discussion.

What is being trained here is not persuasion but the handling of a reasonable objection. The cues are careful, and reading them closely shows why. Nobody is simply right: Student 1's worry about hours in a day is genuine, not a misunderstanding waiting to be corrected, and a group that treats it as foolish will produce a scene in which nothing happens. Student 2 therefore has to answer with experience rather than enthusiasm, since praising music does not address a question about time, while explaining how the time is actually found does. And the parent is the only position permitted to change, which is what makes the exercise a discussion rather than four consecutive speeches — somebody has to be persuadable, and the cues nominate who. Responses are to be framed logically and in complete sentences, with questions added to keep the conversation moving.

The writing task is an invitation letter. The school is holding a musical evening on 21 June, World Music Day, at which the writer will present a sitar recital, and the letter goes to the writer's grandparents. Its format is fixed: sender's address, date, salutation beginning Dear, the body, the close Yours affectionately, and the sender's name. The body has three parts in a deliberate order — ask after their well-being, give the event's date, time and venue, and then request them to attend. Courtesy comes first, information second, and the request last, once the reader knows what is being asked of them.

The language is first and second person in a warm, personalised style, and the close is the detail that matters most. Yours affectionately belongs to family and to nobody else, so it identifies the relationship at a glance. A student who writes Yours sincerely has produced a faultless letter to entirely the wrong reader.

It adds three things, and the first changes how the poem itself reads.

India's musical heritage, the lesson says, has a great deal to offer how well we are. Raga Chikitsa, among the old texts, sets out at length what music can heal; and Sangita Sudha, a seventeenth-century work, gives an account of the effects of music on the emotions. Students are asked to find out how music is used as an alternative therapy today. The effect on the poem is considerable. Its second stanza called music a therapy, and a reader might easily have taken that as a private metaphor, a pleasant way of saying that music cheers her up. These two texts turn it into a claim with a documented tradition behind it.

The second addition is a reminder that everything in nature has a rhythm or sound vibration, including a heartbeat, together with a task: to ask a music teacher about the origin of the seven swaras of Indian classical music.

The third is a second poem — Music, by Walter de la Mare — and it is a far stranger piece than the one in the lesson. While music sounds, the earth the poet knows is gone, and everything lovely in it grows lovelier: flowers flame in vision, and forest trees lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. Naiads, which the poem's own note explains are water nymphs said to inhabit a river, spring or waterfall, rise out of the water, each enchanted face rapt in strange dreams. And in the final stanza the poet becomes all that he was before he came to this haunt of brooding dust, while the swift-winged hours break into distant song.

The comparison is instructive. One poem says music comforts a person; the other says music transforms a world. One is plain, personal and practical; the other is dense, visionary and hard. One treats music as a friend; the other as a doorway out of ordinary existence altogether.

And neither contradicts the other. They are describing the same experience at two very different intensities — which is why a reader who has both will not mistake the first poem's claim for a small one.

It claims that music is the ocean which pulls the speaker to the shore, and the rhythm which moves her to the core. The two images work in opposite directions. The ocean draws her outward, towards something vast and beyond herself, while the rhythm reaches inward as far into a person as anything can go. Between them they claim the whole range of what music does to her: it takes her out of herself, and it also arrives at her centre. The phrase to the core is doing real work here, since it marks the difference between a passing pleasure and something that changes a person.

Because its four elements run in order rather than sitting side by side: a low point when she feels blue, a remedy applied to it in the form of therapy, a lift as her spirits rise, and then survival as she pulls through. The last stage is the important one, since the stanza ends not with a feeling but with an outcome — music does not merely console her, it gets her out the other side. Its central idea, of the four offered, is that music brings comfort during sadness.

Its first two lines are about happiness rather than trouble. A reader arriving from a stanza about sadness naturally expects more consolation, and instead is told that when the speaker was at her most cheerful, music was there — unnoticed at the time, and obvious only looking back. This strengthens the poem because it converts music from a remedy into a companion, which is a much larger claim. Something that helps in trouble is useful; something present in the good times as well is a friend.

The positive ones are lifts my spirits, meaning to make somebody more cheerful, and most cheerful, meaning at the happiest. The single negative one is feel blue, meaning to be sad or low. What the sorting reveals is a proportion: sadness is named once and happiness twice, and even the sadness is named only in order to say what cures it. A poem genuinely about being low would have given the low mood more room than the remedy, and this one does the reverse.

Nostalgia for the familiar tune carrying listeners back; anguish for the ballad expressing the intensity of feeling; melancholy for the ambience a soulful melody creates; and jubilant for the tones of a festive symphony on a joyous occasion. The pattern is that in every case the rejected word is not wrong in meaning but wrong in degree or direction. Elation does not look backwards, despondence is flat rather than intense, despair is not something one creates deliberately, and euphoria is private where the occasion is public. That is precisely why the exercise supplies whole sentences instead of isolated words.

A phrasal verb is a verb of two parts, the first a verb and the second a preposition or an adverb, whose combination conveys a meaning entirely different from either part. The poem's example is pull through. Pull on its own means to move or remove something; through on its own means from one end or side to the other; and pull through means to succeed in doing something very difficult. Knowing both words separately is no help at all, since nothing about moving something and nothing about crossing from one side to another adds up to surviving a hardship. A phrasal verb therefore has to be learned as a unit.

The six questions are printed before the recording and answered by guessing, and only then is the conversation played so that answers can be checked and corrected. The arrangement works because a guess gives a listener something to test. Without one, a recording is simply a stream of facts to be absorbed and the attention drifts wherever it likes; with one, every detail that arrives is either evidence for the guess or evidence against it, so the listener is hunting rather than receiving. It also changes what is retained, since a detail that overturns a commitment sticks far better than one heard neutrally.

The two speakers are parent and child — a mother and her son. The conversation takes place at a music centre which is about to close for the day. The instrument causing the difficulty is the santoor. The problem is the irregularity of the class, since the teacher attends only twice a week and regular practice is therefore missing. The unsuccessful solution was watching videos about playing the instrument. And the final decision is to obtain an instrument, borrowing a friend's until one can be purchased.

Because he is neither unwilling nor unable. He volunteers that he is more than ready for the hard work, so the obstacle is not effort; and nothing in the conversation suggests he cannot manage the instrument. What he lacks is access — his teacher comes to the centre only twice a week, so regular practice is missing. He has also already tried the obvious remedy and can say precisely why it failed, which is the mark of somebody who genuinely attempted it rather than looking for an excuse.