A Korean violin virtuoso spent 10 years practising by playing the violin in her head following an accident that nearly ended her career.
Kyung Wha Chung, who will play her first London recital in a decade next month at the Royal Festival Hall, lost the use of her left index finger in 2005.
It effectively putting an end to her successful touring career as it meant she could no longer form notes on the strings.
"During a rehearsal my finger just collapsed and I couldn't play anymore," Chung, 66, said in an interview this week.
Rendered incapable of using her violin, she matched years of therapy with intensive practise in her head, which she credits with keeping her on form and ready to perform again.
"For instance, after coming out of five years of not playing, and then to do the six unaccompanied Bach (sonatas and partitas), after not having played...I worked it out all in my head...with every possibility of bowing and so on," she told Reuters.
It is thought that an overdose of the steroid cortisone, used to treat swelling, caused the finger to weaken, but Chung, who found immediate success after graduating from Juilliard School of Music in the sixties, has found an upside.
"I'm relieved of a lot of excess luggage, I'm freer, I'm lighter," she said. "I came to terms with all the things that I didn't have time to question because my immediate challenge was to go on stage."
