Richard, however, did not let this setback change his life one iota. He continued to cut classes, but turned his attentions to music. He secretly rented the "Method of General-Bass," a musical text by Johann Bernhard Logier, and took harmony lessons from Christian Gottlieb Mueller. But he could not pay for either, and when the bills were large enough, his mother learned of his secret. She payed the bills, and told him that if he was to make music his vocation, he must learn to play an instrument well so as to have a source of income. He refused piano, knowing that his finger dexterity was not sufficient to ever be able to play well. Finally, he took up violin, which ended the way his piano had.
He quit the school he had been avoiding, and entered another which he also successfully shunned as much as possible. He perceived that he would never succeed in entering the university by the usual academic route, so he decided upon a secondary association with the establishment, the only part of the university that really interested him–music. He became a music student at Leipzig University since the only entry requirement for this was payment of the fees. He joined a fraternity and, to supplement his already garish wardrobe, he developed a new hat in the fraternity's colors, adorned with silver.
He attended the theater as often as possible, which was easy because so many of his siblings were a well-known part of it.
Aside from the fraternity, Wagner's career in avoiding class attendance continued to advance satisfactorily in the university also. His adeptness at drinking and gambling took the place of classes. He gambled away all but one thaler of his mother's monthly pension, which he had collected for her. He wagered that, succeeded in winning back the pension and enough to liquidate his other obligations. This near harm to his mother cleared his head a bit, and he began studies (for the second time) with Christian Theodor Weinlig, one of Germany's most learned contrapuntalists and cantor of St. Thomas.
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