Claude Debussy was born into a relatively poor French family. He began studying piano at age 7, and was admitted to The Paris Conservatory at 11 where his music teachers found his experiments in original compositions confounding. Nevertheless, he won the Prix de Rome at age 22 for one of his own pieces. He is generally credited with being the founder of musical impressionism. Perhaps his most well-known piece is Clair de Lune. He is credited with saying, “Music is the space between the notes”.