Tchaikovsky’s father was a Ukrainian who worked as a mining engineer. His mother’s grandfather was a Frenchman who had moved to Russia. She was a nervous woman and Tchaikovsky may have gotten his nervous character from her. Tchaikovsky was only five when he started taking piano lessons. He was soon better than his teacher. The family had an orchestrion (a kind of musical box) which played some tunes from classical music by Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini.