Sunday, November 17, 2002 10:53:55 AM
How much music can you make?
On November 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at the time, painfully and slowly, is a sight. He walks with difficulty, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the braces and clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up his violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play. By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs, they wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -- it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves, "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off the stage to find another violin or else find another string for this one, or wait for someone to bring him another violin. But he didn't. Instead he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity, as they had never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, you know that. But that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing and recomposing the piece in his head. At one point it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered.
There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. Everyone was on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet the audience, and not boastfully, but in a quiet reverent tone said,
"YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES IT IS THE ARTIST'S TASK TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH MUSIC YOU CAN STILL MAKE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT."
What a powerful line that is. And who knows? Perhaps that is the way of life -- not just for an artist but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before.
So perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live, is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left. In this year where so much has been taken from us all, let us stop for a moment and think how we can make beautiful music with what we have left.
The above is from RB http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=WLDI&read=46844
I found this to be particulary inspiring for me as it touches home more than I like to admit. This year I was diagnosed to have Post Polio Syndrome. For those of you that do not know, PPS is a degenerative disease that affects the nerves that control muscles. To this date a cure is not yet available. I was two years old when I contracted Polio the first time and it severely affected my right shoulder, arm, and leg. There were several corrective surgeries in my early years, but by the sixth grade I was playing football, baseball, and basketball for my school. I lettered in basketball during the eigth grade. Between High school and college I worked as a salesman presenting waterless cookware to single working females between the ages of 18 to 35 for a company by the name of The HyCite Corp. This was a great job and I met a lot a very attractive women, but what surprised me more than anything was the number of these women that admitted to have interest in me. At the job I had to develop my own leads and then make appointments to display the cookware to the gals. HyCite was a small nationwide company that had thirty five representatives and in the first month I was able to win their Top Newcomer Award by selling 11 sets of cookware.
My purpose of this post is to inspire and to make it clear to all that the most important thing in life is your own attitude about it!
Ron
On November 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at the time, painfully and slowly, is a sight. He walks with difficulty, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the braces and clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up his violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play. By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs, they wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -- it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves, "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off the stage to find another violin or else find another string for this one, or wait for someone to bring him another violin. But he didn't. Instead he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity, as they had never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, you know that. But that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing and recomposing the piece in his head. At one point it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered.
There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. Everyone was on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet the audience, and not boastfully, but in a quiet reverent tone said,
"YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES IT IS THE ARTIST'S TASK TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH MUSIC YOU CAN STILL MAKE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT."
What a powerful line that is. And who knows? Perhaps that is the way of life -- not just for an artist but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before.
So perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live, is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left. In this year where so much has been taken from us all, let us stop for a moment and think how we can make beautiful music with what we have left.
The above is from RB http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=WLDI&read=46844
I found this to be particulary inspiring for me as it touches home more than I like to admit. This year I was diagnosed to have Post Polio Syndrome. For those of you that do not know, PPS is a degenerative disease that affects the nerves that control muscles. To this date a cure is not yet available. I was two years old when I contracted Polio the first time and it severely affected my right shoulder, arm, and leg. There were several corrective surgeries in my early years, but by the sixth grade I was playing football, baseball, and basketball for my school. I lettered in basketball during the eigth grade. Between High school and college I worked as a salesman presenting waterless cookware to single working females between the ages of 18 to 35 for a company by the name of The HyCite Corp. This was a great job and I met a lot a very attractive women, but what surprised me more than anything was the number of these women that admitted to have interest in me. At the job I had to develop my own leads and then make appointments to display the cookware to the gals. HyCite was a small nationwide company that had thirty five representatives and in the first month I was able to win their Top Newcomer Award by selling 11 sets of cookware.
My purpose of this post is to inspire and to make it clear to all that the most important thing in life is your own attitude about it!
Ron
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