"When the war came, I decided to use only quiet sounds. There seemed to be no truth, no good, in anything big in society. But quiet sounds were like loneliness, or love, or friendship."
John Cage (1912-1992)
"If you want to know your past life, examine your present condition; if you want to know your future life, examine your present actions."
-Padmasambhava, Tibetan Buddhist (8th century)
Stats A.D.: Internationally acclaimed concert violinist & pedagogue
Born: of Greek heritage, in Boston, USA
When: between the 1st moon landing and the release of Star Wars
Education: Winsor School, NEC Prep, Juilliard, Harvard, HdK Berlin
Hobbies: combining music and dance; Dance class with Altera (genius!); reading „The New Yorker“ Magazine
Motto: Consistent Striving for Quality with ever-new Joy
This advice is not to be underestimated!
"Practice should represent the utmost concentration of brain...during each minute of that time the brain must be as active as the fingers."
- Leopold Auer (quoted from Frederick H. Martens)
"And a violin master? He must be a violinist, a thinker, a poet, a human being, he must have known hope, love, passion and despair, he must have run the gamut of the emotions in order to express them all in his playing!"
- Eugène Ysaye (quoted from Frederick H. Martens)
"I don't want you to follow me or anyone else. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, somebody else would lead you out."
- Eugene V. Debs
That's one of the reasons I want my students to have their OWN well-founded musical ideas and convictions!
"People say that what we're seeking is a meaning
for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking.
What we seek is an experience of being alive, so that
our life experiences on the purely physical plane
have resonance within our innermost being and
reality, so that we actually feel that rapture of being
alive."
-- Joseph Campbell, from The Power of Myth
That description correlates really nicely to the experience of both music-making and listening to live music!
And about music...
Learning to play an instrument well and to be able to communicate with artistry is a multidimensional task which affects all areas of life. It requires depth of mind and soul, discipline in work and play, and a balance between tension and relaxation, both physically and mentally.