Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm.  If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.  If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music.  If we have no rest, God does not bless our work.  If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence, there would be no rhythm.  If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.  If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music.  If we have no rest, God does not bless our work.  If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty.

"That's me singing," Charlie says.  "That's me playing the water drum, too.  If you know my song, you know Charlie.  Everyone has a song.  God gives each a song.  That's how we know who we are.  Our song tells us who we are.

When the world becomes repressive and ugly and mean, we need form and beauty and balance and music--that's when artists feel most pressed into service.

I'm coming to believe in the importance of silence in music.  The power of silence after a phrase of music, for example: the dramatic silence after the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or the space between the notes of a Miles Davis solo.  There is something very specific about a "rest" in music.  You take your foot off the pedal and pay attention.  I'm wondering as musicians whether the most important thing we do is merely to provide a frame for silence.  I'm wondering if silence itself is perhaps the mystery at the heart of music.  And is silence the most perfect form of music of all?  Songwriting is the only form of meditation I know.  And it is only in silence that the gifts of melody and metaphor are offered.

In the concert hall, each motionless listener is part of the performance.  The concentration of the player charges the electric tension in the auditorium and returns to the playLIer magnified.  I like the fact that "LISTEN" is an anagram of "SILENT".  Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops.  It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all.  It's wonderful when the audience is part of this productive silence.

If we do not keep pace with our companions, perhaps it is because we hear a different drummer.  Let us step to the music we hear, however measured or far away.

Dear Seiji,

Music is the glue that connects many parallel universes that run through your life.  I am amazed at how often you can find grace and simplicity in this complex world.  Through your talent, perseverance, and faith in the power of music, you have blazed a path for aspiring musicians from all over the globe.

Yo-Yo Ma

Gramma died 25 years after she stopped mothering me.  But she left me something special, and I hear it whenever the need occurs.  A tune wafts in unexpectedly when I am kneading bread or hanging laundry on the line.  The opening phrase of an old  hymn bursts from my mouth:
     "Are ye able," I suddenly sing out.
     "To believe that Spirit triumphs," I can hear Gramma picking up the next line.  The verses poses a great question about faith, but I am thinking about what Gramma gave me.
     "Lillian," I answer, "thank you for my voice."

 

If the strings of an instrument are always taut, they go out of tune.