Noted

Any conversation between Itzhak Perlman and Charley Rose plays at the highest levels.  In a recent interview, Itzhak was asked, how he saw greatness, genius even, in his students.  The following responses were interesting from a musical standpoint, but fascinating from a life-support POV.

*  “Potential for greatness is in our response.”  Is a powerful mandate, violin or no violin.  It hands back such responsibility to pay attention, to be present, to respond rather than react, to do the soul work of opening to life over and over.  It is easier to close down from failures and disappointments.  It feels safer, more manageable, to make life smaller, rather than remaining vulnerable. Vulnerable opens response mechanisms high and wide.

* “What do you want to hear? What notes are you choosing?”  Ahhhh yes, Grasshopper, just what is it you are taking in? What is the tenor of your listening? If I say, “I might play the Mozart,” and you hear, “I’m choosing Mozart,” what is in the way?  If I want to hear greatness and I’m listening to ‘heavy metal’ then that is my level of greatness. How does that affect me?  If he says, “I love you madly,” and you hear, “Right, that will be the day,” what has happened to the ears in your heart? Just what note did you choose?

*”I like to talk to music.  Forget playing the instrument.” how do we do anything really well?  We have a deep conversation with it.  Yes, we must practice.  Yes it’s helpful if the instrument is tuned, and the audience informed.  But these are almost incidental if we are bliss-filled by the heart’s desires in daily dialogues. When listening and speaking balance one another, when we enjoy the chords of our compatriots, the soaring notes in early morning’s Brahma Muhuta/sacred hour, life sings, and its our song, our conversation.

*”If it’s right, it’s contagious.” We all feel it.  Bodies quiver like joyful Jello, passing along glad tidings.  It’s as unmistakable as the opposite. Wrong notes in depression and fear also have a quivering contagion, but it is quivering you want to shake lose, and lose. These are not the notes we are looking for, When we assume we are going to hear them, we often do, because we are vibrating in their tonalities.  When we cannot find our Mozart, Perman, Rose, or Rumi, then it’s time to sit with the choices, conscious and un, that we respond to….back to the beginning.  Choose a round, a melodious song-cycle of laughter, love, friendship, creativity, shared thought, sweet solitude, good work, silliness.  You fill in the conversation. Sing and play your heart out.