Knowledge and Wisdom“Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.” Martin H. Fischer, German born American physician and author. Encore : A Continuing Anthology (March 1945) edited by Smith Dent, “Fischerisms” p. 309.
The AdventurerTitle: The Adventurer (Silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 download Related products: – The Adventurer PDF score BACKGROUND: FILM: Written by: Vincent Bryan, Charlie Chaplin & Maverick Terrell Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell Director: Charlie Chaplin Year of release: 1917 TRACK LISTING AND SAMPLES: Track […]
Composing for elephantsIgor Stravinsky’s Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant to be performed by young elephants (a collaboration with American choreographer George Balanchine. It ended up being performed by older elephants – the main star being Big Modoc (41 years of age). Each elephant wore a join pink tutu. Source: Dixon, Gavin “Igor Stravinsky’s pachyderm polka”, Classic […]
Music stirred him“Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather another chaos, that it created in us.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey.
A “small” concerto“I don’t mind telling you that I have written a tiny, tiny pianoforte concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo. It is in B flat, and I have reason to fear I have worked this udder, which has always yielded good milk before, too often and too vigorously.” – Brahms on his Second […]
Tchaikovsky and the village childrenTchaikovsky lived in a village Maidanovo. When Tchaikovsky would go for works, he would also be hailed by groups of village children. As Sofya Nikolayevna recalled: “They had discovered the times he went out and, as he always liked to gave them something, sweets or a coin, they used to lie in wait for him.” […]
Active listeningListening to music should always be an active process, and those who attend – pregnant verb – concerts, who listen, who respond, who treasure what they hear there, are musicians. They are the ones who do not let music wash over them like a bubble bath but who actively swim in the water. When vibrations […]
Mozart: the myth versus the manWe often focus too much on the myth of Mozart, the myth of the prodigy and the myth of the genius – but as he writes in some of his letters, he often feels totally misunderstood and that people don’t give him credit for all the tireless work which he does. In one letter he […]
FocusConcentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. – Alexander Graham Bell Orison Swett Marden, (1901) “Bell Telephone Talk”, How They Succeeded. Boston: Lothrop Publishing Company, p. 38. Digitally archived at https://archive.org/details/howtheysucceeded00mardrich/mode/2up, accessed 11 September 2021.
Bad effects of music“By and large, though, there are few, if any, bad side effects of music, and music can often work where no medication can.” – Oliver Sacks Cited in: Inge Kjemtrup, “The power of music therapy”, Pianist, Issue 59, April-May 2011. Warners Group Publications, p.66.
