OT - What Really Counts -Think of Haiti - Page 17

 I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70's, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

 What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute cords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?"

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

 What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

 Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the Nazi camps and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."

End of the last several posts which had to be broken up. Source:
Welcome Address to Parents of Incoming Students
The Boston Conservatory
by Dr. Karl Paulnack, Director of the Music Division
September 1, 2004


My comment (meaning me, Hodie): And people sing now even in Port-au-Prince, even though in the midst of such horrific death and despair. And that alone demonstrates their humanity and their incredible strength.
Hodie

GTR,

PLease post how to delete an entire thread. There are probably a lot of sane people here who are sorry they ever start any thread and who might also like to know.

Thank you.

That was beautiful. I cried.

Hodie,
Thank you for sharing this with us. I understand if you want to delete the thread, but I think you should leave it. Your sentiment in posting it is not destroyed by those posters you allude to. It's not your responsibility to sort out that stuff, that's for them to think about.
Best wishes.

PS I think art, music, enjoying our dogs, whatever....are all important. We cannot stop living, that would be a tragedy too. These things help us in making meaning, and surviving...........

Muldoon,

You are absolutely correct. There are many parts to the human spirit and many things that can aid in building and maintaining that spirit., including enjoying our dogs or cats, or I suppose, even a lizard! LOL

I knew you were a Musician!!!!! One thing we do have in common.   lol  Music is my peaceful exit into the land of deep reverence of Mankind....


YR

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133083


Israel Makes Waves by Simulating an Earthquake

by Avraham Zuroff
Follow Israel news on Twitter and Facebook.

(IsraelNN.com) The Seismologic Division of the Ministry of National Infrastructure's Geophysical Institute will attempt to simulate an earthquake in the southern Negev on Thursday. The experiment, financed by the U.S. Defense Department, is a joint project with the University of Hawaii and is part of a scientific project intended to improve seismological and acoustic readings in Israel and its environs, up to a 1,000 km/621 mile radius.

The experiment intends to improve the understanding of sound waves in the atmosphere. Scientists will then be able to fine-tune Israel’s seismological equipment to give advance warning of earthquakes. Measurements will also be taken in other countries, including Cyprus, Greece, France, and Germany.

Israel will create a controlled explosion of 80 tons of explosive material, which will simulate the intensity of a tremor after an earthquake of Magnitude 3. Natural earthquakes of a similar intensity occur in the Middle East region about once a week, without the public feeling them.

The results from the experiment will be available to the entire scientific community and is expected to make an additional contribution to scientific research of sound waves in the atmosphere and earthquakes.

In the last few years, the Geophysical Institute has created several earthquake simulations in order to calibrate its equipment. In June 2004, the institute detonated 32 tons of explosives in the southern Negev. In June 2005, the institute detonated 20 tons in the Beit Alfa quarries in the Jezreel Valley south of the Galilee. The success of the experiments has significantly contributed to improving the accuracy of identifying earthquakes in Israel.

The Ministry of National Infrastructure and Finance Ministry have recently financed a three-year plan to upgrade Israel’s seismological equipment, as part of Israel’s earthquake advance warning system.'

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