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I attended my daughters final high school voice recital yesterday. Bittersweet. Like the last Little League game your kids will ever play, or the last high school event. The celebration of “lasts” rides the twin rails of joy and sorrow. It was a great “last” recital for her and now she will transition into a different musical journey as she will be attending Seattle Pacific University this Fall. Her first song was a gorgeous Italian Aria. Her Italian was great, but what wowed me was her tone as it created and released something “other.” Her other piece was her own styling on Somewhere Over The Rainbow which was fun, happy and sad all at the same time. Both songs passed from technical notes and spaces into music.
I also enjoyed how much fun she had with the songs. Some musicians attack songs as if they were a enemy to defeat, while others enter into the rhythm of the music, dance with the notes, experience the nuances and quibbles as they would distraction in life, and the result is music.
I have heard technically perfect performers tear up a chart, but there was no -music-. I have also heard musicians play so simple with no technical wows yet the musicality left me breathless.
I hope my daughter Emma continues to sing and engage in music as I believe it expands the soul.
Here are some quotes and thoughts about music…enjoy!
MC
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A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
~Leopold Stokowski
I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds. ~Dizzy Gillespie
I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music. ~Billy Joel
If music be the food of love, play on. ~William Shakespeare
If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.
~Thomas Carlyle
Music can change the world because it can change people. ~Bono
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
~Victor Hugo
Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. ~Lao Tzu
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~Plato
Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it. ~John Lennon
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~Aldous Huxley
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ~Albert Einstein
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC”
~Kurt Vonnegut
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach
If the King loves music, it is well with the land. ~Mencius
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~Maya Angelou
He who sings scares away his woes. ~Cervantes
There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is. ~William P. Merrill
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. ~Ludwig van Beethoven
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