Monday, November 19, 2012

Magic

I never tire of magic.  Light, color, vibrations--the elements of perception that most enliven my day and my dreams.

Can it be written down?  Poets attempt it; some succeed.  Composers attempt it; some succeed.

It is extremely difficult to teach children to read music for magic as content.  But it can be done.  It takes a while, partly because it is so surprising as the child begins to catch on (I was going to say "to grasp it" but stopped in time).

As one of my more interesting students learned to read music, she would be overwhelmed at the rich experience of sound that arose with every note she played.  It clearly felt out of proportion to the dots on the page.

For several weeks each lesson began with her affirming: " I know how to read music!"  As a teenager her reading surpassed in both comprehension and beauty my own reading as a young professional.  Proficiency and artistry are two different things.