Something to keep in mind....

**AbeVanHalen** · 04.23.01, 03:22 PM

There has been so much negativity going on about the situation; maybe this story will give some people a little more hope...

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a
>
> concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
>
> If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on
> stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a
> child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two
> crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully
>
> and slowly, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically,
> until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches
>
> on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and
> extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the
> violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to
> play. By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly
> while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain
> reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait
> until he is ready to play.
>
> But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few
> bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -
> it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what
> that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who
>
> were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would
> have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp
> his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another
> string for this one."
>
> But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then
> signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he
> played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and
> such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
>
> Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work
> with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night
> Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating,
> changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded
> like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they
> had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence
> in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an
> extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium.
> We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we
> could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
>
> He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us,
> and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent
> tone - "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much
>
> music you can still make with what you have left."
>
> What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I
> heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not
> just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all
> his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a
> sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three
> strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made
> that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more
>
> memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four
> strings.
>
> So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in
> which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and
> then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have
> left.

I'm not ready to completely write these guys off yet.

**VanRicardo** · 04.24.01, 01:21 PM

That is a profound statement, and it made the hairs on my arms rise!!!

**noodeling** · 04.24.01, 01:46 PM

W O N D E R F U L !

That statement is by far T H E B E S T ,
M O S T I N T E N S I V I ever read about
music.

It´s not about how bad your life is -
it´s about how you handle it !

Thanks a lot to share it with us.

THANKS !