Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because the world needs people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman
The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from God. -- Thomas Keating
RULES FOR PLAYING MUSIC IN A GROUP
1. Everybody should play the same piece.
2. Observe the repeat signs only if what you just played was interesting.
3. If you play a wrong note, glare at one of the other players.
4. Carefully tune your instrument before playing. Then if you play out of tune, you can lat least do it with a clear conscience.
5. The right note, at the wrong time, is a wrong note. (And vice versa)
6. A wrong note, played timidly, is a wrong note.
7. A wrong note, played with authority, is simply your interpretation of the phrase.
8. If everyone gets lost except you, follow the ones who are lost.
9. Strive to always play the maximum notes per second. This will intimidate the weaker players and gain you the admiration of the ignorant.
10. Markings for slurs, dynamics, and accidentals should be completely ignored. They are only there to make the score look more complicated.
11. If a passage is difficult, slow down. If it is easy, speed up. Eveything will even itself out in the end.
12. You have achieved a true interpretation when, in the end, you have not played one note of the original piece.
13. When everyone else stops playing, you should stop also. Do not play any notes you may have left over.
14. Blessed are those without perfect pitch, for the kingdom of music is theirs.
-- Unknown
When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me."
-- Erma Bombeck
I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity. -- Edgar Allen Poe
In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to be dumb and lazy. -- Warren Buffett
It was hard work, with long hours and endless deadlines, but being able to write something one day and hear it a few days later appealed to me. Besides, I was addicted to the ultimate narcosis in music, which is the rush you get when you give a downbeat and wonderful players breathe life into the notes you have put on paper.
-- Earle H. Hagen, composer (wrote and whistled the tune used for The Andy
Griffith show, among many other scores)(1920-2008)
Let those who love us, love us.
And those who do not love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He will not turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we may know them by their limping.
--- Celtic blessing
Triumph is "try" with an "umph!" at the end.
--- Memphis, the father penquin
in Happy Feet
Whatever you are, be a good one. -- Abraham Lincoln
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. --Andrew Jackson
Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already. -- Soren Kierkegaard
I came across but one singer who sang to an instrumental accompaniment, the guitar, and that was in Charlottesville, Va. Mrs. Campbell, however, tells me that in Kentucky, where I have not yet collected, singers occasionally play an instrument called the dulcimer, a shallow, wooden box, with four sound-holes, in shape somewhat like a flat, elongated violin, over which are strung three (sometimes four) metal strings, the two (or three) lower of which are tonic-drones, the melody being played upon the remaining and uppermost string which is fretted. As the strings are plucked with the fingers and not struck with a hammer, the instruemnt would, I suppose, be more correctly called a psaltery. -- Cecil J. Sharp in his introduction to English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, co-authored with Olive Dame Campbell and published in 1917
What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are small matters compared to what lies within us. -- Emerson
It's not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters. -- Mother Teresa
If you're using more than two chords, you're just showing off. -- Woody Guthrie
Commencement Address by Steve Jobs 6-12-05
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
Education is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't. -- Pete Seeger
To begin a journey, one must have courage; to finish a journey, one must have perserverance. -- unknown
Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the . . . dulcimer . . . and all kinds of musick, all the people, the nations and the languages, fell down and worshipped . . . .Daniel 3:7 (KJV)
When asked to define folk music, blues guitarist Big Bill Broonzy replied, "I never heard no horse make music." So be one of the "folk" who make music!
Information is not Knowledge, knowledge is not Wisdom, wisdom is not Truth, truth is not Beauty, beauty is not Love, love is not Music. Music is best... -- Frank Zappa
From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us. -- A Scottish prayer
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -- Mark Twain
Somehow we manage it: to like our friends, to tolerate not only their little ways but their huge neuroses, their monumental oddness: "Oh well," we smile, "it's one of his funny days." -- Fleur Adcock
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when your are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right. -- Mark Twain
There is no music in a rest, but there is the making of music in it. In our whole life-melody the music is broken off here and there by "rests," and we foolishly think we have come to the end of the tune. God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts, and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives; and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the "rest"? See him beat the time with unvarying count, and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between.
Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the "rests." They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we sadly say to ourselves, "there is no music in a ‘rest,’" let us not forget "there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!
– Ruskin, from Streams in the Desert
A room full of dulcimers is not as bad as a room full of fiddles. -- Ritchie Schuman
