What Do You See?

After our brochure for this summer's music camp was sent out, we received a letter from a fine, conscientious teacher. With good intentions, she pointed out that a child shown at the keyboard in one of the pictures we had chosen had a poor hand position, and this, she concluded, reflected poorly on the standards of our program. I immediately checked the picture, and sure enough, she was right. But as I looked at it, I realized why we selected that particular picture.

We chose the picture because we were captivated by the expression of delight on the child's face and did not even notice the hand position! Our goal was to communicate the positive spirit and nonjudgmental attitude that we value above all else in our learning environment. It is easy to fix a hand position, but not so easy to fix a broken spirit, a discouraged student or a fearful child.

What we pay attention to determines our experience. In Creating Health, Dr. Deepak Chopra explains: "When you buy a rose, you also buy its thorns. If you notice the rose, you have an experience of beauty; if you notice the thorns, you have an experience of pain." What do you see?

Travel Broadens the Mind!

As a child, I often heard the adage, “Travel broadens the mind”. Naturally I had no concept of what that meant, if it was other than my head would look funny. Having come back from two heavenly weeks in Venice and England, I am beginning to have a better idea (or maybe my head really does look a little funny). I was privileged to hear eight operas, including and especially Death in Venice, two musicals (Dirty Dancing and The Drowsy Chaperone), plus five concerts of piano and chamber music, six plays and visits to one of the world’s greatest art galleries, the National Gallery of London. Each event was inspiring and uplifting (they had to be, since I will not go to an event that features horrible things).

Even sitting on the vaporetto (the boat that takes you from the airport to the city of Venice or the bus in London was marvelous, observing the different energy of the people of these incredible cities. The skyline of Venice, seen from the water, is one of the beautiful sights of the world. At the study day for Death in Venice, the historian showed paintings of Venice from the mid-15th Century to the present. It was astonishing to see how much remains the same from those ancient days.

The piano performance of Paul Lewis at Wigmore Hall in London was a revelation of the last three Beethoven piano sonatas. During the last one, Op. 111, the already exalted performance went into that special place called “the zone”. I became aware of the sensation that every note seemed alive and took my mind along with it as if the music and I were having the most interesting and compelling communication. It was as though I was looking upon the most exquisite sight and could not possibly take my attention away from it. After the piece ended, there was the longest silence, before the applause began, that I have ever experienced. It was as though none of the audience could bear to break the spell and return to our everyday lives.

I guess my mind has been broadened if that means I am more aware, more humble and more grateful than I was before I experienced the sights and sounds and joys of that amazing journey.