Music Stories

$100 Dollar Lesson RFT Music Stories 4 The $100 Music Lesson This story, about the eager young music student and the grand old music professor, is one of my kids' favorites, because when I tell it, I do a very funny German accent for the music teacher. It makes a very important point about the power of the individual to create internally-generated energy. The story is also true—it was told to me by the eager young music student himself. There once was a young boy, 15 or so, whose passion was the piano. He practiced all day and many hours into the night, plowing through all the great literature, all the Beethoven sonatas, the entire Well-Tempered Clavier, all the Chopin Etudes, Waltzes, Mazurkas, all the Mozart concerti. He was considered a prodigy in his small town, where he played the organ in church for the 3 bean salad ladies; he even had a small class of grade school music students. But he was not deceive by his local...

RFT Music Stories  General Musicianship These stories present many basic principles of musicianship. I call these general concepts, "Elements of the Musical Mind". It is the aquisition of the musical mind that transforms a mere instrumentalist (juggler, tumbler, monkey) to the level of a true musician, a true artist. Of course we need to be able to perform the physical tasks in playing music on our instruments, but there are higher energies in play, when you get involved with music, which 3 have a global application to all instrumentalists, and all stylists. These stories have to do with various approaches to practice, interpretation, and psychological states of mind which music-making promotes. 

Archer RFT Music Stories 7 The Archer Once upon a time in ancient Japan, there was a young archer who was a dangerous man. He could shoot the eye out of a hawk a thousand feet in the sky, he could shoot three arrows at once and hit three targets dead center with his eyes closed, and in a duel no man could survive his aim. Very full of himself, he became an arrogant bully, and intimidated all the men in the town with his fatal prowess. One day at the local sake bar, one of the villagers had a little too much to drink, and started ranting against the young archer. "He's not so tough!" he raved, with passionately slurred speech. "If he knew about the old man on the mountain he wouldn't be so cocky! The old man on the mountain could kick his butt with one hand tied behind his back! Ha!" Little did the poor villager know that the young archer had appeared on the scene and had overhea...

Land Where Everybody Walked RFT Music Stories 9 The Land Where Everybody Walked with a Cane Once upon a time, in a far country high up in the faraway mountains, there was a land where everybody walked with a cane. The reason they walked with a cane is unclear: maybe there was an old grandfather in their distant past whom they imitated out of respect, or perhaps it had started out as a disguise against foreign invaders. Anyway, for centuries, in this isolated country the people had all walked with canes. The little toddlers had their baby canes, then they graduated to their kindergarten canes, their middle school, high school, and college canes, and then their walking-down- the-aisle- to-get-married canes. They never thought about it because this is how they had always done it, and life went on with everybody hobbling around leaning on a stick. One day an explorer appeared on the horizon, lost in the mountains, and strode down...

Village Idiot RFT Music Stories The Village Idiot and the Band Leader Once upon a time, in the outlying provinces of old Russia, there was a village idiot. In these days, as in many cultures around the world, the village idiot was considered to be sacred and was allowed to do anything he wanted. This idiot loved to play the tuba in the town band, which he was allowed to do because he was sacred. The band leader always attempted to lead his community group in popular walzes and light opera tunes of the time, but the tuba player always ruined things by showing up and playing a shower of random grunts and farts on his tuba, "Hoo, hum, hoo hum, blat, hbpth." The band leader tried various ploys to get rid of the tuba player: by hiding the village idiot's tuba in abandoned mines, by locking the village idiot in attics, and by attempting to hold secret rehearsals in the basement of the church, etc., but all his efforts failed. Invariably, the moment ...

Hit on Head RFT Music Stories 15 Hit on Head with Hammer Once upon a time there was a guy sitting on a street corner hitting himself on the head with a hammer. A passer-by observed this strange behavior, and could not resist approaching the guy, and asking him, "Why are you doing this? The man looked the stranger in the eye, and answered, as if nothing could be more obvious, "Because it feels so good when I stop." This story refers to the tendency for music to pass through waves of tension and release. If everything were consonant, nothing would sound consonant because there would be nothing to compare it to. We need dissonance to make the consonances feel better when they arrive. One time, a devotee asked a great guru, "Oh Master, please tell us why—if God is so good and loving—why is there pain and suffering in the world?" The guru replied, with a grin, "To thick...