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On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak
Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher
Hall at Lincoln Centre 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.
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 signalled 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, re-composing 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 you and me too.
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.
Thoughts:
I got this story from Peter Thomson in his regular TGI Mondays
newsletter. If you enjoy motivational stories, please visit his web site
here: www.tgimondays.com.
It is very easy to make excuses about why we cannot do something.
"If only I had...." holds us back. To move forward in our
lives we need to get beyond these limiting beliefs and replace them with
positive "I Can" beliefs. This is where a Professional
Coach can help. They will help you to understand the thoughts and
Neural Pathways that are holding you back. With their help you can
replace those pathways with new, powerful, positive Neural Pathways to
take you forward to where you want to go. If you would like to build a
positive, can do attitude to life, why don't you contact
me and together we will build the positive Neural Pathways that will
turn your life into a virtuoso performance.
Eric
Sutherland
Make the Connection |
