Ode to Joy

Gratuity: Music; all kinds - classical, country, rap, rock -n- roll, contemporary, acoustic, me in the shower...

Goal Work: "Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul." - author unknown

I have no musical talent but I enjoy listening and I enjoy playing a few notes on my piano.   For some reason, probably associated with my inability to progress in my playing, I stopped playing the piano a few years ago.  One of this years resolutions was to pick it up again.   My plan is to play for 15 minutes a day.   Since for me, playing the piano is not like riding a bike,  it seems I will have to start all over again and refresh myself on the basic notes.   My favorite tune to play is Ode to Joy and hopefully in no time I will be hitting the keys to that tune and sound a bit like this.

Leonard Bernstein talks about why he loves Ode to Joy.   Listening to his explanation I realize why this song has always touched my soul.   Leonard Bernstein says,

"In other word this music in not just indefinably durable but perhaps the closest music has ever come to universality and that dubious cliche about music being a universal language almost comes true with Beethoven.  No composer has ever lived that speaks so directly to so many people; to young and old, educated and ignorant, amateur and professionals, sophisticated and naive and to all these people, all classes, nationalities and racial backgrounds this music speaks a universality of thought, of human brotherhood, freedom and love. 


In this 9th symphony for example where Beethoven has set Schiller's "Ode To Joy" .. the music goes so far beyond the poem.  It gives greater dimension and vital energy and artistic spark to the quaint old lines, "All men become brothers; All yee million embrace yea; Oh world you sense your creator".


In other words this music succeeds even with those people for whom organized religion fails because it conveys a spirit of godhead and sublimity in the freest and least doctrinaire way.  That was typical of Beethoven.  It has a purity and directness of communication which never becomes banal.  It is accessible without being ordinary......We can not listen to this 9th symphony without emerging form it changed, enriched, encouraged."

 I think he articulated well why this song always gives me a warm feeling.

5 reason to play a musical instrument.

Awaken: 08:10AM
Yesterday's MIT: I ate a little more then I should have (Mexican chips and guacamole anyone?), but I was really proud that I did my yoga at home considering we were snowed in.  I also figured out how to deal with my distaste for straightening the den.   I am only going to do it in 15 minute intervals so I no longer have an excuse not to start.  I spent 30 minutes straightening the den yesterday.   It will get done.  Slow but sure (hmm I think that is becoming a theme).
Today's MIT: Straighten Den, Organize my Piano Practice, Solidify a 10K training plan