Kbachn:

I hear you, I hear you!!  I'm probably the most cynical, skeptical person on
the List and Maryse tells us it is not a true story.  However, it  describes
what I have been trying to do - play on one string.

For example, for over a year now I have been protesting the war because I
can sit on my walker.  When I had my full faculties I
didn't protest the Vietnam tragedy, either because I was too busy or lacked
the courage or both.  Whether you agree with my protesting the war or not
doesn't change the fact that I get back some my power lost to PD when I do
it.  I get strength from doing what I can still do, knowing that this will
not always  be so.

I agree totally that a life with full faculties is what ALL people deserve
and working to achieve that can be empowering.
But please, I don't intend or want to tell anyone else how to feel or what
to do.

Rayilyn Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "kbachn" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 2:21 AM
Subject: Re: Making music with what you've got left


> Very nice story Rayilynlee, amazing that he could improvise with just 3
> strings
>
> This is an inspiration but to be honest, i'd rather make the best out of
> life with full faculties :-) ........ and please no angry replies back re
> my
> comments if i brought the readers down from the recently inspired state,
> it's nice to be "inspired" but then again one has to be a realist.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rayilynlee" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007 8:26 PM
> Subject: Making music with what you've got left
>
>
>> PERLMAN - playing on 3 strings
>>
>> On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a
>> concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center 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
>> signaled 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 the m 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 all of us. 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.
>>
>> Rayilyn Brown
>> Board Member AZNPF
>> Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
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