Music is Life

by Justin Ducharme

Shinichi Suzuki mirrors my thoughts in a book that "found me" in an old piano bench. If find myself returning to this passage, time after time. It reminds me of the true essence of music and value of its expression. Suzuki explains his realization about the essence of music after living with Albert Einstein and socializing with great musicians during his youth:

"Love can be had only by loving. Our life is worth living only if we love one another and comfort one another. I searched for the meaning of art in music, and it was through music that I found my work and my purpose in life. Once art to me was something far off, unfathomable and unattainable. But I discovered it was a tangible thing. Anybody who takes up an art is apt to think of the object of his ambition as something very far off, and I tried to search for the secret. But after my eight years in Germany, I found that it was not all what I had imagined. The real essence of art turned out to be not something high up and far off. It was right inside my ordinary daily self. The very way one greets people and expresses oneself is art. If a musician wants to become a fine artist, he must first become a finer person. If he does this, his worth will appear. It will appear in everything he does, even in what he writes. Art is not in some far off place. A work of art is the expression of a man's whole personality, sensibility, and ability."