Part 5 of a talk presented at Sts. Cyril & Athanasius of Alexandria Institute for Orthodox Studies Symposium “Prayer in the Church Fathers” on 17 February 2013, San Francisco, California.
[CONTINUED FROM A PREVIOUS POST]
Prayer Rule as a Guide to Playing a Musical Instrument
The last image is, perhaps, my favorite as it makes the most sense to me. My son, who is seventeen now, has been playing the piano since he was four years old. Over the years, I have been able to watch his playing progress from “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to some of the most beautiful pieces by Bach, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and other masters. But most interestingly, his improvisation has improved proportionate to his ability to play the masters. A child who is only beginning to play an instrument or any person who has never played an instrument and never listened to good music can usually create some noise on his own just by striking keys or plucking strings at random. With enough time and effort, simple tunes may begin to emerge - rough, flat, uninteresting, and unskillful. Two conditions have to be met in order for improvisation to be beautiful and meaningful: first, one must have the “good treasure of the heart.”[1] “It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks,”[2] and only one who is inspired by observed form can create visual art, and one who is not an avid reader is not likely to become a good writer.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Phroneo to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
