I’ve been reading Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do, in which he says that most athletes are not willing to drive themselves hard enough, and that only through extraordinary effort can one unlock the potential of the human body. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Music
Reverse Performance Anxiety
My son had a very nice piano recital last weekend. He played the right notes, he played the quiet parts quiet and the loud parts loud . . . and yet he had never once, to my knowledge, practiced the piece at home without playing it too loud, too fast, and having a simulated nervous breakdown if anything was said to him about it. I’ve Googled this all day and I can’t figure it out . . . Read more →
My Favorite Xmas Songs
Links go to iTunes samples . . . Read more →
An Evening at Home
I’m trying to listen to classical music with a 10-year-old who won’t stop pretending he’s an intergalactic space admiral: Chopin . . . great composer . . . he was from Earth, wasn’t he? Read more →
In Memoriam: Johnny Cash
Anyone who thinks Johnny Cash wasn’t ready to check out even before his wife died in May has probably not seen the “Hurt” video. I certainly think a person in ill health can voluntarily release his or her grip on life . . . we had a family member with cancer who really wanted to die at home, but unfortunately she became too ill to care for at home. The night the family decided that she’d have to be hospitalized, she died . . . Read more →
Song Lyrics That Didn’t Resonate Until 25 Years Later
I’ve been aware of the time going by They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye. — Jackson Browne, “The Pretender” (1976) Read more →
Worst Band of All Time
Blender magazine has named Insane Clown Posse as the worst band of all time, although I personally think this does a great disservice to Rush — the band, not the radio guy. Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Johnny Cash
I keep a close watch on this heart of mine I keep my eyes wide open all the time . . . “Really? How do you sleep?” Read more →
Musical Humor
Q: What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A: A flat minor. Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To get away from the bassoon recital. Read more →
Useless and Pointless Knowledge
Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain That could hold you, dear lady, from going insane That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain Of your useless and pointless knowledge. — Bob Dylan, “Tombstone Blues” “I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while–just once in a while–there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn’t, it’s just a disgusting waste of time!” — J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust. — T.S. Eliot, “The Rock” Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Van Morrison
I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles . . . “That’s impossible!” Read more →
Different Drummers
In high school, I was in the school orchestra. There were no auditions; it was just a class you could sign up for, independent of whether or not you had any musical ability. And when a student with no musical ability signed up for the orchestra, what transpired was something like this: Director: What instrument do you play? Student: I don’t really play an instrument. Director: You’re in the percussion section. There were three or four of us in the percussion section who could actually read music and play it, so it was kind of depressing that it was mainly a backwater where musical illiterates were sent to bang on cowbells . . . I recollected my days as a high-school percussionist today when one of our tech leads — tech leads — pulled up some javadocs and announced that a method we were using was “depreciated.” Now if this… Read more →
Disqualification
Alessio Cioni, one of the finalists at the Rachmaninoff International Competition and Festival, not only did not win, he was actually disqualified for playing too poorly. Read more →
Are You Proud of Me Now?
Barbra Streisand’s mother died last week at age 93. The two had a strained relationship, as people sometimes do with their mothers. When Mom attended one of her shows in 1994 — she would have been 85 years old at the time — Barbra addressed her from the stage, saying, “Are you proud of me now, Mama?” I’m not a big fan of anything Barbra Streisand has ever done, but for articulating a lifetime of pain in seven words, you can’t do much better than that . . . Read more →
I Fought the Law . . .
Doreen Waddell, a former vocalist with the chart-topping 1980s British band Soul II Soul, died after being hit by several cars as she ran across a busy road. Police said it appeared she had been running from a supermarket after being confronted about shoplifting. Read more →
Is That All There Is?
Peggy Lee dies at 81. No report as yet on her final words . . . Read more →