Saturday, March 15, 2008

Mark Twain's view of amateur musicians

The piano teacher I mentioned yesterday has a wonderful quotation from Mark Twain in her brochure for older adult students:

"I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument, and an unsuspecting yearning to play on it, that are bound to wake up and demand attention some day."
--Mark Twain

Lovely quote. But you must read the whole story: "A Touching Story of George Washington's Boyhood."

Here are some more quotations about music by Mark Twain: twainquotes

On a more serious note, she gave me a copy of this article on the Music Making and Wellness Project, about the benefits of group keyboard lessons for seniors.

2 comments:

Melissa said...

That is a neat story.

I especially liked the part where music was "an unwholesome influence" on him".

And I've heard some players audition for our orchestra that made me lose the will to live, too. :)

Maricello said...

Thanks, Melissa, for reading the story! I thought it was so funny, though, of course, we all play better than that now. :-)