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I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls
of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument, and an unsuspected
yearning to learn to play on it, that are bound to wake up and demand
attention some day. Therefore, you who rail at such as disturb your slumbers
with unsuccessful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a fiddle, beware!
for sooner or later your own time will come.
- "A Touching Story of George Washington's Boyhood" |
 Illustration of Sam and his guitar from St. Nicholas, January 1916 |
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Ah, that shows you the power of music, that magician of magician, who
lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away
and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh. We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more
than that in the presence of music without music. |
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All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out. When you want genuine music--music that will come right home to you like
a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through
you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles,
and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,--when
you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming
banjo! |
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Also see quotes on Jubilee Singers and Polk Miller.
Recommended CD:
Halley's
Comet: Around the Piano With Mark Twain & John Davis
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