Come Up Higher
The man makes the musician as does the musician make the man. The rules
of life which make men better make the musician better. There is a
constant call in life to "Come up higher!" He who has lost the sound of
that call is at a standstill, or rather, since there can be no stopping,
he is sinking from the place once gained. Get within the sound of that
call and heed it. There are no heights so great, but that they form the
understand it all and no man has reached the highest place in it. The
call ever sounds "Come up higher!" Music fills all which contains life,
and uses all materials for its transmittance. The air, a subtle ether,
is filled with a still finer ether, on which sound travels. That ether
is filled with vibration. It is ever present. The connection with it can
be made at any moment and the musical thought can be sent off into
unlimited space, to influence all within that space. To be able to use
this at its best the thought which is musical must be raised to divine
thought. The possibilities in that are boundless.
Musicians cannot stop. The year may roll around and one may feel himself
doing a great and good work, doing a work which seems to be well
rounded; a work which leaves the musician, as the end of a season rolls
around, exhausted from labor, and ready to say that the end of his work
is reached, that he has gone to his greatest height. Not so, however.
Next year is a height to be ascended, and that of the present moment is
but the base of that greater height. Music calls "Come up higher."
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Activity
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