Allowing your thoughts to roam — for example, contemplating the stars (facing infinity) or a flower (concentrating on a detail) or a stream (the effect of movement) — enriches the diversification of your thoughts in an unsuspected way. Our musical sensibility may then, when these mental journeyings are "projected" on to it, take on its true shape and reveal that profound identity which we all seek.
Some of us are better equipped than others for braving great encounters but ultimately it is our individual and personal progress towards a goal recognised by our conscience which counts most. Who has not at some time been fascinated by craftsmen's precise, rapid and correct movements (basket-makers, butchers, tailors etc.)? Many hours of repetitive daily work have profoundly transformed their normal physiological aptitudes into the specialisation of a virtuoso, from which every unnecessary movement is excluded.
What distinguishes the craftsman from the artist is the fact that this "stage of liberated movement" is only on the fringes of art. What the musician is searching for, and what he must constantly search "higher", "farther", "deeper", and "nearer" for, is the continually renewed expression of his own experienced truth.
This makes it essential to have the courage to gaze into the eye of a wild beast, to concentrate one’s powers of hearing on the gnawing of a woodworm, to perceive the message of a hand extended in friendship. These valuable encounters enable us to find our place, albeit timidly and feebly, in the giddy immensity of our living space.
Through Brass Bulletin I have for nearly ten years* felt an exhilarating sense of solidarity with a constantly growing number of musicians who by their very fidelity provide evidence of determined progress towards a satisfying conclusion.
May we in years to come be more numerous than ever in order that the example of our musical preoccupations may serve Peace in the world. For the New Year which is before us I wish you all the musical happiness possible.
* In 1981 Brass Bulletin will celebrate its tenth anniversary.