Mickey Hart: Spirit into Sound
Hart, Mickey & Fredric Lieberman. Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Music (Petaluma, CA: Grateful Dead Books, 1999)
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has assembled (along with Fredric Lieberman) a wide-ranging book of quotes about music, interspersed with reflections from Hart on his long and continuing career. Hart quotes philosophers and poets, composers and conductors, and more than a few fellow musicians on various aspects of music and its magic. Hart barely scratches the surface of the subject in his two hundred pages, but he shares some brilliant insights along the way. Here are my favorites:
"It took me twenty years of study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?" (p. 38, Miles Davis, when an audience member complained that she didn't understand what he was playing; from Duke Ellington, Music Is My Mistress, p. 244)"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." (p.46, Berthold Auerbach)
"Music sobs for you. It laments, it rejoices, it explodes with vigor and life." (p. 159, Anaïs Nin)
Whether you are a musician or an inquisitive listener, you will probably find some thought-provoking words in Hart's compendium.