A buddy of mine posted this picture via social media. Louis Armstrong was smart guy and this quote resonates with me. There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them. To put a positive spin on this we could say that there are some things we can only know through direct experience. Maybe […]
Music
Box of Rain Allegory
Yet another chapter in the Grateful Dead Passover genre… A few months back I had a chance to share the world-changingly beautiful tune, “Box of Rain” with a group of middle school students. In looking at the lyrics I asked them what they saw. Since they were Jewish kids at a Jewish school, they saw […]
Grateful Passover
So I’m a not-so-secret Dead Head. Which means that every once in a while there’s a Grateful Dead lyric or tune that gets stuck in my head. Here’s an example… “Big boss man, can’t you hear me when I call? You ain’t so big, you just tall, that’s just about all.” Big Boss Man […]
Lead like the great conductors
As a musician I believe that music is a great teacher. The lessons that musicians are able to learn through music, if they’re willing to learn them, go far beyond the mechanics of playing any particular instrument. In this, one of my favorite TED Talks, Israeli conductor, Itay Talgam, studies the conducting styles of several […]
The Gospel of Music: A Rabbi Goes to Church
Today I had the unique joy and honor of participating in an interfaith prayer service at the Historic Ebenezer Baptist church. I participated not only as a parishioner, but as a guest member of the house band, a composer of spiritual music, and a creator of interfaith liturgy. A number of years ago I wrote […]