In a quiet concert hall, a person sits on a stage. He rubs hairs from a horse's tail against sheep sinews stretched tense across a wooden box. The box is over 300 years old and costs more than the entire auditorium.

But that's nothing. The soloist, and every one of the fifty-some-odd members of the orchestra, have each spent over 10,000 hours practicing to get to where they are — and the total value of that time investment, even at minimum wage, dwarfs the price of all their instruments put together.

But that's nothing. The music that they're playing, the sequences of notes and rests, is far more precious. And it's not just the cash flow of the recording industry's intellectual property, the artists' royalties, or the costs of records, tapes, CDs, sheet music, etc. — it's the psychic value, the spotless enjoyment, the spiritual energy, the lift that music uniquely provides. Bach by himself is worth billions ....

(see TenThousandHours (20 Sep 2001), ... )

TopicArt - 2001-11-03

(correlates: NorvigLaws, QiRunning, OnSupererogation, ...)