Benjamin Zander

On the Art of Possibility

© 2003 by Michael Finley

I heard this joke at a meeting of senior consultants at First Boston:

An associate conductor for a regional orchestra was asked to guest conduct for an orchestra 1000 miles away. He arrives at the concert hall eager to meet orchestra members and establish good chemistry with them. 

All seems well except for the concertmaster violinist, who regards him throughout the performance with a baleful frown. The conductor tries everything to get on the violinist's good side -- he tries being athletic, modest, emphatic, solicitous -- but nothing changes the expression on the violinist's face.  

So preoccupied is he with the concertmaster's frown that the entire concert falls flat. He knows he will never be invited back. But before he returns, he decides to have it out with his nemesis. "All through the concert you frowned at me. Nothing I did was good enough for you. What did I ever do to you?"

To which the concertmaster blinks languidly and replies, in a thick Czech accent, "I hate music."

So what is this "one buttock" stuff? Zander explained it immediately, illustrating the difference in piano-playing at ages 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. Each year, the awareness of the music deepens, until the young pianist finds him or herself sitting on the edge of the piano bench -- on one buttock. The posture bespeaks a level of involvement, of soulfulness, of suspense even, that a beginner or disinterested party is incapable of. 

You cannot sit on the edge of the bench, on one buttock, and hate music.

One thing obvious about Benjamin Zander -- he does not hate music. And yet music per se is not his message. Music is a means to a deeper message for him -- that we live together, sharing the same hopes and heartaches, in a realm of remarkable possibilities. But to achieve this state of mind -- generous, joyful, and young at heart -- one has to be a little at war with the world.  

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Just as Jim Loehr talked about "expedient adaptation," the com

Maestro Ben Zander