Einstein & Music
Einstein: At 2.5 years old, he took his first piano lesson. At age 5, though school teachers believed he was mentally handicapped, he began taking violin lessons. At 13, he played Mozart.
ZopraPiano: Our program orders the brain for the appreciation and eventual playing of any kind of music, from classical to jazz.
Einstein: He believed that beyond observations and theories lay the music of the spheres—the “pre-established harmony” of the physical world.
ZopraPiano: Our music for beginners isn’t Bach or Randy Weston, but it does have elements which Einstein believed mirror the cosmos. These elements are: playfulness, patterns, inner unity.
Einstein: He believed that music was the core of his creative life, and often performed at musical soirées. Quoting Hans Albert, his elder son: “Whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or into a difficult situation in his work, he would take refuge in music. That would usually resolve all his difficulties.”
ZopraPiano: Assisting in a student’s discovery that imagination is at the heart of a life-giving, personal refuge is our primary aim.
Einstein: He maintained that his ideas were born in two stages: the first being visual (and sometimes kinesthetic); the second being words or other signs which communicate the visual. The first is midwifed by an independent creative power, the second by laborious work.
ZopraPiano: Our notes and lyrics are inspired by art, not the other way around. The image is at the center, not the periphery. Our pieces reflect the way in which the brain generates ideas.
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Encyclopedia of Word Biography.“Albert Einstein Biography.”
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Du-Fi/Einstein-Albert.html
Miller, Arthur I. A Genius Finds Inspiration in the Music of Another. The New York Times (January 31, 2006):
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/science/a-genius-finds-inspiration-in-the-music-of-another.html.
Norton, Dr. John D. How did Einstein Think? (November 15, 2007.)