I needed a strong incentive to leave the house today; my inclination was to stay indoors, listen to the radio, and just mope. Fortunately, we had plans. My wife is a music teacher and was participating in a district- wide concert of all the best early, middle, and high school students. These were star musicians, they had never all played together before, and had only a week to put together a great concert. It was exactly the tonic that we needed. The teachers had discussed it at a break, and all had agreed not to make an announcement to the students about this morning’s tragedy.
One of the more interesting works was by a composer from Yale (I would tell you his name, but it wasn’t in the program). Called “A+”, it was designed as an instructional piece to demonstrate how getting, say, 97% is good enough for an A+ in most scholarly exams, but how music needs aspire to a higher standard. A little over two minutes long, it was performed twice. The first time, the students were expected to play it flawlessly (and to my untrained ear, they did). It is an elaborate construct, utilizing all the instruments in the orchestra, building up in rapid waves to a triumphant crescendo. Then, pausing only a moment to take a breath, the piece was performed a second time. That time, however, each member of the 100-plus band was allowed to make a single deliberate “mistake”, at a time of the individual musician’s choosing. Suddenly, this intricate piece weaved and bobbed around the stage like a punch-drunk pugilist stumbling into an instrument shop, crash-landing with a plop and a drawn out wheeze. It is a rare event where one can laugh and learn at the same time. The concert was fun, it was enlightening, and for a few hours, it was possible to forget our collective sorrow.