Metal rusts, music lasts forever.

He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places.

Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer. So I began sleeping less to give her the time she needed.

Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician's curse.

Then I felt something inside me break and music began to pour out into the quiet. My fingers danced; intricate and quick they spun something gossamer and tremulous into the circle of light our fire had made. The music moved like a spiderweb stirred by a gentle breath, it changed like a leaf twisting as it falls to the ground, and it felt like three years Waterside in Tarbean, with a hollowness inside you and hands that ached from the bitter cold.

You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.

Words cannot always do the work we need them to. Music is there for when words fail us.

Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can't sing. Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.

Asking to hold a musician's instrument is roughly similar to asking to kiss a man's wife. Nonmusicians don't understand. An instrument is like a companion and a lover.