The Power of Song

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Lyrics is by far the most powerful medium we have and a great song is to my mind without questionnaire exception the highest art form that human beings have. What we seek in art is this tension between technical virtuosity on the one hand and signs of the individual vibration, the idiosyncratic vibration of an individual. Jimi Hendrix was a hugely virtuosic adept blues guitarist but it was only when he discovered the power of amplifier distortion that he becameJimi Hendrix. We love people who can hit every note perfectly because we immediately identify with their unique voice. The thing I do about writing music's not just about physical performance, It's also about the thing I doabout writing

A few years ago, Adam Gopnik, a longtime writer for The New Yorker and three-time winner of the National Magazine Award, started thinking about all the things he wasn't good at. He couldn't dance the foxtrot or bake a brioche. Well into his 50s, he still had no idea how to drive a car. To make matters worse, when he looked around, he saw people who could do these things — often with great skill. How, he wondered, did they do it? How do any of us get good at the things we're good at? And how do some of us become next-level masters? To answer those questions, Adam set out to master the skills he lacked, and he has written up the results in a profound little book, "The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery."