After the performance, another student who went on to a career as a professional opera singer in Vienna came up to me and said, Linford, what was that? It was like the whole room changed. Did you feel it? I could feel the music on my skin.
Linford Detweiler, Over the Rhine #
I wasn’t sure what to do with that feedback at the time, but I thanked him. And yes, I have come to believe that when you put certain musicians together there can be a chemistry — a sort of chemical reaction — that people can feel on their skin. Music can make the body begin to change in real time.
I heard it on my skin, the time you began to play your piano, head down, nobody but a crowd milling about the room. My friend turned, his tingling skin lighting up his eyes with water. Where did the music come from, a well so deep we could feel it in our toes and rising.
A quiet pool
Reflection of
Music on the skin