New Year 2013

I resolve to not let pet peeves and pettiness penetrate my peace.

It’s customary to make New Year’s Resolutions, although I do not rigidly follow customs, I do make it a habit to assess and improve myself. It may be in small, insignificant ways at times, but step by step I take the journey to self-mastery.

This day I reminded myself that pet peeves and pettiness are often robbers and thieves of the peace train. So I made the conscious decision to not let pet peeves and pettiness penetrate my peace. I Am Being Well and Joyful In Grace and Gratitude.

Below is an introduction to a TED speaker who is extraordinary, articulate, gifted, passionate — truly inspirational. I highly recommend you watch and experience this remarkable event, Evelyn Glennie’s TED talk: How to truly listen, Posted Apr 2007. Scroll to the bottom to watch the video.

In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums.

Evelyn Glennie

Musician

Percussionist and composer Dame Evelyn Glennie lost nearly all of her hearing by age 12. Rather than isolating her, it has given her a unique connection to her music.

Why you should listen

Dame Evelyn Glennie’s music challenges the listener to ask where music comes from: Is it more than simply a translation from score to instrument to audience?

The Grammy-winning percussionist and composer became almost completely deaf by the age of 12, but her hearing loss brought her a deeper understanding of and connection to the music she loves. She’s the subject of the documentary Touch the Sound, which explores this unconventional and intriguing approach to percussion.

Along with her vibrant solo career, Glennie has collaborated with musicians ranging from classical orchestras to Björk. Her career has taken her to hundreds of concert stages around the world, and she’s recorded a dozen albums, winning a Grammy for her recording of Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion,and another for her 2002 collaboration with Bela Fleck.

Her passion for music and musical literacy brought her to establish, in collaboration with fellow musicians Julian Lloyd Weber and Sir James Galway, the Music Education Consortium, which successfully lobbied for an investment of 332 million pounds in music education and musical resources in Britain.