A Parable of the Violinist

• Even when I’m old and they send me off to retirement, I’ll keep playing - he used to say.

He was offered various promotions — he could have become a conductor, a director of the philharmonic — but he turned down every offer except those that involved playing his instrument. And so he always played first violin and was perfectly suited for the role. When asked where he saw himself in ten years, he would reply that he already had everything he wanted and was doing what he wanted to do; the only thing he dreamed of was doing it better.

At some point, a trend emerged for recording and reproducing music. The market was flooded with people who mixed other people’s work, calling themselves artists and even violinists, though they rarely held an instrument in their hands. They created beautiful pieces, drawing among other things on the music of our violinist, whom fewer and fewer people wanted to listen to, as they indulged in the works of those who, despite lacking the ability to play any instrument, called themselves specialists — just of a different kind.

• Nowadays it doesn’t matter whether you play the violin or the piano; what counts are skills of a different sort - they would say, pointing their finger at the violinist - those who failed to evolve get left behind and have only themselves to blame. This is where laziness and lack of ambition lead.

After some time, the violinist put away his instrument, because no one wanted to listen to his works anymore. People still listened to music, of course, but only to what was replayed and remixed from what the old musicians had created. Our hero decided to start mixing himself. He did it well, because he loved music and understood it far better than the self-taught vibe-musicians. Nevertheless, he never touched the violin again.

However, this story was not about a violinist, and not about a music.