Dan Jacobs: Writings

GREAT QUOTE:
This quote is from a friend of mine and marvelous sax player in Los Angeles. Also check out his website!
- Dan Jacobs

"I think one of the greatest aspects of being a musician is that we come so very close to understanding the effect of intentionally "practicing" something over our lifetime. We have proven to ourselves that we do indeed get better at anything we practice, and given enough time we can learn to play any passage like it was our own. The self-esteem from that idea alone can give our lives great purpose.

I believe perfection is attainable, but only momentarily."

Gary Gould, 25 August 2005
Jazz Saxophone / Klezmer Clarinet / Irish Penny Whistle
Hear the music at www.garygould.com

"if you knew who I really was, would you still like me?" - Billy Brown

QUOTE: BEGIN IT NOW!
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

NOTE: WILL ROGERS, was probably the greatest political sage this country has ever known. The following are some of my favorite quotes by him.

There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.

QUOTE ON PERFECTION
by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

NOTE: This magnificent poem was sent to me by one of my favorite relatives, my Aunt Virginia. She is as active, alive and wise beyond her years . . . (though I won't say how many, there are a couple of great photos of her in the photo section of this site). She continues to enrich the lives of anyone lucky enough to know her!!! She told me the story of how her father, my grandfather, Seth Jacobs, writer, newspaper editor and free-thinker,  read this poem to her and her brother, my father Wilbur Jacobs, when they were young children.

So, that's the "back story" on this poem. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

- Dan Jacobs


POEM: "IF"

A poem by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

"When you've ehausted all possibilities, remember this - - - you haven't. - Thomas Edison

"Never underestimate the power
of stupid people in large numbers"

Billy Brown

LANCE ARMSTRONG QUOTE

(editors note: I love this quote as I've thought the same things in my life, no matter what activity I'm involved in . . . but especially in music!)

"What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potenial
embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint. I was discovering that if it
was a matter of gritting my teeth, not caring how it looked, and outlasting
everybody else, I won. It didn't seem to matter what sport it was--in a
straight-ahead, long-distant race, I could beat anybody. If it was a
suffer-fest, I was good at it."
- Lance Armstrong, My Journey back to Life

QUOTE: ON ART by Myrna Jacobs, photographer

"I think each of us is always juggling the technical with the art... even the best of us. Our choices are what makes it art."
myrnajacobsphotography.com

QUOTE: by George Eliot

"It is never to late to be the person you were always meant to be."
- George Eliot, 19th Century Novelist

QUOTE: FROM CHARLIE PARKER

"Learn everthing you can about music, then forget everything you've heard."

MUSIC IS SACRED

It doesn't matter where you are in this world. Don't expect things to come to you. You have the ability to make things happen yourself'. Don't allow money and fame to motivate your music, because music is sacred.

"Because the artist deals in future realities, he always seeks improvements or changes in the existing reality. This makes the artist, inevitably and invariably, a rebel against the status quo. The artist, day by day, by postulating the new realities of the future, accomplishes peaceful revolution." -- L. Ron Hubbard

“I allow my audience an all-access backstage pass to what’s going on in here” (indicating his head).

"Wrong notes are of no consequence. To play without passion is inexcusable."
Ludwig van Beethoven

John Lewis’ definition of jazz—a delicate balance between art and entertainment.

Writing is an inherently introspective act. Keep it up! It's not about jazz, or music, or writing, or photography, or --- it's about creativity!

And the reason your writing is effective is because everything you write focuses upon the point you are making. There are no superfluous words.

In the training in writing I have received from several sources this has always been the primary lesson -- make each word count -- just like in music -- make every note count.

Larry's playing is partly the result of my pounding this lesson down his throat until he has internalized it.

He used to fill up space with useless notes, whereas now he leaves space.
Yo --

"You know that people keep talking about the universal solvent. You know the universal solvent is something you couldn't even keep in a bucket. And the reason you couldn't keep this in a bucket is, it'd go through the bucket and if it hit the ground it'd go through the planet. Universal solvent would eventually eat up the whole universe. And there have been a lot of stories about the universal solvent.

"Well, we had to discover it here, I'm sorry to say. It happens to be
admiration."

— L. Ron Hubbard

"What a true friend does: for one thing they stand up for one, give him
counsel, they help him in adversity, they safeguard his reputation, won't
hear ill of him, share his triumphs, ignore his faults." LRH

"...And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~Anaïs Nin~

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Ayn Rand

“Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been erected to a critic.”

Jean Sibelius
Finnish Composer

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us.

We ask ourselves 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?'

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson
From her book Return To Love

(note: this quote is often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela)