EVERY PART MATTERS
The poet and musician Sidney Lanier was a flutist of extraordinary skill and played in the Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore. One day as the orchestra was rehearsing and the symphony was building up under the baton of the conductor to the grand crescendo with drums, clappers, horns, trumpets and at a full organ, a whimsical thought impishly entered the youthful mind of Lanier. Within himself he said, “What difference does my little flute make with its tiny music in the midst of this thundering roar? Even if I should stop, my playing would never be missed.” Still holding the flute at his lips, he ceased to blow or to play his part. Instantly, quick as a steel trap, the conductor banged his baton angrily, halted the music, pointed directly at Lanier, and said, “Where is the flute?” Lanier had not counted on the sensitivity of the conductor to the music of the smallest instrument and his instant awareness that it was…
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