The story is told of a great violinist who owned the most valuable violin in the world. Once, during the course of a superb concert performance, he suddenly smashed his violin over a chair again and again, breaking it into little pieces. The audience was stunned. The master quickly relieved their anxiety, saying, “Don’t be alarmed. The violin I smashed was not my priceless Stradivarius. It was a cheap instrument, worth only a few dollars. Now I shall play my Stradivarius.” Whereupon, he played the same selection he had just finished on the other violin. Surprisingly, most people in the audience couldn’t tell the difference. Then the violinist said, “So much has been said about the monetary value of my beautiful Stradivarius that I wanted to demonstrate the fact that the music is not in the instrument. The music is in the one who plays it.”
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