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Probably a lot of you know
the story of the two salesmen

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who went down to Africa in the 1900s.

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They were sent down to find
if there was any opportunity

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for selling shoes,

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and they wrote telegrams
back to Manchester.

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And one of them wrote,

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"Situation hopeless. Stop.
They don't wear shoes."

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And the other one wrote,

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"Glorious opportunity.
They don't have any shoes yet."

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(Laughter)

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Now, there's a similar situation
in the classical music world,

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because there are some people who think
that classical music is dying.

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And there are some of us
who think you ain't seen nothing yet.

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And rather than go
into statistics and trends,

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and tell you about all the orchestras
that are closing,

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and the record companies that are folding,

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I thought we should do
an experiment tonight.

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Actually, it's not really an experiment,
because I know the outcome.

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(Laughter)

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But it's like an experiment.

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Now, before we start --

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(Laughter)

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Before we start, I need to do two things.

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One is I want to remind you
of what a seven-year-old child

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sounds like when he plays the piano.

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Maybe you have this child at home.

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He sounds something like this.

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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I see some of you recognize this child.

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Now, if he practices for a year
and takes lessons, he's now eight

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and he sounds like this.

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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He practices for another year
and takes lessons -- he's nine.

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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Then he practices for another year
and takes lessons -- now he's 10.

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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At that point, they usually give up.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Now, if you'd waited for one more year,
you would have heard this.

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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Now, what happened was not
maybe what you thought,

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which is, he suddenly
became passionate, engaged,

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involved, got a new teacher,
he hit puberty, or whatever it is.

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What actually happened
was the impulses were reduced.

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You see, the first time, he was playing
with an impulse on every note.

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(Music)

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And the second,
with an impulse every other note.

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(Music)

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You can see it by looking at my head.

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(Laughter)

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The nine-year-old put
an impulse on every four notes.

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(Music)

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The 10-year-old, on every eight notes.

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(Music)

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And the 11-year-old,
one impulse on the whole phrase.

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(Music)

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I don't know how
we got into this position.

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(Laughter)

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I didn't say, "I'm going to move
my shoulder over, move my body."

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No, the music pushed me over,

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which is why I call it
one-buttock playing.

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(Music)

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It can be the other buttock.

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(Music)

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You know, a gentleman was once
watching a presentation I was doing,

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when I was working with a young pianist.

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He was the president
of a corporation in Ohio.

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I was working with
this young pianist, and said,

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"The trouble with you
is you're a two-buttock player.

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You should be a one-buttock player."

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I moved his body while he was playing.

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And suddenly, the music took off.
It took flight.

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The audience gasped
when they heard the difference.

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Then I got a letter from this gentleman.

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He said, "I was so moved.

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I went back and I transformed
my entire company

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into a one-buttock company."

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(Laughter)

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Now, the other thing I wanted
to do is to tell you about you.

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There are 1,600 people, I believe.

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My estimation is that probably 45 of you

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are absolutely passionate
about classical music.

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You adore classical music.
Your FM is always on that classical dial.

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You have CDs in your car,
and you go to the symphony,

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your children are playing instruments.

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You can't imagine your life
without classical music.

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That's the first group, quite small.

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Then there's another bigger group.

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The people who don't mind classical music.

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(Laughter)

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You know, you've come home
from a long day,

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and you take a glass of wine,
and you put your feet up.

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A little Vivaldi in the background
doesn't do any harm.

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That's the second group.

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Now comes the third group:

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people who never listen
to classical music.

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It's just simply not part of your life.

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You might hear it like second-hand
smoke at the airport...

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(Laughter)

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-- and maybe a little bit
of a march from "Aida"

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when you come into the hall.

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But otherwise, you never hear it.

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That's probably the largest group.

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And then there's a very small group.

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These are the people
who think they're tone-deaf.

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Amazing number of people think
they're tone-deaf.

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Actually, I hear a lot,
"My husband is tone-deaf."

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(Laughter)

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Actually, you cannot be tone-deaf.

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Nobody is tone-deaf.

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If you were tone-deaf,
you couldn't change the gears

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on your car, in a stick shift car.

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You couldn't tell the difference between

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somebody from Texas
and somebody from Rome.

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And the telephone. The telephone.

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If your mother calls

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on the miserable telephone,
she calls and says, "Hello,"

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you not only know who it is,
you know what mood she's in.

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You have a fantastic ear.
Everybody has a fantastic ear.

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So nobody is tone-deaf.

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But I tell you what.

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It doesn't work for me
to go on with this thing,

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with such a wide gulf
between those who understand,

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love and are passionate
about classical music,

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and those who have
no relationship to it at all.

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The tone-deaf people,
they're no longer here.

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But even between those three categories,

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it's too wide a gulf.

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So I'm not going to go on
until every single person in this room,

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downstairs and in Aspen,
and everybody else looking,

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will come to love
and understand classical music.

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So that's what we're going to do.

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Now, you notice that there is not
the slightest doubt in my mind

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that this is going to work,
if you look at my face, right?

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It's one of the characteristics
of a leader that he not doubt

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for one moment the capacity
of the people he's leading

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to realize whatever he's dreaming.

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Imagine if Martin Luther King
had said, "I have a dream.

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Of course, I'm not sure
they'll be up to it."

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(Laughter)

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All right. So I'm going
to take a piece of Chopin.

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This is a beautiful prelude by Chopin.

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Some of you will know it.

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(Music)

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Do you know what I think
probably happened here?

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When I started, you thought,
"How beautiful that sounds."

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(Music)

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"I don't think we should
go to the same place

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for our summer holidays next year."

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(Laughter)

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It's funny, isn't it?

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It's funny how those thoughts
kind of waft into your head.

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And of course --

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(Applause)

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Of course, if the piece is long
and you've had a long day,

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you might actually drift off.

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Then your companion
will dig you in the ribs

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and say, "Wake up! It's culture!"
And then you feel even worse.

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(Laughter)

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But has it ever occurred to you
that the reason you feel sleepy

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in classical music is not
because of you, but because of us?

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Did anybody think while I was playing,

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"Why is he using so many impulses?"

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If I'd done this with my head you
certainly would have thought it.

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(Music)

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(Music ends)

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And for the rest of your life,
every time you hear classical music,

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you'll always be able to know
if you hear those impulses.

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So let's see what's really going on here.

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We have a B. This is a B.

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The next note is a C.

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And the job of the C is to make the B sad.

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And it does, doesn't it?

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(Laughter)

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Composers know that.

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If they want sad music,
they just play those two notes.

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(Music)

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But basically, it's just a B,
with four sads.

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(Laughter)

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Now, it goes down to A.

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Now to G.

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And then to F.

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So we have B, A, G, F.

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And if we have B, A, G, F,

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what do we expect next?

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(Music)

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That might have been a fluke.

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Let's try it again.

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(Music)

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Oh, the TED choir.

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(Laughter)

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And you notice nobody is tone-deaf, right?

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Nobody is.

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You know, every village in Bangladesh

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and every hamlet in China
-- everybody knows:

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da, da, da, da -- da.

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Everybody knows, who's expecting that E.

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Chopin didn't want to reach the E there,

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because what will have happened?

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It will be over, like Hamlet.
Do you remember?

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Act One, scene three,

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he finds out his uncle killed his father.

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He keeps on going up
to his uncle and almost killing him.

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And then he backs away,
he goes up to him again, almost kills him.

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The critics sitting in the back row there,

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they have to have an opinion,
so they say, "Hamlet is a procrastinator."

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Or they say, "Hamlet has
an Oedipus complex."

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No, otherwise the play
would be over, stupid.

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(Laughter)

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That's why Shakespeare puts
all that stuff in Hamlet --

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Ophelia going mad,
the play within the play,

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and Yorick's skull, and the gravediggers.

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That's in order to delay --

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until Act Five, he can kill him.

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It's the same with the Chopin.

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He's just about to reach the E,

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and he says, "Oops, better
go back up and do it again."

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So he does it again.

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Now, he gets excited.

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(Music)

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That's excitement, don't worry about it.

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Now, he gets to F-sharp,
and finally he goes down to E,

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but it's the wrong chord --

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because the chord
he's looking for is this one,

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and instead he does...

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Now, we call that a deceptive cadence,

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because it deceives us.

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I tell my students,
"If you have a deceptive cadence,

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raise your eyebrows,
and everybody will know."

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Right.

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He gets to E, but it's the wrong chord.

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Now, he tries E again.

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That chord doesn't work.

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Now, he tries the E again.
That chord doesn't work.

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Now, he tries E again,
and that doesn't work.

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And then finally...

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There was a gentleman
in the front row who went, "Mmm."

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(Laughter)

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It's the same gesture
he makes when he comes home

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after a long day, turns off
the key in his car and says,

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"Aah, I'm home."

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Because we all know where home is.

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So this is a piece which goes
from away to home.

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I'm going to play it all the way through
and you're going to follow.

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B, C, B, C, B, C, B --

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down to A, down to G, down to F.

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Almost goes to E, but otherwise
the play would be over.

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He goes back up to B,
he gets very excited.

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Goes to F-sharp. Goes to E.

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It's the wrong chord.
It's the wrong chord.

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And finally goes to E, and it's home.

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And what you're going to see
is one-buttock playing.

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(Laughter)

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00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:44.176
Because for me, to join the B to the E,

00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:50.119
I have to stop thinking
about every single note along the way,

00:11:50.143 --> 00:11:54.897
and start thinking about the long,
long line from B to E.

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00:11:55.508 --> 00:12:00.012
You know, we were just in South Africa,
and you can't go to South Africa

00:12:00.036 --> 00:12:02.632
without thinking of Mandela
in jail for 27 years.

00:12:03.323 --> 00:12:05.148
What was he thinking about? Lunch?

00:12:05.538 --> 00:12:08.976
No, he was thinking
about the vision for South Africa

00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:10.545
and for human beings.

00:12:10.569 --> 00:12:13.522
This is about vision.
This is about the long line.

00:12:13.546 --> 00:12:15.807
Like the bird who flies over the field

00:12:15.831 --> 00:12:19.573
and doesn't care about the fences
underneath, all right?

00:12:19.597 --> 00:12:22.692
So now, you're going to follow
the line all the way from B to E.

00:12:22.716 --> 00:12:26.065
And I've one last request before I play
this piece all the way through.

00:12:26.628 --> 00:12:30.447
Would you think of somebody who you adore,

00:12:30.471 --> 00:12:31.847
who's no longer there?

00:12:32.516 --> 00:12:34.876
A beloved grandmother, a lover --

00:12:34.900 --> 00:12:39.023
somebody in your life
who you love with all your heart,

00:12:39.047 --> 00:12:41.116
but that person is no longer with you.

00:12:42.262 --> 00:12:44.224
Bring that person into your mind,

00:12:44.248 --> 00:12:46.225
and at the same time,

00:12:46.249 --> 00:12:49.707
follow the line all the way from B to E,

00:12:49.731 --> 00:12:52.789
and you'll hear everything
that Chopin had to say.

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00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:01.360
(Music)

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00:14:45.079 --> 00:14:46.561
(Music ends)

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00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:51.000
(Applause)

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00:14:56.522 --> 00:14:58.516
Now, you may be wondering --

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00:14:58.540 --> 00:15:01.540
(Applause)

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00:15:03.819 --> 00:15:04.820
(Applause ends)

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00:15:04.844 --> 00:15:06.733
You may be wondering why I'm clapping.

00:15:06.757 --> 00:15:08.671
Well, I did this at a school in Boston

00:15:08.695 --> 00:15:11.892
with about 70 seventh
graders, 12-year-olds.

00:15:12.479 --> 00:15:14.253
I did exactly what I did with you,

00:15:14.277 --> 00:15:16.134
and I explained the whole thing.

00:15:16.158 --> 00:15:17.976
At the end, they went crazy, clapping.

00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:19.786
I was clapping. They were clapping.

00:15:19.810 --> 00:15:21.668
Finally, I said, "Why am I clapping?"

00:15:21.692 --> 00:15:24.026
And one of them said,
"Because we were listening."

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00:15:24.050 --> 00:15:27.976
(Laughter)

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00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.194
Think of it. 1,600 people, busy people,

00:15:31.218 --> 00:15:33.558
involved in all sorts of different things,

00:15:33.582 --> 00:15:37.407
listening, understanding and being moved

00:15:37.431 --> 00:15:38.748
by a piece by Chopin.

00:15:39.511 --> 00:15:40.757
Now, that is something.

00:15:40.781 --> 00:15:43.488
Am I sure that every single
person followed that,

00:15:43.512 --> 00:15:45.107
understood it, was moved by it?

00:15:45.131 --> 00:15:46.432
Of course, I can't be sure.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:46.456 --> 00:15:48.717
But I'll tell you what happened
to me in Ireland

00:15:48.741 --> 00:15:50.392
during the Troubles, 10 years ago,

00:15:50.416 --> 00:15:53.341
and I was working with some Catholic
and Protestant kids

00:15:53.365 --> 00:15:55.796
on conflict resolution.

00:15:55.820 --> 00:15:57.502
And I did this with them --

00:15:57.526 --> 00:16:00.009
a risky thing to do,
because they were street kids.

00:16:00.976 --> 00:16:03.465
And one of them came to me
the next morning

00:16:03.489 --> 00:16:04.490
and he said,

00:16:04.514 --> 00:16:07.387
"You know, I've never listened
to classical music in my life,

00:16:07.411 --> 00:16:09.420
but when you played
that shopping piece..."

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:09.444 --> 00:16:11.514
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:11.538 --> 00:16:15.000
He said, "My brother was shot last year
and I didn't cry for him.

00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:17.783
But last night,
when you played that piece,

00:16:17.807 --> 00:16:19.621
he was the one I was thinking about.

00:16:20.512 --> 00:16:22.580
And I felt the tears
streaming down my face.

00:16:22.604 --> 00:16:25.133
And it felt really
good to cry for my brother."

00:16:25.726 --> 00:16:28.182
So I made up my mind at that moment

00:16:28.206 --> 00:16:32.063
that classical music is for everybody.

00:16:32.911 --> 00:16:34.079
Everybody.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.497
Now, how would you walk --

00:16:37.521 --> 00:16:41.330
my profession, the music profession
doesn't see it that way.

00:16:41.774 --> 00:16:44.989
They say three percent of the population
likes classical music.

00:16:45.013 --> 00:16:48.267
If only we could move it to four percent,
our problems would be over.

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00:16:48.291 --> 00:16:49.330
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:49.354 --> 00:16:52.980
How would you walk?
How would you talk? How would you be?

00:16:53.004 --> 00:16:56.339
If you thought, "Three percent
of the population likes classical music,

00:16:56.363 --> 00:16:58.363
if only we could move it to four percent."

00:16:58.387 --> 00:17:00.504
How would you walk or talk?
How would you be?

00:17:00.528 --> 00:17:02.963
If you thought, "Everybody
loves classical music --

00:17:02.987 --> 00:17:04.998
they just haven't found out about it yet."

00:17:05.403 --> 00:17:07.990
See, these are totally different worlds.

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00:17:08.387 --> 00:17:10.662
Now, I had an amazing experience.

00:17:10.686 --> 00:17:11.928
I was 45 years old,

00:17:11.952 --> 00:17:13.735
I'd been conducting for 20 years,

00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:15.959
and I suddenly had a realization.

00:17:16.770 --> 00:17:19.613
The conductor of an orchestra
doesn't make a sound.

00:17:20.478 --> 00:17:22.835
My picture appears
on the front of the CD --

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00:17:22.859 --> 00:17:25.761
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:25.785 --> 00:17:27.786
But the conductor doesn't make a sound.

00:17:27.810 --> 00:17:29.633
He depends, for his power,

00:17:29.657 --> 00:17:32.509
on his ability to make
other people powerful.

00:17:33.485 --> 00:17:35.389
And that changed everything for me.

00:17:35.413 --> 00:17:37.146
It was totally life-changing.

00:17:37.170 --> 00:17:38.683
People in my orchestra said,

00:17:38.707 --> 00:17:40.939
"Ben, what happened?"
That's what happened.

00:17:40.963 --> 00:17:45.663
I realized my job was to awaken
possibility in other people.

00:17:46.693 --> 00:17:49.402
And of course, I wanted to know
whether I was doing that.

00:17:49.426 --> 00:17:50.615
How do you find out?

00:17:50.639 --> 00:17:51.950
You look at their eyes.

00:17:51.974 --> 00:17:54.926
If their eyes are shining,
you know you're doing it.

00:17:55.873 --> 00:17:58.236
You could light up a village
with this guy's eyes.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:58.260 --> 00:17:59.276
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:59.300 --> 00:18:02.549
Right. So if the eyes are shining,
you know you're doing it.

00:18:02.573 --> 00:18:05.261
If the eyes are not shining,
you get to ask a question.

00:18:05.285 --> 00:18:06.691
And this is the question:

00:18:06.715 --> 00:18:09.279
who am I being

00:18:09.303 --> 00:18:11.572
that my players' eyes are not shining?

00:18:11.596 --> 00:18:13.453
We can do that with our children, too.

00:18:13.477 --> 00:18:16.349
Who am I being,

00:18:16.373 --> 00:18:18.539
that my children's eyes are not shining?

00:18:19.063 --> 00:18:21.182
That's a totally different world.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:21.475 --> 00:18:26.540
Now, we're all about to end
this magical, on-the-mountain week,

00:18:26.564 --> 00:18:28.300
we're going back into the world.

00:18:28.835 --> 00:18:32.580
And I say, it's appropriate
for us to ask the question,

00:18:32.604 --> 00:18:36.877
who are we being as we go back
out into the world?

00:18:37.571 --> 00:18:39.921
And you know, I have
a definition of success.

00:18:39.945 --> 00:18:41.181
For me, it's very simple.

00:18:41.205 --> 00:18:43.211
It's not about wealth and fame and power.

00:18:43.235 --> 00:18:45.664
It's about how many shining eyes
I have around me.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:46.214 --> 00:18:48.574
So now, I have one last thought,

00:18:48.598 --> 00:18:52.930
which is that it really makes
a difference what we say --

00:18:52.954 --> 00:18:54.747
the words that come out of our mouth.

00:18:55.509 --> 00:18:58.281
I learned this from a woman
who survived Auschwitz,

00:18:58.305 --> 00:18:59.773
one of the rare survivors.

00:18:59.797 --> 00:19:02.694
She went to Auschwitz
when she was 15 years old.

00:19:04.003 --> 00:19:05.066
And...

00:19:06.991 --> 00:19:09.007
And her brother was eight,

00:19:09.031 --> 00:19:10.764
and the parents were lost.

00:19:11.784 --> 00:19:16.152
And she told me this, she said,

00:19:16.176 --> 00:19:18.628
"We were in the train going to Auschwitz,

00:19:18.652 --> 00:19:21.525
and I looked down and saw
my brother's shoes were missing.

00:19:22.095 --> 00:19:25.405
I said, 'Why are you so stupid,
can't you keep your things together

00:19:25.429 --> 00:19:26.447
for goodness' sake?'"

00:19:26.471 --> 00:19:29.138
The way an elder sister might speak
to a younger brother.

00:19:31.285 --> 00:19:34.000
Unfortunately, it was the last
thing she ever said to him,

00:19:34.024 --> 00:19:35.548
because she never saw him again.

00:19:35.572 --> 00:19:36.839
He did not survive.

00:19:37.372 --> 00:19:39.897
And so when she came out
of Auschwitz, she made a vow.

00:19:40.228 --> 00:19:41.458
She told me this.

00:19:41.482 --> 00:19:44.902
She said, "I walked out
of Auschwitz into life

00:19:44.926 --> 00:19:46.309
and I made a vow.

00:19:46.705 --> 00:19:47.933
And the vow was,

00:19:47.957 --> 00:19:53.095
"I will never say anything that couldn't
stand as the last thing I ever say."

00:19:54.573 --> 00:19:56.170
Now, can we do that? No.

00:19:56.194 --> 00:19:59.050
And we'll make ourselves wrong
and others wrong.

00:20:00.177 --> 00:20:02.594
But it is a possibility to live into.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:03.621 --> 00:20:04.621
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:04.935 --> 00:20:07.935
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:11.479 --> 00:20:12.895
Shining eyes.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:12.919 --> 00:20:14.336
(Applause)

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00:20:14.360 --> 00:20:15.736
Shining eyes.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:15.760 --> 00:20:18.760
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:24.468
Thank you, thank you.