Introduction to 'The Pulse of Music'

Abstract

Some twenty years ago, I attended a seminar given by Dr. John Diamond, the first he ever gave in my home country, the Netherlands, and the first of many seminars of his I have attended since. It was an amazing weekend, not so much because of the seminar itself, although there were many very fine professional musicians present and Dr. Diamond worked with them in some truly remarkable ways. But the most remarkable thing was that, as I came home and sat down to play the piano, nearly every piece I had been working on was much, much easier than it had ever been before. I was puzzled, because some of these pieces I had been working on for a long time and there were quite a few very tricky passages that I had not been able to put together, no matter how much I practiced them. But that one evening, everything flowed effortlessly. I realized that this must have been due to what Dr. Diamond had been teaching - what he called the Life Energy in Music. He had explained that Life Energy was the vital force that runs through our body and which can either be flowing freely or blocked by the stresses in life. ... Expanding on information that those familiar with the previous volumes in the 'Life Energy in Music' series will recognize, Dr. Diamond discusses all kinds of obstacles that keep the Life Energy in music from flowing freely and easily. In a time where so many people talk about the therapeutic power of music, Dr. Diamond is one of the very few who are able to exactly pinpoint so many of these problems and discuss them in everyday language. But he doesn't just describe the problems; he also offers the reader ways to overcome them: often simple exercises, sometimes involving deeper mental, or better, heart work. Again, in addition to all this technical information, the book itself is written with the very purpose of raising your Life Energy as you are reading it.