Gil Shaham: My family are scientists. Most experiments fail
OrchestrasThe Israeli-American violinist gives a candid interview to our Prague partners Opera-Plus, discussing how he pitched himself against the the world’s best and what he learned from a background that was dedicated to science.
‘It’s important to always question everything,’ he says.
A splendid violin player and also a modest loveable person, much like his late father.
His smile says it all. Gil is one of the most sincere, communicative, warm, friendly, and gifted musicians I know. His ability to get inside the work he is performing and to add a sense of humanity to it is unique.
This is a wonderful interview and far too brief!
Before he died Thomas Edison said that he hadn’t failed, he merely found 10,000 things which didn’t work!
He became my favorite violinist when I heard him play as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra about 20 years ago. He played the second half of the concert sitting in the back row of the violins. I got to hear him again this year in Florida and he is still a wonderful talent.
“It’s important to always question everything”
Is it?
I had the same comment. I don’t know how this sentence was extrapolated from the context in the interview , and if this quote is (supposedly) related to science, given the title), but this is definitely not how science works.
You don’t have to question everything. There are things that are facts because we have an enormous number of proofs for it (the earth is sphere, for instance. And if someone believes the contrary, it is his problem, not the science’s).
It is true though that some (not most) experiments fail. Or rather, sometimes you don’t get the answer you expect. This is usually when you have to re-think your theory, and how science advances (the developmentof quantum theory was a race to find a theory that could explain an increasing number if experiments that didn’t fit with the old theory. Now is one of the most accurate theory mankind had produced). It is not necessarily a bad thing.
If this was the meaning of the sentence, then I agree.
Typical non scientific rubbish written of course using the even more stupid term “the science”!
.”the earth is sphere, for instance. And if someone believes the contrary, it is his problem, not the science’s”.
So much for your “facts”.
The earth as we all know very well is NOT a perfect sphere,-
It has a huge load of water being driven around the vast majority of its water baased surface by the gravitational pull of the moon, as well as by differences of atmospheric pressure.
So it’s a very off centre sphere, with all kinds of strange magnetic phenomena caused by the solar wind, and the never quite the same – magnetic poles (manifested of course by such phenomena as Aurora).
As for ““It’s important to always question everything”.
Totally right.
Great minds like Richard Feynman would heartily agree.
It was NOT questioning this so called “science” that introduced human error, such as the explosion of the space shuttle challenger booster on launch.
In music, it always made for boring predictable rubbish performance, with mediocrity and arrogance thrown in.
Gil Shaham is a legend in his own time, a warm and thoughtful person who loves to connect with people in word and deed. During his performance of the Taylor Coleridge Violin Concerto, Gil frequently visually collaborated with musicians in the orchestra seeking and giving inspiration. After, Gil graciously remained off stage to greet any and all for a kind word and to receive accolades and a photo with him: a man who in his own words “has much to be modest about”