Author(s): Bob Wiseman

Music

Music Lessons is a collection of thoughts on the link between music and daily tasks. Each entry is unique and compellingly written but there are some loose themes sustained throughout, such as improvisational music, life lessons, and conflict. The writing is intriguing, accessible, and inspiring.Bob Wiseman believes most things in life are universal, or, as his friend Joe once said, everything is everything. Bearing in mind this fortune cookie advice, Wiseman writes about finding the link between music and daily tasks, like teaching a five-year-old Twinkle, Twinkle and doing the dishes each night. Bob writes daily, the way someone else might practice scales; although his sense of the instrument and the musician has changed over the years, Bob adheres to doing exercises that have wider connections than whether the strings are in tune. Each entry is unique and compellingly written, but the themes throughout — on improvisational music, life lessons, and conflict — are ubiquitous.'Wiseman's bite-size anecdotes, koans, allegories and highly stylish fragments, torn either from his memoirs or the pages of user manuals for unknown appliances, are super-smart, hilarious, highly addictive and persistent in their insistence on lingering in the reader's mind long after first encounter! Bravo, Bob!' — Guy Maddin, filmmaker