David Michael Wolff pianist ~ conductor
Zenand theArt
ofMusic
A Musician’s Guide to
Mastering the Flow of Musical Energy
DavidMichaelWolff
Introduction
Ever since I first read Zen in the Art of Archery twelve years ago, whenever I’m in a bookstore I invariably wander over to the Eastern Philosophy section and check to see if Zen and the Art of Music has come out yet. It amazes me that after more than half a century since Herrigel’s Modern Zen Masterpiece first appeared, still no author has taken up the challenge. I’ve been longing to read it for such a long time! Finally I realized that if I’m going to read it any time soon, I’d better get started writing. So here we are . . .
Most of the ideas to be presented in Zen and the Art of Music are also included in Zen and the Art of Piano (www.ZENandtheARTofPIANO.com). But I lamented that my first Zen work (as yet unpublished) was so directed toward trained pianists that for non-pianists and even some amateur pianists, it would take a bit of effort to sift through the advanced pianistic arguments and find the core of the purely musical and Zen-related material. So I decided, following the brevity and simplicity of Herrigel’s example, to write a shorter, more compact volume that would be easily accessible to all musicians.
Excerpts from Zen and the Art of Music will be posted to this site in the coming weeks. In the meantime, excerpts from Zen and the Art of Piano are posted at www.ZENandtheARTofPIANO.com. 
Thanks for reading!