“The more perfect something is, the less it can be loved -- like a face, a body, voice, tone, color, or music itself. In playing a piece, don't strive for perfection: it will kill the piece in that it will prevent it from entering the emotions. That's the kind of advice you can't do anything with except perhaps later, when you don't even know you're doing it. It's part of the freeze of counterpoint.'
'I've never heard that expression,' she said.
'Stasis may be a better word -- the liberation of the space between two contradictions. Let me explain if I can. If two waves of equal but opposite amplitude meet in water, what do you get'
'Flat water.'
'In sound?'
'Silence.'
'Right. From agitation, peace, a perfection that you might have thought unobtainable from the clash of contradictory elements.'
'I think you've explained the magic of counterpoint very well.'
'Not really. It's inexplicable. I've noted it, that's all. Half of humanity's troubles arise from the inability to see that contradictory propositions can be valid simultaneously.”