What really counts . . .

A friend quoted Einstein to me this week:  "Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts."  I've been hanging on to that thought:  we often get caught up in the immediate, the things that seem to demand our attention, the things the are often only distractions from the very best things.  In music, we have the same temptations.  Yes, the notes and the rhythms count (pun intended), but music is not notes, and the notes are not always music.  Music comes from the heart, from our inner spiritual beings, from the place inside us where words don't always exist.  I pray that we as music educators will never lose sight of that.