Walking through the Bryant Park subway station in New York City, I noticed a two thousand year old quote from the Roman poet Ovid inscribed in Latin along the tiles of the wall: Gutta cavat lapidem — dripping water hollows out a stone. Imperceptibly, through its quiet persistence, water does the seemingly impossible. The same could be said for music — just like a single drop of water, a musical note is powerless on its own, nothing but humble vibrations in the air, but taken together a flow of these musical water drops transforms into something that has the power to move us and change how we view the world.
