TED2010
Robert Gupta: Music is medicine, music is sanity
Robert Gupta: la musica è medicina, la musica è benessere
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Robert Gupta, violinista della Philarmonic Orchestra di Los Angeles, parla di una lezione che una volta impartì ad un brillante musicista affetto da schizofrenia -- e di cosa apprese. In seguito, richiamato sul palcoscenico, Gupta suona la sua personale trascrizione del preludio tratto dalla suite per violoncello No. 1 di Bach.
Robert Gupta - Violinist
Violinist Robert Gupta joined the LA Philharmonic at the age of 19 -- and maintains a passionate parallel interest in neurobiology and mental health issues. He's a TED Senior Fellow. Full bio
Violinist Robert Gupta joined the LA Philharmonic at the age of 19 -- and maintains a passionate parallel interest in neurobiology and mental health issues. He's a TED Senior Fellow. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
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One day, Los Angeles Times columnist
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Un giorno, il cronista del Los Angeles Times
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Steve Lopez was walking along
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Steve Lopez stava passeggiando
00:20
the streets of downtown Los Angeles
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per le strade del centro di Los Angeles
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when he heard beautiful music.
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quando sentì una musica bellissima.
00:25
And the source was a man,
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Essa proveniva da un uomo,
00:27
an African-American man,
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un uomo afro-americano,
00:29
charming, rugged, homeless,
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affascinante, con i tratti marcati, senza dimora,
00:33
playing a violin that only had two strings.
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che suonava un violino che aveva solamente due corde.
00:36
And I'm telling a story that many of you know,
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Sto raccontando una storia che molti di voi conoscono,
00:38
because Steve's columns became the basis
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perché gli articoli di Steve servirono da base
00:41
for a book, which was turned into a movie,
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per la cstesura di un libro, che, in seguito, venne adattato al grande schermo,
00:44
with Robert Downey Jr. acting as Steve Lopez,
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con Robert Downey Jr che interpretava la parte di Steve Lopez,
00:46
and Jamie Foxx as Nathaniel Anthony Ayers,
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e Jamie Foxx nella parte di Nathaniel Anthony Ayers,
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the Juilliard-trained double bassist
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il contrabbassista formatosi alla Juilliard
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whose promising career was cut short
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la cui promettente carriera fu interrotta
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by a tragic affliction with paranoid schizophrenia.
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a causa della schizofrenia paranoide della quale era tragicamente affetto.
00:58
Nathaniel dropped out of Juilliard, he suffered a complete breakdown,
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Nathaniel lasciò la Juilliard, ebbe un terribile esaurimento nervoso,
01:00
and 30 years later he was living homeless
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e 30 anni più tardi viveva come un senza tetto
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on the streets of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
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per le strade di Skid Row nel centro di Los Angeles.
01:06
I encourage all of you to read Steve's book or to watch the movie
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Invito tutti voi a leggere il libro di Steve oppure a guardare il film
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to understand not only the beautiful bond
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per capire non solo il bellissimo legame
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that formed between these two men,
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che si creò tra questi due uomini,
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but how music helped shape that bond,
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01:17
and ultimately was instrumental -- if you'll pardon the pun --
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01:20
in helping Nathaniel get off the streets.
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01:24
I met Mr. Ayers in 2008,
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two years ago, at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
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01:28
He had just heard a performance of Beethoven's First and Fourth symphonies,
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01:31
and came backstage and introduced himself.
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01:33
He was speaking in a very jovial and gregarious way
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01:36
about Yo-Yo Ma and Hillary Clinton
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01:39
and how the Dodgers were never going to make the World Series,
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01:41
all because of the treacherous first violin passage work
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01:44
in the last movement of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony.
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01:48
And we got talking about music, and I got an email from Steve a few days later
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01:52
saying that Nathaniel was interested in a violin lesson with me.
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01:56
Now, I should mention that Nathaniel refuses treatment
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01:59
because when he was treated it was with shock therapy
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02:02
and Thorazine and handcuffs,
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and that scar has stayed with him for his entire life.
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But as a result now, he is prone to
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these schizophrenic episodes,
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02:12
the worst of which can manifest themselves as
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him exploding
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02:16
and then disappearing for days,
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wandering the streets of Skid Row,
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02:20
exposed to its horrors, with the torment of his own mind
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02:24
unleashed upon him.
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02:26
And Nathaniel was in such a state of agitation
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02:29
when we started our first lesson at Walt Disney Concert Hall --
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02:32
he had a kind of manic glint in his eyes,
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02:35
he was lost.
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02:37
And he was talking about
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02:39
invisible demons and smoke,
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02:41
and how someone was poisoning him in his sleep.
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02:45
And I was afraid,
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02:47
not for myself, but I was afraid
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that I was going to lose him,
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02:52
that he was going to sink into one of his states,
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02:54
and that I would ruin his relationship with the violin
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02:57
if I started talking about scales
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02:59
and arpeggios and other exciting forms of
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didactic violin pedagogy.
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03:03
(Laughter)
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So, I just started playing.
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03:07
And I played the first movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto.
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03:11
And as I played,
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03:13
I understood that there was a profound change
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03:16
occurring in Nathaniel's eyes.
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It was as if he was in the grip of some invisible pharmaceutical,
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03:21
a chemical reaction, for which my playing the music
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was its catalyst.
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03:28
And Nathaniel's manic rage
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03:32
was transformed into understanding,
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03:36
a quiet curiosity and grace.
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03:41
And in a miracle, he lifted his own violin
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03:44
and he started playing, by ear,
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03:47
certain snippets of violin concertos
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03:49
which he then asked me to complete -- Mendelssohn,
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03:51
Tchaikovsky, Sibelius.
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03:53
And we started talking about music, from Bach
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03:55
to Beethoven and Brahms,
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03:57
Bruckner, all the B's,
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03:59
from Bartók, all the way up to Esa-Pekka Salonen.
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04:01
And I understood that he not only
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04:03
had an encyclopedic knowledge of music,
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04:05
but he related to this music at a personal level.
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04:09
He spoke about it with the kind of passion
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04:11
and understanding that I share with my colleagues
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04:13
in the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
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04:16
And through playing music and talking about music,
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04:19
this man had transformed
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04:21
from the paranoid, disturbed man
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04:24
that had just come from walking the streets
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of downtown Los Angeles
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04:28
to the charming, erudite,
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brilliant, Juilliard-trained musician.
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04:34
Music is medicine. Music changes us.
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04:39
And for Nathaniel, music is sanity.
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04:43
Because music allows him to take his thoughts
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04:45
and delusions and shape them
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04:48
through his imagination and his creativity,
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04:50
into reality.
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04:52
And that is an escape
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04:54
from his tormented state.
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04:56
And I understood that this was the very essence of art.
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04:59
This was the very reason why we made music,
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05:01
that we take something that exists within all of us
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05:03
at our very fundamental core,
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our emotions,
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05:07
and through our artistic lens,
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05:09
through our creativity, we're able to shape those emotions into reality.
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05:14
And the reality of that expression
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05:16
reaches all of us
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05:18
and moves us, inspires and unites us.
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05:23
And for Nathaniel,
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05:25
music brought him back into a fold of friends.
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05:28
The redemptive power of music brought him back
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into a family of musicians
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05:32
that understood him,
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05:34
that recognized his talents
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05:36
and respected him.
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05:39
And I will always make music with Nathaniel,
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05:42
whether we're at Walt Disney Concert Hall
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05:44
or on Skid Row, because he reminds me
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05:46
why I became a musician.
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05:49
Thank you.
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05:51
(Applause)
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Bruno Giussani: Thank you. Thanks.
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06:01
Robert Gupta.
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06:03
(Applause)
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06:22
Robert Gupta: I'm going to play something that I shamelessly stole from cellists.
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06:25
So, please forgive me.
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06:27
(Laughter)
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06:28
(Music)
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09:13
(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Robert Gupta - ViolinistViolinist Robert Gupta joined the LA Philharmonic at the age of 19 -- and maintains a passionate parallel interest in neurobiology and mental health issues. He's a TED Senior Fellow.
Why you should listen
Violinist Robert Vijay Gupta joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of 19. He made his solo debut, at age 11, with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. He has a Master's in music from Yale. But his undergraduate degree? Pre-med. As an undergrad, Gupta was part of several research projects in neuro- and neurodegenerative biology. He held Research Assistant positions at CUNY Hunter College in New York City, where he worked on spinal cord neuronal regeneration, and at the Harvard Institutes of Medicine Center for Neurologic Diseases, where he studied the biochemical pathology of Parkinson's disease.
Gupta is passionate about education and outreach, both as a musician and as an activist for mental health issues. He has the privilege of working with Nathaniel Ayers, the brilliant, schizophrenic musician featured in "The Soloist," as his violin teacher.
Robert Gupta | Speaker | TED.com