The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

by Mitch Albom

I am also sweet and calming and dissonant and angry and difficult and simple, as soothing as poured sand, as piercing as a pinprick. I am Music. And I am here for the soul of Frankie Presto. Not all of it. Just the rather large part he took from me when he came into this world. However well used, I am a loan, not a possession. You give me back upon departure. I will gather up Frankie’s talent to spread on newborn souls. And I will do the same with yours one day. There is a reason you glance up when you first hear a melody, or tap your foot to the sound of a drum. All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?

I will share a secret: this is how talents are bestowed. Before newborns open their eyes, we circle them, appearing as brilliant colors, and when they clench their tiny hands for the first time, they are actually grabbing the colors they find most appealing. Those talents are with them for life. The lucky ones (well, in my opinion, the lucky ones) choose me. Music. From that point on, I live inside your every hum and whistle, every pluck of a string or plink of a piano key. I cannot keep you alive. I lack such power. But I infuse you.

But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.

I am not one of the “slower” talents, like Reason or Mathematics. I am Music. If I bless you singing, you can do so from your first attempt. Composing? My best phrases often lie in the opening notes.

But everyone joins a band in this life. Only some of them play music.

in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up—through distance, differences, divorce, or death.

One must indeed test the strings in this life, bounce the bow, wet the mouthpiece, prepare for the deeper music that follows.

It is not just humans who are musical. Animals, too. This should be obvious in the thousands of birdsongs I have spawned, or the clicking of dolphins, or the moaning of humpback whales. Animals not only make music, they hear it

Sometimes I think the greatest talent of all is perseverance. But only sometimes.

The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain, you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. And you are never the same.

TALENT IS A PIECE OF GOD’S SHADOW. AND UNDER THAT SHADOW, HUMAN STORIES INTERSECT.

A boy with his guitar in a wagon stood in marked contrast to the war that was overtaking the country—and the world. I was quite busy during those years collecting talent that was snuffed out before its time, left on battlefields, drowned in sunken ships, shot out of the sky. Such a waste. Why humans kill each other is beyond my comprehension, but I can testify that you have been doing it since your inception. Only the weapons change.

Truth is light. Lies are shadows. Music is both.

silence is part of music. But just because something is silent doesn’t mean you aren’t hearing it.

There are moments on earth when the Lord smiles at the unexpected sweetness of His creation. This was one of those moments.

She smiled as he said her name, and he smiled back, and without even knowing it, he had joined another band. From that moment on, Aurora York was in Frankie’s music. That day. That night. And forever.

You humans are always locking each other away. Cells. Dungeons. Some of your earliest jails were sewers, where men sloshed in their own waste. No other creature has this arrogance—to confine its own. Could you imagine a bird imprisoning another bird? A horse jailing a horse? As a free form of expression, I will never understand it. I can only say that some of my saddest sounds have been heard in such places. A song inside a cage is never a song. It is a plea.

Everyone joins a band in this life. One way or another, the band breaks up.

This may seem highly fortuitous, but when a higher power has plans for you, life can be full of near misses.

student and teacher had a profound effect on each other, as humans thrown together by trauma often do.

The song gave him comfort. That is often why you come to music, isn’t it? To feel that you are not alone?

Although his cheeks were still soft and his thick hair carried the sheen of youth, the boy’s music displayed a sensitivity beyond his years. “An old soul” is how you sometimes describe it. But talents like me have been inside you since creation. Every artist is old in that way.

Every loss leaves a hole in your heart.

“The secret is not to make your music louder, but to make the world quieter.”

Man searches for courage in drink, but it is not courage that he finds, it is fear that he loses. A drunken man may step off a cliff. That does not make him brave, just forgetful.

When you listen, you learn. Remember that. In music and in life.”

Dizzy Gillespie, the jazz trumpet player, once said, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.” He was one of my special ones. And he was quite correct. Silence enhances music. What you do not play can sweeten what you do.

But first, I wish to say something about being in an altered state, like the one Frankie was in now. It does not bring you closer to me. It just makes me dizzy. For centuries, musicians have sought to find me at the end of a needle or the bottom of a drink. It is an illusion. And it often ends badly. Take my cherished Russian disciple, Modest Mussorgsky. In 1881, he lay facedown in a St. Petersburg tavern. This man once composed marvelous works, Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain (later made famous through an animated film called Fantasia). He composed nothing on that barroom floor, believing alcohol made him an artist. He died at forty-two. I was there to collect his talent. I was there at the hospital deathbed of my beloved Billie Holiday, just forty-four, her liver destroyed by drinking; I was there inside the hotel room of Charlie Parker, my singular jazz saxophonist, who died in his midthirties, but whose body was so ravaged by drugs the coroners thought he was sixty. Tommy Dorsey, the bandleader, choked in his sleep when he was fifty-one, too deep in pills to awaken. Johnny Allen Hendrix (you called him Jimi) swallowed a handful of barbiturates and expired. He was twenty-seven. It is not new, this idea that a purer art awaits you in a substance. But it is naive. I existed before the first grapes were fermented. Before the first whiskey was distilled. Be it opium or absinthe, marijuana or heroin, cocaine or ecstasy or whatever will follow, you may al...

I can see all futures, the ones my talents will make and the ones they will turn away from (just as I can hear all melodies on a keyboard, those played and those yet unplayed) and I can tell you had Frankie not been there, Django would never have experienced America, or the way it influenced his life and art. This is why Frankie’s bottom string turned blue when they met.

“I will play your guitar tonight and show them who I am. But I will give it back and you must never let it go. Never sell it. Never lose it. Never give it to someone and hope it returns. Don’t let go of your music, chavo. Or you will let go of yourself.”

I have said that music allows for quick creation. But it is nothing compared with what you humans can destroy in a single conversation.

“WHAT THE HELL?” A MAN SCREAMED, OPENING HIS CAR TRUNK. His name was Hampton Belgrave, and he was staring at a teenaged Frankie curled around his dog.

Best chapter on tge audiobook. Hands down!

Everyone joins a band in this life. Some are by accident.

Of course, when he was truly sad, Frankie came to his guitar. Hour after hour. Day after day. Practicing, playing, practicing some more, honing the blues progressions that he heard in the clubs on Jefferson Street. For my disciples, the map is simple. All lonely roads lead back to music. I embrace you. I forgive you. I will never leave you. Can humans say the same?

“Play me the saddest song you got.” Frankie hesitated. It was hot, and he felt sweat running down his temples. “Why do you want to hear a sad song?” The man took another swig from the flask. “They’re more true than the happy ones, don’tcha think?” “Happy songs can be true, if you’re happy.”

There are songs that you play that you have to restart, and songs that you play that you never get right. But when a song is complete, there is no more you can do.

The truth is, I do not share well. I want you to myself. And you, my precious acolytes, want me, too—even at the expense of others. You follow me to lonely practice rooms, faraway stages, late hours inside smoky recording studios, your weary fingers banging piano keys, your tired lips clamped around a mouthpiece, playing on, forsaking those who love you and who you should love back. They will lure you. I will lure you more. It is the price I exact. And the one you pay.

Frankie fell asleep with his nose in her blond hair and his arm around her waist. He had joined many bands. This one was his favorite.

“It’s good for your career.” I do not know who invented this phrase. I do not know who invented that word. I can only tell you I have been on earth since mankind’s inception, and have produced sounds for every stitch of life’s tapestry, sounds that invoke awakening, pain, love, the four seasons. But in my countless creations, there has never been a sound for “career.” Why do you let it affect me so?

Everyone joins a band in this life. Sometimes, they are the wrong ones.

“Listen to me, Francisco. Do you think I wanted a life of darkness? Do you think I wanted not to see my fingers or the frets or the tuning pegs, to have to poke around like a lost animal?” “No, Maestro.” “No, I did not. This is life. Things get taken away. You will learn to start over many times—or you will be useless.”

Everyone joins a band in this life. Sometimes they reunite.

I told him that as long as he had that kind of music inside him, nothing could keep it from coming out. I meant it. And then I asked, “When was the last time you were home?” And he said, “I don’t really have one.” And I said, “Everyone has someplace they call home.” He held up his guitar. “All I ever had was this,” he said, “and her.”

I have told you all love stories are symphonies, and the final movement is the rondo, repeated themes with episodes intervening.

“First rule of friendship, mates. Learn how to keep a secret.”

Inside all humans is the entirety of your memories, the ones you can access and the ones you cannot.

A new band was forming with Frankie Presto at its center. This one was a family.

“What do you really like, in your heart?” “Probably more country, or folk.” “Then play that,” Frankie said. “Even if it doesn’t sell?” “Money and music are not friends.”

What would you give to remember everything? I have this power. I absorb your memories; when you hear me, you relive them. A first dance. A wedding. The song that played when you got the big news. No other talent gives your life a soundtrack. I am Music. I mark time.

For the first time in years, Frankie was playing freely again, nearly as fast as before, but better, richer, because his music now was passionate, more thoughtful, the notes more carefully chosen, the way a great painter chooses not just a color but the perfect shade.