Inside the sound of music there is a stillness. Listening to that stillness is learned over many decades. What is learned is a tilt of the ear, an angle of reception, an attitude. Inayat Khan says that music is “a veil over the face” of the sacred, and what is behind that veil cannot be heard by human ears. But a warm, inviting kind of emptiness can be felt, and we are deeply drawn to the feeling. When I’m willing to trust that pristine silence I become transparent, and the music arises through my ears and fingers the way a garden blooms.