Itzhak Perlman and Alan Alda on “Garbage Pail Soup,” the similarities between acting and musicianship and getting older.
American Masters: Itzhak premieres nationwide Sunday, October 14 at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) and will be available to stream the following day via pbs.org/americanmasters and PBS apps.
Now the problem this is that if I don't stand up I can't see what's in there.
Oy! Perfect.
I'm cooking for you.
What are you cooking?
I'm cooking a soup.
What kind of soup?
I call it Garbage Pail Soup Ha, ha! I have to go now.
That means everything in the garbage pail goes in the soup.
I heard. You heard? Alright.
This is Sera... this is really a great wine.
Well que sera, sera! I'm surprised you didn't say that.
Too obvious... too easy... You knew I had polio... No!
You didn't know I had polio?
It didn't affect you as far as walking and stuff like that?
See I had something you didn't have I bet I had the Sister Kenny treatment.
A lot of really painful massage and wrapping your muscles every all over your body with scalding hot blankets.
That I did not have. I had to smell smoke parchment with holy words and then they would burn it and I would smell the holy words.
My parents would put me on all sorts of weird diets... a raw egg every morning. And you know I kind of liked that.
You did? I did. Especially the yolk, mercury I had to have a little thing of mercury every morning.
This is terribly toxic.
That might explain the way I behave.
What, what are you doing?
A good technique is not how many fast notes do you play, A good technique is how do you manipulate a phrase in such a way with giving it colors and stuff that you can actually make it sound amazing.
Once you have that technique, then you have to have I suppose a vision, of what to do with the technique, and I suppose that'''s in acting the same thing... if you have the... Yeah, I think so, I think there are different layers of preparation different layers of performance, for me personally I find out how I'm going to do it by doing it, Ok, yes! You too? Oh yes... Oh yeah... oh no no no, I don't have a plan when the music speaks to me I react, yeah but you know when something is planned it'll sound planned.
Boy, I think that's so true, I don't want to hear a report on what they decided to do, I want to hear something lived for the first time.
Ah now we're talking.
You know as I'm getting older I don't know do you find as you're getting older you don't like anybody.
No I've got the opposite as I get older I think oh my God look what they can do You said it... Was either of your parents musical? No. No? So where did you get it?
Tuchus.
*laughs*
