Faith and achievement

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually, Benny, listening to music is great training, the same way we humans learn speech by listening to others.

Maybe.  But I know a lot of people who have listened to Mozart, and couldn't do what I did.  In fact-- pretty much all of them.

Well, I'm not saying it's sufficient, at all. I'm not even saying it's absolutely necessary, unless you're trying to perform one of his pieces, or write in his style. But in listening to music, you can certainly brain-train from things like identifying key and tonality, time, chord extensions and alterations -- all manner of musical details which you can use in playing if you're attentive in listening.

I've learnt guitar solos without a guitar in hand, and on one occasion, without the song being played except in my mind's ear. And if you've heard my playing, you'll hear immediately that I'm no savant at all.

It's no surprise non-musicians cannot write in any style ... they don't have the capacity to analyze the music, nor see the inspiration as it unfolds. They don't speak the language.

The funny thing is that when I'm in the zone, it seems so easy, that I rarely bother to turn on a mic, since I feel I've "broken through" and I'll be able to play like that from then on.  This is probably one of my biggest regrets in my life.

I need to return to the habit of recording my practices, it certainly helped my growth.

Regarding the Zone, I reckon the biggest thing helping me get there is this idea I have, of getting out of my own way. I'm not sure I can express it very well, but for me it means clearing my mind and being inside the music. When I'm there, I'm not playing the song, the song is playing me and I am only the instrument. It is still coming from within me, but I'm not busy in the overlay of thoughts about my tax returns, or rent being due, or what was that noise the truck was making on the way home today? I'm not even thinking much about the song, unless there's some trickery in it that will tax my skill.

I think we each approach the art with different outlooks, and I'm fine with that. I hope you don't think I'm trying to change your mind, because I'm not -- I'm only speaking how it works for me, and trying to explain why I see it as I do.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Well, whatever the process is, or whether it should be called "faith" or not, this thread has reminded me that I care a lot about getting in touch with that deeper part of myself.  I'm playing piano more, trying to get myself to lucid dream again, and in general taking an interest in my mind again-- instead of just going to work and looking foward to drinking a beer and watching Seinfeld reruns or whatever.

Honestly, when I'm hitting it right, making music is both a conversation with myself and a conversation with the audience, if I have one. And for me the best thing is the old Yoda thing -- there is no try, there is do or do not. I let go of effort as much as I can, precisely because I want the music to sound effortless, unburdened.

And yes, it does mean I fall on my face, publicly, with a mic to pick up every detail. It's a chance we take. I get inspired by guys like Jimi or the Allman Brothers, who'd improvise with their bands in front of thousands of fans, lay the occasional clunker, and just keep on groovin'.

There's a real deusie in the live cut of "Mountain Jam" from the ABB on Eat a Peach. Duane Allman starts his first solo at about 2:40 and very quickly, at about 3:05, hits a big clunker -- he's playing in Mixolydian and grabs a b9. He immediately turns the line into a bit of Phyrgian musing for about 14 seconds until he can wend his way back to Mixolydian:





I'm inspired not just by his aplomb on that night on that stage, not shitting the bed over it, but also the fact that the band chose to release it, warts and all -- and there are a few others, as you can imagine in a 34-minute song. Those are the parts where I'm onstage going "ohshitohshitohshitohshit" only to surprise myself by puling something out of my ass that I might have done six months ago and shouldn't work, but does. Or sometimes it doesn't, and you just crack a smile at the audience and keep on playing.

Me, I know that when I'm in the Zone, it's the best drug I've ever had, bar none. And it's pretty goddamned addictive. It's too rare. All the more reason to practice.

[bennyboy]

Regarding the Zone, I reckon the biggest thing helping me get there is this idea I have, of getting out of my own way. I'm not sure I can express it very well, but for me it means clearing my mind and being inside the music. When I'm there, I'm not playing the song, the song is playing me and I am only the instrument. It is still coming from within me, but I'm not busy in the overlay of thoughts about my tax returns, or rent being due, or what was that noise the truck was making on the way home today? I'm not even thinking much about the song, unless there's some trickery in it that will tax my skill.

This exactly matches my experience, but apparently not Rhythm's.

I think we each approach the art with different outlooks, and I'm fine with that. I hope you don't think I'm trying to change your mind, because I'm not -- I'm only speaking how it works for me, and trying to explain why I see it as I do.

Not at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

Jesus christ.... It -does- match my experience, it's a common human experience....hence the compulsion for us to study it, lol...I'm just not silly enough to think that my brain is an accurate piece of scientific equipment, or argue against what accurate equipment does say about what -I- experience, lol...just as I'm not silly enough to think that a magician -actually- saws a women in half, no matter what my brain tells me just happened right before my eyes.

Fuck it, nevermind, I can see that the idiom is more important than the phenomena.

[Neo-Scholastic]

“The glory of God is Man fully alive.” – St. Irenaeus

Benny, I truly appreciate your reflections on personal experience. I can identify. Religious people do not dismiss music as a path to God. One of my favorite apologetics, in terms of simplicity and profundity, is 1) Bach’s music exists, therefore 2) God exists. And not all religious people, like me, dismiss entheogens as another means. Some say that during moments of transcendence, people tap into a deeper level of themselves, a rarely accessed part of their own brain. Perhaps. Having had such experiences that notion never seems to satisfy. The character of mystical experiences is entirely different from hallucinations and delusions. They are hyper-real. They change us in positive ways unlike some other mental states. They have a kind of gnosis that doesn’t rationally translate into words.

As for me, my peak experiences happened mostly before I converted to Christianity so I was open to the idea that reality expended beyond matter and material events long before I became a Christian. As I have mentioned elsewhere Christianity merely gave me a rational foundation from making sense of what I was experiencing. YMMV

[The Grand Nudger]

If said zone is a "mystical experience", then said mystical experience is both fully material and demonstrably explicable. Kind of a letdown for mysticism, imo.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Everyone knows Bach is God.

Well, every other day, he shares the chair with Jimi.