[HoniSoniproca]

Hey Everyone,

On the heels of my "music and the supernatural" thread, I'd love to hear ideas and opinions on how much music in general, and jazz in particular, involves rational, linear, deliberative thinking.

Now I'm not actually setting that up in disctinction to emotional or spiritual approach. But I can tell you this about when I improvise:

A lot of people refer to that zenny zone in which they lose self-awareness, and just let the music speak through them. But I've found that in teaching people how to improvise, I've come up with my own twist:

The best times for me, musically, the times when I've come across the deepest, and often very spiritually meaningful, states of mind when playing, have been the times when I've been the most rational. When I get a very slow, calm, inner narrative going, basically telling myself how to play:

"Okay, sit up nice and straight, so you feel good and breathe deeply; okay now play with the lightest, most accurate technique you can muster. Okay now stop that phrase and rest. Go up high and play that blues idea"

etc., etc. What I find is that the more I do this, the more the world seems to slow down, which meas that the rate at which I can do the mental music arithematic seems to increase relative to real time (though I might just be kidding myself about this) at any rate I'm less bothered by the tempo, my sound, etc, and more accepting of the overall experience, which puts me in a better mood, therefore making me both more likely to play well, and more likely to enjoy the whole process regardless.

I don't describe this as a loss of the conscious self; for me it's an enhancement of that self, and immensely rewarding.

Now of course I often go the other way, too, and get all Bachic, but later I always wish I'd found my way to that calm place, and performed that way instead.

Is it wrong to call the state I first described "hyper-rational"? Is that necessarily opposed to the kind of 'extension of the self' that I hear others speak of? I don't think it is.

[AlexClips]

Hi Mike,

I wanted to share this video with you (and everyone else). It is from a fabulous website called TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. The speaker is Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor who had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

I found that the right brain/left brain dichotomy that she discusses (in such a personal way) gave me some insight as to what might be happening when we play music and reach that "slowing down", expansive, and joyful sensory state that you describe.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

Cheers,
Jodi

[Mabeavyledlib]

Mike,

Have you ever read "The Inner Game of Tennis"?

I can't remember the author's name, and my copy is currently sitting in a storage locker 3,000 miles away, but there are some techniques in there that sound similar to what you're doing. Unless of course I'm completely misconstruing what you're up to (hey! it could happen).

The guy talks about distracting a judgemental inner self by, instead of eliminating 'roof brain chatter' (as the Kenny Werner-ites and meditation set recommend) refining it down to more simple inner verbiage.

For tennis, he recommends thinking the word 'bounce' when the ball bounces, and 'hit' when you hit it with the racket. His students would often object to this as silly but, according to him, it's a way of getting yourself out of the way and letting your body (which knows how to do this) get on with the business of playing tennis.

The way this plays out with me (when I can get it to work) is it quiets the personal, emotional aspects of my concious mind (the parts that make you selfconcious, nervous, or keep telling you how much you suck) and allows whatever musical insticts and reflexes that have been hard-wired into the brain through practice to assert themselves, unfettered by emotionality.

I've had non-musicians become very upset by this and claim that this would lead to cold, emotionless expression. I think that deeper, more profound feelings come forth when they're not interefered with by transitory, surface feelings. That whole 'gypsy violinist weeping as he plays' thing always sounded like hooey to me. How can you operate a musical instrument properly if you're heaving with sobs and drenching it with tears?

I suppose you could call this 'hyper-rationality.' I see it as getting the trivial, roof-brain conciousness out of the way through distraction, so the deeper stuff can come through.

[Meerenuch]

Thanks Jodi. This is pretty extraordinary stuff!
I was struck by the poetic and mystical sense in which she describes the brain anatomy which she clearly understands very well. I found her descriptions quite beautiful and, to me, very spiritual in nature. The complexity of connections between consciousness and the human organisim are amazing and I think it is pretty rare you hear someone who can talk about them with this kind of perspective and clarity.

Mike,
Is music rational? Your comments seem to be more focused on "is music making a rational process?" I find a lot in common with your experiences: occasional 'hyper-rational' or 'extension of self' states mixed with non-rational abandon, plus lots of states of being between and beyond those two extremes. I find that the 'hyper-rational" state you describes is quite useful sometimes. It is a state I try to cultivate in the studio when possible. The other, less rational (more emotional? more spiritual? less intellectual?) state seems to work better at communicating in live situations. Sometimes I wish I had been able to access one or the other state more - maybe embarrassed by the moments of total abandon or frustrated at the over calculated rationality - but I think both states have their place and both produce music that I like. Kind of like the difference between Jim Hall and Albert Ayler.

[HoniSoniproca]

Thanks for the video, Jodi:




She brings a brain out on stage. Eeeewwww. Glad we don't have any of those in my house!

Hey John, yes I have read the inner game of tennis. That was a long time ago, but it certainly does pertain to this topic.

[HoniSoniproca]

Alright, I've watched this video a couple of times and have a couple of comments:

My main obseravtion is that she talks as if "she" was a person separate from either of her hemispheres, running from one side of her brain to the other, but if that were the case, then what is this separate little person made out of? Certainly not brain, since that's the thing she's running around inside of in this story.

Philosophers of mind make this criticism of the way we casually talk about our brains, as if, after all the neural mechanisms are accounted for, we are still somehow distinct from those mechanisms. Think about it: if that were the case, then nothing would have been explained by the mechanisms. Since the very mechanisms that would allow her to have taken notes during this experience were what were under attack during the stroke, I can't help but regard her (very interesting) story as being somewhat suspect, regardless of her scientific credentials. Still it is fascinating and worth checking out.

She talks about the left hemisphere as being the "I" the individual. I'm not sure if this is in any way accurate, but let's assume it for the sake of argument.

She then talks about "stepping to the right of our left hemispheres", and the story she tells is filled with references to going back and forth between these forms of consciousness.

So if the left is providing the "I", the sense of self as separate, then when her "I" is experiencing "right hemisphere style consciousness", isn't that really bothtypes of consciousness at the same time? Doesn't she need an identity of some sort through which experience this loss of separateness?

I'm just not sure I buy that the distinction is as extreme as she's making out.

I know that other research has shown distinctions between the hemispheres, and even that the two can be said to have different personalities (whatever that means in this context), but she does rather make it sound as if the right hemisphere is the good one and the left one is the bad one, at the end, which is a bit strange, since it was through the hard work she ascribes to her left hemisphere that she was even able to call for help.

BUT: the part about a form of consciousness wherein everything is experienced as happening slowly, that does pertain directly to what I was mentioning at the top of this thread.

I'd better go read up on all this!

[Meerenuch]

Hi Mike
You certainly are a hardened skeptic. I have to confess that my analytic mind goes a little soft in light of such compelling stories and the 'believer' in me kind of trumps my training in analytic philosophy.
The question of the "I" in this video is certainly very interesting and hits at the heart of the matter I think. Linguistic constructions of self awareness are extremely complex, especially in light of biological theories of consciouness based on brain science. For me there are two very interesting aspects of this: first our individual constructions of self concepts necessarily predate our knowledge of brain functions. In other words, our constructions of self begin with our births and continue throughout our lives. Many of the important ideas about who we are and how we relate to the world get formed in the first few years of life, before we are capable of rationally pondering the presence of that big mass of cells between our ears. Once we are old enough to start learning about brains and how they work (or how we think they work), we already have an "I" in place. Secondly, our language and intellectual culture has evolved mostly in the absence of real scientific knowledge about the brain. I think we don't really have very robust ways of speaking (either linguistically or culturally) about various aspects of human consciousness. Brain science is incredibly important to this process in our time, as philosophy was in the time of 'axial man' (this refers to the period in human history around 500BC or so when philosophy begins to emerge). As you mentioned, this gives philosophers of mind a lot to chew on. Bodies of philosophical discourse and a cultural context are just beginning to emerge in parallel with brain science. In terms of Western thought and culture, I think of brain science as the newest and coolest kid on the block. The problem is that he has only been on the block for about 5 minutes and, like a bunch of country bumpkins in awe of the suave city dweller, we look to him for all the answers. Skepticism about mystical experience is very much in vogue these days (especially in North America I think), whereas skepticism about science is frequently met with ridicule. I'm not blaming anyone in particular here, I just think it is a general condition of society.

My wife, who is an accomplished geoscientist, has often reminded me that as we approach the frontiers of the empirical (and the frontiers of our intellectual capabilities) in physics, biology and other sciences, we still tend to look for explanations that can seem irrational at first. From her point of view, some of the best science begins with essentially intuitive, non-rational processes. The empirical part comes later, not to prove the reality of a phenomenon or prove the reality of a theory, but rather to help us understand and explain it. In other words, science is another story in human history (probably one of the most interesting we have hit on for some time), but there could be other ways of understanding which will prove to be better. We look at mystic (or mythic) explanations as inferior, and in many ways they can be, but it maybe that out understanding of science and our reliance on the empirical may evolve into some hybridized way of thinking which is better able to cope with experiences that defy the rational.
Perhaps the video points us toward one way of establishing worthwhile connections between mystical and rational ways of thought in regard to current theories about who we are. To bring this back to music....I suppose I think of music as a valid and worthwhile mode of inquiry into human consciousness. Plus I don't have to pick up any brains!

[Mabeavyledlib]

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[deethythitoth]

noticed some video recently: Liebman and WayneS
together...

So that's it: everything is there.

There is no "lack" anywhere in anything.

Like MD5 1967 Sorceror

If all the bolts are in the floor then it will happen...

[metrocartockasur]

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[Meerenuch]

Hey Lazz
No need to apologize for disagreeing! As I said in the other thread, I enjoy hearing a counter argument (not that my rambles on this forum hold much water as arguments!). I speak, as we all do, simply from my own experiences and observations and, on occasion, from careful thought on the matters at hand. I don't know about 'misrepresentation', since I only represent myself and my own ideas, but certainly my ideas may be a total misconstrual or misperception of the matter. Which leads me to ask, apart from simple disagreement with my point of view, what is your take on this?

[HoniSoniproca]

Hi Jared

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[HoniSoniproca]

Hey John

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[HoniSoniproca]

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[Meerenuch]

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[Meerenuch]

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[Meerenuch]

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[metrocartockasur]

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[metrocartockasur]

I see the conversation moved along while I was away gathering my thoughts.

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[Meerenuch]

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