Zen, anyone?

[secondwind]

I just returned from performing Mozart's Gran Partita (well, most of it--the conductor decided just prior to the dress rehearsal to cut the Theme and Variations movement, which needed more rehearsal time than we had left).  I spent almost all of the performance in a sort of zen-like state of mind that I sometimes enter when I am performing.  I am able to play, in fact for the most part to play better than usual, but without focusing on the act of playing or feeling that it requires any particular effort.  I just sort of know how I want my part to sound, and somehow it does.  I am hyper-aware of the other parts in the piece, and my own interaction with them.  I notice little glitches or areas of imprecision or errors as they occur (whether my own mistakes or problems somewhere else in the ensemble), but I don't get at all upset about them or pulled off course.  And I have a feeling of quiet joy, of everything being exactly as it should be, and of my part being an integral part of the whole, part of a living organism, in fact. 

All of this is hard to describe, but it is a great feeling.  I wish I could turn it on at will!  In fact, I wish I could live most or all of my life in that state of mind!  Does anyone else have experiences like this while playing? 

[springrite]

Not being a musician, but practicing Zen and Tao most of my life, I have certainly had similar experiences. First of all, in listening to music. There are works that lend me that feeling, but only in specific time. It is more of the fact that I was ready than the music itself, perhaps. The music just acted like the activator. The most recent pieces are: Feldman's For Philip Guston, Bach Partitas played by Fiorentino, second movement of the Italian Concerto played by Gould. I have also had the experience in writing. I finished 4 chapters of a book in one evening. Words just came out spontaneously.

[MN Dave]

Chop instrument. Play wood.

[CD]

Not being a musician, but practicing Zen and Tao most of my life, I have certainly had similar experiences. First of all, in listening to music. There are works that lend me that feeling, but only in specific time. It is more of the fact that I was ready than the music itself, perhaps. The music just acted like the activator. The most recent pieces are: Feldman's For Philip Guston, Bach Partitas played by Fiorentino, second movement of the Italian Concerto played by Gould. I have also had the experience in writing. I finished 4 chapters of a book in one evening. Words just came out spontaneously.

I would say there is something of zazen in closely listening to a piece of music in that self-consciousness essentially disappears and the only thing that exists is the work. Whenever I open my eyes after the end of a piece I've been really involved in, I feel like no time has passed since I started listening.

[MN Dave]

Hm. That doesn't sound right. I don't think there are big stereo systems in meditation halls.

[secondwind]

Springrite, I've heard of writers having experiences like that, too.  It have never happened to me when I'm writing (no, writing is always WORK), but just occasionally when playing music.  Yes, Corey, I have that feeling you described that self-consciousness disappears and the only thing that exists is the work--but I still have some awareness of myself as part of the work, as I am playing it.  I would almost say that time stops, but that isn't quite it.  Somehow, the experience is outside of ordinary time.  It exists in some other kind of time that I don't really have a name for.  Dave, you clearly need a mantra.  Maybe Springrite or Corey could help?

[CD]

Morton Feldman talks about "the abstract experience" when he talks about painters like Rothko and Guston (his middle period color-mass paintings) to describe a feeling that is either too complex or too simple to be easily described. I think the phrase could also apply to the feeling I mentioned before.

Guston:

[jochanaan]

I get into a similar meditative state to various degrees when I play.  My time-sense is altered, I'm hyper-aware of the music, the other musicians and my place among them.  At best, it's a deeply sensual and spiritual experience.

[secondwind]

Hoping I don't offend anyone, I have to admit that the phrase "better than sex" comes to mind. And addictive . . . !  I'll do all kinds of crazy things to optimize my chances of experiencing that experience again.  Scales, arpeggios, finger excercises, intonation exercises, hours and hours of non-zen playing, just to try to get back to that nirvana. All worth it.

[jochanaan]

Hoping I don't offend anyone, I have to admit that the phrase "better than sex" comes to mind...

You certainly don't offend me!  I've posted before on music's sensual qualities...

[jowcol]

I went off on a tangent about a month ago on this immersive sensation when listening to, or  playing music that covers some similar ground.
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,15249.msg375553.html#msg375553

The relationship between music and states of consciousness fascinates me no end, and I've been trying to see which elements in the music invoke that response out of me.

As a performer, I probably don't have the reps and chops to lose myself on that level on the classical repertoire, (and my instrument isn't the most amenable to non-modal stuff) , but I love improvising.  (Modal stuff with simple chord changes, but fairly complex rhythms). I've lost track of time playing.  One time i wanted to record a "long" improv, and told myself it would have to be at least 15 minutes long.  I had no plans, but this was one time when the ideas just flowed, and it seemed like I was hearing everything a half second before I was playing it.  When i was done, I checked to see if I had played 15 minutes.  It was 42!   And only a couple minor glitches.


I'm a big fan of Hindustani music, and you simply can't play it if you aren't on some sort of mediational plane. The open stages are a lot like the Feldman-- few notes and much space.   At one Indian recital I remember the people around me breathing in unison with me.




Funny to hear both sensually and Buddhism crop up. 

On the sensuality side-- this is "better than sex"-- it's more transcendent and multi-dimensional than sex.  Far more mental-cerebral-spiritual-- the buzz words start multiplyig.  I'm not sure if "sensual" is the word for it, but I can't wait to get back into that state. The biggest reason I'm so obsessive about music is to reach this state. 

The Buddhism thing is interesting-- although I'm a practicing Theravadan Buddhist, music is one thing where I disagree with my "church".  The official guidance is that music is a distraction, and does not contribute towards mediation. (It's okay to listen to your breathing, or the ticking of a clock).  I strongly disagree- some forms of music are fantastic for reaching that level. 

For what it's worth, I find bicycling a pretty good way to approach the same zone.  I once "lost' an hour on a 70 mile ride.

The immersive feeling-- "time stops" is one phrase to describe it.  I also get the feeling of being in some "outside" space or dimension-- I have the feeling that what I'm in has been in existence forever, and will always exist. 

Ramble ramble.  I must be listening to something good...

[secondwind]

Jowcol, your experience must be similar to mine, because it seems to me that you have described my experience very well! 

[Ugh]

Great thread!

In western terms, this state is characterized by a different alignment between left and right brain hemispheres. In everyday life we tend to use the left side more: planning, thinking, reasoning, mapping. Creativity largely occurs on the right side, but of course we need the left side to structure the creative process - for instance writing down notes. Most people enjoy involving the right hemisphere more, hence the joy of building LEGO bricks when you are a kid: it takes both sides to do it.

Crossing completely over to the right side would imply a complete loss of language and a whole lot of functions that we need in our everyday lives (just ask any LSD tripper  ). But I do think most of us need to involve the right brain hemisphere to a larger extent in our lives, it can certainly feel addictive because we are tapping into a resource we have but do not use enough and it feels exciting.

Emotions are of course also right side stuff, as is the type of awareness and concentration you have when you are merely listening to a sound, paying attention to the details within the sound - the various voices in a symphony or the frequencies in a creek. In western culture the listening experience seems to be most focused in three types of music: classical, jazz, and trance (in which the listener actively attempts to "surrender" to the beat).

But hey, there is of course no reason why satori can't be experienced while having sex as well   

[Elgarian]

I spent almost all of the performance in a sort of zen-like state of mind that I sometimes enter when I am performing.

I've only very occasionally experienced this Zen-like  state while playing guitar (because I'm not good enough), but I've certainly experienced it while writing. Sometimes, having completed writing a passage, I find I have almost no memory of having written the words I'm reading, and it 'feels' as if someone else has written it. Ted Hughes wrote a brilliant description of the process in his book Poetry in the Making - he's talking about how to write a poem:

Imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic. If you do this you do not have to worry about commas or full-stops or that sort of thing. You do not look at the words either. You keep your eyes, your ears, your nose, your taste, your touch, your whole being on the thing you are turning into words. The minute you flinch, and take your mind off this thing, and begin to look at the words and worry about them ... then your worry goes into them and they set about killing each other. So you keep going as long as you can, then look back and see what you have written. After a bit of practice, and after telling yourself a few times that you do not care how other people have written about this thing, this is the way you find it; and after telling yourself you are going to use any old word that comes into your head as long as it seems right at the moment of writing it down, you will surprise yourself. You will read back through what you have written and you will get a shock. You will have captured a spirit, a creature.

The important aspect of this hotline through to the right brain seems to be the detachment from self - the focus on the 'other'. It also seems to be the key, not just to creativity, but to receiving art, too. In other words, as long as I'm in a state of 'what do I think about this music, this picture, this poem?', I'm not properly engaged with the art. With the self intruding like that, it's not possible to break out of the karmic cycle (I want - I grasp - I want more). I think of it as part of the paradox that he who would save his life shall lose it.

[jowcol]

Great posts.   Another way of looking at this temporary loss of self is the dissolution of the barrier between the subject and the object, where the verb is the only thing that has meaning.

James Joyce had said somewhere that literature was a higher art form than music, and I disagree.  (I majored in English and write for a living, so I guess I am allowed to).  Music touches a non-verbal and more immediate part of the consciousness.

Of course, there is a paradox that it can take a lot of left brain work to create the music that triggers a right brain experience.

[secondwind]

I
. . .turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words (notes) look after themselves, like magic. If you do this you do not have to worry about commas (fingerings) or full-stops (breathing) or that sort of thing. You do not look at the words (notes) either. You keep your eyes, your ears, your nose, your taste, your touch, your whole being on the thing you are turning into words (music). The minute you flinch, and take your mind off this thing, and begin to look at the words (notes) and worry about them ... then your worry goes into them and they set about killing each other.

Ted Hughes has certainly captured the experience I sometimes have while playing.  And it is wonderful while I'm in the flow, but the moment I become aware of myself again, as a separate entity, and look at the notes and feel that they are separate from me and I have to do something about them . . crash and burn.