The effects of chi kung on musicianship...

[Encephalon]

I am only practicing the Little Orbit these days, allowing the energy to go where it will, not forcing anything. About 3 weeks ago I felt some blockages beginning to open up in the front channel, or, between the heart and throat chakras. The energy stayed there and throbbed between these two points for about five minutes, and it continues to a lesser degree today.

 

Since this event, I have been able to sing and nail notes with far more precision. I'm not a singer, but my musical background included trumpet and piano playing in college, and I'm learning guitar now. I've always had the ability to "hear" fairly sophisticated musical passages in my head - John Mclaughlin, Zappa, Billy Childs, Chick Corea, Weather Report - but I can nail solos even more, and have improved my ability to detect chord progressions and bass lines with remarkable ease. I don't believe that merely learning a new instrument can account for this. I think my throat chakra has been blocked off from a lifetime of suppressed messages and now that it's open, music is flowing even more.

 

It may be related to the fact that I'm getting married December 12 and my fiance and I are getting ferociously honest with each other before the big event. That being said, I'd love to hear what other musicians have to say about the way their internal alchemy affects their musical lives.

[Ya Mu]

Funny you should mention that. I am playing high energy rock n' roll Sat night.

What happened with me concerning energy and music was that, before I understood much about qigong but was practicing qigong, I found that the band I was in was getting "too much respect" for our level of talent. It seemed that everywhere we played we drove the audience into a frenzy to the point of them crowding the stage (and once they actually toppled the PA and rushed the stage; we grabbed our guitars and ran out the back). Signing autographs when we were a simple southern rock band seemed a little far fetched, but we were liked too much. I had a discussion about this phenomena with my teacher and he told me it was because my qi was strong but was wild and out of control. This hit home for me and I worked on better control.

I do not listen to rock music, much preferring native flute music. But I play rock. I don't practice, just show up at the gig and play. There is most definitely a connection between qi development and music abilities. I have trained two major rock stars in qigong.

[joeblast]

hm....20+ years as a musician before I ever heard of qigong...I'd say focus, I've learned more theory more easily since I started doing qigong. also subtlety - it was kinda akin to going from 44.1 to 192K in terms of depth

[Encephalon]

Funny you should mention that. I am playing high energy rock n' roll Sat night.

What happened with me concerning energy and music was that, before I understood much about qigong but was practicing qigong, I found that the band I was in was getting "too much respect" for our level of talent. It seemed that everywhere we played we drove the audience into a frenzy to the point of them crowding the stage (and once they actually toppled the PA and rushed the stage; we grabbed our guitars and ran out the back). Signing autographs when we were a simple southern rock band seemed a little far fetched, but we were liked too much. I had a discussion about this phenomena with my teacher and he told me it was because my qi was strong but was wild and out of control. This hit home for me and I worked on better control.

I do not listen to rock music, much preferring native flute music. But I play rock. I don't practice, just show up at the gig and play. There is most definitely a connection between qi development and music abilities. I have trained two major rock stars in qigong.

 

Impressive. Did you happen to see the PBS documentary by F. Garripolli on chi kung? There's a passage devoted to the Chinese chi kung masters who are also musicians. It's traditional Chinese music, of course, but I'd love to see where this goes for western musicians.

 

http://www.wujiproductions.com/products/qi...cient-video.htm

[Ya Mu]

Impressive. Did you happen to see the PBS documentary by F. Garripolli on chi kung? There's a passage devoted to the Chinese chi kung masters who are also musicians. It's traditional Chinese music, of course, but I'd love to see where this goes for western musicians.

 

http://www.wujiproductions.com/products/qi...cient-video.htm

Yes, good video. I know Francesco and took a workshop with one of his teachers that is in that video.

 

I think what it all boils down to is that the practice of qigong helps all our natural talents manifest to their utmost expression.

[Encephalon]

Yes, good video. I know Francesco and took a workshop with one of his teachers that is in that video.

 

I think what it all boils down to is that the practice of qigong helps all our natural talents manifest to their utmost expression.

 

Indeed. That's about as concise and accurate as one can get. It could also be that my particular experience had more to do with throat chakra work than actual chi kung, but I am unschooled in the subtle differences/similarities of the two practices.

[doc benway]

I am only practicing the Little Orbit these days, allowing the energy to go where it will, not forcing anything. About 3 weeks ago I felt some blockages beginning to open up in the front channel, or, between the heart and throat chakras. The energy stayed there and throbbed between these two points for about five minutes, and it continues to a lesser degree today.

 

Since this event, I have been able to sing and nail notes with far more precision. I'm not a singer, but my musical background included trumpet and piano playing in college, and I'm learning guitar now. I've always had the ability to "hear" fairly sophisticated musical passages in my head - John Mclaughlin, Zappa, Billy Childs, Chick Corea, Weather Report - but I can nail solos even more, and have improved my ability to detect chord progressions and bass lines with remarkable ease. I don't believe that merely learning a new instrument can account for this. I think my throat chakra has been blocked off from a lifetime of suppressed messages and now that it's open, music is flowing even more.

 

It may be related to the fact that I'm getting married December 12 and my fiance and I are getting ferociously honest with each other before the big event. That being said, I'd love to hear what other musicians have to say about the way their internal alchemy affects their musical lives.

Cool thread...

I played bass quite a bit as a kid then got into cello and guitar. After getting into Qigong, Taijiquan, and meditation practices I've found that I've been strongly drawn to rhythmic and native musics (Andean, Tuvan, R&B, Samba, Funk) and so on. This is after years of playing and listening to classical music nearly exclusively. Also, I've found that I'm drawn back to playing the bass and whereas I used to love complex stuff and solos, now I like the simple rhythmic grooves.

Is it related to my energetic work? Who knows, but I'm enjoying myself more with it.

As mentioned above, my teacher always says that Dao meditation practice improves creativity.

Edited November 11, 2009 by steve f

[Old Man Contradiction]

hm....20+ years as a musician before I ever heard of qigong...I'd say focus, I've learned more theory more easily since I started doing qigong. also subtlety - it was kinda akin to going from 44.1 to 192K in terms of depth

 

I second the importance of focus.

 

Since I started practicing the internal martial arts, I've essentially quit writing music. But when I do pick up my instrument, I'm a better writer than I was when I was playing all of the time.

 

I think two main factors play into this. My improved focus gives me the ability to pay attention and be careful with the sound I'm playing. This greatly enhances the quality of music. The other factor is that the exercise calms my mind and stimulates my brain to grow, opening up internal space for musicianship.

[Creation]

I bet this guy has some interesting stuff to say on the matter (crosses fingers).

 

7b0z-_sDG9s

[buscon]

I second the importance of focus.

 

Since I started practicing the internal martial arts, I've essentially quit writing music. But when I do pick up my instrument, I'm a better writer than I was when I was playing all of the time.

 

I think two main factors play into this. My improved focus gives me the ability to pay attention and be careful with the sound I'm playing. This greatly enhances the quality of music. The other factor is that the exercise calms my mind and stimulates my brain to grow, opening up internal space for musicianship.

 

I totally agree.

I have been playing music since years and since I practice qigong my concentration is higher, and I've improved my productions filling what was missing.

 

On the other side, music is a lot about feelings, and with qigong and meditation you learn to handle better with them.

I think you become more objective doing your music - as doing anything, that should be the goal

 

Just need time, but I've already had good feedback at the beginning.

 

 

Beats, melody & emptyness

[voidisyinyang]

Buscon I wrote a masters thesis on music and energy healing with the focus on qigong. It gets arcane but if you go to footnote 96 and read from there I think you'll find it pretty fascinating:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9612001/Epicente...1ojv2ury9lpr79x

 

I totally agree.

I have been playing music since years and since I practice qigong my concentration is higher, and I've improved my productions filling what was missing.

 

On the other side, music is a lot about feelings, and with qigong and meditation you learn to handle better with them.

I think you become more objective doing your music - as doing anything, that should be the goal

 

Just need time, but I've already had good feedback at the beginning.

Beats, melody & emptyness

[EagleShen]

Reminds me of the story of Guatama Buddha and the flute, where he met a young boy in a village playing a flute and he asked if he could play it. The Buddha hadn't played flute since he was a little boy, and he played note perfect an incredible heart opening piece of music.

[Encephalon]

Thanks folks. Some pretty inspiring stuff posted here. Looks like we're heading toward a thread devoted to the intersection of internal alchemy and creativity. I'd be happy if we stuck with musicianship, but artists/poets/etc are welcome to chime in.

I read "music and the Mind" by Anthony Storr years ago and may revisit it. "Music, the Brain and Ecstasy" by Robert Jourdain has been sitting on my bookshelf for 10 years gathering dust.

"A Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman blew me away.

 

On this learning curve of internal alchemy and music, I plot myself as an educated beginner in becoming familiar with the role of the nervous system. Thanks Drewhempel for posting your efforts. I'll check it out soon.

 

And Steve F., I totally get the bass. I think it would be deeply satisfying in a physically grounding sort of way. do you remember Ralph Armstrong with Jean Luc Ponty back in the 80s? OMG!!

 

GEEEZ, to respond to the wisdom of each of your posts would be to engage in the creative process itself so I will let it be...

[joeblast]

ah, one other area: REHEARSAL. practice is practice, but when the lot of yas get together for rehearsal, not just practice, that's one downstream effect of the focus bit. just like with our qigong practices, proper awareness-focused rehearsal develops that memory that allows you to let go and just be the doer instead of trying to focus on what you're playing.

[King Kabalabhati]

Once I achieved better balance and peace of mind through yoga, ayurveda, Qigong and such, I no longer felt much need to write songs. That was a bit scary since it's what I do for living.. But then my life changed, I broke up with my wife.. I was deeply troubled by it.. And I got productive again

[de_paradise]

I only started learning the guitar this year, well after Kundalini started. I think I suck at both guitar and vocals, but love doing this, get better the more I practise. I have not noticed the effects of qi or cultivation, however its kinda interesting that I should start avidly doing this "hobby" at this point in my life, where it never really interested me before.

[doc benway]

 

And Steve F., I totally get the bass. I think it would be deeply satisfying in a physically grounding sort of way. do you remember Ralph Armstrong with Jean Luc Ponty back in the 80s? OMG!!

 

Ralphe Armstrong! Fantastic! Not only with Ponty but he was the bassist with Mahavishnu Orchestra from ~ '74 - '76. Brilliant!

Here's a brief interview with him worth reading - beat Jaco Pastorius out for the job with Mahavishnu!

http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/mclaughlin/art/blazer.html

[Vajrasattva]

Hmm Things come easier and more intuitive from doing Chi Kung. Also less injury.

 

Santi

 

Ralphe Armstrong! Fantastic! Not only with Ponty but he was the bassist with Mahavishnu Orchestra from ~ '74 - '76. Brilliant!

Here's a brief interview with him worth reading - beat Jaco Pastorius out for the job with Mahavishnu!

http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/mclaughlin/art/blazer.html

 

 

AWESOME

[joeblast]

Ralphe Armstrong! Fantastic! Not only with Ponty but he was the bassist with Mahavishnu Orchestra from ~ '74 - '76. Brilliant!

Here's a brief interview with him worth reading - beat Jaco Pastorius out for the job with Mahavishnu!

http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/mclaughlin/art/blazer.html

good stuff! no small feat there!

[Vajrasattva]

I bet this guy has some interesting stuff to say on the matter (crosses fingers).

 

7b0z-_sDG9s

 

 

 

This guy sucks

[SAMANTABHADRA]

I'm a multi-instrumentalist and a singer. I've primarily been focusing on rhythm for the last few years, playing the drumset, congas, and more recently the tablas. I've also begun studying Hindustani classical music - commonly known throughout the west as raga, such as the music of Ravi Shankar, Ustad Bismillah Khan, and others. Though my primary training had been in jazz, gospel, and rock music - the influence of classical Indian theory has really helped furthur my ability to tune into what I am doing. This is because they all use music as a means of communing with the Divine (like the Sufis.)

 

This parallels my work with yoga and qi gong. When I relax, breathe deeply, and let the music (and the SPIRITS) work through me, I play more amazingly than I logically feel that I should. When I try to execute something to show off or because my ego comes into play, the music doesn't flow right. The proper attitude is Wu Wei, I think. You practice all the basics and the scales and the patterns and the infinite permutations, and then in the moment you can react spontaneously and without ego to what is happening, and GO WITH THE FLOW.

 

Check out the music of Pandit Pran Nath if you want to hear someone who sings for God. He has an amazing album of Malkauns called Midnight, and some other good albums (Rare Earth Groove comes to mind.)

 

Props to the Mahavishnu Orchestra being in this thread. You know you know when you know you know.

[joeblast]

This guy sucks

nice axe man...I'm a big fan of the neck throughs

[Encephalon]

nice axe man...I'm a big fan of the neck throughs

 

totally with you on the focus/rehearsal mode. I tried to squeeze in a minor in music as an undergrad, but the theory classes killed me, so I scrapped them for performance classes and just had fun. Thye were some of my favorite moments in college. What surprised me was how bright the music majors were compared to my geography brethren; vastly more "in tune" with everything, on average; genuine autodidacts.

 

When I moved down to this shithole we call Los Angeles for grad school, I stopped practicing. My musical life ended, and a piece of me went with it (hard to practice trumpet in an apt. complex, or pack a piano in a backpack.) Buying a guitar with my tax return has been one of the healthiest things I've ever done for my soul.

[joeblast]

I just picked up a yamaha np-30 recently, super portable, light weight, even has the ability to run on batteries so you can whip it out by the campfire but I got spoiled playing Jen's YPG-635 I got her....graded weighted keys are the bomb

 

I had a couple years in there where I played less, but then my playing exploded afterwards. That reminds me, I've gotta pick up a resonant head for one of my toms because I gave the bottom one to my son, not a resonant head anyway. That's been one other cool thing, watching him blossom as a musician I've taught him plenty of my bag o tricks and he can do most of them almost as good if not better in some cases...the only area I've hugely got him is theory & improv, I'm sure he'll catch me before long there too.

[Encephalon]

I just picked up a yamaha np-30 recently, super portable, light weight, even has the ability to run on batteries so you can whip it out by the campfire but I got spoiled playing Jen's YPG-635 I got her....graded weighted keys are the bomb

 

I had a couple years in there where I played less, but then my playing exploded afterwards. That reminds me, I've gotta pick up a resonant head for one of my toms because I gave the bottom one to my son, not a resonant head anyway. That's been one other cool thing, watching him blossom as a musician I've taught him plenty of my bag o tricks and he can do most of them almost as good if not better in some cases...the only area I've hugely got him is theory & improv, I'm sure he'll catch me before long there too.

 

Have you ever heard Billy Childs? He's a pianist/composer who uses a lot of whole tone scales and progressions that seem to fall just within range of musical comprehension. But when the progressions resolve, your ear says, "oh yes, of course."

He's used Scott Henderson on a number of projects, who is also a musical genius of the same order. Can you imagine what these guys could do if they practiced nei kung?

 

Fusion was my musical babyfood back in the 70s. I barely tolerate listening to anything less stimulating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TVWXrOhI

Edited November 13, 2009 by Blasto