Iyoiyo Posted April 8, 2009 It occurred to me that musicians, when they are really playing, are doing without doing. They do not play the next note out of desire. They only play it because that's what they're going to do. Another part is with the crowd, they may mean to go to a concert-- but once they're there they don't mean to catch themselves up and enjoy themselves. They are acting without doing, which is pretty amazing. Â Ssomebody who performs with their whole existence in the say way the musician does for the span of a concert-- I suppose we call that "in touch with the Tao." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ya Mu Posted April 9, 2009 It occurred to me that musicians, when they are really playing, are doing without doing. They do not play the next note out of desire. They only play it because that's what they're going to do. Another part is with the crowd, they may mean to go to a concert-- but once they're there they don't mean to catch themselves up and enjoy themselves. They are acting without doing, which is pretty amazing. Â Ssomebody who performs with their whole existence in the say way the musician does for the span of a concert-- I suppose we call that "in touch with the Tao." Â Yep! Then when everyone in the band meets in the Tao an overwhelming change occurs and we play far, far beyond ourselves. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Unconditioned Posted April 9, 2009 Very very true! Â I've been a musician for the last 15 years and when everyone is playing their part, without the nagging mind - "Am I doing this right? What's that next chord again? Am I too loud?"... once that is gone, something else takes over and I believe that if one member of the group can get into that state, it rubs off quickly on the others. Â Just my 2c. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tactile Posted April 9, 2009 (edited) Two very fascinating books which address this issue from improvised/jazz music viewpoint are Kenny Werner's "Effortless Mastery" and "Free Play" by Stephen Nachmanovitch. For musicians they are essential imo, but I can recommend them to everybody as the ideas presented in the books are relevant to any activity or pursuit and resonate with eastern thinking.. Edited April 9, 2009 by Tactile Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ya Mu Posted April 10, 2009 Very very true! Â I've been a musician for the last 15 years and when everyone is playing their part, without the nagging mind - "Am I doing this right? What's that next chord again? Am I too loud?"... once that is gone, something else takes over and I believe that if one member of the group can get into that state, it rubs off quickly on the others. Â Just my 2c. Â Especially if one or more of the group is a qigong practitioner. Â Music and Tao is a really good subject. I have been a musician for over 35 years. Here is a funny/not so funny story about qigong and music. Somewhere around 1980 I had reached a level of power with my qigong. But what I didn't at the time realize was my control of qi was... Let's just say my control sucked, as I didn't have a full grasp of amplitude limiting. So, with the music... We had a high-energy rock band and were pretty darned good, but not that good. What happened was we started noticing the audience response was not proportional to our "greatness" as musicians. Somewhat puzzling but hey we took all the respect we could get . But it started to get out of hand. After causing havoc with a few gigs we did one with about 700 folks. As we played and started getting into it, the audience started to creep forward, pressing closer, closer, getting more wild with each song we played. Finally they rushed the stage toppling the PA system - we quickly grabbed our guitars and escaped out the back. Returned later, everything was toppled but remarkably nothing too much damaged. Â I finally got the courage to ask my teacher about this. He laughed at me for a good 20 minutes and said "Now I will teach you to control your chi." Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
