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Originally Posted by oj  I've heard things like this about that book. I finally got it. It was a big dissapointment.
veery715, perhaps you could tell me what was fantastic with it?
Ole |
First let me qualify - I am not a classical musician. I am into improvisation.
If you can apply the concepts he writes about - not being concerned with how you sound, allowing the music to flow through you, channeling as it were, deflating the ego - you get to a place where you are in the moment when playing. Notes that were, or will be, don't exist.
Meditation is very much a learned skill which can free the right brain, allowing the full measure of one's emotional investment in music to be reflected in what comes out the bell of the horn.
If you didn't try the meditation part of the book his ideas will seem mysterious. For me, a former hippie and long-time student of the practices of various religious/ethnic approaches to altered consciousness, from the Yaqui Indian brujo teachings of Don Juan, to Zen Buddhism, and almost everything in between, these ideas make total sense and changed my playing almost overnight. While I no longer consume anything to change my mental state, I no longer need anything to achieve that end. I did not apply it to music until I read Werner's book, which astounds me since it makes so much sense.
Art is not Godly, but the creation of it is a Godly act.