Since I have gotten on this forum I have been amazed at how much teaching has changed from in the flesh teaching/learning to the current models of distance learning. Anyway, I wanted to share this, from a distance, which is the true secret to being a good-great musician. I call this - The Pendulum of Rhythm_
Inside all of us is our heart. It beats continuously, and at varying tempos, depending on what is happening. It gets to the point that we never even think about it beating unless it is a time when it starts to race. Music is all based on the heartbeat. I have seen countless players that play great- via a paint by the number system. They learn licks, tones, etc, but lack that magic. The magic lies in your heartbeat. It is a natural pendulum that keeps perfect time. By perfect time I mean perfect to you. If one can work off this beat, there will be that magic that exists in the rhythm of space and sound.
Listen to a SBWII solo harp piece. He has it down better than anyone I can think of that has a video up. Then listen to the countless copies of that song and you will hear the difference. the reason people love SBWII solos stuff so much is due to the magic of space. Space sets up phrasing, cresendos, etc. Learn to let your heart beat run your music and you will have this magic. I am at lunch and typing and got to get back to my class in a few so excuse typos. I am keeping this simple because it is simple. All great musicians have this magic. It is there for the taking. Like any puzzle, you will have to figure it out. I will tell you it is always there and so simple that if you think about it, you are a million miles from it. Walter
PS: This is how "simple" players have dominated most every blues era (until recently). Traditionally, most rhythm guitarists could smoke the name guy in the bands. But they lacked that magic.... Tons of technique but missing this key component - the ability to let their heartbeat run their music. Guys like Lightning Hopkins, Buster Brown, Slim Harpo, Jimmy Reed, Guitar SLim, Albert Collins, Junior Wells, Elmore James, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters........... had this thing down cold. I call them "simple" players because they knew less than most people on this forum know, but they had that magic thing I am talking about.
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
Zero responses to what I see as the biggest part of being a real musician. I guess this is why people tell me I am different/eccentric, but I feel normal :-) Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
yes the net has its good points for sure. But what I am talking about is beyond everything worldly. It is always with us and can be had anytime we are willing to blindly follow it. That seems to be the stumbling block for most. They think too much about their playing and want to control it. Control is a hard thing to let go of. We all need to have control in our lives, but in art, it is an eternal sentence to missing the key to the soul. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
Walter, response has as much to do with when you post as what you post. I'm not sure I'd agree it's based on the heartbeat exactly, but I think I get what your getting at. There is a sort of beat in your body that you have to feel. It's that moment when what you are projecting out of you is exactly what you are trying to project and you become aware of what you are doing but it doesn't mess up the moment.
Yeah I dig what you're saying Walter, as Nacoran said, I wouldn't agree that it's THE key to being a good musician, but I do beleive that there is a certain intangible quality that seperates the truly great from the rest of us. Yes, timing and leaving space does come into it, but there's other stuff involved too.
Interested also in what you say about 'letting go', I feel sometimes my best playing comes out when I let go, but can't help trying to control my improvising in order to improve and learn more.
If you just keep playing, you will get to the technical point of the continuim that satifies you. This will often take more hours than the casual player has to put in, thus they tend to critize their abilities and try and control what little they know, usually to impress others. this is often masked under the guise of "I am my worst critic". In reality, it is a cover up for the inability to love ones music more than anybody elses, regardless at what point of the skill level they are on. A true artistic expression is much more satifying than listening to someone else do it. That too has its great satifaction to, but will never equal your own art if you are truely letting go and following your heart.
Time is greatly underrated in becoming technically proficient. People tend to view time as seconds on the clock. That leads to the paint by the numbers art. The time I am talking about knows no clock because it is your unique soul that is the timekeeper. It is a timeless thing that your heartbeat is connected to. It is a continium that goes on for infinity. Tap into that and you are truely letting go. In my 50 so years of playing on some sort of bought or homemade instrument, I can say that I have put in a ton of hours. For 25 years it was between 5-18 hours a day of seconds on the clock time. I didn't do this to get better. I did it to relieve the discomfort I felt when I wasn't playing. This is still true today. I work full time and still put in 35-60 hours a week playing. I need to do this to keep my sanity. this is why I have stopped trying to book gigs. That takes up way too much time and it is usually a negative experience, even when it works out to a gig. The process, which I lived for most of my life, is no help to me feeling at peace and finding peace is the ticket to tapping into the other time I am talking about. I will stick to when the phone rings until someone comes along who wants to take over that end.
Early on I discovered through just playing, that the letting go and following the rhythm inside me was the most satifying. I don't know why this hit me, but it did, and throughout my career name musicians have confided in me that they wish they could just stop thinking and trying to control their music. this is from guys that are looked up to for their "free flowing playing". Will I ever be regarded as a "great harp player or great musician" by the music world? I really don't know or care, but those musicians complemented me for my musicianship. that is a gift I will always cherish. As far as making it on the scene, my observations point to if you don't sound like the in crowd, you will never be in the in crowd, and I will only be in the in crowd if the in crowd accepts my different way of playing. Now I am at a point that I can reflect on my journey to this point and I know in my heart, that my heartbeat of rhythm is more powerful than any technique I posses. Anyway, this is how i learn/teach the harp and music. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Don'tget me wrong Walter,I'm not one of these impatient players; ever-critical of their own abilities, playing mainly to impress others and gain status. I too enjoy the constant musical itch,I play with every free second God allows me, if there was nobody there to listen, I'd still be there playing. That's not to say I don't enjoy being apprecciated -I am merely human! But I AM one of the players that lets himself go, constant improvisation, always trying to create something new, artistic fulfilment being my goal. BUT I cannot help (as I said, only human!) but feel the controlcreeping in. And I don't think that it's always a bad thing.
I am first and foremost a guitarist, and I reckon myself to be pretty able. I sometimes get to thinking I know it all. Then I listen to some live Jimi Hndrix,maybe playing Red House, hear him string together phrases I can barelyeven comprehend! THAT is when control comes in useful! When inspired by another's playing, you want to learn something from them, but it requires you to step outside of your comfort zone. THAT is when the control comes in handy.
God I hope I'm making sense, Coor's is having its effect on me...
I see what you're saying Walter. I never really thought of it like that but I have thought of it before. You just explained it differently. I feel like true art does come from the soul. In a way you can understand someone by their music or art. When someone lets it flow and not just "paint by the numbers", as you put it, you can almost say "yeah, I get you." That's what I love about playing music- you can so accurately portray feelings.
In regards to time- you saying, "The time I am talking about knows no clock..." reminded me of what I heard someone say about Thelonious Monk's music- he was never on time but somehow he was always on time.
obey them if you which. Everything is an event and everything is cyclical. If you want to understand time then you need to understand fractals. Time as you people call it is nothing more than a fractal. what we are living now, as a collective, is the re-enactment of a pattern that occurred many times before.
The present moment, has embedded within itself, the qualities of the past and the future, and is effected by those patterns and cycles. Through the progression of the fractal, an inter-connectivity is formed between historical events. They are related by resonance.
Don't believe me? Right now we are resonating with the events that took place in 1979.
Just wait until roughly July 7-11th, 2010. That period resonates with events that occurred 640,000 years ago. What happened then? I bet we hear something about Yellowstone.
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"Musicians are the architects of heaven"
Last Edited by on May 29, 2010 4:29 PM
Whether accepted as metaphor or reality you paint a pretty picture regarding the depth of music Walter. It is no surprise as music is clearly your best friend. I understand most communication (musical or otherwise) to be active on more than one plane and as such do not believe in single causes or explanations. Also I never ( at least philosophically) argue with another's self definition. However I do argue with another's attempts to define my processes. While I have not done a great job with it technically- when I was a kid listening to Butterfield (Drifting and Drifting) and Musselwhite (Christo Redemptor) and Smith(Arkansas Trap) the expression affected me so deeply that I needed to suspend the duality between myself and the music, i.e., become the music, i.e., create the form of sound expression myself rather than just listen to it! It has been my best friend too! d ---------- Myspace: dennis moriarty
"Just wait until roughly July 7-11th, 2010. That period resonates with events that occurred 640,000 years ago. What happened then? I bet we hear something about Yellowstone."
Don't you think you should let people know where you're getting this information? Or are we supposed to assume this is a part of your ability of "knowing"? ; )
If anyone else here is interested, if you go to Yahoo and search: July 7 2010 yellowstone, I think you'll find the first link that comes up is most likely the source of this information. Here's the direct link: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread563866/pg1
Buddha,Is this really the type of place you gather information from? Conspiracy websites?
I don't mean to be critical, but this reminds me of the way "phsycics" work. They throw out a whole bunch of predictions, almost all of them wrong, but eventually after throwing out enough predictions, they'll coincidently get something right. People easily forget about everything they got wrong and focus on what they got right. If you make enough vague predictions you're eventually going to get something right by pure chance. People make to big a deal over coincidenses, attributing them as miracles, or some sort fractal repitition of history ; ), when in reality it would be far stranger if such coincidenses never occured.
Last Edited by on May 29, 2010 5:28 PM
personally, i am my most stringent critic and most appreciative admirer. sometimes when i play, i am outside of my body and my body has goosebumps, that is the admirer part. other times i realize how much i suck.
two parts of time are in play here, the amount of time you spend with practice and the flow of time at the moment. waltertore, i think the heartbeat idea has merit, but you can change your heartbeat by thoughts and actions, so your mind as well as your heart are important.
as far as the fractals, they are complex patterns generated by simple rules. common in nature, but not an overarching rule. my guess is that it is not that easy. if fractals were the key, then a person could just figure out a simple mathematical rule, and understand the flow of time and existence. chris, if you mean something other than the strict mathematical definition of fractals, i might be misinterpreting your post.
NO....ha ha. I don't go to ATS. Not saying I've never been there because as you get into this lunatic fringe material you eventually roll into those places. You have to be careful.
The source for that stuff can be found here. http://www.timewave2012.com/
I happened upon the original software if you want to check it out. http://www.workingcaninestore.com/timewave/
I'm not going to expunge one where else I participate as we all have our own paths to follow and if you path crosses mine then so be it. IF you start getting into this stuff you'd be surprised to find out who I actually am. Aside from music, dogs and harmonica I mean...
I've been into the timewave zero stuff for a number of years and this thread triggered that stuff in my head. If you follow that stuff there are numerous postings about what is coming next, a lot of it right, you can research it yourself if you wish as I sometimes do.
All of this started for my with my studies into egyptian culture which inevitably lead to mayan studies which lead to more esoteric shamanistic research.
You can believe what you want but this stuff resonates with me as correct as much of it was stuff I had already thought about before the days of the internet.
You need to be careful of what you do and where you go if you're not a strong minded person, there are many traps for the weak.
Researching Terrance McKenna will get you into the iChing and fractal time. That will eventually lead you to
you have to understand that I do not believe in time. I believe we are all more or less a slave society created with purpose by beings not of this earth.
I believe everything you all see is nothing more than a hologram. Why do I think this? Because I can see the space and energy inbetween what we call reality. I can see stuff. I can interact with stuff. Actually you all can as soon as you understand that you're being controlled.
Want to free yourself then go for a walk and be with nature for 22 days. Nature provides all that you need but if you bring fear or doubt with you then you will most likely die. Fear paralyzes. Doubt will kill you.
I have enjoyed all the posts-thanks! I never meant to say my way of doing music is the only way. My intent was to share my way for those who might be interested. I just finished recording a 2 hour session with the 1 man band using the keyboard. I ended it working bass lines, harp in hand, and drums. I was able to do some hand effects holding the harp in right hand and doing the bass runs on the left. This was a first time for me. I am off to mix it and will post the results. I need to clear my head and reading all these posts helped! Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Related to the original post:http://www.amazon.com/Mysticism-Sound-Shambhala-Dragon-Editions/dp/1570622310 "According to Sufi teaching, music is really a small expression of the overwhelming and perfect harmony of the universe--and that is the secret of its amazing power to move us. The Indian Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan, the first teacher to bring the Islamic mystical tradition to the West, was an accomplished musician himself. His lucid exposition of music's divine aspect has become a modern classic, not only among those interested in Sufism but among musicians of all types."
I love this book. It was released in paperback in '96, but the collection of lectures from Khan go back to the '20's and earlier. Sufi of his type firmly believe that everything...everything...is made of of rhythm and tone. He even goes into some very convincing arguments to prove that - none of which I remember being all that "religious". He tried to make his point using science of the time, which has actually strengthened his case over the last century.
Another, maybe more accessible book related to this thread would be Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner. A buddy of mine actually went to Kenny's for a day to learn from him. He played for like 5 minutes right away and Kenny had him totally figured out and spent the rest of the day working with concepts from the book instead of technical playing. My buddy, who admitted he thought Kenny's stuff was BS was totally amazed by how the day went. ----------
root n. a part of the body of a plant which, typically, develops from the radicile and grows downward into the soil, fixing the plant and absorbing nutriment and moisture.
root v,i. to turn over earth with snout as swine.
root v,i. to encourage a team or contestant by cheering or applauding enthusiastically.
root math a. a quantity which, when multiplied by itself a certain number of times, produces a given quantity: the number 2 is the square root of 4, the cube root of 8 and the fourth root of 16.
am i getting close to the point of this thread. a point that may be arrived at sometime in the near future. oops!! time is irrelevant.
Last Edited by on May 31, 2010 4:30 PM
Not sure about the heartbeat thing (what about breathing? Walking?), but the idea that everything has a natural rhythm certainly resonates with me...
Sometime round about 1800, a German called Heinrich von Kleist wrote a very interesting piece on puppetry (Ueber das Marionettentheater). The big idea is that being a puppet master is effortless when you find the centre of gravity of what you're doing. Every movement flows from that centre, the lightest, subtlest variation can make the puppet dance. I sense some similarity in what you're saying?
captainbliss: You got it-thanks! I need to hire you as my publicist :-) I still believe the heartbeat is the key. Without it we can't breathe, walk, or anything. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Well, I don't have a good grasp of who is saying what in this thread. You can look at this on the purely mystical, spiritual, psychobabble level if you want. Or, on the purely prosaic level, the heart is also responsible for a lot in music because the typical shuffle is meant to represent a gentle stroll down the pavement, which is best done at a speed of 60 beats per minute, as that is the average rest-rate of the human heartbeat. Music at this rest-rate of 60 bpm is perceived as relaxing or laid-back because of this (one theory goes). In rave music a typical beat is 180 bpm, which is about the maximum safe rate for a healthy heart when working full out. It is exciting to listen to. ---------- Kinda hot in these rhinos!
