What follows is
letter (that later was turned into an article) I wrote for the "Organic
NZ" magazine in New Zealand for an "organic music feature".
Hello Allan
Mmm, I was wondering too what you had envisioned for an "organic
music feature".
As for myself I see music as being enough unto itself - I'm not keen
to jump on one of the bandwagons that are available to musicians these
days, ie music for Sunday mornings, music for yoga, music for studying
etc. However I have found that people play my music while doing certain
activities and I'm of course happy if they do. I've been told that relaxation,
reiki and meditation go well with my music.
I'm a meditator and although I rarely meditate with music, I do make
music from a meditative perspective - leaving some space in the music
for silence to emerge and to be felt.
I have always felt that I can be a better musician if I can become a
more developed and wiser human being and vice versa.
Charlie Parker once said: "Music is your own experience, your thoughts,
your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."
This insight helped setting me on a path of meditation. Music to me
is a form of meditation, a process of raising one's awareness. In the
context of practising and playing and in the context of musical interaction
with other players. Questions like: when to play and when not to play,
to listen while playing, to be active and receptive at the same time,
to take the lead and to support etc. are all wonderful opportunities
to become more aware and to be in the 'here and now' - which is according
to me, what meditation is all about.
How does this tie in with organics? I think the case for "organic
music" is a little hard to make without broadening what we understand
the term "organic" to mean. But I think there is a lot that
both have in common.
Music is on the one hand a set of scientific phenomena involving sounds
- how the ear works and how the brain interprets.
If you tie a string between two fixed points and apply a little tension,
you can hear a note when the string vibrates the air. Take a bottle
neck and place it at the half way point and pluck the string again and
you'll hear the octave of that same note.
The scale that decides where the frets of a guitar go was defined by
Pythagoras...
On the other hand music is an inexplicable art, a mystery, an invisible
vapor...
I have heard from an enlightened mystic from the East, called Osho,
that originally music was conceived by meditators to express something
of their experience of meditation - to express something that cannot
be expressed in words.
How does the organic world stack up against that? I think the scientific
ground upon which that world stands is becoming more and more solid.
Without being an expert, it sounds to me that the concept of the soil
being a web, alive and breathing, is a sensible one. The same for putting
back into the earth what has been taken out, and judging foods by their
nutritional value rather than their weight. More highly nutritional
food yielding more human health, sounds entirely rational too.
I recently bought a refractometer - I wanted to measure how my garden
is doing. This piece of gear originates from the wine industry where
it is used to measure sugar content in grapes, to help the farmer decide
when is the best time to harvest. I learned that with this Brix meter
device the levels of sugar can be measured in all kinds of fruits and
vegetables and that these sugar levels equate with levels of mineral
and vitamin content in the vegetable.
Last month we put on compost that we obtained from a composter (is that
a word?) that makes his compost according to the Soil Food Web specs
of Elaine Ingram.
With the refractometer I have taken a 'snapshot' of our garden last
summer and put the results into a spreadsheet to compare against the
Brix chart of recommended good levels. I plan to do the same this coming
season and hopefully we'll see some improvement where needed in our
sugar/mineral/vitamin levels.
How about the mysterious side of the organic world? I only have to think
about the healing an organic diet can bring and the joy of growing fruits
and vegetables for your fellow human beings that can strengthen all
of our bodies. Or the many stories I have heard or read about how people's
eyes have been opened to the organic world, sometimes by going through
difficult processes of discovery.
The sensitivity one has to develop when you grow your own fruits and
vegetables. How to read mother nature - to be her guest - to go with
her, not against her and to know when the time is right to harvest or
sow - to nurture a balance in the world around you. All very musical
qualities!
Whenever I visit a health food store, an Eco trade fair or an exhibition
of organic growers, I can never help noticing the brightness of people's
eyes, the intelligence, the quiet leadership. As a musician I recognize
the creative spirit in those people - people who are doing something
because they know it is the right thing to do. These people radiate
a certain dignity.
All of that is the mystery of life at work.
I hope this explains
a little of where I'm coming from.
If you think what I have written qualifies as an article, I'm happy
for you to include it in Organic NZ. I myself have learned so much from
reading within its pages for many years.
A musician I admire called Pat Metheny, has expressed very well some
of these points - what it means to be a human being these days. I have
added his quote below.
Sambodhi
Prem