When working through ideas for music we often become drawn to the amazing and fantastical and maybe this is something that we tend to do in life generally. But looking deeper into the world of music we actually respond to those who connect with us in an emotional and not a cerebral way.
The great blues players, the great reggae musicians, the flamenco players and the world musicians know this deeply and when I say ‘know this’ I mean ‘know’ on an intuitive level. Because of our education system we are trained that everything should be in your ‘head’ and you have to be thinking, thinking and then thinking which stops us using the greatest gift that we have, the unconscious, and this operates at its best when we are in the flow or in the zone and strangely this happens when we are grounded.I heard a quote once from a saxophone teacher from the US that said when you are improvising you should ‘think about the soles of your feet’ in other words stop the chatter in your head of which notes to play and focus your thoughts somewhere else.
What better way to put it that getting to the basics of being human may hold the answer to the questions of life which philosophers have pondered for ages but ironically the answer maybe not to think about it but feel it through your feet.
Vic
