November 2019
From the Fringes
17/11/19 10:57
I recently did a Just Listening workshop at the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education annual conference. Enacting the workshop with mostly non-musicians in this way is always invigorating, since the natural state of their musical training is much closer to beginner’s mind, and there’s no worry about experts lapsing into typical expert mode. As is part of my point in the workshop, experts who desire to serve as educators — a group which would include, one imagines, any college or university professor — need to know how and when to hold back on their expertise, accessing the compassion that can be awakened by the workshop.
The workshop, in the context of the conference focus, “Radical Well-Being in Higher Education: Approaches for Renewal, Justice, and Sustainability”, was offered to demonstrate a pathway to utilizing that special state we call not knowing, and was thus called “Radical Renewal: Not Knowing”.
I closed the workshop with remarks about how not knowing, and the circumspection it brings, might be fostered within the academic environment. Certainly this could be accomplished by bringing in outsiders to expose topics that are not the course focus, or by encouraging those within the faculty or student body to do the same. But of what value might this be, and how could such experiences lead to the more laudable goal of meeting one’s field head-on with the same state of mind?
This train of thought leads me to the point I intended to make at the very close of my session, and forgot to do in the heat of the moment. What I want to say is this: operating from the fringes, encountering and utilizing one’s perceptive skills to penetrate something of no particular value in one’s field, especially in academia, can be the early glimmer of understanding the value of direct, unprejudiced experience. Coming to perceive the value of not knowing in agreeable pursuits can have tremendous value precisely because they do not ignite the controversies that flare up when we attempt to examine deeply-held points of view. With care, and a long-term view, this state of mind can be developed over time in a group, and eventually lead to honest examination of core principles within that group.
This “working from the fringes” approach, rather like addressing peripheral vision, can be well demonstrated by reference to music theory, and is in fact at the very heart of the analytical procedure (Sound-Energy Aggregate, or SEA) that stands as the intellectual backbone of Just Listening. In music theory, we deal with the incredible legacy of western classical music, and the truly amazing development of what we call tonality, or harmony and harmonic progression. This study of pitch is so deep, and takes so much experience to understand, that it becomes virtually the entirety of students’ theoretical study of music. Offering new ways of understanding or teaching this material will inevitably run into legions of entrenched opposition.
The Sound-Energy Aggregate theory posits that pitch (harmony-melody) is but one of many contributors of energy to the musical experience. When I ask in Just Listening, “what do you hear?”, I encourage people to simply state what they remember, what’s most obvious to them. What comes in is predominantly not pitch per se, certainly not references that are taught in conservatories and music schools, but observations of the factors overlooked in theory classes, felt to be too obvious for commentary by the cognoscenti, things like loudness, silence, new sounds, etc. The pursuit is enabled also by asking for comments on energy, which is a way of estimating impact on the musical flow. Continued use of such a concept allows a group to begin to address pitch in the same way. Before long, honest discussion of what is heard in the pitch realm becomes possible (not an easy place to arrive, given the fear residing in many musicians’ consciousness about being “wrong” in their hearing), and we have entered a really new realm of opportunity.
One more thought about working from the fringes: I call upon chaos theory in my account of the SEA, arguing that tracking multiple energy-producing factors produces a parallel to mathematics that can handle multiple variables, which is in essence chaos theory. And the piece I use most often in Just Listening produces something of a musical fractal, as it reproduces on a large scale the same shape as the small-scale generative idea in the piece. If you’ve ever seen a fractal in action, growing itself over and over in tiny and large places, you’ll know that where the fractal takes hold is very much in the fringes.
A fractal needs no nurturing, but we humans do. The potential for radical renewal in academia by embracing not knowing is probably greatest from the fringes, as it enters there hardly noticed, and creates no pushback from the deeply entrenched.
The workshop, in the context of the conference focus, “Radical Well-Being in Higher Education: Approaches for Renewal, Justice, and Sustainability”, was offered to demonstrate a pathway to utilizing that special state we call not knowing, and was thus called “Radical Renewal: Not Knowing”.
I closed the workshop with remarks about how not knowing, and the circumspection it brings, might be fostered within the academic environment. Certainly this could be accomplished by bringing in outsiders to expose topics that are not the course focus, or by encouraging those within the faculty or student body to do the same. But of what value might this be, and how could such experiences lead to the more laudable goal of meeting one’s field head-on with the same state of mind?
This train of thought leads me to the point I intended to make at the very close of my session, and forgot to do in the heat of the moment. What I want to say is this: operating from the fringes, encountering and utilizing one’s perceptive skills to penetrate something of no particular value in one’s field, especially in academia, can be the early glimmer of understanding the value of direct, unprejudiced experience. Coming to perceive the value of not knowing in agreeable pursuits can have tremendous value precisely because they do not ignite the controversies that flare up when we attempt to examine deeply-held points of view. With care, and a long-term view, this state of mind can be developed over time in a group, and eventually lead to honest examination of core principles within that group.
This “working from the fringes” approach, rather like addressing peripheral vision, can be well demonstrated by reference to music theory, and is in fact at the very heart of the analytical procedure (Sound-Energy Aggregate, or SEA) that stands as the intellectual backbone of Just Listening. In music theory, we deal with the incredible legacy of western classical music, and the truly amazing development of what we call tonality, or harmony and harmonic progression. This study of pitch is so deep, and takes so much experience to understand, that it becomes virtually the entirety of students’ theoretical study of music. Offering new ways of understanding or teaching this material will inevitably run into legions of entrenched opposition.
The Sound-Energy Aggregate theory posits that pitch (harmony-melody) is but one of many contributors of energy to the musical experience. When I ask in Just Listening, “what do you hear?”, I encourage people to simply state what they remember, what’s most obvious to them. What comes in is predominantly not pitch per se, certainly not references that are taught in conservatories and music schools, but observations of the factors overlooked in theory classes, felt to be too obvious for commentary by the cognoscenti, things like loudness, silence, new sounds, etc. The pursuit is enabled also by asking for comments on energy, which is a way of estimating impact on the musical flow. Continued use of such a concept allows a group to begin to address pitch in the same way. Before long, honest discussion of what is heard in the pitch realm becomes possible (not an easy place to arrive, given the fear residing in many musicians’ consciousness about being “wrong” in their hearing), and we have entered a really new realm of opportunity.
One more thought about working from the fringes: I call upon chaos theory in my account of the SEA, arguing that tracking multiple energy-producing factors produces a parallel to mathematics that can handle multiple variables, which is in essence chaos theory. And the piece I use most often in Just Listening produces something of a musical fractal, as it reproduces on a large scale the same shape as the small-scale generative idea in the piece. If you’ve ever seen a fractal in action, growing itself over and over in tiny and large places, you’ll know that where the fractal takes hold is very much in the fringes.
A fractal needs no nurturing, but we humans do. The potential for radical renewal in academia by embracing not knowing is probably greatest from the fringes, as it enters there hardly noticed, and creates no pushback from the deeply entrenched.
Just Listening and the Composing Process
02/11/19 11:32
At a recent Just Listening workshop, this one at my home institution, the Longy School of Music of Bard College, I was asked about the connection between Just Listening and composing. I gave a credible answer, but one that only began to turn up the most meaningful and important parts of the connection. And of course, when did the full realization hit me but during my daily meditation the next morning!
So, the crux: Just Listening and Just Sitting (Shikantaza) share the fundamental reality that thoughts just bubble up. One does not aim to suppress thoughts, squash them, remember them — only to recognize that yes, there’s a thought. What is also real, though, is that these thoughts are about what one engages with in life, and if something is already on your mind, the thoughts that bubble up are often related to that. And the very fact that the thoughts just appear means they often bring insight.
Insight is basically another way of knowing. It is distinctly different from the acquisition of knowledge, it is not acquired through thinking, following a thought, obsessing over “figuring it out.” Though much thinking and work precede it, one must simply wait for insight, it comes on its own time, and of course that means it’s not a good idea to meditate in order to find the answer to a question.
Another aspect of the insight-meditation connection is that we are so accustomed to holding onto a thought that we think is good, following its implications, etc., that the process consumes our minds, and crowds out anything that might follow. So here’s another connection to the Just Listening paradigm: the listening model of being totally aware, absorbing what comes, and not latching onto a favorite or unfavorite occurrence in the music or performance means that when such an event does come, we acknowledge it and return to listening. In so doing, we hear the next thing and the next thing, which we might easily have missed were we involved in our likes and dislikes, and that next thing might be the very turning point in our appreciation or understanding of the music. Likewise in composing, it is incredibly valuable to allow insights to pop up through a variety of means, and sitting meditation is one. (All seem to share the aspect of waiting, in one way or another.) When the insight comes, it is difficult not to obsessively try not to forget it, but when one is able to simply let it be, to risk losing it, it’s amazing how often another comes and another after that.
My response then, to the question of how the Just Listening approach to listening connects to composing is that the process of maintaining the state of beginner’s mind while listening, allowing insight to bubble up without our grasping onto it, exactly corresponds to loosening one’s grasp on the composing process enough to allow unsolicited insight to arise. Thoughts just arise without our direction. Learning to let that happen, learning to give up some of our desire to control the outcome, and let the materials and process more directly speak to us through insight, is an incredibly valuable lesson to learn, and a very worthwhile compositional tool.
So, the crux: Just Listening and Just Sitting (Shikantaza) share the fundamental reality that thoughts just bubble up. One does not aim to suppress thoughts, squash them, remember them — only to recognize that yes, there’s a thought. What is also real, though, is that these thoughts are about what one engages with in life, and if something is already on your mind, the thoughts that bubble up are often related to that. And the very fact that the thoughts just appear means they often bring insight.
Insight is basically another way of knowing. It is distinctly different from the acquisition of knowledge, it is not acquired through thinking, following a thought, obsessing over “figuring it out.” Though much thinking and work precede it, one must simply wait for insight, it comes on its own time, and of course that means it’s not a good idea to meditate in order to find the answer to a question.
Another aspect of the insight-meditation connection is that we are so accustomed to holding onto a thought that we think is good, following its implications, etc., that the process consumes our minds, and crowds out anything that might follow. So here’s another connection to the Just Listening paradigm: the listening model of being totally aware, absorbing what comes, and not latching onto a favorite or unfavorite occurrence in the music or performance means that when such an event does come, we acknowledge it and return to listening. In so doing, we hear the next thing and the next thing, which we might easily have missed were we involved in our likes and dislikes, and that next thing might be the very turning point in our appreciation or understanding of the music. Likewise in composing, it is incredibly valuable to allow insights to pop up through a variety of means, and sitting meditation is one. (All seem to share the aspect of waiting, in one way or another.) When the insight comes, it is difficult not to obsessively try not to forget it, but when one is able to simply let it be, to risk losing it, it’s amazing how often another comes and another after that.
My response then, to the question of how the Just Listening approach to listening connects to composing is that the process of maintaining the state of beginner’s mind while listening, allowing insight to bubble up without our grasping onto it, exactly corresponds to loosening one’s grasp on the composing process enough to allow unsolicited insight to arise. Thoughts just arise without our direction. Learning to let that happen, learning to give up some of our desire to control the outcome, and let the materials and process more directly speak to us through insight, is an incredibly valuable lesson to learn, and a very worthwhile compositional tool.