The Body in Music

As I was reading Sync or Swarm by David Borgo, I came across the passage The Body in Music. I never really stop to think about my body and what its doing while I play. However there is so much going on that we don't even think about. So many things go on around us that extend our expirence much further. Emotions have a major impact on improvisation, and emotions can be sparked from anything, a sight, a color, a smell, all have an impact on what is happening. Sometimes when I play I don't realize that a color I see in the lights might create a feeling that directly influences the playing. The body has such a major impact. The ability to use hand eye coordination, and muscle memory in playing is one that is second nature, we don't think about what happens on the inside when music is created, but our bodies influence it so much. Earlier this year I broke my pinky on my left hand, and I was unable to play guitar in my normal manner for months. I had to play through the pain however, because I had a very important concert to prepare for. After my pinky got better, it healed in a way that helped my guitar playing. I was lucky, but I might not have been. Our body is so important to music, and sometimes that is forgotten.

Using our mind with our body is important. As David Borgo explains in a quote of Wayne Bowman, "...the body is in the mind. Mind is rendered possible by bodily sensations and actions, from whose patterns it emerges and upon which it relies for whatever intellectual prowess it can claim. At the same time, the mind is in the body, in the sense that mind is coextensive with the bodies neutral pathwasy and cognitive templates they comprise."(42). In short, the mind influences the body, and vis versa. Both must be used to perform, making the playing of music a total physical expirence.

Improvisation has a special place in my heart. Since I was a young boy I have always been fascinated with sound, and how it can be manipulated to be spontaneous. My first experience with improve probably stretches back to the second grade. I was involved in a play called Rosie… something or other, and I had a solo to sing in a song. The song was called “One was Johnny” and while I sang I had to hold up signs with numbers on them as I counted down to one. However, bad luck struck when I dropped the signs backstage. They spilled into disarray all across the floor. There was nothing I could do, and there was no time to pick them up because I had to be on stage. I thought fast and “improvised” for the first time. It might seem rather simple, but at the time I was rather proud of myself. In place of the paper signs, I used my hands o count down the ten numbers in the song. It might have been fate or just coincidence, but since then I have been directly involved with improv whether it be in music, or theatre.

Some people are slaves to sheet music, without the ability, or reason for that matter to wander into a world of improvisation in music. I however am the opposite. While I can read and write (not well) in theory terms, I am much happier improvising. I sang in my school’s chorus, and played in the band, beginning in the fifth grade. I often found my self spacing out and humming new melodies in my head as other people were playing or singing. I will certainly say that I was a space case most of the time, but I always wanted more from the music. I don’t like to be restricted. Singing came naturally to me as a child and I was quite good at it. I had and still have a good sense of pitch; although not perfect I’d say I’m close. While I still have a good ear, my vocal abilities left me at age 13 when I hit puberty.

I could still sing, but was no longer the singer I was when I was younger. So I had to look elsewhere in music for things to do. My mother told me she always wanted one of her sons to play the guitar. Apparently I was the one. So she bought me a five dollar shitty acoustic guitar at a lawn sale in Greenville Maine. I picked it up a few times, strummed it and pretended to play songs on it. I really liked it. So about the same time I picked up the Baritone horn in fifth grade I also picked up the guitar. My ability in Band never really went anywhere after that, I was too busy picking. So then the next step; guitar lessons, and once again restrictions. Looking back on it, the lessons I took in fifth and sixth grade made me the musician I am today, but at the time I hated them. I didn't want to play Ring around the Rosie, or Mary Had a Little Lamb, I wanted more. So when my parents made me set aside time to practice the guitar, I would just doodle and do my own thing. I played the doors, and Nirvana, but little from "Mel Bay's Intro to Guitar". When it came to lesson time, I habitually made a fool out of myself because I sucked at playing the songs I was assigned. After two years I quit and began my own journey, and discovered the one thing every parent hates, Electric guitars, amps, and distortion. I played along with Led Zeppelin CDs and AC/DC cds for hours. Between seventh grade and eleventh grade I probably played five hours a day when I could. In Ninth grade I discovered two things that altered my playing forever: Jam bands and Marijuana. Since ninth grade I have played in four jam bands, and gained some success in two of them. My skill at improvising on guitar at this point in time is at a professional level and I attribute it to my ability to listen above all. I believe that the key to improv is the skill to listen to those you play with, and react. That is a little about my life in the world of Improv, I will discuss the elements, and not myself in blogs to come.