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.