Critiqued story for friend in writing group, attended music recital for Keith at his school. Didn’t actually do any writing or playing, but still engaged in writing and music activities.
Category Archives: Music
Zen Guitar
Zen Guitar
By: Philip Toshio Sudo
Type: Extended inspirational metaphor
Setting: The Zen Guitar Dojo
Description:
Using Zen teachings interspersed with quotes and examples from famous musicians, Phil Sudo guides us on a tour through the Zen Guitar Dojo. The dojo is a virtual practice studio; one can enter the studio anywhere, at any time, because it is more a state of mind than a physical reality. Focus and dedication are the keys to this dojo; a beginner’s mind and openness to the teaching allow growth to occur.
Sudo divides the book into five main parts, each indicating different levels of progression in Zen Guitar. When a new student enters the dojo, no matter his level of playing ability, he must embrace the beginner’s mind and put on the white belt, and these basics are covered in the first section of the book.
As the student moves through the dojo, his white belt becomes soiled from practice and begins to turn black; practice is the focus of the second section of the book. When a player has practiced enough to become proficient, his belt may be completely black, and with that comes the responsibility of using what he has learned wisely. That responsibility is the subject of the third section of the book. Of course, just because a student has attained the black belt level, that doesn’t mean he is finished. As in any dojo, a black belt only indicates that the student’s true learning has begun.
As he studies, his belt may begin to fray, and strands of the original white belt will begin to show through. He will have learned much, and now is confronted with the question of where the music comes from. Is he playing it, or is it playing him? The correct answer is mu, the classic transcendent point of Zen philosophy. The music is neither playing nor being played by the student, and the student will only understand his relationship to it when he drops the need for duality. This is the subject of the fourth section.
Finally, when the student has played and practiced enough that his belt is once again white, he realizes that it was white all along, and that the way he got to the level he is now is by keeping the beginner’s mind forefront, and by wearing the same white belt. The final section is a recap of all that the student has learned, and it is all white belt material.
Comments:
I purchased this book in May of 2001. I had seen it on the rack at my local magazine store and thought it looked fascinating, and finally I bought it, knowing nothing about the author or, really, what the book was about. It sat inside my nightstand for a year before I took it out again and started reading. I read it in small chunks, wanting to chew on each piece slowly, rather than blazing through the book and missing the points. It was a very easy read; Sudo’s style is crisp, simple, and clean, and he makes even the difficult Zen concepts come across clearly. I learned valuable information from many sections of the book that deal directly with stumbling points in my playing: “Mistakes,” “Stages and Plateaus,” “Self-Doubt,” and “Overthinking” are all sections with which I connected directly. They are all in the “white belt to black belt” section, so I guess I know where I am on the path of Zen Guitar. I look forward to the day when I find I am connecting better with the sections in the later part of the book.
Some interesting things have happened to my playing since I started reading this book. I’ve taken more risks, for one thing. I have also worked on learning a lot of new songs, most of them heavier than I am used to playing. I tried out for a band that is ready to start gigging, and I played and sang onstage at a local jam without feeling overly self-conscious. I’m not sure how much of that can be attributed to the book, but I am sure that the book helped me develop the mindset that I needed to be open to these opportunities.
There is another coincidence: a very said one. When I finished the book, I went to the Zen Guitar website listed in the back of the book. I wanted to see if there was anything new that Sudo had added to the dojo that would complement this review, and I wanted to let him know that I had enjoyed the book and was going to write the review. When I arrived at the website, the first thing I noticed was a date range: Philip Toshio Sudo, October 20th, 1959 – June 9th, 2002.
Evidently Phil had been battling cancer since about the time that I bought the book. He kept a journal online, and as I read through it, I thought of the same steps that my brother took as he fought cancer. Phil lived a couple of years longer than my brother did, and from all accounts on the website, he lived live with a joy and presence that comes from viewing the world from within Zen.
I checked my Creativity Journal for June 9th, and I’m happy to say that I was in a Zen Guitar frame of mind that day, working out a song list for my basement band and studying the fret board. The next day, I noted that I had “read some more Zen Guitar.” I’m sure Phil would be happy to know that.
Recommendations:
Though Zen Guitar is primarily aimed at guitarists, the ideas are universal. Anyone, whether s/he plays an instrument or not, should be able to find something of worth in these pages if s/he is open enough to look. At one point in the book, when Sudo is talking about recovering from mistakes, he says, “When things falls apart, make art. Carry this spirit though to every area of your life.” I think most of the principles in this book can be extended to all areas of life. Basically, it’s all about maintaining a beginner’s mind: being open to learning new things, appreciating what we have yet to learn, and using the time we have left wisely, as Phil did.
Thank you, Phil Sudo, for allowing me into your dojo.
Hello … Again
I won’t be ranting much in this installment of the rant archive. I need to ease back into it.
As I write this, the sky is a menacing, roiling gray, and my neighbor’s roof is already under two inches of water. My son just informed me that his window ledge is also covered with water, despite his window being closed. A quick towel does the trick in his bedroom; the neighbor is on his own.
Life has not stood still in the many months that have passed since I updated this site regularly. I’m working a stable job in a perilous IT career track — perilous only because of the short-sightedness of dot-com startups with no real business plans or revenue streams. I have rededicated my spare time to family and creative efforts, to the mild disappointment of some of my friends. I know they are my friends because they have remained supportive, despite my withdrawal. (Thanks to all of you.)
My family (especially my wife) has been supportive as well, encouraging me to write stories, play music, build a guitar. And with every finished story draft, they have perched silently on the bed as I read out loud, pausing now and then to make a note when something just didn’t sound right. They have offered some critical feedback, and they have occasionally offered more praise than the work deserved. Fortunately, I have been able to get less biased feedback from two writing groups as well.
Over the last three years, a couple of new poems and rants found their way to my old website. Beyond that, there was not much activity, and it’s time for that to change. I have procured the domain name lytspeed.net, changing the spelling slightly to accommodate the net gods. I have redesigned the site to reflect my commitment to writing, giving the pages the look of a spiral notebook. There has always been a lot of information on these pages, so I added a much needed search feature. The site now has a separate section for special features, like my son’s artwork, and I have added a list of writing-related links. The site has undergone a critical proofreading, as well, but if you find any mechanical or stylistic problems, or if you just want to tell me you agree or disagree with something I’ve said, please let me know.
It’s time to post this page. Thanks for listening, and be sure to whack me upside the head if I become lazy again and haven’t updated the site in a while!
The Story of OLGA and Harry Fox
Once upon a time, there was a little music archive named OLGA. OLGA liked to collect lots of songs and share them with her friends. She had over 20,000 songs from all different types of music! She even had a lot of different versions of the same songs, by people who had figured out how to play them differently. That is part of what made her collection so beautiful; it was a picture of musical growth. It helped to keep the music alive for other people to play on their own guitars.
Then along came a big bad Fox, who said that OLGA couldn’t keep her songs because he hadn’t given her permission. He told her to get rid of the songs or he would huff and puff and blow them all away. (He’d learned how to do this from his cousin, the Wolf.) Actually, the only reason he was upset was because he thought that he should be the only one to keep those songs, and should charge people for using them. This Fox was obviously not interested in keeping the music fresh and alive. He didn’t want to let people learn how to play songs for their own enjoyment and that of their friends.
–+– –+– –+–
I interrupt this fairy tale to talk about a grave disturbance in the world of online music. The On-Line Guitar Archive (OLGA) has been shut down by the Harry Fox Agency, an organization that issues licenses and distributes royalties for mechanical reproduction of copyrighted music.
OLGA is an invaluable resource to me as an amateur guitarist. I make no money from the music I play, and I have no intentions of making a living as a guitar player. It is a hobby, and a very important aspect of my life. Songs like Dan Fogelberg’s “Leader of the Band” and Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” made me want to learn to play guitar. I learned those songs by purchasing the sheet music (which was written incorrectly) and trying to figure out what notes to add to make them sound like the records. Of course, I will never sound as good as someone who has devoted his entire life to music, but I can come close enough to call back the feelings that the original songs gave me.
These songs and songs by Tommy Shaw, James Taylor, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton (to name only a few) continue to provide me with the inspiration to learn music and pass it on to my family and friends, with my own interpretations and phrasings. They also inspire me to write my own music and share it with others — not in the interest of making money, but just to share the beauty of music and express some of my feelings in a (hopefully) beautiful way. I don’t think the Harry Fox Agency is specifically out to destroy this kind of musical sharing and inspiration, but their actions in shutting down OLGA have that effect.
The following lines are from the Harry Fox Agency’s web page:
| What is HFA’s Role In The Music Industry? HFA represents music publishers. We issue licenses and collect and distribute royalties for the mechanical reproduction of their copyrights. We issue licenses and collect and distribute royalties for synchronization use of their compositions in motion pictures, television films, video tapes and electrical transcriptions and many other sources. What is a mechanical reproduction? |
Unless I’m reading this wrong, nowhere in these lines does it say that the Harry Fox Agency has jurisdiction over personal interpretations of songs shared by individuals. Song interpretations, whether posted on the Internet or scribbled on napkins, are not mechanical reproductions by the definition listed above. I think their concern is that people can use the songs for monetary gain by learning them and playing them in cover bands, so the agency demanded that OLGA be shut down. But that makes no sense. Most of the venues in which successful bands play already pay a flat fee to cover royalties on any song that gets played under that roof for a specified period of time. If a guitarist learns a solo version of “Sweet Home Alabama” from an OLGA file and then performs it at his local coffeehouse gig, that royalty should already be covered by the coffeehouse. Why shouldn’t that guitarist be able to play the song live?
Musicians learn more from other musicians than from any other source. Is the Harry Fox Agency going to start following musicians around to make sure they don’t teach anyone how to play the chords to “Stairway to Heaven?” Does any agency have the right to say what songs I can learn to play or teach to my friends?
Not in my opinion. I consider this to be an attempt to kill music, or at least make it subservient to money. The Harry Fox Agency claims to be serving the interests of the artists and music publishers, and I have no dispute with the fact that the artists deserve compensation for mechanical reproduction of their songs. But by shutting down OLGA, the Harry Fox Agency is only hurting itself. Live musicians play what the people want to hear, and the public doesn’t really care whether the Harry Fox Agency is getting its cut. If musicians are allowed to exchange information about songs, they are actually increasing the amount of money that the Harry Fox Agancy can get because more people will come to hear the songs. If the Harry Fox Agency attempts to license OLGA, they are double dipping — trying to make money two different ways on the same song.
The songs posted on OLGA are not there to harm anyone. They are there as tributes to the songwriters and as educational resources. Someone liked each song enough to spend his time to learn it and then gave his interpretation to other people so they can have the enjoyment of playing it as well. There is an ancient tradition here, going back to a time before writing even existed. For thousands of years, people have been teaching each other songs and stories to entertain. In the modern world, we have the means to make this teaching available to anyone with access to the Internet, but it is still the same thing: People teaching other people how to enrich their lives. To try to squelch that is to kill tradition as well as damage our souls.
Fortunately, there are some rebel sites that have mirrored and posted the entire OLGA catalog. Most of them are outside the United States, and are therefore out of reach of the Harry Fox Agency — for now. And the Harry Fox Agency will not keep me from getting together with my friends tonight and playing Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” just to make a private statement.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled fairy tale.
–+– –+– –+–
OLGA thought about the Fox’ threat, and decided that keeping the music and the learning alive was important enough to stand up to him, so she kept on giving her friends copies of the songs. Sure enough, true to his word, the Fox huffed and puffed and blew her house in, leaving her with only a few songs that he wasn’t interested in.
Fortunately, the Fox didn’t know that OLGA had friends who had made copies of her songs, and that they were giving out the songs in other countries. So the music was still out there, available, but harder to find. And as more and more people heard about OLGA’s tragedy, they began yelling for the Fox to give back what he stole from OLGA and all the other music lovers in the world. When the Fox heard about this, he got so scared that the tip of his tail turned white and he began running away as fast as he could. He’s still running today.
The Zone
Athletes speak of it often. Musicians claim they are inspired by it. Writers claim their works write themselves from within it. Mystics have prophetic visions while bathed in its light. Martial artists draw unforseen strength and prowess from it.
Somewhere deep inside the mind is a doorway to a place where time does not exist, where actions flow without the burden of thought. The body becomes a conduit for energy that seemingly comes from nowhere and translates into beauty, strength, grace and intracacy. This place is called The Zone.
I have no doubt that such a place exists; I have watched others while immersed in The Zone and seen profound changes in their actions and attitudes. I have even been lucky enough to be there a couple of times. In this essay, I will attempt to describe both what I have observed in others and what I have felt on my own occasions
Several years ago, I went to a late night jam session at a small club in Durango, Colorado. The club was empty but for a few people sitting at the little tables. Because of the low turnout for the jam, the house band spent a lot of time onstage that night. At one point, they launched into a slow, instrumental twelve-bar blues. The guitarist, a quiet Texan named Peter Neds, eased into the solo, playing mainly standard blues licks and runs. Somewhere near the middle of the solo, he slipped into The Zone, and the music began playing him. His solo encompassed every guitar trick I had ever seen and a few more, the entire time conveying a sense of pain and loss that only a slow blues can do. He was not merely stringing together stock phrases; the solo was a living structure, interconnected and sobbing with sorrow. After more than ten minutes, the music began to change back into stock phrases and hooks, spiraling down from the heights it had attained. Peter was coming out of The Zone. To this day, I have never seen anyone short of Stevie Ray Vaughan equal the intensity and emotion of that guitar solo.
I have hoped over the years that I would be able to attain that kind of kinship with my instrument, and have had brief glimpses of it from time to time while I am playing, but never have I been blessed with an experience such as that one.
In an entirely different environment, I have seen a close friend enter The Zone. I went to watch her test for her black belt in Tang Soo Do, a style of Korean karate. The test was grueling, yet she seemed to settle in to it with ease and grace. I realized she was fully in The Zone when she displayed her forms, however. One form in particular showcased the grace and beauty of Tang Soo Do; it was a long, slow form that nearly traversed the length of the dojo, and it seemed to be based very strongly in energy manipulation. As she passed in front of me, I saw the faraway look in her eyes and realized that she was on another level. Her body was responding to the energy so fully that I could almost see the power flow around her, in and out of her lungs and muscles. She was an incredible balance of grace and power, and I gained a great amount of respect for her abilities that afternoon. Of course, she passed the black belt test easily.
The closest I have come to that kind of experience was during a sonic meditation in Phoenix. I went mainly out of curiosity, but left convinced that meditation in general is a strong way to tune in to The Zone. The process involved lying in a darkened room while the facilitator manipulated various sound producing objects, from simple blocks of wood to Tibetan bells to a very large gong. I had no problem relaxing into the meditation and allowing visuals to form in my mind’s eye, but I was not in The Zone at that point. When the Tibetan bells started, I was astounded at the clarity of sound and was unable to focus on anything else. I started letting go of my own perception of reality. Then, the gong started slowly and quietly. The facilitator knew the gong well, and was able to get widely varying sounds by hitting it in different places and different ways, making a gradual crescendo. By the time the gong was sounding at its peak, I literally felt that every wave of sound was a physical medium that rocked my body as if I were in a boat. I had the sensation of floating and, later, flying for an unknown length of time. At some point in my mental journey, the facilitator began the sequence of sounds to bring us back, and when I returned to my body (I can’t describe it in any other way!) it was completely slack and relaxed. Moving my body took several minutes of great effort, starting with clenching and relaxing my fist and working through the rest of my body. I’m not sure where I went, but I know I had the sensation of flying and floating and that I was not aware of the state my physical body was in. It was a bit frightening, but also invigorating for me. I think this was an extreme example of The Zone; perhaps beyond it, because usually being in The Zone requires maintaining some contact with your body in order to channel the energy. All of my energy was directed somewhere other than my body, as evidenced by the extreme relaxed state that it was in when I woke.
It would be nice to be able to enter The Zone whenever I wanted to. I have experimented with various types of meditation and have had limited success, but it has never been reliable for me. I have a theory that it is possible to enter The Zone through any type of disciplined action or practice: sports, martial arts, music, meditation, prayer are all examples of pathways to The Zone. Some people who are extremely good at what they do seem to be able to call it forth on command. I strongly suspect that they are all tapping into the same energy source through different methods. If anyone else has thoughts on this matter, I would be interested to hear your comments. Let me know how you feel on this matter, whether you agree or disagree.