The Master of Demon Valley

The mouth is the door of the mind; the mind is the host of the spirit. Will, intention, joy, desire, thought, worry, knowledge and planning all go in and out through the door. - The Master of Demon Valley.

This is an ancient Taoist text which was translated by Thomas Cleary some twenty years ago and it tells of how Taoist thought and philosophy of ‘the way’ could be used to influence and control the population.
The premise is that all things move from masculine active to feminine receptive or as they express it as Yin and Yang the Yang being the masculine. Language is used to develop that depending on where you are in that arc and not so much about the reality of language expressing truth as we think of it; more in a way of language as a form of magic and spell casting.
The similarities with NLP are interesting with the language being seen as fluid and influential to the mind of the listener.
So if you want to write a rousing song use rousing words, something about love keep saying love, a song about anger, use words that express anger even if they do not make sense in a literal way use language’s power of poetry.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Is in the way you tell ‘em

 A pupil of mine is working on the blues phrasing of Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan and the way that the lines from the former are found in the playing of SRV. However there are differences and he also mentioned to me that he was finding it confusing listening to various versions on the internet of transcriptions of Stevie’s Crossfire.

He asked ‘How is it that different versions of the same solo exist from different transcribers?’ The only way I could answer him was to say ‘please pass the salt’ and then ‘please, pass the salt’ they mean subtly different things. It is all in the dynamics and delivery and that maybe the listener will interpret different meanings in what they hear, a little like saying does your seeing of the colour blue match someone else’s seeing of that colour.

Guitar playing is very much like speaking a language and therefore you need to listen and then play what you hear NOT what someone else tells you they hear. When you have a number of phrases speak them in your tongue make the phrases communicate and remember that what you hear may not be what others hear. Hear with your feelings and not with your intellect, this will be more truthful; then hone it down like a child would do with language.

Vic



www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Three days of playing in a rock band – learn the tricks of the trade.

 

Giving up ownership of your inspiration

The idea that we are not the source of the songs and that we only act as a conduit for the music is an appealing thought for me.
Leonard Cohen expressed this beautifully in his acceptance speech to the Prince of Asturias Foundation were he said the skills of playing guitar were handed to him by a young Spanish guitarist whom he met in Montreal and his lyrics were inspired by the great Spanish poet Lorca. Here is the link to that speech on YouTube https://youtu.be/VIR5ps8usuo
He said of Lorca that he taught him to find his voice even though he understood well the rules of poetry he did not have a voice until he read Lorca. The young Spaniard who taught him the fundamental chords of the guitar gave him the ingredients for all of his songs in six chords, in essence Cohen passed the ownership of his songs back to the land of Spain because the inspiration was rooted in its soil although he personally has no hereditary link.
There seems something fundamentally magical about giving up ownership of your inspiration; it seems to open the flood gates to ideas, pictures, words and feelings as if brought by the muse’s from somewhere else.
So much of education is about being ‘in your head’ whereas the area of creativity is linked to something less formed and something more abstract.

Vic

www.bluescamp.co.uk