Ripples in a pool

 

Ripples in a pool

 

I took a small stone and turned to one of the children and said ‘I’m going to show you something of how the universe works, in fact it is most definitely how nature works’. I threw the stone into the water and we watched the ripples radiate out. ‘You see the ripples are caused by something that is not the same as the ripples,  the action itself is not the same as the effect of that action, that is something important  to notice and if you look carefully you can see it everywhere. The bee when it is feeding doesn’t know that it’s pollinating a plant, in fact the benefit that it brings to all life is not his actual intention and this is true of most things. The skill is to be able to work out what effect you can have in the world by doing something completely different. That my dear is Magic’.

I have been fascinated for some time in the unexpected consequence and situations where something is happening but it is difficult to work out the causative effect of it.

Why is it for instance that some people with the same amount of practice could learn much quicker than others, and then slow down?

How is it that  other people learn slowly and then for no apparent reason suddenly become very good almost overnight?  I have seen this over and over again,

I have had a number of experiences where somebody who could not sing, who is struggling to pitch a note and who was make slow progress, could one day turn up to a lesson; sit down and this amazing voice came out.

 In a previous post I said that progress is not linear, I had spoken more of the framework of revelation and some sort of tipping point event but this time I want to look at what we could do to create change in an indirect lateral fashion.

 I was always interested in the work of Edward De Bono who coined the phrase lateral thinking, in his numerous books on the subject there are lots of examples of stimulating thought by coming in laterally. He uses various examples one of them was an American museum looking for extra funding and using a dictionary as the reference source. At random they chose words from the dictionary and then brainstormed what it made them think. One word was mattress and that led to the idea of sleepovers in the museum, children’s parties then business conferences etc. This apparently led to an increase in the funds for the museum leading to their financial survival and course a couple of Hollywood films such as Night in the Museum, I’m joking as I don’t know whether that’s true or not!

Sometimes we see this in our own life where a situation which may have been unpleasant leads to an improvement in one’s life, a fulcrum point in the way that gave you leverage for change.

Instead of waiting for events we create the opportunity for them to happen,  him I’m thinking of the idea explored in the book the ‘The Dice Man’ where his decisions based on the throw a dice. I have already mentioned Bowie and Brian Eno use of cards in their case the oblique strategy cards that Eno had created. Brian Eno was also a collector of Tarot packs and therefore I would assume that the the oblique strategy cards that he created we’re just an extension to that idea. If  it worked for Brian Eno and David Bowie it might be worth considering it yourself.

So what about ritualistic behaviour?  Of course we do this all the time, cleaning our teeth, who goes to the bathroom first in the morning,  how we order our lives; these patterns are the same, day in, day out often, so let us create some that have an intention for change.

Remember that I have a creative experiment going on which is available through my Patreon site which is the Magical Song Writing, where we are creating lyrics and music that has some intention to change ourselves and our surroundings. Check that out by visiting www.Patreon.com/vichyland

 

also Bluescampuk music summer school www.bluescampuk.co.uk 

 

 

 

 

We do not learn in a straight line it is a crazy journey and a tipping point event.

 

We do not learn in a straight line it is a crazy journey and a tipping point event.

 

Over the years I have pondered how people learn. I have looked at my learning which resembles a wrestling match; sometimes I win sometimes I lose.

To me the way that people learn is not a gradual improvement which seems to be the model implied in most academic areas. In fact it is more consistent with the idea of the mediaeval revelation where at some point in time after much trial and tribulation it is revealed to you.

We see this idea more in Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey or any saga; a long journey with lots of tribulation, failures, and alliances, some form of cheating, double-dealing and then achieving the aim, sometimes not in the way that was anticipated; and then the journey back, with the treasure.

The reason I think this is so important is that it dissolves the illusion of how things happen, our intellectual reasoning mind wants things to be measured and mapped but I don’t think the world works like this and the more I interview people for the ‘Creative’ podcast the more I see it. In fact I haven’t actually met anyone who’s had a straightforward trajectory to what they have achieved.

I have spoken to people whose life has been rocked by bizarre events, near death experiences, strange meetings by chance, lucky breaks, disappointments that led to something else but whatever it is  never a gradual improvement on a level road taking us to our target.

It seems that the mind needs to get to that point where the pressure has built up so much that the dam bursts. For the guitarist the amount of practice becomes like a tsunami that enables the muscular aspects to change, for the singer they suddenly find their voice, for the novelist the plot with all its twists and turns comes into view, for the entrepreneur the idea suddenly presents itself out of nowhere.

Now that is not to say that we do not need strategies and tactics that enable us to create and open doorways, because sometimes the Muses aren’t waiting they have to be called maybe by having techniques that get us into that mind frame they hear us and we are prepared  to channel an idea.

You see everything is really like that, we don’t gradually learn to ride a bike, we suddenly learn to ride a bike after spending a lot of time falling off, it’s the same with surfing, walking, talking, in fact the most common graph that you could draw is a steep rise followed by a plateau, then another steep rise followed by another plateau and so on.

In one of the solo shows called Tough Love, I talk about really good pupil who just suddenly gave up when they were just on the cusp of making a great improvement, however in today’s way of thinking with all its ‘let’s have it now’ attitude many people stop achieving, and this is exacerbated by the parents who don’t want little Johnny or little Melissa to be bored or to have to contact with the uncomfortable feeling of struggle. However this attitude may be the very thing that is destroying the young mind when learning to deal with difficulty is what we would have termed in the past, ‘character building’.

So let us get away from this comfort zone and look at how we learn, let us embrace the frustration and the delay and the sore fingers and be prepared for the judgement day went suddenly we can do that thing.

You know it is worth it that is why not many people can play an instrument or do anything at a high level unless they can wrestle with their angels and demons.

 

Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

www.patreon.com/vichyland 

 

 

 

 

What happens when a song casts a spell?

 

What happens when a song casts a spell?

 

Ok, what if a song actually changes reality? I think that these songs actually exist, for instance ‘All You Need is Love’ by the Beatles may not been the cause of the ‘summer of love’ but probably increased its potency as it rode the crest of that wave in 1967.

Heroes by David Bowie was released in 1977, with its references to the Berlin Wall and its ultimate failure along with Bowie’s Berlin concert, leading  to the sudden taking down of the wall in 1989? Ripples in the pool caused by art? Who can really say? 

I am particularly interested in the songs written by people that hint at their ultimate demise. For instance ‘Son of a Gun’ by Kurt Cobain and ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ by John Lennon, are good examples of this but there are many others.

Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’ foretells of the death of his son by drowning many years later and it gets much weirder than that, Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins recorded the song, she also recorded with Tim’s son Jeff Buckley, the two became lovers and Jeff became the character in the song who drowns in the Mississippi in a freak accident.

What about the song that takes us back in our memory or makes us cry or laugh? We all have examples of that I am sure. What is this mysterious power that music has?

In folk music there are lots of examples of songs that have some sort of magical intent. There are songs that seem to be intended as curses and others that contain the impossible task which was popular amongst the cunning folk as they went about their business. A song such as Scarborough Fair contains many impossible tasks asked of an ex-lover,such as making a shirt with no seem and no needlework, and then to wash it in a dry well. There is also a list of protective herbs such as sage rosemary and thyme which was to be believed to be particularly useful against witchcraft. So does this mean that the ex-lover was a witch? Also within the British folk music tradition were references to trees and birds and enchanted people who had met with the fairy folk, in some traditions they were gifted to learn a skill such as playing music, or as a warning that is might not go well dealing with the Realm of the Fay.

Within the blues there is a rich tradition of magical practice which is most evident in the songs of Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. In fact many of the Muddy Waters songs viewed through the lens of NLP or magical thinking, look like some form of hypnotic suggestion, such as ‘I’ve got my Mojo Working (but it sure don’t work on you). Take out the negative and there you have a magical love spell being cast on anyone who Muddy Waters fancies in the audience.

So I thought it was about time that we explored the possibilities of song-writing using phrases that intend an outcome. This can be done in many ways such as;

All you need is love,

All you need is love,

All you need is love, love,

Love is all you need.

I think this last line is particularly clever in that it is a reworking of the first phrase, and then of course the end of the song is a mantra; Love is All You Need.

 In the outro the song references other songs that include love, like She Loves You.

Make a song that changes your life…….

So if you’re interested in this project and want to go down that rabbit hole visit me at my Patreon site www.Patreon.com/vichyland  

where you will see details of how you could be part of this experiment.

Or send me an email to vichyland@msn.com

 

Vic Hyland

 

 

Ways to make music in these hard times

 

Ways to make music in these hard times

 

The experience of lockdown and its effect on live music has been significant and it doesn’t look as if there is any change on the horizon, it is therefore up to us to look for opportunities in these rather chaotic times. It is safe to say that there are always opportunities in a crisis but they may not be obvious, and they certainly will require us to think very differently about what we have to offer.

Often in these situations the answer is found elsewhere, so for instance if you are looking for an answer to your gigging the answer might be found in something other than concerts, it might be found in sports coaching for instance.

 

If we are waiting for a return to what we did before, we going to have a long wait, we’ll have to think about how we can perform to maybe a few people and go and stream the performance as well, or maybe a ‘drive in’ concert like drive-in cinema might be an idea.

 

They are relevant answers out there, but we’ve got to use our creativity to work out how we can transfer techniques from other areas if life and business. In song writing when somebody is stuck I often ask them what’s the song about? Maybe the song is just a bunch of chords at that point in time and the lyrics have not been written, when they reply that they don’t know, my standard response is ‘what is it not about’ and interestingly people know; if you know what it is not, you must know what it is; it is probably its opposite.

 

This happens a lot when we think because our language frames things, so when we are stuck and we can’t think of an idea it’s because we’ve got into a cul-de-sac in that way of thinking. Language creates the context and landscape that the ideas live, and the way we talk and think about music creates a framework which often becomes a cage.

 

We need to step back and take another turning further up the road, there is always an answer because there are many possibilities in any situation, if you think that it’s more about the question and not about a conclusive answer then you get a flow of ideas.

 

Questions that give forward momentum are good, remember just like meeting people, the person that you want often need to meet isn’t the person that you first meet, it is the friend that they know that can really change your life; a bit like questions and answers, the first question isn’t the one that’s going to lead you in the direction that you need, but it’s what it stimulates. So going back to our problem, what are you going to do about music in this brave new world, what ideas are thrown up by looking at other businesses and how do they do things?

 

Viewing things through a different perspective can give you great ideas, look at things outside of your work in this particular period of time, online sales for instance, clothing, things that have to be delivered. Is there anything we can do from that perspective? Can you deliver your music? Serenading for instance?

 

What is it that you can do for people that’s original and interesting?

I’ve always been successful in getting people turning up to gigs because I involve people in the concerts. Is there any way that you can do something to involve people in your creative processes? Write songs in collaboration with clients for example.

What little niche markets do you know?

 

It’s all about friendship groups;

Engage with information to broaden what we are doing. It is important and many musicians are already doing this, take for instance the singer songwriter and guitar player who has been doing gigs from his kitchen and his back garden during the worst times of lockdown, being funded online by donations. He was on this from day one; we need that proactive ability now more than ever to deal with what is coming, not just what we are experiencing at the moment.

 

So here are some ideas

 

1.       Gigs streamed (RSC productions streamed into cinemas)

2.       Gigs in a drive in situation like the old American drive in movies

3.       Personal gigs in someone’s garden ( got this idea from Chris Difford of Squeeze)

4.       Collaborations with businesses for musicians in residence (like artist in residence) this could also be like the Beatles playing on a rooftop in London.

5.       Find places that have social distancing ideas already in operation such as churches that you can play.

6.       The silent disco but for live bands where the audience have headphones and can dance in a large area such as a field or large marquee.

7.        Go back to the rave culture with a secret gig somewhere that nobody knows about till the last moment

8.       Read up on the East German Punk movement and see how they managed to get gigs happening in a communist regime (that was really tough and illegal)

 

So to add a little bit of focus, develop areas in your art that may be week like song writing and arranging or recording.

We are running a completion for next year’s Bluescampuk in Tonbridge all you need to do is record your song on your phone and send it to us at www.bluescampuk.co.uk the winner gets a free place at next year’s camp.

Get writing ..

 

Vic and the team