Set point theory

In the 1980’s some scientists came up with the idea of an equilibrium point to explain how people who dieted returned to their original weight after finishing their regime, they coined the term Set Point Theory. The body seemed to have a memory of its weight and would return to it after the diet. This idea then was then taken up by others who saw similar things in other areas such as self-improvement, sports training, and health.

Set Point Theory is something I would like to suggest is a natural phenomenon.  A guitar string that is too tight when you de-tune it will sharpened up again as if trying to return to its sharp status, a slack string will do the opposite, going flat after being tuned.

I can see these points in one’s ability to play music, to practice, to become effective as a professional, to focus on something, to read music, to be creative etc. we can look at these ideas as a comfort zone but I think the idea of a Set Point is more organic and not just a state of laziness.

So how do we move the Set Point? Let us return to the guitar string. Putting on a set of nylon classical strings and getting them to settle in tune will take a long time unless you overtighten the string and let it naturally flatten into tune and if you do this a few times it will have changed its equilibrium point. Maybe this is the thing that is needed for weight loss, go beyond the level that you are aiming for and then naturally put weight on to reach your desired goal.  

So for improved practicing maybe a week or two of extreme practice, so when you get back to normal patterns of life you will have increased your capacity to find time and the inclination to learn.

Can breaking one Set Point affect another? Can fasting change one’s ability to play music? On the face of it this is crazy however I am not so sure, if you look at it the mind is causing the patterns in all areas so changing something radically in one area can alter other areas, of that I am pretty confident.

This might explain the effectiveness of ritualistic behaviour, around initiations in particular, for instance rituals change your mind space, that is evident and if you think this is not the case then you have not been through an initiation. Not only do they affect you but also they can affect other aspects of your life, love, family, jobs et cetera you could do something like fasting as well as extreme practicing to break the blocks that control your set point so that it can be reset. Maybe that helps to overwhelm the mind to make changes, this is certainly a technique from hypnosis where sensory overload is used to induce trance.

I know this seems a bit out there but in these days of caution and caveats we need to do something to break the iron cage.

Vic www.bluescampuk.co.uk music summer school for rock blues soul funk reggae ….

You Want It Darker? – Leonard Cohen

Okay let’s go darker from the last article, let us plumb the depths, we had dancing with your shadow, feeding the demons, let us go and feast with them and invite them for a holiday let us look at how music is used for stirring up the aspects of the human condition which is the right of Genghis Khan, and the Marquis De Sade would find embarrassing.

Invoking ideas of as medieval people might have said spirits demons may be a way of changing ones reference point or set point.

There is much to be said that there is an equilibrium or set point in our health, wealth and wellbeing whether it is social or financial situation that we find ourselves returning to. It is often similar to our parents income their health and weight and luck (yes that has been researched). So how do we change that equilibrium point?  The answer might be found in a guitar string.

If you have a new set of strings on a guitar they will need to be retuned to get them up to pitch especially the nylon strings and one thing you can do is to over tighten them so that they settle back down into tune. In the same way we may need to go further than we want to settle into maybe break what you are before remaking, leave the job, the marriage, leave your old self, maybe going to India is not so much are finding yourself and more leaving yourself behind.

So here is where darkness comes in. Take to yourself to a place that frightens you, saddens you, do a survival course that pushes you to the edge, do a marathon. Maybe the Christian idea of giving everything away is more to do with this than charity.

Now what has this got to music? Well everything from music that you use ritualistically if that is your jam, write a song about your intention that you find challenging to put out there. Such as your greatest fears, anger, greed, loss and get them into a song.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk Music summer school for rock and blues

Dancing with your shadow and feeding your demons.

Dancing in the light, the search for perfection and technical brilliance?

Why is it that the greatest artists are flawed? Jonny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin to name just a few. The performances from these where far from perfect in fact they teetered on the edge of disaster for most of the time, concerts of Amy Winehouse for instance.

What is it that we seem to miss here intellectually? We have a concept which makes us aim for perfection yet obviously realise the reverse unconsciously otherwise we would not be captivated by the failings of these masters.

Are these personal demons of the above artists the things that drove them and made them so captivating? Let us as a thought experiment imagine that they were and take our psychological shadows and let them in for a while.

There is a Buddhist concept which I think comes from Tibetan Buddhism of feeding your demons by invoking them, getting to know them and then 'feeding them' sometimes literally. They need feeding anyway and if ignored will disrupt your life as well as feeding off you, so bring them in! I look at it like the builders and labourers that are doing stuff for you, make sure that you pay them and treat them with respect and do not ignore their requests for payment.

The shadow side of our nature contains most of the juice that we need for artistic expression, if you do not believe me sit through a modern church service and listen to the music. If you are not part of the reverie then the music will make you feel like you are being beaten to death by soft furnishings.

There is something important in our failings and inadequacies that can be recognised and used. Hendrix was not the best guitarist technically for his time, not by a long shot, but he touched more people than any other guitarist and his performances although flawed were entrancing.

Instead of looking for perfection and dancing in the light step into the shadows and dance with the shade. Invite the parts of you that you do not like, be it your character flaws- anger, jealousy, greed or your ability flaws- lack of patience, heavy handed,  inaccurate playing and let them join the feast see what they bring to the party. Stop pretending to be someone else. Stop being the shop front that you show the world and bring the workers from the back room out. Do what Freddie Mercury did, lay it out for all to see but in your way and see what happens.

Your demons may have some cool tricks up their sleeves. Let’s face it they have had to put up with you all these years.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Music summer school for rock blues reggae soul jazz ….

The world is made of words

The world is made of words, and if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish. Terence McKenna

In the beginning was the word in fact it is possible as the myths say that life only continues because we still tell the story of life. It is certainly true that once we have a name for something we have some way of controlling it. Like with music if we know what key it is in, what the chords are, how the rhythm is constructed and we have labelled those with words we have a way of manipulating information and we can transfer the ideas to something else or to replicate it.

We need to give voice and name to the things that we want but we are encouraged in this society to contemplate the things that we do not want in our lives such as illnesses, depression, lack of money,  all because someone is making money out of your fear.

Think about the words that you use maybe this could be within your work or just your day-to-day life. Be aware of the power of words being used on you, this is not a new thing of course it was done through religion being told from the pulpit, what to believe and how to be. Now is done through the media. I am sure that when we look back will see how ridiculous this is just in the same way 1940’s and 50’s Pathe News Reels set the tone of the messages which were condescending and aimed at the naïve.

 We need to speak in a commanding way using words that create desired outcomes we need to see and hear and recognise words that are being used on us to control our lives so that we take back control from the media and society in general.

It is now time to wake up and build a new a new life with new words. Consider why songs are powerful. Listen to the following songs in the days to come

We will Rock You, Wild Thing, Riders on the Storm, All Right Now, Moondance, and The Boys Are Back in Town.

You can add many to this list, they all command driven lyrics telling you something not asking you, telling you with authority.

So go and change things

 Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk  summer school, learn to rock  

Something Wrong With You

There is one ‘right’, ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ way for human brains and human minds to be configured and to function (or one relative narrow ‘normal’ range into which the configurational functioning of the human brains and minds ought to fall). If your neurological configuration and functioning (and as a result your ways of thinking and behaving) diverged substantially from the dominant standard of ‘normal’ then there is something wrong with you. – Nick Walker.

When you first read the above you would agree, however this was written by someone who has autism and the article it was taken from demolishes the idea that there is something ‘wrong’ and replaces it with something ‘different’. The power of words is such that we agree to many things without a challenge because we are told them as a fact and therefore what to believe.

With that in mind listen to the news and be aware how much you are being told. See how that resonates with you then challenge it by thinking, ‘why this why now’ and then see what happens to the BBC spell. This process goes on all the time I see it in schools with the idea that a child who thinks differently has a ‘labelled’ condition, the path to hell is paved with good intent and it is easy to say that the child has a problem but the awareness of difference is important here as it might suggest that the context needs looking at.

Anyone who has had lessons with me in the past who were dyslexic would attest that when you approach things from a different angle will see skills and strategies that the quote ‘normal’ do not have. I make a point when being told that somebody is dyslexic or has some other condition that that may benefit certain aspects of playing music. This is often greeted with surprise by the parent but it is true that these people are far more sensitive musically than the people who are the norm.

Now I am not saying that these people will not find life in this society difficult because there is a problem with society and that is the issue. I also do not have an answer because there isn’t one, in actual fact this is born from the same thought structure as the problem itself. However embracing difference is something that we need to do and need to be aware of. Being able to spot dualism in language patterns and why it happens in the way that it does goes some way to expose how language is used ‘on you’.

So how does that feedback into music and the arts? The last thing you want as an artist is to be normal; to embrace difference and find its beauty and its skills whether that is yourself or in others and work with it creating new possibilities. Someone who is autistic will have strategies in order to fit in and these are resources that we often ignore because they come from someone who has ‘something wrong with them’ however in another point in the timeline these people would have been the seers, navigators and healers in the community, but not now. I guess that is the price progress.

as things move in cycles it is possible that we could return to a point in time when things we consider as a medical condition now will be viewed more optimistically but I cannot see that in the foreseeable future. We can make a start by realising that the benchmarks of normality that we had set for ourselves are not real and to some extent they have been put there by people who wish to control aspects of society. So be troublesome! The pointers for this are the artists and musicians of the 1960s who obviously had some form of ‘labelled condition’ in retrospect such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and at least to some extent John Lennon (addictive personalities, compulsive behaviours and all on the spectrum) and they all had a massive CIA and FBI file on each of them, I think that says it all.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk three day music summer school for rock

Set Fire to the world

What is needed to start a fire? Dry kindling and then dry wood of suitable size for certain levels of burning, starting small at first and then gradually getting bigger, up to the big logs and something to create a spark. Once alight the fire needs to be feed and watched over.

There is most definitely a sequence that happens when lighting a fire, plenty of preparation and some level of ability to light it which includes positive action. Something else worth considering is what is the fire to do? Is it to keep you warm? To cook with or something else?  This will affect the way that the fire is built and where. So let as use the metaphor and ‘set fire to the world’ or let us consider ‘Fire in the head’ which is the old term for inspiration.

What I find interesting here is that these terms actually explained very well what is required to be successful with things artistic. If the ground is not ready for the fire to be lit then you are not going to be successful. If the territory is not ready for the type of music you have then your fire will not start, there has got to be enough tinder to get started and then you need enough fuel to build the fire.

The world might be ready for you but if you do not create the spark then nothing will happen either, interestingly enough many fire lighting skills require you to blow and breathe at various stages to feed the fire which is very similar to marketing and speaking about your product and being interviewed on radio, TV and the Internet maybe you need to say something that is incendiary.

I think this is something that we miss in the way that we have been prepared by music courses and the general sort of fantasia of programs like The Voice and The X Factor that we can just go on and play or perform in some form of circus. Now for some people, in fact very few people, that might be way of succeeding but I find it interesting that the biggest artists like Adele, Ed Sheeran and Amy Winehouse did not take this pat. Adele began on the road to her success by doing Myspace then small gigs, radio and TV sometimes going out with just herself and a guitarist to do some of the early shows.

We can continue the fire metaphor as far as we want because it can also lead to burnout and most fires do need to burnout and to be rebuilt and to some extent that is exactly what Adele did in between the various albums. Maybe thinking about strategies for success in this way is better for artistic people because there is a feeling to it that makes sense. Many marketing strategies are so much ‘in your head’ being dry and expressionless that they are difficult to feel your way through where something that uses an element such a fire is much easier to envisage and taps into an intuitive level of expression.

This it does not to be world domination, it could be something simple like developing the level of teaching that you have at the moment, or moving into a new area of work or just building up the numbers of people having lessons just try it out and see how you get on. I will watch out for smoke on the horizon.

Vic www.bluescampuk.co.uk  three days of playing in a music summer school.

We have always been clever we should just stop acting dumb

 A few years ago I spent time working on some skills like flint knapping and what became clear was how clever our ancestors were. Not only could they hunt but they had the make everything required for hunting, the arrow heads, the arrow shaft, fletching, the bow, the cordage, everything; and if it did not work they starved.

It must have been the same for the musicians, same with everything, clothing, housing and fishing. We look at people in the past as superstitious and stupid, the fact is we do not have anything like the practical skills of our ancestors. Even going back to the Edwardians or the Victorians it has been estimated that the average person was far more intelligent and practical than we are, however that is not the story that we get at all.

The point here is that we are not tested by the life that we live like our forbears and therefore we get lazy when it comes to the way that we think and problem solve this leads to stress and the usual problems with the lifestyle that we have, including increased rates of depression.

For the artist and the musician we really need to break away from the formulaic approach that we are given by school, college and university. The problem is the context of compliance, in fact that word is used in everything from child protection to health care etc. now in essence that is very laudable but it has the effect of strangling the life out of things because no one wants to take risks. The risks that I am talking about are just the risk of non-conformity where you are just doing something different, as a teacher that might be not having a lesson plan that Ofsted can look at. The path to hell is paved with good intent and that is the problem here, because we are slowly destroying ourselves by making life a form of personal slavery.

I see this a lot with players who end up as machines of technique and not true artists. Think about it, none of the famous musicians were technically the best, far from it, that would have been the bedroom guitarist, who have always been there; the guy that was so screwed up he never left his bedroom but now because of YouTube he does not need to leave his bedroom to get online.

The great artists have something to say with their music and that means that they need to break rules, break the taboos, the buzz words of Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll the life style of the Dionysian cult approach to life to embrace the divine needed taboo breaking as a prerequisite.

So what is the solution for this? First of all and this is only opinion as is everything I write is, we need to realise that people had solutions for things that we do not use anymore, a form of mythic thinking which is great for creative thinking a case for revelation where you know the answer without justification. Also the understanding that we are not that clever if we are only using logic because we only need to enter a form of quantum theory to realise that form is difficult to justify and maybe nothing is real let alone an idea maybe all these things create some form of agency that makes things happen but they are not in essence real they only manifest the illusion of the real.

So do not be dumb, dream big and make something happen just like the weirdos from the past.

Vic www.bluescampuk.co.ukthree days of playing in a band