transformative increments

Post 63 of 90.

I just "graduated" in Absolute Pitch Blaster from C identification drills, and now G has been added to the drills. It's a whole new world of weirdness. My decision to work with the exercises regularly throughout the day to keep the sounds fresh in my ear seems to have worked out. Now I need to keep at it.

At some point during the last round of exercises tonight, I recognized that all along I have not quite trusted myself to hear the pitch accurately, even as the tendency of C in all octaves to "light up" and announce itself within my consciousness was growing. Having recognized this aspect, I was able to let go a little bit and relax into a more trusting mindset with myself.

I feel there is something to be learned and remembered deeply here. I think there's also an aspect of self-trust required when performing on the guitar. I had that moment a while back during a performance with Don at Un Mundo when I suddenly had absolute certainty of my picking, and this also I think represents an aspect of trust I need to develop with myself. I need to trust that the things I'm practicing will be there for me when I need it, and a lot of the shaky fear I've experienced when performing is tied to this. On a very deep level, I sometimes play in a very hesitant and shaky way out of not trusting myself and the work I've done on the instrument.

Learning to trust yourself--over just about anything, I suppose--is easier said than done. You have to learn to recognize that feeling of mistrust. Then you also have to know what it feels like to exist in a state of trust. It may well be that the absence of mistrust is not the same thing as actually possessing that trust for yourself.

So I have some yardstick from that performance of what true confidence and self-trust feels like. Just a little flash, but maybe enough to work with.

Now that I've made some progress with the ear training, I'm reminded of the analogy circulating in the Crafty community some time back regarding the difference between simmering and bringing your work to a boil. In this context, I also think of RF's comments that a certain "intensity of application" is necessary, as well as the aphorism that small increments are transformative.

So, I've been hoping to bring both the ear training and my guitar playing to a boil, to find that intensity of application and cross over those remaining small increments to achieve transformation.

Maybe it's possible.

I've also been thinking about David L. Burge's comments in his perfect pitch course about changes of state, that as you work on your ear, in the beginning it's like a block of ice. You keep adding more and more heat, and then suddenly you arrive at the point when just a little more pushes the ice over the threshold so that it changes state and turns into water. I'm looking for that final increment that will cause my ear to unfreeze and wake up. I have a lot more listening to do, but I'm encouraged.

He also made an interesting analogy to laser light, that when a small percentage of the light waves in a laser beam begin to fall into step, that tiny bit spreads and brings the vast remainder into coherence.

Transformative increments.

On some level, I'm actually more interested in aspects of ear training and listening than I am with guitar playing. Or, stated another way, I recognize the futility of enormous physical chops if my ear is asleep. What's the point of attempting to improvise, for instance, if you can't hear and understand the musical language? What kind of conversation and communication is possible?

My key transformative moment in developing this interest occurred circa 1994 or so. I was jamming with a bunch of guys who were all schooled musicians with fusion chops (that they allowed me to jam with them strikes me now as so unbelievably generous it kind of blows my mind). Things were moving along. I had some sense of the key and therefore could apply a scale somewhat by rote, well enough to sound vaguely musical, when suddenly everything changed.

The horn player in the group (a perfect pitch possessor) became enthused, picked up his horn, and jumped in. He went up to the mic and played a note, and in an instant I shifted states and knew what the note was and where it was on the fretboard (the B at the 12th fret, second string in OST). My hand went to the fret and I played the note back at him. He played a short descending run starting on that B. Time seemed to stop. And I found myself suddenly able to hold that run of notes in my mind like a string of pearls--an actual visual representation that I could see inside my mind. I recognized the B and then followed the notes down--whole step, half step, whole step...ah, a mixolydian scale! So I played that back at him. We went on trading licks like this for several long moments.

Then it was over.

The moment had passed, but I knew I wanted to get back there. I came to believe this superhuman ability to hear all these musical details was somewhere inside all along, and somehow the threshold had dropped and made it available to my normally anemic musical connection. Now my job was to find the means to bring all of this subconscious perceptual ability into my regular conscious awareness.

In more Crafty parlance, I had experienced a state, but I would now have to work to earn the station, to make it that level of experience my home. Otherwise, I was just a visitor.

Now I need to get out of here and get the Ovation in my hands. Time to go in search of more of those transformative increments.

One other thing occurs to me before I go regarding the kindness of these "real" musicians in allowing me to play with them and have this experience. It seems to me that small acts of kindness should not be underestimated. For some time, I've had the thought that the real damage in relationships between people often happens in the small moments, but the flip side to that is that small acts of kindness can have a positive impact way beyond their seeming importance in whatever momentary context they are enacted.

There have been small acts of kindness from others that have completely changed my life for the better, and I don't know if any of these people have ever realized the positive impact they had.

And I hope those I've harmed over the years with my own acts of inattention and callousness (or even thoughtless cruelty) can find it within themselves to forgive me.