"Music is an oversimplification of the situation we actually are in."    John Cage

 

This book will engender ways of sensing and Listening. This book will bring into the dialogue and into direct practice Embodiment Performance training, a set of experiential ideas and practices based on awareness and embodiment, for musicians. This book will help to nurture “unexpected bridges” – invention cycles driven by intuition and awareness enhancement. Embodiment Performance modalities have been informing and forming dance and theatre worldwide for decades. The corporeal turn in the neuro-cognitive sciences is substantial. But little in the embodiment field has been attempted in music creation and performance. We are experiencing a dramatic development in Consciousness. Embodied cognition plays a crucial role. Musicians should now benefit from this work.

 

Douglas Kahn in Noise Water Meat : "...but it would also bring into play all three sounds of (John) Cage's body inside the anechoic chamber -- the low sound, the high sound, and the inner speech interrogating the two... How might have Cage's music evolved if he had listened with his whole body and not just listened to it ? "

 

Embodiment — training enabling one to become aware of, assume and incorporate varying energy qualities; and to manifest differing energy qualities as states of being. One direct exploration on mind influencing body and body influencing mind is that of Experiential Anatomy, where awareness and attention are directed to specific body systems (i.e. bones, skin, muscles, fluids) developing a subtle-level relationship with how the mind expresses through these body systems. To paraphrase Bonnie Cohen, the more learned about the placement and quality of energy, the more choices arise for experiencing and interacting within dynamic music creation and performance. Embodiment on an experiential level is one of the most immediate and subtle studies available to the performing artist. It creates a place of opportunity.

 

Embodiment’s wider social implications include empowerment, awareness and empathy.

 

What form will the book take ?

The book will be formed as a developing daily practice. It will be divided into individual and group practice sections. A number of chapters will be organized like a group workshop training – rising  through explorations and insight research, building on the previous chapters.

 

There will be chapters on personal practice models --- training and refining our sense of energy quality and its transformations. There will be sections which will direct out --- to important references and research, enhancing the daily work. It will be about exploration, investigation and discovery.

 

The book will be a comprehensive working text for musicians on mind influencing body and body influencing mind.

 

The book’s style will be based on a Radial Model = all ideas spoking into a core center—this core being Embodiment.