{"id":2098,"date":"2008-10-09T14:21:06","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T21:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2009-08-08T14:32:15","modified_gmt":"2009-08-08T21:32:15","slug":"zen-the-art-of-saxophone-playing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2008\/zen-the-art-of-saxophone-playing\/","title":{"rendered":"Zen & The Art Of Saxophone Playing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent my senior year in high school\u00a0sitting beside a young woman in my concert band class, whose mother was a TV personality both in Canada and Germany. Kareen Zebroff<\/a>\u00a0was the first person to bring the eastern practice of yoga,\u00a0to western television audiences as a form of exercise, through her TV show Kareen’s Yoga<\/a>, which aired on BCTV.<\/p>\n

As I became friends with her daughter, and spent a lot of time\u00a0in their house, Kareen taught me a great deal.\u00a0She exposed\u00a0me to many ideas that I had never heard of before. Now\u00a0more than 20 years later,\u00a0I am still friends\u00a0with her daughter, and I still regularly see Kareen.\u00a0She never stops learning\u00a0about new\u00a0philosophies and concepts,\u00a0& I still enjoy\u00a0listening to what she has to say.<\/p>\n

However\u00a0back in grade 12, she\u00a0taught me something\u00a0that I have\u00a0practiced regularly over the years,\u00a0but\u00a0it has only been in the last 18 months that I have remembered\u00a0exactly what<\/em> it\u00a0is, and what its roots are.<\/p>\n

During a particularly stressful period in my young life, Kareen taught me how to meditate to relieve the stress.\u00a0Over the years, as I did more\u00a0reading on the subject, and had more experience with meditation, I realized that one of the best\u00a0stress releases I had, playing saxophone, was actually a form of meditation.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia<\/a>\u00a0defines meditation as:<\/p>\n

…a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, “thinking” mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Meditation often involves turning attention<\/a> to a single point of reference.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know about you, but when I play horn, I am definitely turning my attention to a single point of reference, while ignoring other things in the environment around me. I find this to be true more during actual shows, or rehearsals with the band, than solitary practice, but nonetheless, playing sax meets the above mentioned definition of meditation. If you doubt this, look\u00a0no further than musicians who close their eyes while playing. (There are a lot of us out there!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Playing with Deception<\/a><\/em>. Photo by M. Margison. \u00a92008<\/h6>\n

A few months ago a wrote Part I of a post (Part II is still in the works)\u00a0about Improvising & The Musician’s Brain<\/a>. In it I said:<\/p>\n

I think most musicians will tell you that when they’re playing, they enter “a zone” of sorts, where nothing extraneous gets in, and where they are totally enveloped in the feeling of the music that they are playing. I believe that closing one’s eyes while improvising allows the musician to temporarily separate themselves from their surroundings, and create an original composition (an improvisation) through only the feel of the music, before stepping back into the bigger group of the band and stage surroundings again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Over the past\u00a018+ months, since the acute phase of my neuro illness has been behind me, I’ve been struggling with not only the physical, chronic\u00a0remnants of the\u00a0attack, but also of the psychological aspects of going from well to ill in the blink\u00a0of an\u00a0eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although I still can’t play nearly as much as I\u00a0could before I got sick,\u00a0through working with my health care providers, I have come to realize how much playing sax is important to my mental health, and\u00a0thus to my overall physical health.<\/p>\n

I found a very interesting post on a yoga blog<\/a> this AM, that perfectly captures what I’m talking about.<\/p>\n

The goal of meditation isn’t to stop thinking, but to enable us to become dispassionate observers of our thoughts. When we’re more detached from our worries and our fears, we develop a sense of ease, of “being” rather than “doing”. This process of “letting go” is not only deeply relaxing, but has a direct healing effect on our physical health, reducing blood pressure, increasing our immunity, easing chronic pain, even minimising depression.<\/p>\n

The British-Indian neuroscientist Shanida Nataraja explores meditation in her book The Blissful Brain. When we think too much, she says, we’re over-using the left halves of our brains, the part associated with analytical, rational processing, and neglecting the right side, which is associated with abstract thought, visual-spatial perception and emotions. Meditation rebalances us because it uses the alpha brain wave, a sign that we’re activating the parasympathetic nervous system and giving ourselves a rest from the more familiar “fight or flight” responses of our sympathetic nervous system that stress us out and make us ill. Meditation also improves our concentration, memory and decision-making because it puts both halves of our brains to work.<\/p>\n

Once you’ve mastered it, just 15 minutes meditation a day will make a difference, though being mindful of simple tasks such as washing up, walking across your terrace or making a cup of tea is also a form of meditation. Done properly, activities such as yoga, qigong and tai chi are also a form of meditation in motion, as are swimming and walking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this hectic, stressful, multi-tasking world, where we are regularly asked to cram more into our already insanely busy lives, and where technology doesn’t allow us\u00a0an escape thanks to remote email & file sharing, etc. etc., the average person has way less down time than June or Ward Cleaver did! Finding ways to decompress and destress is more important than ever, but finding time to do it is the tricky part.<\/p>\n

As sax players we have a natural outlet for our stress…playing horn. Call it meditation, or if you’re not comfortable with that, simply call it stress relieving. But whatever you call it, put on your favourite play along CD like\u00a0Aebersold or one of the\u00a0Hal Leonard\u00a0jazz play alongs, or use Band In A Box, or get together\u00a0& practice with your band, or\u00a0just shed by\u00a0yourself.\u00a0Bottom line: do whatever works\u00a0best\u00a0for you. But as Nike would\u00a0say: JUST DO IT! Your physical and mental health will benefit from the\u00a0simple act of playing saxophone.<\/p>\n

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…this is just my blog<\/em>. <\/span> My \u201creal\u201d <\/b> website is<\/span> www.bassic-sax.info.<\/a> If you\u2019re looking for <\/span> sax info<\/strong>,<\/span> you should check it out too.<\/span>There\u2019s lots<\/em> there! <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
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