I've been playing the Sarangi since October last year - I've already used it in many performances and as an aid to the vocal workshops with Ram VJ from Jan to March '24. In this video is also a comparison between the Sarangi and the Klasik Kemence or Politiki Lyra (as it's called in Greece) from a street musician's perspective.
I play by feel and by ear predominantly. This is sometimes a limitation but also sometimes a source of great inspiration and innovation in skill that can't be learned from a teacher. More recently, I am learning a balance between the methods of learning set music and technique and training myself by ear and by feel. Allowing two different approaches at different times and then marrying them.
Primarily. I approach music as a 'feel' science in which feel is king. In this - if we are honest with ourselves through this exploration we also discover that feel can be expanded into to help us learn specific disciplines or instruments where we don't have a ready teacher or are in a state of mind where we will only learn from ourselves.
In the pursuit of greatness of efficacy and focus we can find our way back to the rest of the world through first teaching ourselves from within. Music is a tool that allows this growth back into the social sphere for a person that is finding their way out of a closed form of thinking created as a defence from trauma. By allowing feel to be king - a person can be made to feel they are in control and when they can receive it - allow more and more of the outside world to enter in - and in this, find reference points and eventually come to a level with the rest of reality and live one and equal with all.
Please note: I am not undisciplined. Please do not consider I can just pick up things and play them. I play them for hours and hours and hours and hours - using my ear and 'feel' as guide.
It has taken me a while to bring my mind to the point of intentional discipline - but I did it by training myself through allowing me to play music whenever I felt it. By encouraging the flow when the flow was happening and by only playing what I feel and not playing by obligation. Nowadays, I can much better apply myself to something by choice and discipline - I still very much use flow and feel to work my way into a new music, discipline or instrument.
By allowing and working with flow - we find our way into something by bringing all of our many aspects into line. Then in time - after coaxing this wild animal away from its secure den - we have the trust of the naive and innocent self and it is willing to learn things more by discipline. This is a particular pathway that is effective for finding a way out of trauma. Where trauma locks a person within a mind and detaches them from the outside. Flow and feel helps find the pathway by which to access greater connection - this can be done through music or any artform for that matter.
I claim no expertise in any field of psychology - so please take advice or anything I say with this in mind - I emphasize you are your own responsibility. In a world of careful legal everything - you cannot just speak and live your truth. I can only ever share the experiences I have had with myself, in my life and in my travels and honest observations honing the tool of the mind - using many reference points - which to my mind is a greater qualification than any particular academic achievement. I've gone to the depths of the self and discovered the processes for myself. If my methods and my words ring true for some - may they be a tool for experimentation. Otherwise, no they will not be available for everyone - nor do I wish to be Jesus.
I really just enjoy honing focus and bringing lost parts of the self into line to find a greater harmony. That seems to be where I get my kicks.
For a large part of the last 5 years, I wake up from 4-5am and the first thing I do is get a coffee and practice. I then fill my days with adequate listening material to fill my musical imagination with options and to train my ear out of western intonation. I am not just receiving some abundant gift as though magically from spirit. I am putting a tonne of work. I work so bloody hard you wouldn't believe it!
I have come to learn there is no way around it. You must work.
In this - work becomes a pleasure because you have taught yourself how to take control of your own reward circuit. When you want to get something done - you know how to do it. I made a joking comment to a farm owner recently about scarifying a paddock with a tractor and tool - in telling me how to use it he then said, 'go out and have some fun' - I said, 'this is fun?' with a cheeky smile - and he said 'make it fun'.
And that's what we do. We learn to control fun. We learn ourselves so well we wrap ourselves in and around our 'fun' circuit that we learn to be able to do anything with willingness and dedication. We find aspects of mundane jobs that allow us to use parts of ourselves we wish to hone - we find a way for something to be fun for us. And that pathway can be as specific as each person's individual experience.
The ear requires training for stamina as well. This takes time and the only way you can build the stamina of your ear is by pushing your ear to the edge of its ability more and more and then increasing where possible. Within this also requires a deep level of honesty with the self - that when your ear goes out - you need to say so - you need to say - yes, this is out and recognize your ear has lost the ability to focus. By being honest with ourselves we can find ground, without ground there is no hope of learning. In many cases a tanpura drone from an app is very helpful because it helps keep your ear in tone. But also practice without a tanpura so you can build the skill of the implied drone of the tonic which should also be there with you in your thinking as part of your music.
Instruments like the Klasik Kemence and the Sarangi - people spend their lives learning in their respective countries. I don't claim mastery - I'm enjoying exploring with honesty and persistence and in this learning new things about myself by increasing my capacity for applied focus. Instruments with a high degree of specificity allow me to increase this capacity for applied focus. They give me a measuring point from which to reference - they give me a 'ground' from which to find very very specific levels of focus - they give me a meter and a guide to tell me where I am and where I need to go. Through self-honesty this applied focus can be increased and then this skill is a skill adaptable to other walks of life. Music literally has the ability to change the world. It's one grand tool of change in our arsenal in working towards a true solution.
To those that understand - to pick up a Sarangi and have any performing proficiency within less than a year is quite a feat. It's not a miracle however. I have learned through persistence how to condition the body and how to allay thoughts that say 'I cannot do it'. I've also at times isolated my awareness so I only share certain things with people who have a positive can do mindset. As a sensitive empath, it seems important to culture this isolated self about something until I have developed a proficiency in it - then my body has it in its memory and it cannot be moved or forgotten by a wandering projection. I stop being a feather shaken so easy in the wind. This is another skill to learn - to maintain precious privacy for the self to cultivate certain habits, skills and lessons until they become a living part of the self.
I have at times had a mind that constantly tells me I cannot do it - and I persisted with physical practice and technique - and in doing this have proven time and time again that, that part of the mind was wrong - if we bring ourselves to the physical doing of something, the conditioned physical provides the opportunity for skill. This must be explored by each person alone to be effective however - I can't be a reference for you in your own mind when this is happening - to be proficient you must learn for yourself as yourself alone in your own mind. Then you are independent - and as parallel walking independent people we don't lean on each other - we walk forward in reference to a great goal and a true path, we walk together but.. alone.
With a honed intuitive compass and a large portion of persistence. Any skill is possible. I see absolutely anything is possible - anything at all. It just requires time and dedication in which to do it.
I seek to provide a pathway for others to learn through feel in the playful exploration of tone and with feel as the motivation as incentive. Through feel we can also find our way to method and rote - but in allowing ourselves to reinvent the wheel - we discover for ourselves the reasons why some of these musics and instruments have stood the test of time. In learning the foundations of the driving force behind these pillars as a living knowledge instead of just as a repetition because we are told that is what is right - we learn the fundamental building blocks that make something great and substantian to go on to build our own reality.
In presenting music as a place of experimentation and mistakes and learning - we remove it from the untouchable pedestal that an overtly traditional approach has given it and we give the average person access to tools to heal their soul.
Music is very spiritual in this sense for me - I mean spiritual in the way that by applying yourself and gaining deeper levels of focus - greater awareness is available to you. I don't mean spiritual as in needing to believe in something that isn't there or following religious dogma. Where when you apply yourself deeply in one field of focus - this same focus then becomes available in others. We are quite adaptable like this, us humans.
Industry likes to present finished products and in this - while growing up I like others believed people walked out of boxes being able to perform difficult things or touch our hearts with enigmatic solo pieces - this is simply not the case. It's like an iceberg. The top is the outcome of the performance and beneath the surface lay the immensely proportionate amount of practice that has gone in to touch the heart and make that performance possible.
There is certainly aspects of born talent some people have but even this, if not honed correctly and taken as a standalone measure of skill, just wilts and dies on the fields of discipline. Discipline and focus is needed to hone talent into something that is tangible and truly relatable - it can be a trigger or an entrance however
In some cases when we present things as finished products it can discourage people from having a go. I feel it's also important to get out in public and be unashamedly human. To show real progress through visible application - in this - it illustrates how any skill is available to anyone given the right focus, discipline and persistence. This focus then becomes a cornerstone of someone's character and for someone whose life has fallen apart - this reclaimed awareness then becomes a beacon of hope and the catalyst of change to then apply themselves to the rest of life and to be effective.
Yes, let's be effective. Let's embrace deeper methods for being more and more effective. That's a pretty good goal to have. It will get us places.
Ps. I wrote this following bit on my other post but I write it again in case you didn't read my last one because it's important to thank those that gave for my Crete trip! I'm so very grateful! I can cover my costs and get back to Australia with some excess to put towards a very special event in the South-West! Those that know me personally, know I put everything into what I do - to the point of self-detriment. I'll get better at taking care of myself - but also, it shows a reassurance that I remain true to who I am and give myself as an unconditional conduit to the service of music.
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