By Barry Green

In my recent book: The Mastery of Music –Ten Pathways to True Artistry, I interview the distinguished composer Terry Riley, considered to be one of the founding fathers of New Age music. Riley talked about the source of musical inspiration residing in a universal spirit or consciousness.

If you believe that there's a field of consciousness, which somehow connects the whole universe, including ourselves in one seamless web – and we call the place where things arise in consciousness within us our own consciousness, or awareness, or intuition. Someone like Mozart has a very fined tuned antenna for this kind of thing, so he can pick up signals from the "consciousness" station much better than others – but we can tune into that station too.

Is inspiration available to everyone but differs more in the individuals’ capacity to receive it? Can we improve our capacity to hear and respond to the same inspiration that came to Mozart?

I believe creativity is a bi-product of ‘inspiration. First we need to ‘channel’ an insight, an idea, or a sound and then we need to convert this impulse into action. I’m most fascinated with what we can do to make ourselves available to hearing the inspiration and then we can find many ways to convert this into a creative product through teaching, imaginative playing, problem solving, or improvising.

Learning about inspiration and creativity in music appears to have equal applications in all the fine arts: dance, theater, even visual arts. Recently, I have noticed the integration of mind-body activities (sing/dance, play/dance, act/sing, draw/play, etc.) seem to have a strong correlation to both receiving inspiration and translating this inspiration to highly creative artistic expression.

It starts with the breath and silence:
I’ll never forget my experience playing double bass in the California All State High School Orchestra under a wonderful conductor, Ralph Rush. He began our first rehearsal by telling us what he expected of our attention and concentration. He explained that we have a responsibility to recreate these great composers’ music. Then he told us to remember this principle: ‘Music is a beautiful painting on a background of silence’. He paused until there was silence, lifted his baton and began to conduct Otto Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was a magical moment. Most recently I was reminded of this universal truth when I attended a workshop on musical improvisation lead by my university colleague and long time friend, the Grammy award cellist: David Darling.

David has been teaching ‘The Art of Improvisation’ for almost 20 years through his organization called ‘Music for People’. However he is not teaching jazz, but ‘free improvisation’, making it even more accessible to musicians of all skill levels.

At the workshop we learned a preparation exercise before we would begin any improvisations. We would take a deep breath raising our hands above our heads and let our hands slowly fall to our instrument as we exhaled. After a brief period of silence and at the moment of inspiration, we would begin to play. This would turn out to be one of the most important things I would learn about the creative process. The silence inspired my fingers to move unconsciously.
What I was learning was to enjoy the space and silence before I played and even during my playing. I was learning to wait for the moment when my fingers would move by themselves. Patience has never been my virtue. Now it was becoming my friend.

David describes this state of silence in an interview with Jim Oshinsky for the handbook Return to Child. David said:
Sitting quietly, paying attention to what sounds come from the exhale when you pay attention to your breath. That exhale is our magic, that’s the connection to the Infinite. The form comes out of actually sitting quietly, doing nothing, having no purpose and then taking a breath. In our connection to the universe, you let the sounds come out and then listen deeply to how it feels to you. And when one is able to receive this process in such a way that one is not negative, but one is just listening, that listening experience will change one's life.

Little did I know this experience is guiding me in my pursuit of exploring the source of inspiration that manifest in everything we do. Within this silence, we can hear unspoken words and receive guidance which reveals it’s magic in the most beautiful ways-through improvisation-through music-through life.
From the silence, comes the inspiration: Mind-Body Integration
I recently saw the CBS Sixty Minutes program about a composer studying at New York’s renowned Juilliard School who some say is the greatest composer talent to come along in 200 years. He’s written five full-length symphonies, and he’s only 12 years old. "We are talking about a prodigy of the level of the greatest prodigies in history when it comes to composition," says Sam Zyman, a composer. "I am talking about the likes of Mozart, and Mendelssohn, and Saint-Sans." His name is Jay Greenberg.

Greenberg says music just fills his head and he has to write it down to get it out. Jay, like Mozart, says when he hears his music, he hears it all at once and when he takes the time to write it down, it comes through without revisions. It’s just complete. He wrote one piece called’ The Storm” in just a few hours.

However when Jay was asked HOW he hears his music, that part I found profound. Jay explained that he likes to be walking! When hear hears the music, he engages his BODY, he conducts the music he is hearing, and he is also singing it as he is conducting it! Singing, walking, and playing (conducting) it with his hands all simultaneously!! Hang on to this thought. This is the state of being when Jay is receiving his most creative inspiration.

Have you even been stuck at your desk with a math problem or challenging question? Feel like getting up and walking around a bit? You find yourself walking to a pulse? And when you do this, do you notice that sometimes--‘boom’ the answer comes instantly!

Multi-Sensory Integration: Mind/Body/Balance/Rhythm/Song/Co-ordination
This fall, I was invited to present a series of lectures at the Nova Scotia, Canada Music Educators Conference. Part of the conference included a local showcase marathon concert of many of the public school ensembles: Bands, orchestras, chorus, jazz groups, chamber groups, flute choirs, drum and fife corps, and step dancers! That’s right step dancers. In Nova Scotia there is a huge influence of Celtic music. In addition to jazz combos there is Irish music in the schools! There is a fiddle in almost most everyone’s Cape Breton-Victoria house.

In the bands and string ensembles, the students were usually fixed on reading their music while studiously following their fine conductors. The choirs sang fairly well but seemed to become more animated when they engaged their bodies in some simple choreographed hand gestures or footsteps. Mind you this was good playing but it wasn’t ‘off the charts’.

Then I witnessed a performance of four young middle school girls that I will remember forever. Yes they were doing Irish Step Dancing. Irish sep dancing dates back to the Dance Masters of 1750. Forerunners of today's Irish dancing, dance teachers typically traveled within a county, teaching their repertoire of dance steps and participating in competitions with other Dance Masters. But these girls not only danced, they sang while they danced. Two of them also played the flute and fiddle while they both sang and danced! Once again we have dance, playing and singing, all at the same time. The end result, I believe was that by engaging ALL THESE ACTIVITIES AT ONCE, their creative inspiration and effectiveness in communication soared. These girls not only expressed excitement in their music, but when they entered and exited the stage, they showed joy in their faces, a swagger in their walk and inspired everyone in that room!

I’m aware of the many wonderful educational approaches used in the Kodaly, Orff, and Suzuki systems that encourage and even integrate the voice, movement, percussion, keyboard and other instruments into the teaching of many kinds of music.

But what puzzles me is why do we cut this valuable ‘integration of the senses’ out when we become more advanced? It seems that we are taking away the very spontaneous natural disciplines that contribute to a creative experience-just when we need it the most. Opening and integrating all these physical, aural and musical channels appears to have a strong connection to our ability to not only perform but to receive creative inspiration.

David Darling has a wonderful expression he believes produces the most dramatic impact on music making. He says: “Sing what you play, Play what you Sing”. I know this to be true and to be an essential discipline not only for improvisational music but for classical music as well. I’d like to expand on this principle by also adding:

Sing what you Play, (Play what you Sing)
Dance what you Sing,
Act what you Dance,
Paint what you Act
Create your Inspiration!

This all helps to intensify and illuminate your passion, open your nervous system-mind/body/spirit to the creative free flow of universal energy-the same energy that inspires Mozart, Jay Greenberg, me and you!

Barry Green is author of the new book ‘The Mastery of Music-Ten Pathways to True and the InnerGame of Music (with W. Timothy Gallwey), formerly Principal Bassist with the Cincinnati Symphony. Green currently works for the San Francisco Symphony Education Department teaching young bassists and performs as a bass soloist, author and educator throughout the world.