How to Get into a Jam: Four Stages of Personal Evolution

The following excerpt from Flutes Jam: A Guide to Improvisation addresses issues that apply to group music in any context, whether playing a drum or flute or other instrument. It could apply as well to the daily performance (or jam) we call life.

Unconscious self-absorption

Not listening, not paying attention to others or the wider music. Maybe focused on the instrument, the melody, the rhythm, but in solo bubble: inspired by some private muse, but unaware. Or simply daydreaming, fantasizing, worrying, thinking… buffered from the living organism of the jam.

Hyperconscious self-absorption

“When you’re nervous it’s because you think everyone’s looking at you and the first thing to realize is they’re not. It’s just a big ego trip. Plus, when you’re feeling like that, all the energy is coming in toward you. You’re making it happen that way. The thing to do is turn it around and send the energy out. To be giving energy to what’s happening. Like Olatunji says, Service.” —Friday Night Jam

Global awareness, energy of all, witness, transparent eyeball

Present in the space: listening. Harmonizing, gelling in time, joining the flow. Holding steady, with wide-lens focus, soft gaze. Attention to breath, posture, pace, dynamic. Blending in. Ready to shift, when the moment is ripe.

Spiritual warrior, intuitive jazz, heart-centered

Effortless mastery, without thought. Flying above, or rooting below. One with the organism, the living machine; breathing and dancing together. “Right action, without attachment to the fruits of action.”

We don’t always achieve or embody mastery but we can always be mindful, or remind ourselves, that there is more to be gained by deepening and opening our awareness. For more insights into the art of improvisation, with practical tips and visual learning aids for solo practice and group creation, see the newly released Flutes Jam: A Guide to Improvisation.

“An intricate and in-depth presentation of a world of musical styles and genres. The book’s approach to the learning process opens the doors to infinite possibilities of improvisation—the intuitive aspect of music playing, too often overlooked in academia.” —E. Nep

February 20, 2022February 20, 2022

Flute Improv made easy

New release, a melody companion to the Roots Jam drum rhythm series.

Learn how to improvise on flute or pennywhistle, for solo or group jams.

Have you ever wanted to improvise with your pennywhistle or bamboo flute and didn’t know where to start?

What are some of the more popular Western scales? How do they compare with the flavor of music from Japan, India, or the Middle East?

Is there a handy reference chart for transposing from one key to another?

Which notes are best to play when switching modes in jazz?

Flutes Jam helps you over the hurdles to free your playing while sounding good.

Here are some pointers from the book:

Nowick’s Nuggets

Find a lonely beach to practice.
Rent studio space if necessary.
Play as often as you can. Your brain will keep learning in between, in the background, or getting new insights and inspirations.
“Make it beautiful.”
Feel free to risk mistakes.
“There are no mistakes”—play with that.
private: Dance with the shadow.
public: Introduce the shadow to beauty.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Eugene Neptune for stellar flutes and other instrumentation, organization, sound engineering, and videography for the Strange Moon recordings in the Audio/Video section, as well as feedback on this manuscript. Thanks also for helpful comments by Eric Onasick and flautist Suryaneel Khan (Étienne Lauth).

Go to Flutes Jam website to learn more.

Order Flutes Jam from Amazon, or download the PDF.

Flutes Jam Haiku

Keep asking one thing:
what is the core vibration
inside all that is?

Keep playing that note
riding in that frequency…
all else will follow.

February 15, 2022

Demon Slayers to the Rescue

By William T. Hathaway

We live in a time of multi-level ghastliness. People are dropping dead from COVID and dropping dead from the vaccine that’s supposed to prevent it. The weather is rampaging, the earth spewing fire. Mental illness has become normal.

All these horrors seem to be connected: one hydra-headed demon generated by the fear, negativity, and stress humans are radiating into our environment. What we need are demon slayers, and that’s one of the specialties of Shiva and his partner Durga. When we activate them, they can dissolve this demon so humanity can think clearly and act positively. They can free us from destruction and help us transition towards divinity. This enlightening takes place within us individually at the microscopic level and within the collective consciousness at the macroscopic level.

The deities are real. They are great cosmic forces and a part of us. Enlivening them improves our lives immensely.

To activate the demon-slaying aspect of Shiva and Durga, light a candle and chant this sutra into the looming dark consciousness that surrounds us:

Aum namo Bhagwate Rudrāya
(I bow to Shiva in the aspect of Rudra, the remover of suffering and ignorance)
Nirakara momkara mulam turiyam
(to him who is formless, the root of Om, dwelling in the transcendent)
Gira Gyana gotita misham Girisham
(beyond speech and knowledge of the senses, Lord of the mountains)
Karalam Mahakala kalam krpalam
(the terrible, the Lord of time, the giver of grace)
Gunagara samsara param nato-ham
(the home of all qualities, beyond dualities)

Aum Dumg Durgayē namaha
(I bow to the liberating aspects of Durga)
Kriya Tarini
(action that enlightens and saves us from calamities)
Kali Rakshakāri
(destroyer of demons)
Raj Rajeshwāri
(ruler of emperors)
Chandikam prana-mām-yaham
(I bow to the destroyer of ignorance and evil)
Tham, Tham; Thah, Thah; Chandika
(mantras for Goddess Chandika, a fierce aspect of Durga)
Shraddhā
(faith, which Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described as the wrapping that keeps the package, our spiritual journey, intact until it reaches its destination in the state of enlightenment)

Yaj-jā-grato duura-mudaiti daivam
(May divinity replace suffering)
Tadu suptasya tathaiveti
(in my waking and sleeping consciousness)

Jaya Jaya
(rhymes with “my-a”)
Vidjayante taram
(victory to you)

Close your eyes, press your hands upwards in front of your chest, bow, and picture Shiva and Durga sweeping away the darkness with their divine light.

This ceremony of enlivening the deities is a small but real contribution to transforming out of this crisis and establishing an enlightened society living at peace with the planet. And that is worth doing.

If you’d like to contact Shiva and Durga and enrich your life with their presence, this website will show you how, all for free: https://meetshiva985866381.wordpress.com/.

William T. Hathaway was a Fulbright professor of creative writing at universities in Germany, where he currently writes, meditates, and hangs out with Shiva. His novel of the climate change, Wellsprings: A Fable of Consciousness, tells of an old woman and a young man healing nature through techniques of higher consciousness. Chapters are posted at https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/cosmicegg-books/our-books/wellsprings. His peace novel, Summer Snow, is the story of an American warrior falling in love with a Sufi Muslim and learning from her that higher consciousness is more effective than violence. Chapters are posted at http://shattercolors.com/fiction/hathaway_summersnow01.htm.