Sensing Presence

My drum teacher told me that he's a self-help book nerd, and that he read a book where the author interviewed Wayne Gretzky about how he plays so well. He told them, "I slow down the game in my mind." What an amazing concept. Wayne Gretzky sees a chess board of hockey players, and methodically and carefully in his mind, he manipulates the game to his advantage.

My teacher recommended that I do the same thing with drumming. He said that I'll be able to fit much more into the space of time if I slow it down in my mind. It's nothing I'm not capable of. If you clap slowly-- let's say, 90 times a minute, you will hear the claps and spaces in between. When you add a clap in between every clap, making 180 claps a minute, the minute seems much more full. In your mind, more time has passed. Now, try four in between every clap-- including the first one, that is. This is the basic sixteenth note-pattern. I was having trouble playing around with this pattern. Drummers will accent and delete given parts of this pattern at will. When I read the notes, I can do that. I can also do it when I play slowly, but when I'm playing the sixteenth notes, the pace is overwhelming. "Slow down the music in your mind." He told me to close my eyes. Feel the music at the moment. I did. It helped.

My voice teacher told me something similar-- when I have a difficult melodic pattern, told think about it. "Just let your ear do the work." My voice knows what to do... I need to slow down the quick notes in my mind and let the music come out. I told her what my drum teacher told me, and she said, "Yes! I like your teacher!"

All this talk about slowing down music in my mind made me wonder. How can I slow something down in my mind. I can only experience time as it happens, no? No! precisely not. Time passes the way we let it pass. When you're having fun, it flies. When we're caught in a moment, it can last forever. When we dream, five minutes can span hours and hours. How are these things possible? The passing of time seems to be something completely subjective. But it is a common experience that brings us into the same moment as one another. The clock ticks the same second on your watch and mine, and we can sing a song together because we can share moments. What does it mean to slow down the music in my mind? Let each note have its own value. Be present. At any given second in the song-- let that second count.

This concept might extend into the world of space as well. I don't really know that much about this, so if anyone else has more background in visual art, please contribute, but I think this might be an expression of the same basic concept. When I look at a space on the wall, I perceive the space as being a certain size. Fill that space with a picture of a flower. The space seems to expand, doesn't it? Now imagine the space covered with a picture of an ocean. It's huge! But is is also kind of limited. A song on the radio seems like it could be 5-10 minutes of material covered over the course of 2 and 1/2 minutes, but now compare those two and a half minutes with the same time sat in silence. And if we compare a slow song the same length to a fast song the same length, what are the differences? It's so odd, how we perceive time and space.

My mother does something called Energy Mirrors, which is a kind of energy-healing system. They do a lot of what other people would call meditation and focusing on being present. The well-selling author, Ekhart Tolle writes all about presence in our activities. For some reason, the way we perceive time can be greatly affected by our state of mind. Imagine someone tells you he'll spend a half hour with you. Now, fill the half hour with quickly checking email, receiving two short phone calls and then telling you what happened to him on the way to meeting you. Then, fill the hour with him looking into your eyes, listening to you, and smiling at you. Where is the presence? And what presents!