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The
Inner Master
By Jamie Andreas
(www.guitarprinciples.com)
Of all the things
you can do to make sure you are enabling yourself to achieve your guitar
playing dreams, finding the Inner Master is the greatest. All great
players have found the Inner Master. Once the Inner Master is found,
everything else that can be useful becomes usable.
How do we find the Inner Master? Actually, we don't. The Inner Master
finds us. The Inner Master finds us when we are ready to be found, when
we are ready to listen. The Inner Master is like the "still small voice",
it can't be heard when other voices are talking, or screaming, inside
of us.
We won't hear the Inner Master if we are busy hearing voices of worry
about how "good" we are on guitar, or if we can ever be "good". We won't
hear the Inner Master if we are hearing voices of pride about how "good"
we are on the guitar.
We will hear the Inner Master when everything is quiet enough for the
Inner Master to hear US when we play, or practice; that is, to hear
our music. When our Inner Master can hear us play, He, or She, will
instruct us, guide us, to our next step of development, to the next
awareness we need in order to move beyond where we are. Our Inner Master
should be the one we play for when we play. The Inner Master hears when
we truly listen.
Mastery on the guitar is not the attainment of a state of perfection,
it is the attainment of a position; and we arrive at that position through
the practice of essential attitudes. These attitudes allow us to see
what is important, and what is true. They allow us to be Masters, and
to become Masters.
Mastery is the state wherein there is no obstacle from the outside to
the inside, or from the inside to the outside. Mastery is a position
of "no-position", it is complete openness. Masters are those who have
spent a long time in that position, and have developed from that position.
Masters are never finished growing, they haven't seen everything. They
are just in a position from which they COULD see anything.
Finding The Inner Master
How do we find the Inner Master, or allow ourselves to be found? I really
recommend a way I believe has been successfully used over the ages:
find the Outer Master first. Or, we might say, be able to recognize
the Outer Master when you do see him.
Nothing can release your own Inner Master more effectively than seeing
a great player play. But, you have to know how to look. You have to
look with complete openness; you have to absorb it all without "mentalizing"
about it. You have to "feel" the great player; you have to feel like
you ARE the great player.
I have always noticed a very peculiar thing. Whenever I would watch
a great player play, as time went on and I went back to my practicing,
I would notice that I was doing things a little differently, I was using
a finger a bit differently, or I was feeling a bit different as I played,
perhaps moving, or feeling my body in a new way. I realized I had picked
up something by just watching a great player play.
Somehow, I had internalized, in a non-verbal and non-conscious way,
something about the way that player was approaching playing the guitar;
something about the way they were related to the whole thing.
have to admit I haven't done a scientific study of it, but I have to
believe it is something that happens all the time for many people, and
is possible for anyone. It is simply a matter of letting everything
you are connect with something outside of you, and everything IT is
connect with something inside of you. Then, you will notice changes.
I once watched Segovia play a chord, and then bring his hand away from
the strings in such a beautiful and graceful way. I felt afterward that
I had learned worlds about how to touch the strings, and how to feel
in the whole body as I did so. My Inner Master had connected to his
Inner Master. I found my Inner Master through attention to an Outer
Master.
When I was young I went to see Julian Bream play. I felt I learned a
lot about being a master as I watched him simply walk out on stage!
His incredible naturalness as he sauntered around to the front of the
stage, combined with those red socks, conveyed so much about how one
ought to feel about sharing the intensity of one's relationship to music
and the guitar with a crowd of strangers.
But watching Julian's face as he played said more than anything else,
and conveyed more than anything else could. His absolute -involvement
and concentration on the music, and his surrender to it, revealed the
inner experience of a Master. The emotional intensity of the music,
reflected in his face as he created and communed with it, made a harmony
as beautiful as any in the music itself. My Inner Master knew he was
in his Alone Place, and that was the place for a player to be when he
or she plays, and it helped me enter my own Alone Place. I have gotten
that same feeling watching Stevie Ray, Angus, Jimi, etc. play. If playing
Rock or Blues were my highest and most urgent calling, these would be
the masters I would commune with.
When you can allow the eyes of your Inner Master to see the Outer Master,
communication and transference will take place, you will discover the
effects later.
Occasionally, when I am instructing a student in correct practice, and
I show them the depth of attention needed, and how extremely slowly
movements must be done, they will say "I thought that I should be doing
something like that, but my last teacher told me NO, don't practice
that slowly, it's not necessary. It felt good to me, and I thought I
should be doing it that way, but my teacher said no". This is an example
of the Inner Master trying to be heard, even in a beginner, but not
being listened to because of misguided faith in "authority" instead
of trust in one's own Intuition (in--tuition, inner teaching).
The Inner Master "Finds" The Way To The Notes
People sometimes ask questions like "I saw John McClaughlin play, and
his face was tense. Jamey says you should have no tension. Is John McClaughlin
wrong?", or "I saw so and so play, and his pinky was sticking out, somebody
tell Jamey to yell at him!"
It needs to be understood that what we do when we practice is entirely
different than what we do when we play. Whatever look you see on John
McClaughlin's face when he is playing, you can rest assured it is not
because he is struggling to play! What you are seeing is a Master "finding
his way to the notes". If the music is there as you watch someone play,
if the master player has found his way to the notes, and you are hearing
them, then, whatever he is doing, is right. In playing, whatever we
do to get the notes is fair game, legal, and allowed.
I have seen John Williams’s pinky flying around. I see that with my
eyes, but I also hear all the wonderful notes! How can what he is doing
be "wrong" if he is finding his way to the notes? Obviously, when that
pinky needs to play a note, it's there, and Williams makes sure it's
there! So, be very careful when you judge a master player. I have seen
Bream look like he might be having an epileptic fit, and I have seen
him look like he was going to jump out of his chair. He is doing what
HE needs to do, at that moment, to find his way to the notes. A master
knows what he wants, knows how to get it, and knows when he gets it.
When we practice, we create the optimum conditions for training of the
body, so that it becomes able to respond to our commands. When we play,
we do whatever we feel like doing, and we do whatever we must do to
"find our way to the notes". And sometimes this involves body language
and movements, and facial expressions that may not make much sense to
someone on the outside, especially someone holding a list of rules about
how things ought to look when one plays.
The Intention and Attention of a Master is so powerful, the desire for
the music is so strong, that all matters of technique and form MAY be
overridden occasionally in the process of finding his or her way to
the notes. If a student sees such a moment, they will not understand
what is happening, because they are always trying to figure out "the
rules". Ultimately, there are no rules, there are guidelines. For every
rule, there is some great musician, breaking that rule as he finds his
way to the notes. Preparation, if necessary, will yield to inspiration.
Mastery is a position we take. We do not have to wait to take that position;
it can be recognized and found within us even from the beginning. If
you can keep your love of music and desire to play in its original purity,
free from contamination of ego, free from the bondage of service to
the ego and its needs, then you will hear the voice of your Inner Master.
The Inner Master knows the best you are capable of at any moment, and
it will accept no less than that. The Inner Maser will accept nothing
less than the music you make when your whole being is fully immersed
in the making of the music, when the notes being made are made from
your complete love and honest and passionate involvement, nothing else.
Then, as you and your Inner Master listen and enjoy together, the Inner
Master will teach you, and you will learn.
Copyright @2002 by Jamie Andreas. All rights Reserved.
Jamie Andreas
Jamie Andreas Jamie's provocative writings examine all aspects of becoming
a true musician…the technical/physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual
dimensions. Guitar virtuoso, recording artist, composer, and teacher
of 30 years, Jamie is recognized by music experts around the globe for
her major contribution to the advancement of guitar education. Her method
book, "The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar" (1999) continues
to bring the highest acclaim, world renowned as "The International Bible
For Guitarists", and the "Holy Grail Of Guitar Books." With a straight
forward writing style, her tried and true, result-oriented guitar book
powerfully reveals the correct practice methods that no other book has
revealed…taking the student from the beginning stages all the way to
the highest levels of virtuosity. Jamie is already familiar to aspiring
guitar players, as her wisdom is present throughout the Web on all major
guitar sites, including her own.
Visit: www.guitarprinciples.com
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