|
Gee Keith,
I don't know why not. It's perfectly
clear to people in the arts over here. Go line by line and tell me
what you don't understand.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 1:52
AM
Subject: Gosh 2 (was:: But where's the
mind?)
Gosh! I wish I understand what you are saying
here:
At 14:21 06/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Keith,
Just a thought from
my own world here. The Arts as opposed to academic thought is
concerned with the body as a whole instrument. Consciousness is
a working concept rather than a mechanical or as Harry would say, an
Object-ive reality. We are alive and in flux and it is in doing
that flux that we attain mastery. On the other hand Object-ive
reality is digital (again a "working" concept) that stops time in order to
examine something visually.
Those of us who work
with sound know that is an impossibility even in the sound studio where we
can do some rather amazing things digitizing sound waves but still cannot
separate an oboe from a voice once they are "mixed."
Eventually they will figure that out. That object-fying or
digit-izing is what in the art is called "consciousness".
The "unconscious" or "subconscious" is another working
term. Practically it refers to action or thought taken
from the whole instrument. The intuition is the move from
the mega (unconscious) to the specific (conscious).
All
knowledge is probably learned with the potential for knowledge being
genetic. I don't speak much about the brain because it is
constantly changing as is the information about such things as the
muscles. I do like Pribram's theories about "holism" because it
conforms to my experience of thinking from different parts of the
organism. You can't "think" from the brain, you with to
experience the whole and the whole speaks from its parts dependant upon the
action needed. You "Think" with you hands if you are a pianist
and with your intellect. With the articulation of your
instrument if you are a dancer and with your intellect. With the
voice and breath if you are a singer and with your intellect.
All of the above integrates the emotion as well.
Not long
ago, incorrect information from science, about the way that muscles
worked, destroyed a whole generation of singers who tried to conform
to the latest "scientific knowledge" which were just theories and
inappropiate to build a person's life and technique on. We had
the same thing happen with the theories of thermodynamics which were
supposed to be the way the body worked with the breath but which again was
far too simple to support anything as complex as vocal technique, except for
choir singers. Science has ruined pianists hands and many
singers voices with their latest discoveries that were just someone's desire
to get fame by publishing their theories.
We can't build lives and
careers on fantasies. We work from practical experience and from
the heritage of language and practice. So we find the
concepts of consciousness to be useful. Although if another word
appeared tomorrow that was more useful we would abandon it.
There is a third phase which Donald Schoen has termed "Reflection in Action"
which is a type of awareness during action that is only the realm of the
masters. That means that you are able to be totally aware
of your instrument both in an act of specific control and intuitive trust
that becomes an information loop. Generally, with the
average professional it is an act of thinking before doing and then
abandoning themselves to the action without thinking except at specific
practiced points. Gradually over the years you "become" the
music so completely that there is no distinction between thought and action
and that is "reflection in action." A flawed concept but a step
forward maybe. Indian people with the four directional
learning process and the seven layered spiral of growth are the closest in
their pedagogy to what artists experience in learning with their bodies that
I find complete. But those processes are over a thousand year
old. I suspect that there is a better explanation but science has not
come up with it to date. Certainly digital thought and physical
exploration is no answer thus far anymore than they can explain the
coordination of a concert pianist or the act of love.
Ray Evans Harrell
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden
Place, Bath, England
|
