Although music is commonly regarded as a gift… many suffer great pain and fear in attempting to play it. Some of play as if there were a gun being held to our head, and there usually is — because we’re holding it!
What? It’s true!
Oh, you know what I’m talking about. The awkward — and sometime painful — posture, wrinkled-up foreheads, reddened, suffocating faces. I — I’m sure you have, too — see it all the time. And to be completely honest here, I’ve gone through it all, to the extent that I was physically hurting myself.
I’m a saxophone player. In my case, it was the tense, awkwardly painful posture that hurt my wrist and fingers, the fear embedded deep within that wrinkled up my forehead, and the fear — of course, we can’t take any credits away from the ego — that really, really messed me up as a musician.
In “Effortless Mastery”, Kenny Werner puts it this way:
Why is this so? As stated before, many of us have formed an unhealthy linkage between who we are and how we play. We fear being inadequate and that leads to ineffective playing, practising, and listening. Fear closes all doors to the true self, that brilliant center where the ecstasy lies.
I know, there’s a little bit of cheese in that passage. But if we’ll really open our eyes and look at it, fear does close all doors. Werner describes the musical experience as “feeling more exquisite than the sweetest nectar the world has to offer”. However, fear allows no of that to happen.
Recognizing the Fear
Apart from what’s mentioned above, how else do we recognize fear when we play? Simply put it this way: anything one does that isn’t completely organic and natural (we’ll talk about this part later when we get to the meditative aspect of thing — yup, believe me, it gets crazy!) comes from fear.
Ah ha! That’s why the first thing we talked about, in our previous post, was about giving up the need to sound good. What’s there to fear if every note we play is the most beautiful note we have ever heard?
Where Does Fear Originate?
Where does fear originate? From the mind? Yes, but not the “universal mind,” or the “over mind,” or the “collective unconscious.” Rather, fear originates in our “little mind.” One may call that little mind the ego.
Whoohoo! Here we go. The ego. The “I” mentality. It is the:
lens through which we perceive our separateness from each other. Separateness invites comparison and competition. This is where problems originate: he’s younger than I, more talented, and so forth.
Ego kills! Ego draws in negativity to music. Fear comes from the ego. Afraid of sounding bad? Ego. Afraid the player beside you plays better? Ego. Get my point?
For now, the first step we should take is to loose the ego. Do not be afraid to sound bad. Who’s got to say that’s “good”, “bad”, “ugly”, or “pure”? Loose the ego and let yourself come through. The player beside you who plays better is sharing his/her music. Great! Enjoy it! Appreciate it! Be a part of it. Loose the separateness and gain a sense of unity.
Tyrannized by our egos, we live in a state the Hindus call maya, or delusion. Engrossed in maya, we can’t see the magnificence of who we really are. We think we need so much. Desires multiply, and we know nothing of real inner happiness. Fear sabotages us at every turn.
Fear-Based Playing
Fears causes us to loose touch with ourselves and “ignore the ideas that want to come naturally.” Werner says that fear of sounding bad — what we discussed in the previous post — “robs the music of all its strength”.
In fear, we expect; with love, we accept.
That’s it for today. Next time: Fear-based pratising!
17.Apr.08 
Arts & Music, Effortless Mastery 
Comments (4)
Happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you,
happy birthday dear… uh… Eastwood-Zhao-Happenings-in-a Nutshell,
happy birthday to you!
My blog is one year old! 
Blogging for a whole year has been quite a journey. I’ll let the rest of this post do the rest of the talking:
The Past Year… In a Nutshell!
There are certainly highs and lows of my “blogging career” 
. When I first started blogging back in March of 2007, I was pumped with blogging-juice and produced some quality content. For a while, I was producing quality content and enjoying it all. I even got some short-lived fame ‘n glory when my blog was listed as a “Hot Community” in MyBlogLog, along with The Thinking Blog (they actually were doing quite well back then… no hard feelings, Ilker 
) and ProBlogger. Ahhh… those where the days! 
However, things took a turn for the worse as I battled with the tempting forces of evil. My blog dipped big time in quality and creativity starting from April 2007. During that “dark period” , I wrote a whole ton of cheap, low-quality reviews. My readership practically dropped down to zero, and my blog was getting pretty darn close to becoming a “splog”. Though I made a couple hundred dollars, I have to say this: the experience was definitely not worth it!
My love for blogging really started kicking back in starting Jan. 2008. I simply told myself this: write about whatever you feel like writing about. If you don’t feel like writing, take it easy, be kind to yourself. Don’t write for the sake of “ahh I gotta keep the posts coming or else I’ll loose subscribers” (not like I have a lotta subscribers anyway ). So along with my change in attitude came some really good posts. I started writing what I am really passionate about: driving (or, what I call defensive eco-driving — ooo I really want a Prius nowadays), music ( — the effortless mastery of), among others.
Another major change I made was removing all advertisements. It was clogging the blog up — making it look like a chicken market. Besides, I wasn’t any money that’s worth my while anyway. Surprisingly, not too long ago, after I made my changes of removing all the junk from my blog, there were offers that came in requesting text-link placements of $50/month. What did I do? I stayed cool and flatly refused 
.
107 Published Posts in Total Eh?
Out of the huge pile, I’ve picked out half-a-dozen or so of my favourite/most controversial/most commented posts. Check ‘em out:
Creative Writing
Life (Blah blah blah… )
Defensive Eco-Driving (Oh believe me, this section’s good 
)
While you’re at it, check out my “Top Posts” also. Maybe you noticed that I’ve left all the nasty political stuff out. For a good reason! I’m not exactly into these things nowadays. I prefer more to have a nice walk on the seawall on a beautiful, breezy day, then to point out the wrongs of our world 
(there’s simply too much to list)
You Are Here Because…
You are here because… I’d like to thank every single one of you for the support — no matter how much, or how little — over the last year. But… hey! I have a PR 4 blog : Spiderman’s uncle Ben once said (if I can remember this correctly), “with great powers come great responsibility” . Where I’m I going with this? The link-lovin’, of course! Listed below are some of my favourite bloggers:
Do you have any blogging experiences that you’d like to share?
16.Apr.08 Blog Updates, Internet & Technology Comments (16)
I’ve started digging into Kenny Werner’s “Effortless Mastery” a bit. So far, it’s nothing short of intriguing. I’ve hit the 4th chapter, “Beyond Limited Goals”. All of a sudden I found myself taking out a pen and a piece of paper, for some notes. Why not keep the notes on the blog, I thought to myself.
In this chapter, Kenny Werner emphasizes on one aspect: surrender the obsessive need to sound good!
How does one achieve that level of musicianship — of humanness? How does one evolve into a riveting presence so worthy of praise? Limited goals, such as trying to impress people, find security, play “valid” jazz, and so on, block that goal. Surrender is that key, and the first thing to surrender is one of your most prized possessions: YOUR OBSESSIVE NEED TO SOUND GOOD! This is a paradox that most people can prove through their own experience.
Personal Experience
I totally agree with what he has to say:
When you don’t try as hard to be good, you play better.
From personal experience, I can relate this to so many instances. First of all, let’s look at the “not caring part”. When I practice on my own, there isn’t any fear. I play, I practice, and I feel good (mostly) about what I do. Now… I can relate to countless instances where I started caring about the way I sounded, the way I was playing, and choked!
Let’s look back at the 2005 Byng Arts Recital, for example, where I completely bombed. Haha… back in the days, way back in the days when I had no clue about jazz, I wanted to sound like a certain elevator-music-playing soprano saxophone player. Despite how much I sucked back in the days (I’m still not that great now, though slightly better, in my opinion ), I practiced hard for the recital with a newbie saxophone player’s lower-lip-biting ambitions. Long story short, there was way too much ego, and I wanted to sound good desparately! I cared so much about the performance… cared so much about everything… that I completely bombed and choked.
I’m sure everyone can relate to these types of experiences. Take the playing tests in the school music program, for example (Lord Byng has an excellent music program, by the way, by far the best in Vancouver and the lower mainland). I used to get really nervous when it was my turn to play. Remember, Werner says that we need to surrender ourselves and not try as hard to sound good. I remember sounding a lot worse than usual in these playing tests when I cared too much… every time.
- By not caring, you play better.
- The harder you try, the worse you play.
An Involuntary Muscle
It sure is easy to think about not caring the way you sound now, but when the time comes to your solo, what’s going to happen? Werner puts it this way:
Like an involuntary muscle, this concern just happens even as one approaches one’s instrument. No matter how much people are intellectually aware, they will not be able to control their concern once they start to play.
What’s the solution?
… if a true acceptance of oneself — if not actual love — is present, the fear of failure will be gone!
Self-acceptance is the key here. In my opinion, it’s about how comfortable and at ease you feel with yourself.
Finally, among other things, Werner says that music is not suppose to be a “source of depression”, but rather a “gift”. By letting all the tension go, you’re able to look at music from a totally different approach.
In Conclusion…
A person who is not afraid to die, knows how to live. A person who is not afraid to fail, succeeds. And a person who is not afraid to sound terrible may sound great.
Until next time! (Who cares? )
20.Mar.08 Arts & Music, Effortless Mastery Comments (9)
After my last post (the extremely long one) about Obama being the “lesser of two evils“, I’ve come to the realization that I’m becoming… apathetic: with all the chants, the campaigning, the whole system. Think about it: Americans have, unfortunately, chosen a candidate that will take them down the same old path… the path of policing the world and printing the Dollar out of thin air 
I don’t really care anymore; there’ll be no more of watching CNN and hearing the hosts telling their stories as if Ron Paul doesn’t even exist. Something’s not quite right with the system (just to put it nicely) .
Well… on a brighter note, I present you: Obamillary
17.Mar.08 Current Events Comments (11)
The concept of “effortless mastery” can be a tricky one. This concept, in my opinion, not only applies to music, but to everything in life. Today, I borrowed a well-used (pages falling out, binding wrinkling…etc.) copy of “Effortless Mastery” from Stan Karp, and plan on reading through it. A little bit of info on the back of the book:
Kenny Werner is an accomplished pianist who began performing at age 4 and, by age 11, has appeared on television. While at the Manhattan School of Music he became restless with his musical direction and began to explore Jazz as new means of creativity and expression. Along his journey, he was inspired by masters of the craft to rethink not only the technical aspects of creativity, but also the spiritual aspects. Effortless Mastery, is not only an account of that journey, but also an insightful guide for all those wishing to remove their own barriers to creativity in life and the arts. While Mr. Werner happens to be a musician, the concepts presented here are applicable to every profession, aspiration or life-style where there is a need for free-flowing, effortless thinking.
Let’s flip open the dictionary and look up some definitions:
Effortless:
- Requiring or apparently requiring no effort; “the swallows glided in an effortless way through the busy air”
- Casual: not showing effort or strain; “a difficult feat performed with casual mastery”; “careless grace”
Mastery:
- Possession of consummate skill
- Great skillfulness and knowledge of some subject or activity
Effortless Mastery?
“…if you’ve constantly pointed to other players and thought that they possessed something you didn’t, or if you’ve practiced for years and never really improved, or if you always play great but your music lacks depth and meaning for you, read on.”
Yes sir , I will read on — read on and share the “enlightening” moments (cheesy choice of words there) with my readers.
Stay tuned!
12.Mar.08 Effortless Mastery Comments (8)
Don’t you get moments where you think to yourself, boy oh boy where has time gone? Moments where… it is as if yesterday that the lingering fragrance of memories used to hang? Moments where, leading up to this piece of tasteful, nostalgic pie, you anticipate — even in your dreams — yet, find yourself reminiscing about it a year later and wonder… where has time gone?
A year ago today, March 8, 2007, I went on a band trip to Italy (trip itinerary). Without a doubt, one of the most memorable trips of my lifetime: memorable not only because of the beauties of the culture, landscape that I had witnessed, not only because of the fun and excitement shared with friends and strangers, not only because of falling ill halfway through the trip, catching chick-pox, and not seeing the Roman Forums or the Colosseum, but all the more memorable because of the realization that time has flew through my fingers, out of my grasp, my reach, within the blink of an eye. I’d really like to return to Venice one day. I’d love to see the streets of Rome, the ancient Forums, the Colosseum.
Yet, these moments are behind us.
A year ago today, my sympathetic system was working hard — epinephrine pumping, blood pressure on the rise, heart rate increasing — to accommodate the stress and excitement awaiting on the trip. Never for a second did I pause and wonder: where will I be a year from now?
It’s truly an intimidating thought to be looking ahead a year from now. Yet, as history has proven to us time and time again , time really does fly. Never for a moment when I was in first grade did I anticipate walking into the doors of grade eight. Through out the years in high school, I have never really imagined where I would be a year, two years, three years from the present. Boarding the Air Canada flight to Toronto, flying to Frankfurt, Germany, transferring to Milan, Italy, never for a second did I imagine myself sitting at the keyboard reflecting back on the trip a year in the future.
Time does not fly — it sprints through a marathon. Or, does it waltz?
07.Mar.08 Life Comments (12)
Way back in December 2007 (I know, it’s been a while), there was hope for change, hope for the Ron Paul RE[EVOL]UTION (remember,$6-million in a single day?).
Now, as reality starts to kick in, we’re faced with two choices: either Hillary Clinton/John McCain, the neocon warmongers (it’s quite obvious that the neocons have no faith in McCain winning over Obama, since tons of them — including Ann Coulter (gasp of horror!) — have openly shot McCain down and endorsed Clinton), or Barack Obama (unless you’re been living in a cave, for the past two months, he’s been chanting over and over “Yes we can [change]! Yes we can!”), who the media has falsely portrayed as the “last hope”, who the masses have adopted a way too romanticized view on, and who, in my opinion, is the lesser of two evils.
Obama, the Lesser of Two Evils
The lesser of two evils?! You may continue to chant “Yes We Can!” all day long and call me a cynic all you want, but here’s my two cents.
Obviously, he is for change (to a certain extent), I’m not arguing with that. He openly speaks against the politics of fear (unlike Kerry, who not once spoke openly against George Bush’s rhetoric in 2004) and wishes to change the system by being friends with people (i.e. Republicans), taking to people (i.e. Iran), and trading with people (i.e. changing NAFTA). Sure, to a certain extent, to the masses, he is for change.
Let’s Look Under the Sheets
Numbers and solid facts speak better than words and opinions. Let’s have close look at Obama’s campaign site, shall we?
Here’s where my beef with Obama really comes in:
Economy
Hooray (sarcasm)! Obama wants to cut taxes:
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
That sounds like a sweet deal! So sweet at deal that it simply doesn’t make any sense. If you were to “provide 150 million workers” up to “$500″ per person (hmm… let’s see… 150,000,000 x 500 = 75,000,000,000), or $75-billion worth of tax relief, how would you continue to fund the American empire (military bases in Turkey, UK, Germany, South Korea, Japan… just to name a few), the so-called “War on Terror” (wow…), the regular spending that keeps the country running… without breaking the already recessing economy that’s NINE TRILLION dollars in debt?
“Yes We Can! Yes We Can!”. Am I the only one hearing the irony in that? Yes, you can, do what? Change? What’re you kidding me? You call Obama’s economical policies “change”. That is definitely not change. This is change, according to Ron Paul:
But today, too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future and yours.
In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to we the people.
Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending.
We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget. We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United States.
Real change, Mr. Obama, will.i.am, “Yes We Can”-ners, would be to cut spending by withdrawing all America troops home from all over the world (interesting how people think that the Americans are only in the Middle East). Real change would be to change America’s school-yard-bully foreign policy; stop being the policeman of the world, stop nuking people, stop interfering in the self-determination of others. Real economical change, after cutting spending, would be to address the issue of the Dollar and change the economical system: the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air to fund the empire, increasing inflation as a result.
Foreign Policy
Iraq
I’ve briefly talked about this in the previous section. Does Obama want real change? Let’s have a look:
Bring Our Troops Home: Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.
Okay, this is interesting. He will have all of the “combat brigades” out of Iraq. Define combat. Are peacekeeping brigades combat brigades? This sounds a bit vague to me. Simply pulling the troops out of the streets of Baghdad could mean that they’re no longer in “combat”, yet they could still remain for “peacekeeping” purposes.
Ah ha! I’m a bit surprised that Obama keeps this stuff on his website for the world to see: he will “keep some troops in Iraq”. All right Mister. Some troops? How many troops would you consider as “some” troops? 10? A dozen? A couple thousand? Ten thousand?
Oh please, this is sounding a lot like George W. Bush rhetorics here. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein. It can be argued that al Qaeda and other forces, who undoubtedly consider Americans invaders and label themselves as “freedom fighters”, entered Iraq just to fight back the Americans.
This is clearly rhetorical: he wants to pull troops out of Iraq yet will “keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region” to attack al Qaeda. But because Americans are there, al Qaeda and others will definitely remain to fight back. This is like… quantum physics, insightful philosophy, an infinite loop.
By now, if you don’t get what I’m saying, you better then get off the computer, turn on the TV, and watch some “Fair and Balanced” (hahaha I can’t help laughing at that) Fox News.
Iran
I applaud Omaba for not banging the war drums like Hillary and the neocons.
Opposed Bush-Cheney Saber Rattling: Obama opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which says we should use our military presence in Iraq to counter the threat from Iran. Obama believes that it was reckless for Congress to give George Bush any justification to extend the Iraq War or to attack Iran. Obama also introduced a resolution in the Senate declaring that no act of Congress including Kyl-Lieberman gives the Bush administration authorization to attack Iran.
That makes him the lesser of two evil. He is right on many things, not banging the drums of war being one of them. However:
The Problem: Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region, and its leaders threaten Israel and deny the Holocaust. But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them. That’s why Obama stood up to the Bush administration’s warnings of war, just like he stood up to the war in Iraq.
“Iran has sought nuclear weapons, supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region” — excuse me? Yes, we know that Iran’s after nuclear weapons. For crying out loud, our real concern should be with Pakistan — with an American-imposed military dictator on the verge of loosing power and losing controlling of the nuclear arsenal.
Oh please! “Iran supports militias inside Iraq and terror across the region” sounds completely like words out of George Bush’s mouth. If anyone can find the tiniest bit of evidence that Iran’s killing Americans in Iraq and support “terror”… go watch Fox News.
I thought Omaba is change. I thought Obama is for getting rid of the politics of fear.
“But Obama believes that we have not exhausted our non-military options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them” — though again, I must applaud him for diverging from the Bush mentality and promising to talk to Iran, to use diplomacy instead of bombs.
(On another thought, for those currently watching Fox News, go take a 20th-century world history course and browse around Wikipedia)
Failing Economy + Increased Spending = ?
Expand the Military: We have learned from Iraq that our military needs more men and women in uniform to reduce the strain on our active force. Obama will increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
I’m sorry Mr. Obama, but… where’re you getting the money to increase the size of the military? Oh, I have forgotten, the Federal Reserve will print the money out of thin air.
Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe he wants to increase spending but doesn’t realize that America’s already nine trillion dollars in debt; maybe he doesn’t know that the Dollar is devaluing before his eyes, the housing markets crashing, and inflation rising; maybe he wishes to pull troops out of Iraq — but to keep them in there to fight “al Qaeda”, who are ironically there just to fight back the invading Americans. Maybe he is, and we are all, just too busy chanting “Yes We Can!”
01.Mar.08 Current Events Comments (11)
This is really getting kinda sad. What used to be a great blogging community where users share ideas and communicate with each other — yes, I am referring to MyBlogLog — has now crossed over to the dark side… a more spammy side.
I rarely receive legit comments now. Most of the comments that I receive — if not all — are mass-sent, and contain one type of link or another.
Time to wake up, people: MyBlogLog is slowly phasing out. It no longer brings in a ton of traffic. Considering that most comments contain links, I rarely pay any attention to them now.
Anyone else noticing this?
29.Feb.08 Blog Updates Comments (7)
To be honest with you, I’ve never really caught onto the fads and bandwagons (except for the interweb — which, without a doubt is an enormous bandwagon, but not a fad, but a trend that’s to stay for the foreseeable future). People used to be hooked onto Xanga, then Nexopia… you name it. Well now — or at least for the past two years or so — it’s Facebook.
Ahh… Facebook. The wonders of Facebook.
I didn’t sign up for Facebook in the very beginning. Didn’t sign up for it when it was picking up speed (and when every single bloody email contacts sends you invitations ). Didn’t sign up for it when the — as some people now put it — “annoying” Facebook Apps emerged. Don’t planning on signing up for it anytime soon.
Questions? Comments? Philosophical insight?
18.Feb.08 Life Comments (7)
Spammers are becoming increasingly annoying and tricky nowadays by using Black Hat techniques to boost their websites’ search engine rankings (usually parked pages with tons of ads, which, in return = $$$).
A Little Background
At first, they targeted free blog hosts like Blogspot and Wordpress with automated blog generating programs to create hundreds of spam blogs at a time. These spam blogs would contain back-links to their websites, which improves their SEO. However, these spam blogs are so common now that they usually get suspended/deleted within 48 hrs or so of creation.
Spammers’ New Targets: WordPress MU
Individual blog hosts using WordPress MU are the spammer’s new targets now. The following is from a Black Hat SEO article:
There is a script available from Wordpress called Wordpress Multi-User (WPMU) that allows you to give your website visitors free Wordpress blogs.
Literally thousands of webmasters have installed this script on their servers.
That’s good news for us. Why? Multiple domains/IPs + free Wordpress blogs = extremely easy backlinks to our websites.
Solution to Prevent Spam Blogs on WordPress MU
Spammers find vulnerable WordPress MU blogs through a simple “Google Hack”. They enter the following search query:
“you’ll be blogging seconds later” inurl:wp-signup.php
This allows spammers to go directly to the doors of WordPress MU sites, enabling them to register spam blogs.
To make it harder for spammer to find your WordPress MU blog, simply edit the wp-signup.php file and remove the line “you’ll be blogging seconds later”. This will make it a lot harder for spammers to find your WordPress MU site and register spam blogs.
08.Feb.08 Blog Updates Comments (5)
