I am preparing for a new term and this one is long and busy and a change is needed.



I am aware this year of a change due to the things that I have done, I am looking closely at what I am currently doing and that maybe I need to change that as well.
I have been troubled by the way education funnels the mind of children into smaller and smaller focus which may have been good for sending them to the office or the factory but in today’s society we need flexibility and creative thinking with the ability to learn new things and new skills and that is not being addressed by schools in my humble opinion.
I heard an interesting talk on the radio by science fantasy writer Jasper Fforde saying that schools need to promote imaginative thinking and not focus on science because what we need are new ideas not a reworking of old thoughts .He raised the interesting point that on a mobile phone the only new idea was the liquid crystal display everything else was reworking of old technology.
Old paradigms that drive political and economic thinking have taken us to a number of dangerous places which is evident in the non-ecological aspect of most government thinking. For example instead of creating more energy we should just use less, we are using three and a half times what this planet can sustain in the West and that cannot continue whatever we think, this is a bit like death, you might be able to delay it but it is coming for you.
What matters in our thinking should be what world are we leaving for our children? At this rate we are destroying our grandchildren because we are destroying the ecosystem that they require; don’t get me wrong here the planet does not need saving that will adjust but it will be without us. We are at the top of the food chain we are the most vulnerable and the change that we need comes from all of us not from politicians and we can start by changing how we teach our children.
Vic

Unknowable......

I am running a school where you are not obliged to know stuff or be an expert. It is more about being able to wonder and to learn a little, and that is all that a life needs. - Steven Jenkinson.


Ah if only this was the attitude that people had when they stared to learn music, finding themselves through exploring sound and playing and the joy of working with others understanding that mind reading is not as science would say nonsense but something that musicians do all of the time.
Art comes from the dreamlike world of the unconscious which does not require paper qualifications and recommendations of the halls of academe but the attention of the ordinary people that you have something to say or something to teach.
Music is the expression of life and its weirdness and its love and its pain, nothing to do with measurement or repeatable scientific research; that is for the people in white coats.
I have often pondered that if J K Rowling had written about a young scientist who had gone to a special school to fulfil his destiny whether she would have had such a success in her writing? I would say not.
So let us embrace the people that make us feel good whether they have qualifications or not and here is to sticking a finger or two up to the accountants who want to measure and the scientists who want to dissect everything and then wonder why it is dead.

Vic



Bluescampuk three days of rocking out. ... www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Getting uncomfortable

I spend a lot of time looking and attending courses and festivals to give me ideas for Bluescampuk and seeing if there are new ways of making the experience exciting.
I have just returned from something which was more ceremonial in the hills of Wales and this experience was interesting for me because I felt totally out of my depth. I was in a group that seemed to have done it before so that feeling of uncertainty and the feeling of ‘why am I here’ which I know many people experience when doing something new really hit me.
I have always felt that the feeling of uncertainty for me always precedes a learning moment I have even got the point as looking for this as the marker that confirms that something needs to be looked at.
I have reached the point in my life that things that are comfortable are not really transformational events and that feeling of fear and uncertainty is what I need marking it as being out of my comfort zone.
I know that a lot of people experience this feeling when doing music examinations and it may be a good way of explaining why a challenge like this is good for them.
Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless. -Aleister Crowley



A quote from one of the most famous or should I say infamous magicians of all time is so true of music as it is of magic or as Mr Crowley would have said magick.

Any art form from dance and poetry to music and sculpture is about expression of you the artist and one would use the tools of the trade – your talents and virtues as the building blocks to express this however without willpower you have no way of dealing with the blows that land on you from people who critique you and who are just downright jealous of you.

You need to develop a thick skin to deal with this and that is something that most artists do not have and it needs to be acquired.

A little bit like the skin on the ends of your fingers that start being very painful and then they toughen up and then one never feels that level of discomfort again.

 

Vic


 

 

Right under your nose.

Sometimes we look for something and it is hiding in plain sight, right under our noses but because we do not expect the answer to be that easy we miss it.
Many of the answers in my own life I have found to be like this, something that I ‘stepped over’ in the course of every day and it often took something to change my paradigm to make me notice.
I was thinking about this with regard to music, some musicians get this instinctively and they know that the answers to their musical questions are already with them, they just need to ‘see’ them. Maybe the use of different ways of thinking through use of drugs or just dropping out help them to find what is right there.
I have explored the way that music changes consciousness and the way that consciousness changes music and some of the answers are so simple that you are amazed that they were staring you in the face all of the time.
This situation does not just apply to music, for an example I worked for a while in a bank as a cashier and balancing a till often led to a till difference where the figures did not tally. Once you had looked a few times then you would not see your mistake but someone else could spot it straight away. It was almost that you were hypnotised to what you could not see because you did not see it before.
So look with new eyes into things as if you did not know yourself…………..

Vic


www.bluescampuk.co.uk


Let us show you how to rock............



There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors. Jim Morrison

The silence in between the place of naturalness these are powerful places; the between yes and no what Edward De Bono calls Po.
The Taoists call it ‘suspending your disbelief’ this is a creative place that things start from almost a trinity of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost or Sun, Moon and Earth or Above Below and Middle Earth all of these trinities are hinting at the same thing.
The Doors were one of the most creative bands of the period and they were greatly influenced by one of the great British writers Aldous Huxley taking their name from his work the Doors of Perception.
Morrison certainly put himself ‘in between’ but we can do this just by thinking ‘outside’ even dreaming something different will do it.
Try this today let go of what you think is possible and what you think impossible and make it plausible and then act towards it.
Vic


www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. – Ghandi

What a great motto for those who teach from one of the great people of the 20th century.
Learning is such an important thing that is why it is not done in schools. Learning which is free and unfettered is the thing that brings down governments and creates freedom for ordinary people that is why Ghandi was shot.
I am not suggesting that we bring down the government but I am suggesting that the type of learning that people can do through learning an instrument is very different than the type of learning that happens in schools and this is the opening for you as a musician.
Also good learning is fun and effortless it is what the human mind does best, but when you are being forced to acquire information that is what is difficult because there is no joy in it.
Vic
 

Examination Reportage

It is always good fun jamming with people and every now and again I get chance to play with people that as a boy I listened to and admired.
Yesterday I was jamming with Chas Hodges and was able to sit and interview him for the Bluescampuk website. Chas has been down to us for the last three years and every year is an event because he brings something special to the time that he is there.
What I like about Chaz is his ability to just get stuck in and play and that is so refreshing, no pretence just play and have some fun which is something I cannot say about some of the things that I have to do for music and music teaching!
After a day of enjoyable playing I come back to check my emails to see that I have to correct a number of reports that I wrote for the last batch of examinations, however within the errors were some that included words deemed to be subjective like ‘good’ where I needed to use the words ‘secure’ or ‘effective’ I am not sure about this but where I have written ‘good’ it was because I was fed up with ‘secure’ and I think those things are also subjective because it is still my opinion.
I have done less and less examining over the years and when I do some I then realise why I generally do not bother agreeing to do them in the first place. In my mind candidates are only taking guitar exams as a target for their practise nothing more; really for a musician it is about going out and playing because walking out on stage saying ‘hey look at how clever I am’ and waving a certificate, whether that is for grade one or for a licentiate diploma will illicit the response once shouted at Frank Zappa of ‘shut up and play your guitar’.
Chaz does not have a single certificate for his playing but he does have an allotment.

Vic

 check out Bluescampuk for next year


www.bluescampuk.co.uk

This week I am preparing for Bluescampuk which is now in its seventh year.

We have learnt much over that time and each year brings new challenges and thoughts about how we can improve and adapt.
Due to returners we have to rethink the structure so that the ones who have been before do not know what is coming next as stepping outside the comfort zone is what we need to truly learn.
Over the year I have spent time listening to players that you could call ‘world musicians’ I have trained with dancers, spoken and listened to philosophers, scientists, peace campaigners and ecologists all in an attempt to view life (and to me that is music through a different lens of experience) in a different way.
I have often found great ideas from spinning someone’s way of thinking into my own musical thinking by using various lateral thinking tools. For instance using the concept of opposites that I picked up from Tai Chi I have explored the jazz concept of playing ‘outside’ from the NLP I have created speed learning techniques for scales, licks etc. and from ecology the idea of reusing and recycling for songwriting.
Everything that we do comes through the mind and body therefore the way we think and ‘are’ permeates everything that we do, therefore it underlies ways of thinking and acting in every discipline so something that you do in mathematics can be expressed in music and something that you do in music can be expressed in politics.
I was drawn to this by a quote attributed to the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu that the way to govern people is the same as cooking a small fish, lightly. I thought that this humorous but deeply profound statement which is as true today but equally as unobserved in this surveillance micromanaged age had at its heart cookery as the philosopher’s touchstone.
So if you want to come and join the fun there are two places left but it is next weekend…………
Vic

 
 
 

The Elephant of Death

I have been interested in the work of Stephan Jenkinson about death and dying; the process is something that this society has tried to sanitise and professionalise to the detriment of ourselves.

His point of view is that it leads to serious problems for society and us as individuals because it is the elephant in the room that will eventually sit on you.

When it does everyone will be surprised, especially you but that is what this particular elephant does and it will not be unfair when it does.

What I find personally interesting is the state of mind that develops when you embrace your mortality, it does paradoxically give your life value and beauty because it will end.

The Homeric statement that the gods envy us because we are mortal just like a beautiful flower that is more beautiful because it will not last comes to mind. The ancient stories and some modern stories deal with the idea of death whether to face of it or the becoming of it as the important aspect of the story. Death acting as a catalyst or doorway is integral in the ancient initiations of the Greeks, Egyptians and the Romans.

This post is not meant to be morbid on the contrary it is life affirming it is a wakeup call to get to it and live.

I believe that musicians who feel their mortality are much greater for it, remember that Hendrix foretold his own death as did John Lennon; we do not need to be able to do that we just need to make friends with the elephant.

 

Vic


 

 

 

I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it. – Albert Einstein

I would like to paraphrase this quote by saying  ‘I like to think that the music is there even though I am not listening for it’.
Sometimes when I am playing the guitar I get the feeling that the most incredible ideas are there just out of reach and occasionally like some celestial butterfly it lands on me. The more I try to catch this butterfly the more it eludes me.
Over the years I have reflected on the Taoist idea of going with the flow, the idea that if one is soft therein lies the strength, if one just follows the wave you can ride the surf and the surfing analogy of the wave is good here; there is no surfing without catching the wave, you do not make the wave by trying hard.
Einstein’s idea that our consciousness effects ‘reality’ may hold something that the sages and mystics of the past have stated about the nature of reality, and that I feel gives us a doorway to these musical ideas that are floating about in the ether.
I have found it more effective to put myself into a space where the ideas move freely without my conscious ‘trying’ but more my ‘dreaming’ and that seems to take me somewhere very different, like sitting under a bush of flowers covered in butterflies whilst wearing a floral shirt. Suddenly the butterfly ideas seem to want to land.
So whether you want to ideas to just exist or whether you want them to flow though you then you have to hold them in your awareness. So one extra thought here, what about the fearful, negative thoughts that we hold so firmly, what are they doing to us?

Vic


www.bluescampuk.co.uk

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery."James Joyce

Break the patterns and play outside of the key, listen to the new ideas and see what happens.
You will not do anything new without breaking the patterns of behaviour; you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Because of the system we are now turning out clones of the Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Slash, Hendrix and other icons instead of breaking them and making new ones; how do you find your uniqueness? Through your mistakes errors and inadequacies, Django was not great in spite of his loss of fingers but because of them. Hendrix was great because he could not read music and therefore developed an awesome musical ear and like last week’s blog the reason why we have so many great players from the 60’s is because we were poor!
So get out there and mess things up and make something new, so instead of ‘one dire erection’ start ‘a new direction’
Vic



Change coming from adversity

It is said that every time a friend reported enthusiastically, 'I have just been promoted' Jung would say, 'I am very sorry to hear that: but if we all stick together we will get through it'. If a friend arrived depressed saying 'I have just been fired. ‘Jung would say, 'Let's open a bottle of wine, this is wonderful news, something good will happen now.' - Robert Bly 'Iron John'

 

Apart from this being classic reframing it actually goes much deeper into the myths of change coming from adversity. What do we learn from things going well? I would say very little if anything, life keeps plodding down a rutted road into a ditch, then wham! Something comes and lays waste to your dream and you wake up.

The ability to look and learn from the event is what makes us adapt. It is the moment in the music when something goes into the unplanned that real musical and spiritual brilliance happens; true improvisation.

As a society we are heading, I would say sleep walking into such a place. We have been told the problems are someone else's, it is the immigration, it is the fuel crisis, it is the global warming, it is Islamists etc. BUT have we changed our habits and life styles or are we thinking that we are right are we just playing the same tune over and over again?

We consume three times what we should in the West and that is the real problem, if a political party said this it would make them unelectable so they carry on saying we need to grow and consume more, like eating more is a way to deal with obesity.

Fracking is their answer to energy problems but this will lead to a catastrophe both economically and ecologically because they are both linked. Economists have in the Cartesian view separated ecology and economy as if there is no way that environment has anything to do with making money but what worth is the money when you have poisoned the water table and the air is spoiled and global warming is making the environment unsuitable for us to live.

Time for a new tune based on listening to the other players on the stage and maybe the answer is when opportunity comes dressed as the devil; frightening, shocking but unstoppable.

 

 

Vic

 


 

 

 

Poverty and Music

“Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.”
Shaw

One of my drivers when I was younger was lack of money. It made me creative and focused and although I did not know this at the time because that was life I can see now that the people who have it all do not have the passion and the commitment to take the knocks. Also they may not have anything to say, a little like a Phil Collins song about how difficult it is making ends meet.
The idea that riches cause a problem is something that you need to consider not necessarily for you because you probably would not be aiming to be a jobbing musician if you had the cash already; but for the people that you might meet in your work either as clients or punters. There are many people out there who have more than enough money for all of us put together.
Finding a keenness that drives people to practise and sweat over their art is rather difficult and if they cannot find out, because it took me a while and I was looking, then some help may be required.

With lots of money that ‘drive’ diminishes and I see that in pupils they are not hungry enough, if they were they would be blinding players, it is a shame but looking at the poor then they have something to be angry and passionate.

Vic


The change in education is coming through the internet and it could mean the end of school education as we know it.

With the growth of online education sites such as Khan Academy and many university courses which come under the banner of MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) the nature of education is changing where some schools in the USA are using these as the curriculum and the teachers are fewer in number but use the backup from the internet to check and assess the work of the pupils.
If you think this is a problem for individual teachers imagine what this could mean for the institutions of teaching such as the independent schools and universities.
The answer is to be aware of this and use the technology to your advantage, because no one knows where this is going. Use this as an opportunity you will be better off than just sitting back as if nothing is happening which is exactly what I see in the schools as I travel around.

Vic



www.bluescampuk.co.uk


Profits anyone?

The authorities occasionally try to crack down on our right to party. Sex and drugs and rock and roll frighten our leaders. These attempts tellingly stopped when they realised that the club culture was turning into a giant industry which attracted profits for the exchequer. Tom Hodgkinson  


Money makes the world go round into a hole in the ground, follow the paper trail of the money makers and you can see why bankers, CEO’s, lawyers and the like get well paid while nurses, teachers are badly paid. Anything that makes money gets money and anything that does not gets naught.
Musicians fall into this trap and it is worsened by the artist poverty mind-set which says I am not worth much, I do this for fun. Just because you enjoy doing something does not mean that you should not be paid for it but you have to learn how to create value in the minds of those paying for it.
A couple weeks ago I had a pupil complain about the price of the exam fee for grade 6 and I took him to task over it especially as he may become a professional musician in the future. It was a classic case of a young person opening his mouth and the attitudes of his parents coming out.
The attitude of the government of any country is by its very nature protective, of themselves that is as they are the ruling classes; change would mean that they might not stay as they ones in charge. But as the above quote says there is a trade off when it comes to the money, remember the role of the artist is to challenge and present ideas for something different.
Vic

 
 
 

Your mind is full of weeds they too can enrich your path to enlightenment. Shunryu Suzuki

The idea of the problem, the error, the weakness being the very thing that can define your way that can inspire you I find comforting. In an age where we are constantly being told that perfection is the only way I like the idea of the weeds of your personality, consciousness can enrich you and take you forward.

When someone asked Johnny Cash how they got the train like rhythms in their songs he said, ‘That is all we can do’. That might be all that we need, the idea that lack or a technical problem in your playing might be the way forward; I am sure that Django would like to have had four fingers but it defined the player and maybe defined the man.

 

Vic

 

 

The road to excess leads to a palace of wisdom - William Blake


Blake was one of this land’s great visionaries and revolutionaries, his mystical paintings and poetry and his above quote is full of ambiguity and intrigue.

The artist often is blamed for excess and profanity either because of life style and life choices of excess in drugs, drink and a life of anarchistic expression. Even the amount one has to practice to become skilled at an instrument is excessive and beyond the capability of ‘ordinary folk’.

A number of years ago my life lead me into an interest in Ayurveda which is the traditional health and wellbeing system of India and in one of the ideas of keeping healthy is based on food and balancing what you eat matched to your body energy. However one thing that was said that every now and again you should shake your body up by not following the routine and doing something VERY different break the rules and then go back and into balance again.  

In times of shaking up that is where we discover ourselves; we learn to be brave, we learn to see the things we missed, and we learn to draw from the deep wells of ourselves.

Where else would our music come from?

 

Vic

 


 

 

 

People who are too busy.

Most of the world's troubles seem to come from people who are too busy. If only politicians and scientists were lazier how much happier we would be. - Evelyn Waugh


Politicians have to prove why they are needed by changing things like the education syllabus and the NHS. These changes cost millions and for no real benefit because if they worked they would only make one change but this is not the case it is a constant happening.
The belief in religion is now the belief in science and to question it is a modern heresy but nothing in the philosophy and thinking of man has taken us to the edge of destruction in the way that science has.
The philosophy of economic growth needs to change; perhaps we need other markers like happiness and wellbeing. Here is the point that all artists know, happiness comes from expressing what is within not by acquiring stuff. Unfortunately that does not fit well on a balance sheet or a flow chart and as the society is ruled by the markers of the accountant we carry on in the same old way with the politicians being busy changing things and the scientists finding new ways of making us busy often paid by big business because at the end of the day he who pays the piper calls the tune.
All truths start as a blasphemy.

Vic

Business training from music


Music is the perfect way of exploring team building and creative ideas that are either contained within parameters such as in blues or not, as in jazz or simplistic as in pop music or complex as in classical music.
 
For ideas to flourish in business we need to be able to explore these areas to innovate but also to be able to see how structure can be applied to the ideas as we do in musical genres for them to be contained and be functional. Also music projects emotional values and this is an aspect that business has toyed with but often failed to accomplish such as ‘the caring bank....’
 
Great music has emotional resonance and it lasts for decades speaking to different generations because it is still relevant emotionally. Music is inherent because it is language and therefore it is a metaphor for many things such as creative thinking, generating ideas and team work.
Putting a band together is an exercise in social engineering and much can be learnt by the business world from the world of music in how to blend egos and creative temperaments.
 
 
Vic
 

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