I remember the first time I had a clear mind.
At 23, I was diagnosed with ADHD. The first time I took my medication, I remember the feeling that all of my senses had suddenly been amplified. I realized for the first time that everything I touched, smelled, tasted and heard had a reaction in my body. It felt as though I was taking in more sensory input than I was previously capable of doing. What really happened was my mind, having been rendered clear, had new space opened up to pay attention to the present moment.
Of course, this had a profound effect on how I listen to sound and how I process music. It has also provided a foundation for my purpose as a musician and teacher. I wondered all my life why music had such a hold on me, and suddenly I found the explanation. Music produces nervous system reactions in my body that make me feel all the myriad joys and excitements of life - balance, connection, adventure, confidence, tranquility, catharsis… these are all words for different combinations of nerves in the body being activated, and I realized how thrilled I was by the very fact that music could modulate my senses to such a degree. The true purpose of music seemed to have been revealed to me, similar but wider in scope than the purpose that John Cage attributed to Geeta Sarabahi, “to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences.” To this, Cage posed the question “what are divine influences?” Now, I pose the question what is to sober and quiet the mind?
As I adjusted to my new mental state of being, music was there to catch me, just like it had always been before, when music used to give me the rare feeling of knowing what the hell is going on right now. With my newfound ability to understand that without added input, I was free to actually observe for the first time in my life how music affected my body. I printed out blank body maps and began to draw where in my body I felt sensory reactions to particular sounds, and to particular pieces of music.
I would be remiss if I did not stress that the body maps were the idea of my therapist, who first suggested that I start with music that makes me feel particular emotions. After those initial exercises, I did not care as much to name a feeling as much as I wanted to track specific sounds to specific parts of my body. In the above example from April of 2022, I followed the tingles and sensations of single notes I played on the piano. On other body maps, I studied my reactions to chords, particular timbres, and pieces of music.
Over time, I realized that this was the reality of the phenomenon of musical texture, not homophony and polyphony, but instead the fact that a vibration (what sound is) is the same whether that vibration is transmitted by touch or by sound. Not only can you touch metal and know that it is metal, but you can hear a pin drop on the metal and know that something has fallen onto a metal surface. Most things that we touch do have a corresponding feedback for both our ears and our skin. Do I need a source for that? It’s a difficult concept to explain without the burden of feeling that I am stating the obvious, and yet this obviousness was never stated to me as a student of music or otherwise. This is my criteria for sobering and quieting the mind- the regulation of the nervous system by means of combinations of vibrational stimuli received primarily via the ears.
My goal now is to teach from this premise at the Elementary level, where the whole body is involved in music making, rather than the special focus on extra-fine motor skills that send conservatory students and virtuosi into a tailspin of RSIs. It is vital that children are taught how to regulate their emotions, and I believe music is the greatest way to show children how emotions correspond with and are affected by the physical body. Until I understood this via music, nothing made sense to me as a child about how to control what I was feeling. I was certain that I would never be able to control what I was feeling, in fact, until that very day when I took my first dose of ADHD medication. That day, when I for the first time in my life experienced a sober and quiet mind, I discovered myself through the divine influence of music, and I hope that as a teacher, I will help at least one student to grow with a locus of control that I could not find until much later in life.