String Love Guitar Lessons

I spent two years volunteering once a week to play guitar for hospice patients at Alive Hospice here in Nashville.

My time giving musical service at Alive was a profound piece of my development as a musician, and I wanted to share what I learned here in case you’re interested in playing your guitar for people who really need your music, whether in a hospice, a nursing home, a hospital or elsewhere.

Musical Giving

First off, giving service in any form can reorient you within the world.

Music is a funny thing–it is one of the purest expressions of the human spirit (Quoth Beethoven: “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”). And yet, music is also often grabbed by the Ego and used for selfish ends.

If you want to be a better musician–better in the sense of being more aligned with music itself rather than your particular desires and needs–then giving musical service can provide profound guidance as you learn to let go and get out of the way of the music that is flowing through you.

Death and Music

While there are many, many options for ways and places to give musical service, playing guitar for hospice patients is a particularly potent form of musical giving.

Most of us spend the bulk of our time running in the opposite direction from confronting our own mortality.

And when you enter a hospice and play for patients, you are actively engaging with death in a very real, tangible, personal way.

With only a very few exceptions (I had one in my two years of hospice volunteering), every single person you meet will be about to die. Also, and perhaps even more powerfully, those who are still awake and aware will know it. They will know they have only a limited time on earth.

And this will make them very different from your average human being you meet out on the street.

Is Playing In Hospice for Me?

Maybe you’re reading this because you’re curious about playing guitar for hospice patients. Maybe you’re considering it but also have a little fear rippling through your stomach.

If you’re reading this, and if you’re wondering if you really want to get involved with playing guitar in a hospice environment as a way of giving back, then you can definitely do it, and it will make you a better person.

I can’t possibly list all the lessons I learned thanks to my time volunteering at Alive. I learned so much. And I carry that learning with me every moment.

The most potent lesson I learned is that Gratitude is always in order. Every moment above ground is a gift.

Death is a great clarifier. It sloughs off the inessential to bring you into contact with what really matters to you in this lifetime.

Your time is limited here. Every moment you neglect that fact is a moment lived in denial and illusion.

How to Get Started Playing in a Hospice

So let’s say you’re ready to take the plunge and volunteer as a musician giving service at a hospice.

How do you get started?

First off, contact the hospices in your area.

Hospice care comes in all shapes and sizes. There are residential hospices where patients stay in their rooms and the nurses are all on hand to help ease their transition.

Hospices also organize at-home services for some patients, where the patient remains comfortable in their own home and nurses are on call to assist them and mitigate their pain over the course of their journey into death.

Each hospice will be different, so the best thing to do to get started is to call them and ask them about their volunteer program. Ask specifically about giving musical service.

Music is such a profound tool, and patients receive it so gratefully that you’ll most likely find each hospice you contact very interested in receiving your assistance.

Background Checks, TB Tests, Orientation

Hospices will generally require you to pass a background check prior to bringing you onto their staff as a musical volunteer.

This makes sense, doesn’t it? You’ll be participating in one of the most intimate and important experiences in the life of a human being, and you’ll be coming into close contact not only with the patients but with their families as well. These people are so vulnerable, so it makes sense that hospices investigate to make sure their volunteers are trustworthy and safe people to have in such vulnerable spaces.

You’ll also need to take a simple battery of medical tests. I can’t speak for every single hospice out there, but when I signed up to volunteer at Alive, I had to take two TB tests to make sure I didn’t have tuberculosis. These tests were easy and painless, though I did have to go into the hospice four times (once to get the first test, once to have the first test’s results verified. a third time for the second test, and a fourth visit to verify the results of the second test).

Finally, the hospice you volunteer at will most likely also include an orientation procedure of some kind.

I had to attend an in-person orientation with a small group of other new volunteers. We watched a video on the background of hospice care in general and our hospice in specific, and we went over procedures and best practices for how to navigate the specific needs and challenges of volunteering at hospice.

Your First Patient Experience

At some point, it’ll be time for you to dive in and meet your first patient.

I was lucky when I started at Alive–I was able to join up with two other musicians who had been volunteering for a couple years prior to my arrival. I met them, shook hands and off we went down the hall to our first patient room.

The first patient I met as a musical volunteer was named Frank. We walked into Frank’s room, and Frank looked like he was in really bad shape. At the time, I hadn’t yet seen enough to be able to give much in the way of diagnosis about Frank’s condition, but Frank was definitely suffering from terminal lung cancer.

He could barely keep his eyes open. His body had a sickly yellow hue. His skin was sunken and his bones protruded beneath his veiny skin all over.

He looked like he was already dead, basically.

The two ladies I was volunteering with greeted Frank and asked him if he’d like any music.

Frank couldn’t really respond, but he did seem to give us a signal with his eyes that said yes.

So we played. I just sat back and played along as best I could as I watched Frank receive the music and relax in response.

Frank had a friend staying with him that morning, and she came back in while we were playing. She sat next to Frank and held his hand while we played a couple tunes for him.

After a couple songs, it was time for us to go and head on down the hall to the next room. We said goodbye to Frank and exited the room.

First Impressions

Death is natural. Death is simple.

We forget that when we don’t meet it face-to-face for long stretches during our seemingly “normal” life. But it’s true–what is more natural than birth and death?

My first few times volunteering found me careening wildly between feeling like meeting all these people on the verge of death was completely normal and unremarkable, and then feeling completely overwhelmed with all the feelings about death that I’d previously kept at bay while I kept death itself at bay.

Often, I’d have to go home and take a nap after volunteering because I felt so drained from my couple hours touring the hospice playing songs for different patients.

How to Play for Patients

The first thing we always did was ask if the patient wanted music.

Remember: this is about them; not you.

Give them music only if they say they would like some. Otherwise, carry right along to the next room without taking anything personally.

Every single room is different, so you’ll have to adapt a different approach to every single patient you meet.

Some patients will be asleep. You can let them keep resting, though sometimes after you’ve met the patients and know which ones really adore the musical service you give, you can also stop and sit by their bedside playing them a few lullabies while they rest.

Which songs you play depends entirely on what the person likes to hear.

In my experience volunteering in a secular hospice here in Nashville, the majority of patients wanted to hear gospel tunes. “I’ll Fly Away,” “How Great Thou Art,” “In the Garden.”

Remember, the majority of the patients in hospice are older, so they’ll appreciate music from their youth and upbringing. Old-timey gospel tunes often fit the bill for these patients.

Other patients will want something completely different. I often played John Denver tunes, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” popular folk songs–and one patient even requested Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” (though my musical partner was the only one who knew that one and I sat it out).

Often, however, you’ll find that gentle improvisational instrumental music works really well.

As you volunteer more and more, you’ll get a feel for a repertoire that covers many of the bases that you encounter as you volunteer. Certain songs will really work, and you’ll develop a set of these “greatest hits” that you’ll be able to break out whenever you’re not quite sure how to work with the mood in the room.

It Can Be Intense—So Take Care of Yourself

Over the course of my two years volunteering, I definitely encountered some moments with patients that were more intense than others.

Most of the patients that you play for won’t be actively dying in the moment while you’re playing.

However, sometimes you’ll enter a room at the precise moment when a patient is in the act of leaving their body.

This type of moment requires a very delicate sensitivity to the energy of the moment.

If you set yourself aside and really listen, you’ll find guidance from deep within you that will help you know what to do and how to handle the situation in each moment.

Err on the side of gentle, always. Play peacefully with a peaceful heart.

And keep breathing. Stay centered. Instead of getting activated into anxiety and fear, stay calm and focus entirely on helping the person who’s passing so that they have the most beautiful and peaceful death possible. Pray for them as you play–no matter what your belief system is. Just send them positive wishes for a beautiful reunion with their Source.

How to Take Care of Yourself

After a volunteering session with some particularly intense moments, be mindful of the fact that you’ll need to treat yourself with some tender love and care.

It can be very intense to open yourself up musically in front of these patients who are at the end of their life.

I would often wish that I was also volunteering to give musical service for children to counterbalance the at times too intense presence of Death all around.

Remember to spend time outside or with animals or children or family–do things that reinforce your sense of hopefulness and faith in Life.

While it may seem that you’re just a volunteer giving a little time to a local hospice, what’s actually happening beneath the surface is you’re becoming a wiser, kinder, more compassionate human being.

The funny paradox that I came to know quite well as I wended my way through my Tuesday morning volunteer stroll at Alive Hospice was that the more time I spent volunteering to play music for hospice patients, the wider my heart opened.

I became more vulnerable as I confronted this thing our culture fears so much–Death with a capital D–and found that it is a great gift if we’re willing to receive it that way.

The more I interacted with Death through the many hospice patients I met, the more I came to appreciate Life.

Death is like industrial strength solvent for dissolving the rigid confines of the Ego. Our posturing and self-importance fall under the fell slice of the sword of Death. Death mocks everything that isn’t real, which leaves only your present awareness and your love.

This confrontational process can be peaceful and smooth, or it can be a battle royale with plenty of unpleasant consequences. The more you resist and deny the suffering that you see in your stint as a musical volunteer, the more you’ll yourself suffer.

But if you approach the process in a spirit of surrender, then your time giving musical service as a hospice volunteer will help you immeasurably in your life.

Volunteering at hospice is easily one of the most meaningful and important things I have done in my entire life.

Musical Lessons Learned from Hospice Volunteering

When your music is no longer about you, real beauty becomes possible.

When you have to pay total attention to the needs and energies of This Moment, you become a better musician.

When you give your music selflessly without worrying about how good you are or how much your audience appreciates it, the true value of music becomes apparent.

When you humble yourself before Life and Death, you’ll come to know yourself truly, deeply.

And when you give the most beautiful song you know in the moment when a human being is leaving their body for the Great Beyond, you’ll become a true musician playing for the highest purpose imaginable.

If you are considering volunteering to play guitar in hospice, then I have one simple piece of advice for you: Do it Now.

Finally, if you liked this article, then perhaps you would like to bring some beautiful new music into your life that I created while I was volunteering as a hospice musician. Pick up my first CD Spirited here.

When I go out in public these days, particularly if I enter any sort of establishment even remotely connected to selling goods to humans, I hear music. Holiday music.

And by holiday music, I mean: Christmas music.

Here in the United States, Christmas music presents a fascinating phenomenon that I won’t delve too deeply into here.

And the reason for that is: Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving carries plenty of cultural baggage, a story about Pilgrims and Indians playing together and breaking bread over a well-stocked smorgasbord of late-autumn harvest foods.

I don’t quite know what to make of the romanticized version of Pilgrim life, but I do know that somehow, by the Grace of God, an honest-to-goodness kindhearted holiday has somehow maintained the majority of its purity all the way to us, circa 2010.

What could be better–or more needed–than an entire day dedicated wholly and completely to gratitude?

Every day actually is Thanksgiving (just ask anyone who’s ever survived a near-death experience), but one day of the year, everything in the United States halts and orbits around Gratitude.

This is a beautiful thing.

If there is one solution to carry with you through anything that transpires in your life NO MATTER WHAT, it’s gratitude.

Given the confusing nature of reality, there aren’t all that many actual, eternal foundations upon which to stand. Gratitude is always, ever, forever in order. This is a very amazing thing.

Think about how lucky you are to be alive as you read this. (If you’re feeling depressed or otherwise disconnected from feeling lucky to be alive, maybe you should start over here.)

Think about how you can read and speak and breathe and laugh. Think about how much joy you’re feeling right here, right now–because if you’re reading this, then chances are not only are you not being tortured, but you’re actually in a pretty sweet moment somewhere, somehow.

Think of all the horrible terrible no-good experiences that can befall a human being in the course of life on Earth, and recognize that right now, here, you and I have it GREAT.

So, that’s the beginning of gratitude.

But take it further–think about how kind people have been to you across your life–most of them people you have never even met and will never even know. Think of all the kind acts that led you to be able to read these words on a computer screen as you sip your warm beverage of choice.

It’s always time for gratitude. There’s always room for more gratitude.

And one day a year (at least, here in the United States), we actually stop and celebrate gratitude. Thanksgiving.

I dream of a world where Thanksgiving looses its nationalistic overtones and becomes, instead, a universal human holiday. A day of total celebration across the Earth in honor of—Gratitude.

One day where the human race sets aside the confusions and stops to remember something True: our lives are a gift. This life that courses through our veins–it is the most precious gift of all, and we all share it as human beings alive at the same time on this tiny blue planet.

The thing that perplexes me about Thanksgiving, though, is why there isn’t any Thanksgiving music.

What gives? Why do we have to listen to Christmas and secular winter-fetishizing holiday music for virtually two months on end (whenever we’re in public shopping dispensaries, anyway) and yet I can’t even name a single song that immediately evokes the Thanksgiving Spirit?

As a musician who has devoted the bulk of my music efforts toward creating music about Love and Gratitude, I am in a position to do something about this.

And so, I would like to humbly commemorate this year’s Thanksgiving holiday with an offering: two songs that hone in on gratitude and celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving beyond any single country’s coming of age story.

The first is called The Thank You Song. Check it out here or take a listen to it in the sidebar jukebox.

And the second is called Round and Round. You can read the lyrics for Round and Round here or also have a listen in the sidebar jukebox.

I don’t know why Christmas songs outnumber Thanksgiving songs 1000 to 1 just like I don’t really know why songs of despair and broken heartedness outnumber songs of gratitude 1,000,000 to one (though I haven’t exactly conducted any kind of scientific study to determine the actual ratio of these things to each other).

What I know is more gratitude is in order, and artists across the planet are in a position to do something to increase global human awareness of feeling thankful for the precious gift of being alive.

Last month, I went down to Florida to visit some friends, and at the place I was staying, there was a book by Masoru Emoto on the coffee table. He’s written far more books than I’d realized, but the one that I found where I was staying was called Messages from Water and the Universe.

I’d previously encountered Emoto’s photographs of water crystals, but this book totally came out of nowhere–I had no idea that, in addition to his direct work with water, Emoto had crafted a comprehensive, elegant and incisive approach to living derived from lessons revealed through his intense study of water.

The primary teaching of his book originated out of his most favorite water crystal photograph out of all the photos he and his team have taken over water over the past decade-plus.

The crystal that he names most beautiful is a crystal taken from a sample of water that had been in a glass with the words “Love” and “Gratitude” on the outside.

And so, Emoto targets Love and Gratitude as the most fundamental and important qualities for human beings to feel and cultivate in order to awaken and align ourselves with the natural design of the universe.

Maybe I felt so drawn to this book because it confirmed what I’ve felt deep in my bones for years: this life is all about Love and Gratitude. Everything else is either a distraction or a nice addition to the core message of Love and Gratitude that is the source and purpose of all Life.

One of my greatest sources of gratitude this year comes from having the love of my partner, Claudia, in my life. We have been sharing some of our love lessons at a new site we recently started.

This year, on Thanksgiving, let’s remember how lucky we are, and let’s envision a world where our entire species comes together on at least one day a year and gives thanks for the unbelievable gift of life that we each enjoy.

I’ve recently become aware of Chet Atkins.

It’s hard to be from Nashville and not be aware of Chet Atkins as a concept, an idea, this guy who played guitar.

But only recently have I really begun to appreciate this man that played such an instrumental role in Nashville’s growth as a music center, not to mention his contributions to the guitar.

It’s been ten years since I first fell hard for the fingerstyle playing of Doc Watson and Merle Travis.

And, before that, I’d already encountered amazing players like Leo Kottke, Jeff Fahey and Mississippi John Hurt.

But—Chet Atkins!!

My eyes are opening to the extraordinary legacy of Chet Atkins. And this feels like one of the most pivotal discoveries in my life’s journey with the guitar.

The Fuzzy Feeling That Comes When You Find Something New and Amazing

If you’re at all into music, then surely you’ve experienced the sudden influx of inspiration that comes with a brand new sonic discovery. Maybe the new band or composer you’ve discovered was staring at you all along and you never had the patience to stop and give them a chance. Or maybe you literally had never even heard of this new talent, and all of a sudden you’ve encountered your new favorite song.

Right now, Chet Atkins is my new musical revelation.

First off, Chet Atkins wasn’t called Mr. Guitar for no reason. His playing is unbelievably rich, tasteful and technically powerful.

Additionally, his musical curiosity led him across all sorts of genres and approaches to the guitar across his illustrious and long-lived career in music. From his early country roots to his eventual incorporation of blues, folk, ragtime, popular music and classical guitar into his playing, he wasn’t afraid to reinvent himself and follow his current musical interests.

And on top of all of that, by all accounts he was genuinely a kind-hearted and warm man who left Nashville a better place than it was before he arrived for not just the music industry but everyone with whom he connected while he was alive.

Recommended Chet Atkins Resources

Since this is a site about learning to play the guitar, I’m going to focus on a few of the Chet Atkins resources that I’m currently loving.

His recording career resulted in an immense output of different records, and I can’t pretend to have devoured and digested all of his music at this point, so I’ll hold off on recommending specific recordings.

But if you’re looking to bring some Chet Atkins into your guitar playing, here are some fantastic places to start:

The Guitar of Chet Atkins DVD by Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop

This DVD is a ridiculous musical treasure.

I am so grateful for whoever coordinated everything it took to get Chet to sit down and produce this DVD.

Pop this puppy in and watch Chet guide you through eight of his arrangements on the guitar.

I’ve watched A LOT of guitar DVDs, and this is easily one of the best I’ve seen. There’s something about the quality of the music and the ease with which Chet teaches his arrangements that creates a magical guitar learning experience.

Recommended without reservation.

Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions, Volume One

and

Volume Two

These books present a ton of interviews with old friends and colleagues of Chet alongside notation and TAB of a variety of Chet’s arrangements from across his playing career.

Highly recommended for the songs, but the glimpses into the memories of people who knew Chet are also really sweet ways to appreciate the legacy (musical and otherwise) of Chet Atkins.

Standing on the Shoulders of Musical Giants

By all accounts, Chet never took a guitar lesson and pieced together his playing style from recordings and chance exposure to different music.

For those of us with internet access, we are awash in an embarrassment of guitar riches. With oodles more resources appearing every day.

For example, right now, from the comfort of your own internet browser, have a look at this incredible performance of The Entertainer by Chet:

(If you want to learn that arrangement, it’s in Volume Two of Chet Atkins in Three Dimensions, mentioned above.)

So, here in this week of Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a moment to give thanks for the body of work Chet left behind when he died in 2001.

As a Nashville-based fingerstyle nylon string guitarist (and teacher of Nashville guitar lessons), I’ve often wondered which musical legacy from this Music City was my own.

With this recent sudden realization of just how deep Chet Atkins’ playing and approach to the guitar really were, I feel like I’ve finally found my Nashville musical lineage. And it feels very, very good to be apprenticing from this great master through the resources he left behind before he passed.

So, if you haven’t yet made a deep acquaintance with the music of Chet Atkins, I highly recommend you do so. From YouTube to Amazon, you’ll find plenty to gawk and stare at and lots of good humbling pants-kicking motivation to keep moving forward in your own guitar playing.

Micah Lapidus is a great friend, musician and rabbi.

He works as the spiritual head of the Davis Academy in Atlanta, Georgia.

And he writes incredibly beautiful tunes. Some of his songs are in Hebrew, some are explorations directly from certain books of the Bible, and some are his own English language interpretations of his walk with Spirit.

You’ll be hearing plenty more from and about Micah over time here at String Love. Micah is an extraordinary soul and one of the most powerful allies I’ve had in my walk with the guitar.

Of all of Micah’s songs (and there are many–pay attention here and I’ll let you know when his forthcoming recording is ready!), I’m currently most in love with If The Sky Could Talk.

Micah was kind enough to share the lyrics and chords with me and consent to me sharing this song with you.

So, here it is.

I’m including an informal recording of Micah and I playing this tune together last summer.

Chords to follow as soon as Micah gets them to me (wink)…

If The Sky Could Talk

If the sky could talk every cloud would have a story
If the heaves could speak then the sun might laugh
If the forest could talk every pine would have a secret
If the woods could speak then the redwoods might sigh

If the desert could talk every grain of sand would whisper
If the desert could speak then the dunes might cry
If the river could talk then the current might whistle,
If the river could speak then the creek might sing

Every voice and every word, every sound was ever heard
Across the earth, up to the sky, there’s not a sound simply passes on by

If the sky could talk every storm would be a prayer,
If the heavens could speak then the moon might cry
If the forest could talk then the moss would spin a yarn
If the woods could speak then the leaves might lie

If the desert could talk every rock would say water,
If the desert could speak then the ground would groan
If the river could talk then the water might yodel
If the river could speak it’d be calling your name.

The sky knows what’s up, and the ground knows what’s going down,
the wind knows where the wind blows and the sun shines where the sun goes.

The sky knows what’s going down and the ground knows what’s up.
The moon shines in the moon shine and the tide ebbs and flows.

True teachings reformat your awareness. Before you encounter the true teaching, you’re doing things one way, and after you run headlong into said True Teaching, you come out on the other side looking, feeling and acting rather differently.

About six years ago, I encountered Vipassana Meditation in the form of a 10-day silent retreat that I participated in at a Vipassana center in Washington State.

10 days of silence and full-out confrontation with my self through a rigorous schedule of meditation practice. Up before dawn, at it until after dark, 10 hours of meditation interspersed with brief breaks for meals, a little walking and a little rest.

I took one of the courses organized by S.N. Goenka’s Dhamma organization. They have the fine art of instructing students to meditate down to a science.

I benefited massively from the two Vipassana retreats I sat, though ultimately I concluded that Vipassana wasn’t my path. (But that’s a story for another day.)

Today, I want to discuss the core practice of Vipassana meditation and how my exposure to Vipassana prepared me to recognize the depth and applicability of one of the most fundamental teachings from Jamie Andreas’ incredible The Principles of Correct Practice for the Guitar.

Within the context of the Vipassana retreat, the Goenka course teaches three different types of meditation.

For the first three days, you learn “Anapana” meditation, which involves sharpening and refining your awareness through strict attention on the front of the nostrils.

Since our minds in workaday format are incredibly gross and imperceptive, Anapana provides a three-day period in which we become successively more aware and refined in our perceptions.

By Day Three, the impact of the silence and the practice had opened up an entire universe at the doorway of my nostrils. I could feel the subtle details of the difference in my breath entering and leaving my body—the change in temperature between the air outside and the air once it had been heated a bit by being inside my lungs.

Anapana is really just the beginning, though.

On the fourth day of the retreat, the teaching moves on to Vipassana meditation proper.

I can’t at all explain the full technique here, but the basic idea behind Vipassana is that the meditator scans the body from the crown of the head all the way down to the tips of the toes and then back up.

Over and over, across many hours of meditating, scanning the body the whole time from top to bottom, bottom to top.

One of the main teachings revealed by the practice of Vipassana is called, in the Pali language of the Buddha, “anicca,” which translates as “impermanence.”

Impermanence as an idea is one thing, but impermanence experienced through Vipassana is another thing entirely.

Imagine that you’ve been sitting on a hard meditation cushion for several days in a row, ten hours a day with a few breaks interspersed.

There you are, six or seven days into the retreat, and you’re still sitting on that same cushion in that same spot.

You’re scanning your body from top to bottom, bottom to top, exploring the sensations that sizzle and flicker in and out.

Suddenly, your leg starts to seize up. All this sitting has resulted in some serious pain in your leg, and the pain starts to heat up and intensify.

Within the Vipassana practice, there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do but watch.

So, you watch. You scan from the top of your head down and through all the parts of the body until you arrive at the burning daggers of pain in your leg.

And you just watch. No reacting—just watching.

After a few moments, you continue your scan back down to the toes, and then on your way back up your leg, you stop once again and watch the painful sensation that’s throbbing and burning. It feels like pure agony.

But you have made a commitment to not moving during your practice. The stillness allows the pain to increase. Where normally we’d react to the pain with aversion and try to make it stop, within the practice of Vipassana, you just sit with it and allow the pain to exist right there in your leg.

Then, you continue scanning your body back to your head.

And back to the leg.

It’s still burning, hurting, feels even worse now. Like your leg is going to shear off at the hip.

What if you actually lose circulation in your leg? Or what if your leg actually does rupture somehow and you die right here on this meditation cushion?

Those thoughts come, but you let them come and you let them go. You hold your focus on the unbelievably intense sensation in your thigh, and then you just keep scanning.

This can go on for a long time. Even a few minutes, within focused meditation, can feel like an eternity.

But here’s the moment of insight: once you’ve gotten over your desire to run away from the pain, you build up the courage to really dig in and examine what’s going on in there.

You explore the pain—the shape of it, the contours of it, its depth. You invite the pain by placing your full awareness in it.

“Ah, it is really like a long cylinder down the side of the leg ending just above the knee. Hm. Interesting.”

(GOOD GOD THAT HURTS!!)

More scanning, then arriving once again at the painful cylinder throbbing in your leg.

“Well, this isn’t really that bad. I mean, maybe I’m not going to die.”

And then, suddenly, the sensation changes. It pops and releases and where before you thought your leg might shear off, now you’re feeling okay with maybe some discomfort, but no where near the same amount of agonizing intensity.

That’s impermanence in action—the pain changes. It isn’t forever. It transforms.

The body is a vehicle subject to the laws of this world we arrived in.

Impermanence is one of those laws, and by going deep and examining our body, we find that much that previously seemed concrete and permanent about our bodily experience is, in fact, ephemeral and constantly changing.

Again, this is not intellectual knowledge. This is knowledge grounded in an intense laboratory of experimentation and experience.

…

What on Earth Does This Have to Do With Playing the Guitar?

Everything.

Playing the guitar is a physical process. It completely involves the body.

And when you play, the many aspects and sensations going on within your body all factor massively into your playing.

So, enter Jamie Andreas’ Principles of Correct Practice for the Guitar.

When I encountered The Principles, I had already gone through my first Vipassana retreat. I was prepared to recognize the depth of the teaching unveiled by The Principles.

One of the core aspects of The Principles is called “rotating attention.”

As you play, you shift your attention throughout your body to notice and release any tension that may arise as you play.

Two things fight against most folks just beginning to apply the principles:

First, your normal daily awareness isn’t very sharp.

You haven’t done your three days of Anapana, which means your mind is going to miss the vast majority of the sensations that are actually rippling throughout your body as you rotate your attention. If you know this going in, you will be able to strive for sharper awareness even when it feels like you’re totally aware of all the sensations in your body.

Of course you think you’re aware of everything going on in your body. But you’re not. Probe deeper to discover the deep, subtle sensations of tension that constrict your body beyond your conscious awareness.

Second, you’re more than likely going to react to “negative” sensations like pain, tension and the like with aversion. You will resist the pain or tension that you feel, and as a result, you won’t be able to relax into and through it out onto the other side.

Bringing Vipassana and The Principles Together

Although I won’t be able to simulate the experience and insights that come from actually doing a 10-day Vipassana sit for you, I can share with you how I’ve brought the things I learned from my meditation experience into my work applying The Principles’ rotating attention.

To begin, recognize that your entire body is involved as you play the guitar.

Our fingers receive the lion’s share of our attention, but our arms, shoulders, chest, belly, legs and face are all involved in the process of playing. Don’t neglect them. Give them your attention and really notice how your body reacts all over as you play the guitar.

Next, embrace as much superslow practice as you can handle without going insane.

Slow practice allows you to refine your perceptions. Not only do you actually have a shot at training your fingers to make the proper movements in the right way at the right time, but you can also keep your attention rotating in order to notice and release any involuntary tension that crops up.

Finally, relax into the tension that arises in your body rather than reacting to it by trying to move away.

Sometimes, the best possible thing you can do for your guitar playing is to just stop and completely inhabit the tension that you’re noticing across your entire body.

If your shoulder is hurting for some reason after you’ve been playing for a while, that’s a clear signal that something’s going on there. Put your attention on your shoulder, pause and simply watch.

If you want to release the involuntary tension that hampers your playing, all you have to do is become aware of it, gently rest your full attention on it and patiently allow the tension to relax and subside.

This is scientific, folks. Jamie talks about it in detail in her book, and I’ve proven the efficacy of this sort of practicing time and time again in my own process of applying the principles and Vipassana in order to become a better guitarist.

Impermanence

Ultimately, music is all about impermanence. No impermanence, no music.

Every note begins and ends. Notes follow one another in rapid succession. Silence sparks into song, which fades back into silence.

If you are aware of the law of impermanence, you’ll be able to play with music at a much higher level.

Because this isn’t just about playing guitar—it’s about awakening to your true nature and your full power as a spiritual being having a human experience.