Sometimes, when things are really tight with the other musicians in my group, I feel like I’m both inside and outside my body at the same time. From the outside point of view, oh gosh, I guess it’s kind of like a William Gibson cyberspace kind of thing. I see the musicians… well, not really see… more imagine them as these geometric colored shapes with lines running between them. I can look at the shape, and see what is missing, or what, were it there, would transform the whole thing, and then I play that. It is very cool, and it doesn’t happen very often.
I think the first couple of times it happened, I wasn’t expecting it, and so I let it happen. Now, when it starts happening, I am too aware, and this keeps it from developing.
I used to think I could make stuff like this happen any time I want, but I didn’t do it because, I don’t know. It didn’t seem appropriate? Now I’m not so sure I can do it just like that. Now my consciousness needs to be fooled in order to let it happen, and it gets harder and harder to fool my consciousness, since, with more experience, it knows what to look for, and it knows all the tricks. The best I can do, these days, is to let both conditions (consciousness and out thereness) coexist.
Obviously, it’s hard to describe, and that probably made no sense.