Morning Meditation

For some time now, I've started every morning with the same routine.  After showering, Lisa and I sit for 15 minutes. First, I set my Martin Jr. out in the living room by the couch where I will sit. I set my phone timer for 15 minutes, strike two Tibetian bowls, and tap start. 

 I do some variation of breath meditation for five minutes to center myself. Usually, I breathe in through the souls of my feet, up into my heart chakra.  Next, I exhale out toward the ceiling through my crown chakra. On the next inhalation, I visualize the energy coming in from above. After a brief inspiratory hold, I focus exhalation down and out through the souls of my feet down. 

I repeat this sequence of breaths and visualization for perhaps a few minutes. It usually doesn't take very long at all before I feel calm and centered. Next, I form some musical intention to begin my playing. Not so much a plan as a starting point. An example might be to think about a specific key, chord, or mode to start my playing. I'm not sure thinking is the correct word for this phase. It's more like waiting for a thought to come and noticing it.

After all these mornings, I can pretty well tell when I'm ready to begin. A glance at the timer almost always reveals that there are around 10 minutes left. Very mindful of my actions, I pick up my acoustic guitar. I begin my playing using whatever thought has swum into my consciousness. This morning it was the thought of a G minor chord using only two strings to start. I start with the open G and B strings. Letting the B string ring open, I explore different notes on the G string that are part of the G minor pentatonic scale. From there, I move through different string combinations associated with a G chord. Perhaps a simple progression like Gm, Cm, Dm, and variations. 

I continue to play, allowing nothing more than my intent and intuition to guide me until my timer sounds. Then I sound the two Tibetian bowls and start breakfast. I have found that on many days, the things I discover become motifs or reusable parts in compositions I will do later in the day.

Do you have a daily meditation ritual?

Does it involve music in any way? 

Do you prefer to sit in silence? 

Bye Bye Land

 Before the Pandemic, before lockdowns, masks, testing, and even the election, there was Bye-Bye Land. My Album project on the subject of, among other things, rising sea levels. A mash-up of the literal goodbye to newly below sea level lands and a poorly put-together pun on LaLa Land. I like to think its failure to get attention was more bad timing than bad writing, recording, and production. So I present you now, the not quite a year late:

Bye-Bye Land 

And here is a video for the Title Track:

 

Third Eye, Sixth Sense

 

Third Eye, Sixth Sense

The rationale behind a digital release for meditative practice. Collection of ambient acoustic guitar with both synth and nature sounds. https://eddrury.bandcamp.com/album/third-eye-sixth-sense

released June 3, 2020

I have practiced meditation for many decades. I have done noble silence, walking meditation, guided meditations, and many other disciplines. But the most profound sessions I have experienced have involved sound in different forms. Last year, my wife came upon “The Chakra Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Realigning Your Body's Vital Energies” by Anna Voigt. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1592230393/

Lisa decided to follow the exercises in the book and as an adjunct to her practice, I composed guitar pieces which I could play during her sessions. While I performed the pieces live day after day as she worked all the way up (and back down) all the energetic centers, I began to formalize the works into an album. The idea was to eventually, put them into a digital format that she could use to quickly access a recreation of the sounds that we used for each of those meditations.

The result was an album I call “Third Eye, Sixth Sense.” I organized the pieces in the order of the chakras starting with the root, going all the way up to the crown, and back down. The trip up contains pieces very close to five minutes in duration and ascending the C major scale. The trip down is much shorter (isn't it always?). The beauty of a digital release is that you can sequence the tracks in any order that serves your purpose.

Do you meditate? If you do, do you find silence or sound preferable?

A word about Music and Words

  Hello and welcome to my blog, "Music and Words." This is literally my first rodeo, and I'm sure to break all the rules around blogging. My hope is to host a wide variety of topics but always return to writing both music and words. I hope to bring in some guests from time to time—guests who will undoubtedly be more knowledgeable about these subjects than me. 

 I hope you will share your comments, ideas, projects, questions, and suggestions with me along the way. I also hope you will follow this blog as I will try to provide interesting content (as well as the all too frequent shameless self-promotion that comes with the baggage associated with an indie artist.)

Speaking of that shameless self-promotion, my latest release can be streamed (and purchased, just sayin') here: https://eddrury.bandcamp.com/