Music Mindfulness Podcast with Josh Brill
Episode #02 | Music Mindfulness Conversation with Porter Singer
Episode Summary
This week's Music Mindfulness Podcast features a conversation between Josh Brill and Porter Singer from Porter's "Inspired Artist" Podcast. Josh and Porter talk about learning music as a mindfulness practice, the need to learn music mindfulness in stressful times, and music as a movement practice!
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Music Mindfulness Podcast with Josh Brill
Episode #001 TRANSCRIPT
Josh Brill 0:02
Perfect.
Porter 0:04
Oh, okay. Got it. Okay, but I'm not recording. Okay. Okay, awesome. Okay, well, I might as well record.
Josh Brill 0:17
Yeah, no, you should because I don't see me in my screen. So
Porter 0:22
see you. Oh, okay. Oh, you can you could do the gallery view.
Josh Brill 0:28
Yeah, I just don't like looking at myself. Oh, gotcha. Okay.
Porter 0:31
That's funny. Well, I have my my Word document on top of me. So I'm just felt so good to see you. Okay. All right, sweet. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast. Josh. Nice to see you.
Josh Brill 0:44
Good to be here.
Porter 0:47
So it's been a little while since I've seen her talk to you. So I feel like anything you say is going to be new to me. But I know that you've been working on some online courses. So maybe that's a great place to start.
Josh Brill 1:03
Yeah, for sure. I, you know, it's interesting, because I've been focusing in on teaching online for quite some time. And then of course, the pandemic happened. And it was, it was interesting actually, to see it, to see that technology and that interface be more adapted by the user. That there is there is a, you know, a beautiful blessing, I think in the pandemic of, of the whole world, getting on Zoom, and learning this technology and being able to interface obviously, in less than ideal of a situation. But, but nonetheless, that, you know, I think it really opened up the door. So while I've had online courses before, the COVID situation really catalyzed me to develop more interactive, live zoom programs, in addition to just pre recorded videos that somebody could go at their own pace. And I kind of basically, at the beginning of COVID, it was it really struck me how can I best serve right now? How can I best help and what I recognized amongst the many things is that there's a lot of stress in there a lot of uncertainty. And a lot of people ingesting stuff with their mind and attention that that probably wasn't the most supportive for them in that moment. You know, the the pick, pick your mental ingestion of it all, all the social media and all and all the conflict and all that type of stuff. So it basically called me into action to develop a program for the ukulele called ukulele mindfulness, which part of my intention was to cultivate community bring people together, and give them tools and resources to help them lower their stress, have something to do with our time, I think a lot of people have more time than they knew what to do with. So basically using the the ukulele and music as a mindfulness practice, to begin to relax the nervous system, do something productive with their time, and then of course, connect people together.
Porter 3:08
So I have to ask, because we're going to be using this word a lot I can tell you say buku lately, because that's how they say it in Hawaii.
Josh Brill 3:15
That is and for a while, for out for a while I was pronouncing it with my Chicago accent of ukulele, which I have another program called Yoga of ukulele. So that that definitely, that alliteration goes much better until but it was called out in a very gentle way to have somebody say, you know, the, the correct pronunciation is ukulele. So I've done my best to it to adopt it.
Porter 3:38
That's cute. We can change it to why oh, you clearly it's true. Okay, so ukulele. And that's an instrument that I suppose I should have guessed that you played, but I didn't realize you because I know he was a guitarist. But is that something that you've been cultivating for a long time? How How did that start?
Josh Brill 4:02
Yeah. You know, I had an interested in it for maybe it was around 2016 that and I just kind of noticed how, how many people were playing them. And I was actually in Thailand, I think the first time I played it, ukulele. And it was this fun, like, there's just something fun about it, it's very relatable to guitar, it's you know, all of Of course, my my physical technique was transferred over and, and the, without going into a full of music lesson but but the proportions of the notes are very similar to the four strings of the guitar. So that was my first time kind of having a ukulele experience. While I was in Thailand at the same time, I was developing my yoga guitar program, which is kind of my flagship of this method. So that there was a seed there that was planted and maybe a year or two later that actually interesting enough after my first in person yoga of Guitar Works I use some some of the proceeds from that. And I went and bought OCA lately. And then it just kind of started messing around and actually found that, that this method that I'm offering and discovering as well of music, and mindfulness works really well with Ukulele for a number of reasons, one, I'm kind of on a mission here to help anybody who wishes to develop their experience with music, to have that become available, because I think we could maybe go into this later. But a lot of the ways that I've noticed music has been taught is not really the best way that people learn, I'm kind of like most things. Anyway, so I found that, okay, like to be a great way to learn music, because, you know, it's the size of it makes the physical aspect, a whole lot easier to manage than guitar, which is just, there's a lot of strings, it's a lot more difficult. As well as just the sound. It's already nice, you don't have to do much to make a nice sound. And that's kind of part of the method. So it's been a sort of natural transition. And and it's been gaining in popularity of people who have been taking my programs, you know, because it's just like a perfect instrument to, to use.
Porter 6:19
Yeah, oh, my gosh, the size thing made me laugh because I just brought my full size keyboard down to Mexico. And people were like, what is that? You know, it's, it's like taking it off of the luggage thing. And I'm like, This is why you teach your kids guitar. Or ukulele ukulele, I suppose would be even better. But yeah, there there is something to be said for the portability of an instrument, especially if you enjoy playing with others, because very difficult, especially knowing that a piano around so thank god, somebody invented a keyboard. But yeah, so pretty bulky. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
Josh Brill 6:58
Oh, I was just gonna add portability, and just the the physical mechanism of, you know, like, this is very portable. But to wrap your body around, especially if you're new and depress down, it's harder to get the notes clear.
Porter 7:14
Yeah, it ukulele doesn't hurt your fingers as much as well, when you are, do you still have to build up calluses?
Josh Brill 7:20
A little bit, but definitely, definitely not as much. I mean, the the strings are much thinner, of course, the neck is much slimmer. So the the space of pressure between the fingers is less. So it takes a lot less than then guitar. Yeah.
Porter 7:37
So when you teach the music and mindfulness Do you, are you teaching to people who generally have never played an instrument?
Josh Brill 7:45
A fair amount? You know? Yeah, I've never I haven't done the actual percentages, but but I would say a good amount of the people who have been joining my ukulele program, have have not played an instrument or they did a little bit and never really took like, so like, I would say that there's a problem. And I'm just gonna throw this number out there, but maybe 60 or 70% are the first time really taken on a musical practice.
Porter 8:15
That's cool. That's a very, when when I taught children's music the first time they had the kids learn on Oh, no, they wanted me to learn. A bunch of times I've been prompted to learn if it really seems like it keeps coming up. Do you have no but my ex husband does who lives here. And he wants to use my harmonium. So maybe we could switch. What do you find is the like, what, what is a good way to learn music? I'm curious, like, what have you learned doesn't work and what have you learned does?
Josh Brill 8:54
Yeah, it's been a really exciting discovery of late. I've been teaching. I've been teaching music since I was 13 and 41 right now. So it's been a journey. And, and that journey has been from private lessons to once I went to Berklee College of Music while I was teaching at Berkeley, while I was studying at Berkeley, I was teaching at a at a high school in Boston. just
Porter 9:19
can I just back you up there? Yeah, you've been teaching since you were 13. So like, when did you start playing?
Josh Brill 9:26
I started when I was eight.
Porter 9:28
How? Okay. So started Berklee College of Music.
Josh Brill 9:32
Yeah. So I mean, I was studying at Berkeley. I was teaching at a at a high school during that time. After I graduated Berkeley, they brought me back to teach there. And then I basically began teaching college in Chicago, at a college in Chicago when I was 22. So I like so basically, this my teaching path has been has been a long one. And then I basically took a sabbatical for a while around around 3007 or eight if I was still teaching, but I He did a little bit of a rest. And when I came back to it, it was from a different angle, which was more of exploring it as a path of transformation. You know, and that's a big word. And that can mean a lot of things. But, but being able to play music is a transformative experience, you know, you, it's something that we aren't able to do, now we are and that would be considered a transformation. So along the way, basically, you know, a couple things, I was really blessed to have really great teachers for the most part. And what I learned, during that time, have a really good way to teach is engaging curiosity, engaging, exploration, engaging experience, and giving the students space. So when I came back to teaching and basically began developing as mindfulness approach, and partially from from my own self to kind of rebuild my relationship to music, there's, there's the quintessential hero's journey of, you know, a dark night of the soul. And I couldn't play guitar for a long time because I had an injury and I was just burned out emotionally physically. And part of the way that I repaired my repaired my relationship was beginning to explore it from a whole different mechanism. So rather than focusing in on accomplishment and trying to master it, which I did for my formative years, and I was aspiring to be a professional musician, so that was important for that. But reaching a place of burnout, I realized that at this point, my life shifted into rather than aspiring to continue to be a professional musician. I was aspiring to help people develop their lives and become more in tune. So that began, really, how can we learn music to become more in tune with ourselves in music itself is a tuning process? So to answer your question, with all that, all that said, what I found that the way most people learn music, that is not so good. One, the majority of the current musical pedagogy, that's okay. Is is an echo of, you know, 8/17 18th 19th century European approach to learning music, which was very masculine, very discipline oriented, you know, very just practice 10 hours a day, you just need to put in the time, perfection oriented it, not to say that stuff doesn't work, but that doesn't work for the majority of the people. But most of our musical education has been a trickle down of people learning that way, and then teaching that way to some degree. Or, you have the current guitar teacher, you know, like the dime a dozen guitar teacher not to put anybody down, but who never quite made it as a, as a musician, and this is kind of their, this is what they fall back to do. And they're not, you know, they're not maybe not really sensitive to their students needs, you know, maybe they're not really thrilled about the experience. So people are getting, like, they'll go to a lesson and their teacher will maybe not be fully engaged or have a very specific template of this is what you must do. And this is how you must do it. And most of that, is also very visually based and intellectually based, again, from a primarily masculine filter of seeking perfection, you know, or doing it right. What I found is missing, what's been really revolutionary that I continue to discover this method is what happens. And this has been my approach. Also, like, just to back up for a moment. I wasn't born musically gifted. I really like in fact, music was really difficult for me. So I had to figure out how do I do this thing
Josh Brill 13:49
that I know is possible for other people, I see other people do it. And I believe it's possible for me, but for some reason, I just can't hear if that notes in tune or out of tune represent reason I can't keep my rhythm steady. And in a I asked why it you know, and that basically began to develop an investigative conscious awareness, sort of observer of what's going on inside that is, that's the reason I can't hear if that notes in pitch, or if I can't hear that some time. And I began to understand music as an inside experience. So how people learn music is generally not inside experience is generally an external experience. Yeah, and especially now with YouTube, you know, which there's nothing wrong with that, but there's no interaction at that point. But generally, teachers will say, Do this, do that, do that do that. And then, if let's say it's an on guitar, the first lesson their teacher might say, Put your finger there, put your finger there, put your finger there now with this, how to do this, and it sounds like this. And that's not very exciting for the student. You know, it's sad to hear this. And so oftentimes They're learning something that's too difficult for their capability. So there's not an engaged enthusiastic experience of fulfillment. And it's external. Once again, do that, do that, put your finger there, put your finger there. However, the primary awarenesses that that music is really found his inner auditory awareness, inner kinesthetic awareness. So what what I found has been really productive is to help people learn how to listen. Here's how you train your auditory awareness because we have different awareness. Primary awarenesses, many of us are visual, especially in a hyper visual world that we live in where the majority of our attention is, you know, we're receiving things with our eyes. And or very, very thought heavy, you know, so, one, the musicians awarenesses, whether that you were gifted with this, or you're learning this over time, but it's you really learn how to listen at a deeper level than what the normal level of listening is. And how to feel your body since movement, since this is a movement practice. So if we're not in our body, we're not in our ears.
Porter 16:10
Oh, hold on, hold on, that's really out. Could you just repeat that? Because I've never heard that? Of course, that makes total sense. Yeah. I've never heard that before, meant that music is? Yes, let's just say it again, so that our audience hears it.
Josh Brill 16:27
Let's say it 1000 times. Yeah, so music is a movement practice, it's necessitated on moving our body. Of course, you know, singing also would be it, although it's a much finer level. But let's just talk about something that that's using our hands. So if we're moving our body, it's important that we are inside of our body. And not just the external, oh, I should put that finger there. But can I feel inside of my hand, can I feel inside of the finger and move the finger from the physical awareness rather than the mental instruction. Or the visual, I'm looking at my hands, and I'm not in my body. So, so kinesthetic, and auditory. And by, by helping people want to tune their attention in their awareness to that, which in and of itself is challenging, because all all of this is predicated on our on the functioning of our attention of our awareness, which as we know, is increasingly in short supply these days. So part of it is helping people learn how to tune into what that is, and begin to expand their presence in the moment. And then work with exercises and practices that, that, that gives them a sense of fulfillment. And if somebody learns how to listen to a notes deep enough, you know, just within just within one notes, if you're really listening to the there's a whole story going on, there's a whole journey, that it's swelling, there's there's a little there's harmonics, there's a whole thing, that if we're, if we're appreciating the sound, our general part of our mind that that tends to get bored or so much on what's next. What's next. What's next, which actually disengages people may experience that they're learning how to actually engage and have a fulfilling experience at the auditory level, and feeling their body which is engaging at the, at the physical level. All of this, what I found, especially through the lens of mindfulness in these practices that I've been developing, help us go into a meditative state, which reduces our stress experience, because generally, whenever we're learning something new, there's some stressful the most people have a stress response. Because most people just want to be good at it. And they feel if they're not good at it right away, there's something wrong with them. So there's generally a negative response that happens. And especially if you have a teacher who's coming from that framework. So helping people be self compassionate, helping people really understand that this is a process. If if it's not something you're capable of doing right in this moment, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. It just means that what we're still retraining the awarenesses to develop. And once again, using these practices that I've developed to frame it as a meditation, low excuse me, it lowers that stress response. So when our when our when we don't have stress when we're in a more relaxed state, we're actually way more open to receive and we learn better and at a deeper level. So that's the very long answer to that. And I could of course, expand on this for hours and hours, but, but we'll leave some
Porter 19:42
totally fascinating. No, I mean, this is this is your moment to talk. So if you have more to say about that feel free. But I I'm actually I wanted to go back to what you were saying. You sort of brought it up as an aside and it got me curious. You said that you weren't natural gifted at music and so I wonder, besides wanting to know why you weren't, like, what was the? Did you just love it so much? You knew you had to do it? Or like, Was somebody pushing you to play guitar? Like, what? What was your reason for starting?
Josh Brill 20:17
Yeah, it was all me. So my parents were really supportive. And when I was eight, and I said, you know, I really want to learn guitar, and they said, Okay, we'll get you lessons. And I said, I really want an electric guitar. And they said, Okay, we'll play for a year, and then we'll get you an electric guitar. You know? And why, okay, so why do I feel I wasn't musically inclined? You know, I don't know. And what I've learned through my journey, as a musician, and meeting musicians who are true, what I would call gifted, like, edit, at a natural level, they still have to work for it, you know, but some people I met, and I'll say this, they're the, they're rare of all the musicians who I've worked with, and, you know, there's a few I could think of were like, well, they just, they were given a gift, you know, and, and, again, they still had to practice and they still had to put in the time. But, but but their wires were connected in a way that allowed them to, to hear music, I would say at an accurate level that that their perception was just aligned to be able to understand that language pretty easily, you know, fluidly and interact with that, where I didn't have that, like, established I loved music. And and that was the motivation, like I would say,
Porter 21:45
an idol. Yeah, you can hear
Josh Brill 21:47
me. I know, you just froze for a little bit, but looks like Oh, well.
Porter 21:51
It's my trauma response. I've been told. So you, you just did you have like somebody wanted to be like, or?
Josh Brill 22:02
Yeah, you know, I did I look bookish. I loved music. I think even like, maybe when I was five, that was the first. The first cassette I got it was was the monkeys Greatest Hits, because I would watch the monkeys. And I, you know, like, I had a real deep attraction to sound and music. And then my second tape was always Bruce Springsteen, born in the USA. And it I had a cousin who played guitar, so I was always, you know, always wanted to play his guitar, there was just there's a natural draw to it. So when I was eight, yeah, I basically wanted to, you know, be playing Bruce Springsteen songs and monkey songs. Yeah, and I did, that's actually what my teacher, you know, had me learn. So the gift that I do feel I had was an inner drop an inner drive and connection to do it. Because it wasn't easy. You know, and I don't think it's necessarily easy for anybody. Again, some people might have a little bit more fluidity in the experience. But I just really felt like I had to do it, there is an internal knowing that I had to even remember when I was roughly around nine, and I wasn't really practicing that much, you know, if that's the mindset of the time was half our day, which can be useful. And I wasn't, and my parents were like, well, you know, we're gonna cancel your lessons, because you're not, you know, using it. And I remember crying, like, I can remember this moment, you know, like, I just knew I needed to do it. And when I was 12, I'd like I recognize, like, this is what I'm going to do with my life. You know, at the time, I thought I would be the next Eddie Van Halen, or at least that's, that's what I wanted to be, you know, and then the journey has come to now, which is like, oh, it all makes sense, that I had to have had that difficulty so that I could really learn music from the inside out and figure out what that is. So I can help all the majority of the people who aren't that naturally, that just didn't get that gift, but they should still have access to music and they can. So my journey has basically been, you know, it's been a spiritual path of learning through the obstacles. And then now how do I how do I put that into an act of devotion, which is help people learn music, but also, through my journey, the the stress that I accumulated upon myself by trying to be that that master admin, you know, stress in many ways that lead that lets the burnout and all of the things recognizing along the way that Okay, great learning how to play music is a fun thing to do. But feeling good as a human and having a peaceful mind in a relaxed nervous system is really important. And, and to use them together is a beautiful way to have access to both of those things. It's access to music through mindfulness and access mindfulness, through music.
Porter 25:03
So what is the structure of your your interactive courses? Now?
Josh Brill 25:11
The structure is, again, I have like that the online courses that are pre recorded, I have one for guitar and one for ukulele. The structure of both of those is an exploration of the instrument from a yogic principle both. So exploring, actually, you know, the limbs of yoga and how that applies, like how do we apply Ahimsa to our practice? Well, if we're hard on herself, that's not that, you know, we're Ahimsa being doing no harm, we're potentially harming herself. Satya, how do we how do we apply truth to our experience, so there's, there's a filter of yogic philosophy there. And then also learning how to play as a meditation. So how to have a meditative experience as we're learning. So for example, if we're learning, you know, the G chord on the ukulele, it's like, this is a challenging chord for people, this is also one of the first chords people tend to learn. So rather than get them have them do this right away, the first thing I might have them do is, well, let's get inside of this finger. So that we are aware inside of our finger and then have a fulfilling experience by playing. I playing a couple of notes. And directing that as a meditation. Most people, if they just play a couple of notes at a very shallow level, they'll get bored right away because they want to do more. So the course is structured to help them have an engaging experience with the sound in with their body. And then the instruments, all framed as a meditate as a meditation, that sequentially basically builds the technical facility to be able to play more notes and options.
Porter 26:54
Yeah, this is really interesting, too, because so what I've been doing recently is, or past year or so is something that occurred to me, which similarly occurring to you of like, oh, we learned music in a strange way. It's like, Hmm, people don't feel very good about their voices. That's, that's a really, and that's so alien to me, because I've never not felt good about my voice. But But I recognize like, what you know, that it's, it's part of your body, it's like, I don't feel good about my finger, I don't feel good about my ear, my eyes. I mean, that that must be, you know, such a burden to walk around with. So or, you know, but that we're not even conscious of because it's like, we don't even think about it anymore. Right. But that that idea of like, being aware of your body while you're playing an instrument is kind of what I've been doing, but having people like, in their instrument, which is their body. You know, so like, because you're creating sound when you sing within your body. So you are you're buku they they? Yes. All right. So I find I find all this so interesting, how we, I don't know, we're like, I feel like I just sort of channeled it. I mean, it sounds like that's kind of what you know, it was like a download that you received. Like, you know, it wasn't there before.
Josh Brill 28:20
It was a 33 year old 33 year download.
Porter 28:26
It's, it's really, it's really fascinating how things like that evolve. And then you're just like, huh, I have a spiritual practice around an instrument and nobody, nobody has thought to do this in exactly this way before. And here you are. So
Josh Brill 28:42
yeah, it's interesting how I mean, the journey of music, or framing of music in the past 100 or so years, is very, very different than than how music has been experienced in the past for a variety of reasons. One of which is the the commercialization, commodification and industry of music, which I don't think is a bad thing. I mean, those words can oftentimes have pejorative connotations. I mean, it's, it's actually amazing music has, if we look at music as an evolving living presence, we've never had as much diversity and continuing creative expansion than there is right now. It's it's, as a music lover, I think it's such a great time. If you think about how much how much music could the average person hear 100 years ago? Right? It was very rare. You know, if you go and the further you go back, just the the, the opportunity to hear any music, you know, besides maybe just somebody in your local town, who had you know, something, you know, or somebody humming and but so the point is that we're framing music right now, a lot of our perception is post industry. So music kind of tends to live in these boxes such as artists performer you No album, this type of thing. And how we learn music tends to be influenced by that I want to be that, I would like to be that that I want to do that, where 1000 years ago, like, you know, if we think about 1000 years ago in India, in Varanasi, what was their experience of music, it was just part of life. Like, it just was like, there was less of the separation of, you know, so I think that, that for the longest time, probably for the history of music, music has been a spiritual path in a lot of ways. But maybe not like, because of modernity and all the complications of our current life, the greater necessity to really focus in on it specifically as that as as medicine for all of the increasing complexities and distractions and all the the ways that we can lose connection to our inner inner self. So yeah,
Porter 30:59
yeah, that just gets that just like my mind just went off on so many different things that I'm curious about now. Like, what what your perspective is, because so on the one hand, seems like most cultures have like a mastery of music, like whatever their version of that is, but then there's also this like folklore, you know, where anybody can participate? We seem to have lost the folklore. You know, as a culture, like it's not, you know, there's a lot of things that we dabble in, but music. Music isn't necessarily one of them. I mean, we do, but we judge ourselves like the masters. Right? Yeah.
Josh Brill 31:39
It's such a good point. You know, I think maybe like, in our sort of niche world keratin, it has been a version of that have something that, although that has its version of hierarchy as well, you know, that we know, but I think that part of the appeal to that is the the decentralization of the experience that it really is something we're doing together.
Porter 32:03
That's a great word for that. I've never used that for your tone. I
Josh Brill 32:06
like that. Which one?
Porter 32:08
Do you centralization? The one you hear a lot in the cryptocurrency sphere, but not unknown. In music. I like that. Yeah. I haven't heard anything.
Josh Brill 32:19
Yeah, no, but I really like that insight. I think that I think that's so important. Part of why I feel called to the music mindfulness approach is, is because it does that it gives people the experience of playing and having a fulfilling moment, without it being aspirational. And there's nothing, you know, when you mentioned this, the sort of the, the mastery in the folk tradition, it's like, both of those are very important to you. And, you know, as somebody who has devoted oneself to, to having a master a certain level of mastery with an instrument and music, there's a transcendental thing that can happen by having a higher level of how I approach it is availability or access to music. So if my fingers can do more things, and I know we're different sounds and colors and rhythms are out of the infinite nature of music, I have a little bit wider channel open, then if I can only play two notes that there's something wrong with you notes. So there's something about that sort of that pursuit of of mastery and excellence, that is something I think, also very important, it's just not important for everybody. And that's okay. And for those who aren't, they should have a way to learn. And that's part of what I feel my mission is, is to bring that into the world. That is, it's removed from all those things. And of course, if if they, along their path, do take a step of like, you know, I'd really like to, to get good in all of that. They actually have a great foundation, because now their foundation is based on relaxation, and connection, and it actually can expedite the process of, of mastery. You know, one of the things that I've noticed them in teaching, and it kind of comes this realization, I put, I put a lot of thought, and it's probably for a whole nother podcast, but contemplation on our experience of time and how that affects our reality. So the short of it is, is that we're always in the present moment, no matter what, but our attention can be jumping outside of the present moment, thinking about the past, thinking about the future. And the shorter duration of our present moment is, the more we feel time kind of compressed. It's why when we're in a rush, and we're in the line at the checkout, one minute can feel like 10 Because we're just like, we have this internal compression that's happening. It's like a time compression. So time seems like it's going slower, taking longer to get the thing that we want and it's dependent on this. I want this thing now. It now feels forever away and I have different Faculty reconciling that. So stress response versus the relaxed moments, which is an expanded present moment. Our, our sense of duration changes, when there's more patients that's available within that. So one of the things that I think it's a very natural part of human, especially modern human, is what we want something we want to know. And that's a very common habitual response. So when we want something, we want it now, we think, or we don't even think but it's a natural response, well, I'll just play faster. So we want something sooner. And we think that we need to go faster to get it sooner. And it's very challenging to learn how to slow down. And that's a big part of what I teach people is literally how to work with the neurological mechanism, which is, which is all this temporal perception, this perception of time has to do with our neurons, and brainwaves, if we could learn how to internally slow down the tempo, which takes is a big part of the the work that I'm presenting. When we learn how to do that, we give ourselves the opportunity to actually go slow, where it's literally like we're taking off the foot off the gas pedal, it's not we're not putting the brakes on it. But we're taking off most of our brains are very lead, lead feet. And then it's going to create a frustration response because I want this now and I can't get it. So therefore baba, baba, you know, shutdown disengagement. But if by slowing this down and having an expand expanded moments, it actually gives you the chance to take your time do something slow, which, ironically, or is that will actually bring you the results sooner than if he went faster, because the faster he actually doesn't, doesn't establish the structure that this is built on.
Porter 36:55
Right? That makes a lot of sense. And especially in terms of practicing music, for sure. I remember when I was told, because I learned piano in the regular way I hated it. And, and I remember you were supposed to do scales, and you were supposed to do them precisely and slowly with the perfect fingering. But I would always want to like do them faster to get it over with or just to, like, prove that I could you know, but it would, it would indeed not really help my my technique very much because it was sloppy.
Josh Brill 37:33
How do you feel if you could go back to that moment as a child, recognizing now that that there is something about playing slow and accurate and precise that that's valuable for a certain aspiration? Yeah, if you were teaching that principle, but to a child, how would you? How would you have them feel more open to that experience, and and engage in that into that
Porter 37:59
the thing that got me to actually care about playing piano was when somebody showed me how I could play my own music to it. So it became much less abstract. But I guess I didn't really care about playing scales. They still do. Yeah. Although I appreciate knowing them. So let's see. Maybe not so much emphasis on, like doing every single one of them every time and you know how many times you do them. But like, try to do one and enjoy, you know, like, try to really experience that one. It sounds like sort of might be your approach, right?
Josh Brill 38:41
Yeah. And how would you encourage the actual enjoyment of it?
Porter 38:46
Ah, that seems like something someone would would want to come with. Right? Like, how would you convince somebody that they should enjoy the instrument that they're playing? Then your question?
Josh Brill 39:01
I think it's easier as adults, right now. I haven't taught kids children in some years. And I just, you know, that's just not where I'm at. But I do feel called to develop this as a as a program for children as well. I think as adults, it's easy to understand, we should enjoy the moment because we have enough experience where we can have a meta version of consciousness where that one of the challenges with children and so there's just so there's so in the moment that it's like how do you lead them to enjoyment if if it's something if there's resistance, you know, a child doesn't? I don't want to do that. You know, so how do we how do we bring them to
Porter 39:45
for my son, because he does drum lessons mean keen, just, he'd never really heard anybody play drum which it's drums which was funny, so he's not like a drum Idol or anything like that. But he just saw a drum kit and was like, Whoa, I want to do this and For him, it was again, like learning things that he liked. So like, his tea, I told his teacher I was like, Would you mind like teaching him how to play along with some Nintendo music? Or something? And he was totally into that, you know? So that was that was fun to like, bring, you know, to just bring in something that's familiar, I guess or are already already enjoyable. Yeah. How? How, like, what they're doing could make that even cooler because now they understand on a totally different level.
Josh Brill 40:32
Yeah, absolutely.
Porter 40:36
So that's, that's all I got on that. I'm, I'm really excited for the moment when I can actually buy him a drum kit, because that's where I hear him talking about like, how, how obnoxious it is to transport a keyboard. Maybe we'll get him a phone. But yeah. So I'm, I mean, we have a little bit more time. And if you want to talk about the time thing a little bit more, I'm, I'm all ears and for everyone listening to this is having a, an amazing time, just like I am. So let's, let's, let's do it.
Josh Brill 41:20
Yeah, well, you know, an amazing time, it's interesting to think about how much we use that term time, in our vernacular, and how little understanding we have of what that actually is. So, you know, generally I feel when most people are, when they think about time, they're generally thinking about, Oh, it's, well, 1257, which I would call a time coordinates. It's marking, it's marking time, just as an address Mark space. The difference between space and time, at least from our perception is, is my address, you know, 2441 doesn't move. It's, it's part of a moving system. But but it you know, it is where it is, in time is something that is his movement is that there is a there's movement, we're in this present moment. And as far as we can tell, tomorrow is going to happen. And then the weird thing is tomorrow becomes a new today. But there's a but there's a distinct distinction between present moments, future and past. And, as far as we can tell, especially from our understanding of physics, our experience of time only moves in one direction, there's a term called Time's Arrow, which is towards the future, that, that, you know, that I can't go back to yesterday and change anything, at least according to what we know. You know, maybe I can remember it if I was really present in those in those moments. But the past is their presence always here. And, and there's a sense of movement that happens in one, there's basically, I forget the specific terms and the in physics, but one of the approaches to look to explore time is that we're moving in towards the future. Another is that the future is moving towards us. And I feel they're there, both of those are valid to begin to just contemplate and kind of play with. But but the gist of it is that time is, if not our if is basically our greatest resource that we have. Because in a sense, it's all we have. And it's intrinsically connected to our attention. This is all related to music. But this is also part of a coaching program that I'm currently developing, basically, how to live your life from a musical standpoint. But our attention and time are intrinsically linked. With our experience of time. We're aware that with our attention, how in tune are we with time is dependent on how in tune our attention is. And what I mean by that is we can kind of begin to, to sense the movements of time. And our sense of movement of time. The tricky part is that our perception of time, which is our you know the organ that we perceive time is our brain is also moving. So we're something that's moving is trying to perceive something that's also moving that that's in a flow, we think of time like like as a flow experience. And this thing that's moving moves in very irregular ways for the most part. So our sort of internal measure of time is fluctuating, which is why 10 seconds might feel like a minute for some it might feel like two seconds time flies when you're having fun, all of the various degrees of time distortion that we experienced. My sort of research has been that it's based on the fluctuations of the brain. Why that's important. It's actually a very Question. If we were going to build a house, it's important that we're able to measure the space because that's what you're measuring when you're building a physical structure is space accurately. And if you know where this wall is going to be in this wall is going to be well then you know where the center point which is the point of balance, and in between that, that point, you have another point of balance. And you can begin to build a sound structure in space that, you know, obviously has its utility for survival and such things. Imagine that we are measuring space, and we're trying to build a building, but our measuring tape is fluctuating while we measure it, the numbers are doing this zooming in and zooming out, it'd be very difficult to have an accurate measure of that structure. That's what the rhythmic experience is. And that's how our awareness of time as a musician, we're basically learning how to regulate our perception of time to have a reliable measure of it. If we can have a reliable measure of a pulse. Something begins to happen, just a steady single pulse, we start moving, it brings people together, there's a magic that happens when we begin to have an expression of equal measure of time that's consistent. Now, if I were doing this
Josh Brill 46:22
it doesn't quite have that effect. In fact, that might get annoying pretty pretty quickly. But something like this, we can kind of have in the background. And it begins to regulate something What does it begin to regulate? Well, our brain. So marking time at the auditory level, begins to entrain our brainwaves into regularity. So that temp that time perceiver be keep that's changing. That's in flux, because we're thinking a lot in our minds are drifting and all the things because our attention begins to get centered on marking the time, it creates what we call an entrainment of the brainwaves that begins to stabilize the mind, happens in meditation, why music is so meditative by expressing it with a physical gesture. Now there's two levels of awareness there. Well, three, even, there's the listening to time, which is a sense of something that we begin to have measure. There's the physical movements that's coordinated with that, and then an auditory response that's happening there. So basically, three senses begin to become harmonized, for lack of a better word, or might even be a good one. And what that does there is that is beginning to really begin to create a an internal structure. So just like measuring space, clicking Create External structure, having a measure of an internal measure of time, can create an internal structure, which we might use the word focus or concentration, but it's something very different than that. It's, I would say presence, because what we're doing is we're stabilizing our present moment and expanding it. So just like we're always in the present moment, but we know there's a future that we know there's a past how well we can anticipate that future and meet it with regularity, creates movement, it creates momentum. It's why that you know, when a song begins, I just start
Josh Brill 48:31
something's happening, you're brought in, I could play for five minutes, and we will be taken on a journey for there. So that present moment would would, would coalesce our attention, let's say for that five minutes, or that was about seven seconds, in bring us from a present moment into a future present moment with Continuum, where most of our difficulty is we disengage, we have segments and thoughts or moment, his segments that is broken up, there's distraction, distraction, the root of distraction is the word action or attraction. So we're trying to gain traction in our life, while distraction would be what's keeping us back from that? Well, what is distraction is our present moment getting chopped up. So by beginning to regulate our temporal perception, our perception of time, have it become steady. We're creating a structure that that carries our present moment into a larger present moment with continuum. So how of course how that's helpful in music Well, when you when you're playing with that level of consistency, the magic that that is music happens. If I'm playing something and I'm regular, steady, someone else can play along and if they're steady, something magical happens that both of us are steady together. That then can cultivate an audience of receiver to the sound. People are drawn to that steadiness it moves their body now there's a dance between the musician and the audience or the receiver and then they're you know, in a continuous to amplify this basically feel of harmony, that we know, creates a transcendental experience to whatever degree that is, you know, you know, the magic that happens at a concert is something different than just listening to the radio. And part of it is that our least from my perception, at from the scientific level, our brainwaves in our, in even our heartbeats can go into resonance with each other. And there's a sense of a unified electromagnetic field that happens, then, of course, something maybe at the more metaphysical or mystical level happens with all of that alignment made, we open up into higher levels of consciousness. But the point is, is that we're creating a structure that allows for continuum towards the future, which is still, of course, the present moment. But we're staying connected for longer periods of time. And the example there of what the magic that happens with music, when that's happening. It brings things to life, it makes things happen, something changes, when musicians are playing together, or, or a solo musician is internally regulated. While the same thing is with how we live our life. So if we extend that awareness, to an even greater degree of, can I be aware of the flow of time throughout the day, so I'm not lost. In the moment, I'm not lost in distraction. That a minute, you could do a lot of things in a minute, if you're aware of how long our minute actually is, or staying connected for that time. Versus when we're distracted, a minute could go fly by an hour can fly by and all of the, all of the a lot of the things that are happening in our world are very distracting, and basically, from my perception are segmenting our attention. Once again, attention is the time, it's a very fragmented internal. So there's no real structure, and therefore there's chaos or disease or, you know, dissonance, all of the things that I think we're seeing a lot of ways. But by beginning to tune into time, at a greater degree, in using rhythm and the principles of rhythm as a means of structure of the flow. One, we're able to play music, but two, we're able to have our life become musical. And for those who have had difficulty achieving things, including myself, like, I really struggled a lot with getting things done, you know, ideas, creative person, there's plenty of ideas, putting them into action has been a real challenge. And the big change as a couple years ago, when I was like, I think there's really something to this time attention thing. And looking at your life, like a musical phrase, where every day is like a beat. So it's not just like, oh, that's that's just tomorrow, but But it's but it's a beat, and maybe even every hour and becoming so hyper aware of the time throughout the day, that I can begin to manage my attention in time management, but it's not just time management, like oh, I'll schedule that thing. It's understanding the the the availability of attention in certain moments, this gets into a very,
Porter 52:58
okay, yeah, no, no, no, that I'm glad you mentioned the schedule thing, because what was running through my mind, as you were saying that was that's, that makes me think about the difference between that type of entrainment that happens when you're playing live, and everybody's just synced, and you're not speeding up or slowing down, you know, because sometimes that can happen wherever you just kind of go. But and then when you're recording, and you're using a click track, that can that literally keeps the the beat for you. So it's like an external thing. And so when you said schedule, I was trying to I was trying to like, how does that work in life? So it's so much more empowering to feel that sense of entrainment that you've created? Right? Not that you need to stop recording with a click track, but your schedule, I feel like a lot of people maybe tried to impose that type of flow or entrainment on themselves, which is sort of counter productive by over scheduling, you know, by making sure that they're doing, you know, it's sort of an external. Yeah, we'll see, though, but what would like a replacement like a, or a bad replacement? What's that there's a word for that.
Josh Brill 54:15
I think it's really important. I think actually, scheduling is very important. But it's important to understand that the quality of the time changes throughout the day. And that's, that's based on our attention. So if you're managing your schedule, and you're doing something at a certain time of the day that your brain is not really capable of doing. That's not really good time management, because you don't have the the fuel that's available. So part of you know, part of this method that I've been developing is based on scheduling, but it's it's intelligent scheduling, and it's using rhythm as the mechanism for that, you know, like just just sort of as an example, if, if you knew and you did some self evaluation that it that journaling or writing was a valuable thing. For your experience, and you know that, you know, 9am is a is a good, seemingly a good time for that there's some sort of some sort of pattern that that time period, there's a channel, but well, then it would be good to make to like, commit to that choice of at 9am, I'm going to do that. And then what happens is, if you think about it, 9am, today, 9am, tomorrow, 9am, the next day is actually a 24 hour rhythm, it's a wider pulse than we're perceiving of, but it's the same thing of this. And something is to happen at that, that that crosses from this moment into days on end, and then you're actually able to gain traction. And just like what you said, when people are playing together, and there can be the sort of speeding up or momentum, that's part of the secret of flow is flow is momentum, in rhythm, or time pulse is the structure of that. So if we're having difficulty getting traction in her life, maybe we haven't found a way to have our schedule begins to pick up its own momentum, which happens naturally with music. But it also happens naturally, with time, it's just a wider, it's a wider scope of time. So it's a little bit more challenging to perceive of that. But that's why, in this program that I'm developing, there's a lot of emphasis on on learning how to perceive what I would call micro time, which is basically this. And if you're able to regulate that, then you could begin to expand into a larger period of day so. So it is scheduling is important because your your your say, just like if I'm if I'm playing this pulse, or I'll even use the guitar here, we're in a four four time. So 1234, I'm going to schedule an F chord. Five beats later. So 12341
Porter 56:52
I think we may be using the term schedule slightly differently. I realized, because you're talking about choices. Yes. Yes. Okay.
Josh Brill 57:02
Which is our third currency. And this is also part of my program, attention, time and choice. They're all interdependent, but when we align them, we really know how to use them. We can invest all three into whatever we want to do. Whatever is important for us.
Porter 57:19
That's awesome. Thank you so much. That's, I had I had no I mean, as you know, we had really no, no idea what we were going to be discussing during this time. And that worked out really, really perfectly. So I'm, I'm glad we got this on tape, as it were. Josh, would you like to tell everyone where they can find your offerings and keep in touch with you and I will also post those links in the description box of the podcast.
Josh Brill 57:45
Yeah, for sure. I have a site that sorely in need of an update, which is Josh brill, calm. Also, my Instagram is yoga of guitar. And then I have a Facebook page as well, Josh brill, music and mindfulness. And there's also a handful of other websites. But that's if somebody really wants to get in touch with me between those three things, they should probably be able to do that. And then hopefully soon, I'll have a little bit more updates about my offerings and have at it more accessible to the public.
Porter 58:15
Okay, cool. So if somebody wanted to do one of your courses that's available on the website, get in contact,
Josh Brill 58:21
I think they could find it there. It's a little bit of work there. So so if they have, if they're interested in the course and they can't find it, which is possible. They could just contact me but I do have a website yoga of guitar. My ukulele program doesn't does not have a website yet. It just has a sort of waiting list page.
Porter 58:40
Okay, cool. I will post all of this links to be easily clickable. All right. Well, thank you so much for doing this. And thanks, y'all for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
Josh Brill 58:50 Thank you, Porter.