Primal scene | R–e–s–o–n–a–n–c

Playing from a place: Primal Scene

For any musician. Alone.

Note for score:

When we play music, we play it in a place

Which is specific

Like a room

a garden

or a concert hall

In the first score we explored our relationship with the places in which we are set up

with our instrument(s).

Yet we also carry many places within us.

In our lives we all have places that have been meaningful to us.

These places are both real (like your childhood room, or laying in your mother’s arms)

or imaginary (like a scene from an important dream).

Some might be scenes from movies, a book or a painting that stuck with you because

they struck a chord within you. Some of those scenes might poses an almost fata

morgana-esque quality. Sometimes those scenes evolve over time and get more detailed

and specific, even when imaginary by default.

A primal scene for our musicality also often includes that one record that you lived with

for months or years when you were a teenager.

Or the sound of the room in which you practised when a kid.

A primal scene in a story is called that specific scene upon which the whole narrative

gets built, where the seed of the whole psychological development of the protagonists

gets planted.

It could be that first glimpse of two future impossible lovers, or the moment a member

of a certain family gets murdered by someone of a in the future rival clan.

In psychology it refers to the seed moment where a specific trauma got locked into

your system.

——————————————————————————————————————————NOW (1)

I would like you to get a sense of that feeling you have when you play music,

when all is good and flowing.

Really get specific and get the energy of it in your awareness both inside your

body and in your consciousness which dwells in that space way beyond our

imagination and mind.

Now: is there a scene, an old one that you already know of, yet also a totally

new scene might pop up for you(!) that comes into your awareness that relates

to that feeling of flow and play, that expansive open feeling when feel that you

are in touch with yourself and your instrument and perhaps more atoms in more

layers in this universe?

Whatever pings in your awareness, as silly as it might look, will be the place

brought into the now and explored with this score.

——————————————————————————————————————————NOW (2)

Bring that place into your minds eye and get the energy of it and the feeling

you have/had that relates to that place.

Make it as specific as possible, try to get awareness of all your senses and

evoke them now.

How does it sound, feel, taste, look,…

See yourself in that scene.

How are/were you? Where are/were you?

Are there other people or animals around?

Is this place inside or outside?

Is it day or night?

Do you recognise it or remember it or is it new to you?

——————————————————————————————————————————NOW (3)

Play the sounds coming up from that place inside your room where you are now.

That place is your score.

Play it! Play from it!

Evoke the sound of it.

Bring it into this room here and now.

You might feel like repeating this exercise a few times.

More than one scene could be relevant for you.
There is no right or wrong. There is just expansion and exploration.

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