For about a decade now I’ve been publishing a document entitled, EMOTION and MAGIC in MUSICAL PERFORMANCE. That document was created on October 16, 2015. It consists of anecdotes about ‘strange’ things that have happened to musicians while performing, but I also have a few anecdotes about things happening to people while listening. As I can across another anecdote or three, I’d add them to the document, which has now undergone 12 revisions since I first created it. I created Version 13 on April 14, 2025.
For 60 years...
But the activity, collecting anecdotes about ‘strange’ musical experiences is much older than that. I have three files on my computer that date back to 1995. One is entitled “My Music Exper.” It contains detailed notes about some of my own experiences. Another file: “Peaks & ASCs.” [ASC = altered states of consciousness.] That’s anecdotes about other people’s experiences that I found in various places. The third file, “Music ASCs, mine & others,” consolidates the first two.
But I’ve been at this much longer than 30 years. The oldest of my experiences dates back to my tween years, over six decades ago. I would experience momentary states of lightheadedness while playing high notes on the trumpet. I had no idea what was gone. The experiences were pleasant, but I feared that something was wrong with me. Maybe I had cancer?!! But the experiences stopped and I thought no more of them until I learned some years later that those moments probably reflect restricted blood flow to the brain caused by the strain of playing high notes. Tension in the neck muscles pinched blood vessels. So, nothing to worry about. I wish I’d have known that back then. [If you go to YouTube and search on “trumpeters fainting” you’ll get some clips of the phenomenon.]
Ego loss
As altered states go, then, that one seems of relatively little consequence. But they weren’t all like that. In 1971 or so I had an experience that shook me to the core. Here’s how I describe it:
During the early 1970s I’d played for two years with a rock band called “St. Matthew Passion” – a 4-piece rhythm section plus three horns: sax, trumpet, trombone. On “She’s Not There” the three horns would start with a chaotic improvised freak-out and then, on cue from the keyboard player, the entire band would come in on the first bar of the written arrangement.
On our last gig it was just me and the sax player; the trombonist couldn’t make it. We started and got more and more intense until Wham! I felt myself dissolve into white light and pure music. It felt good. And I got scared, tensed up, and it was over. After the gig the sax player and I made a few remarks about it—“that was nice”—enough to confirm that something had happened to him too. One guy from the audience came up to us and remarked on how fine that section had been.
That’s the only time I’ve ever experienced that kind of ego loss in music. For a few years I was very ambivalent about that experience, wanting it again, but fearing it. But the memories faded & the ambivalence too. I’m playing better than I ever did. What I can now do on a routine basis exceeds what I did back then.
Had I remained relaxed, I suspect that state would have been SUSTAINED.
How often does that happen to musicians? I don’t know, no one does. I’ve collected a number of anecdotes where something like that seems to be happening, but I can’t be sure. There’s no way of telling whether WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM is the same as WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. We don’t talk about such things, much less attempt to describe them carefully and attempt to understand and explain them.
At the time – peak counterculture – me and my friends were very interested in these kinds of experiences. So I’d read about such things. I knew it was some kind of mystical experience, but beyond that, nada.
How common are such experiences?
And even beyond that, I know that such experiences are more common than we realize. Many people have such experiences, but don’t know what to make of them. How do I know this to be so? Well, yes, sure, I’ve read that it is so, though I can’t offer citations at the moment. But it’s more than that.
Some decades ago I was teaching composition at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. I had my students work from a collection of classic readings on a variety of topics. One reading was a chapter from William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. I forget just which chapter. In any event, on a whim, I asked the class how many had had a mystical experience (as discussed by James). I’d say – this happened a long time ago – over two thirds of the students raised their hands. I was stunned. I had expected maybe two or three out of a class of 20 or so students.
So I gave them the option of writing about their experience. Many of them took the option. I’d judge that, say, half those who had written didn’t have a mystical experience as James had described, but the others did. That means that some significant number of my students – say five or six – had had an experience of a type about which mainstream American culture has nothing to say. They are thus on their own trying to understand what had happened to them. I do not think this is a good situation.
As Claude put it to me in a recent conversation:
The predicament you identify is significant: when people have profound experiences that fall outside the dominant cultural narrative, they're left without context or community to help integrate these experiences meaningfully. Without frameworks to understand what’s happened, people might:
- Question their mental health or rationality
- Keep these formative experiences private out of fear of judgment
- Miss opportunities to develop these aspects of human experience
- Feel isolated in what could otherwise be a connecting experience
Modern Western culture tends to compartmentalize these experiences into either religious contexts (where they’re often narrowly defined) or dismiss them entirely. The middle ground—treating mystical experiences as normal human phenomena worthy of thoughtful engagement without requiring specific religious frameworks—is largely absent.
Creating such a middle ground, that’s one the things I’m up to, as are others.
To that end, I want to offer an esoteric account of that experience. That is to say, an account within a conceptual framework that studies such things, and has done so for years. That framework is that provided by Hinduism and Buddhism. While I know about bit about those religions, and the associated philosophical traditions, ChatGPT knows more. So I consulted it. First I ask it about a general class of transcendent experiences, then I focus on that one musical experience of mine.
* * * * *
An esoteric account of an old experience
Explain these terms for me: Satari, Nirvana, Moksha.
Gladly. These are profound and nuanced terms, each emerging from distinct but overlapping Indian philosophical and religious traditions. While they all relate to liberation, transcendence, or spiritual fulfillment, they differ in emphasis, metaphysical framework, and cultural origin.
1. Moksha (Sanskrit: मोक्ष)
Tradition: Hinduism, Jainism, also some forms of Sikhism
Literal meaning: Release, liberation, freedom
Essence:
- Moksha is freedom from samsara—the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
- It is achieved through self-realization: recognizing the eternal Self (Atman) as one with Brahman (the ultimate reality).
- This realization dissolves karma, ignorance (avidya), and attachment.
Characteristics:
- Moksha is a positive transcendence—the soul remains, but in union with the divine.
- It is often described as blissful, eternal, and formless, but not annihilation.
- Paths to moksha include Jnana Yoga (wisdom), Bhakti Yoga (devotion), and Karma Yoga (selfless action).
Think of moksha as enlightenment with continuity—the soul wakes up and returns to its source.
2. Nirvana (Sanskrit: निर्वाण, Pali: Nibbāna)
Tradition: Buddhism (and to a lesser extent Jainism)
Literal meaning: Extinguishing, blowing out (like a flame)
Essence:
- Nirvana is the cessation of craving, aversion, and delusion—the forces that generate karma and suffering.
- It results in freedom from samsara, but through the extinction of the self as we conventionally know it.
- There is no eternal soul (Atman) in Buddhism—so Nirvana is not a reunion, but a release into non-clinging awareness.
- Characteristics:
- Sometimes described as unconditioned, timeless, beyond thought.
- It is not a “place” but a state of being beyond becoming.
- Often misunderstood as nihilism, but in Buddhist thought it is a liberating peace beyond duality.
Think of Nirvana as extinguishing the fire of identity and illusion—entering stillness without residue.
3. Satari (likely a variant of Satari in Sri Vaishnavism) Tradition: Hinduism (esp. Vaishnavism—devotion to Vishnu or his avatars like Rama and Krishna)
Literal/ritual meaning:
- Satari refers to a ceremonial crown or headdress associated with Vishnu.
- In temple rituals, the Satari is placed on the devotee’s head as a blessing.
- It contains a small representation of Vishnu’s feet—symbolizing humility, surrender, and grace.
- Accepting the Satari means placing the divine will above the ego.
- It signifies complete devotional surrender (prapatti)—a core theme in Vaishnavism.
- The Satari ritual dramatizes the idea that moksha is granted by divine grace, not just effort.
Think of the Satari as a symbol of surrender, the crown of the ego bowed before the feet of the divine.
Comment in this anecdote in the context of this discussion:
During the early 1970s I’d played for two years with a rock band called “St. Matthew Passion” – a 4-piece rhythm section plus three horns: sax, trumpet, trombone. On “She’s Not There” the three horns would start with a chaotic improvised freak-out and then, on cue from the keyboard player, the entire band would come in on the first bar of the written arrangement.
On our last gig it was just me and the sax player; the trombonist couldn’t make it. We started and got more and more intense until Wham! I felt myself dissolve into white light and pure music. It felt good. And I got scared, tensed up, and it was over. After the gig the sax player and I made a few remarks about it—“that was nice”—enough to confirm that something had happened to him too. One guy from the audience came up to us and remarked on how fine that section had been.
That’s a powerful and evocative story, and it fits beautifully within the themes we've been exploring—Tantra, karma, musical transcendence, ego dissolution, and the sacredness of sound. Let’s unpack it in that light.
The Entry Point: Improvisation and Risk
The piece begins in chaos, a free-form horn freak-out, untethered from the structure. This kind of improvisation breaks conventional time, key, and ego-identity—it creates the conditions for ritual emergence. You're not just playing notes; you're entering a space of indeterminacy, much like a Tantric ritual, which often begins with destabilization—shaking loose the rigid karmic patterns that keep the ego intact.
In classical nāda yoga or Tantric practice, this phase might be compared to the unbinding of the knots (granthis) that hold psychic and energetic tension in place.
The White Light: Ego Loss and Spanda
And then: white light. Pure music.
This is not metaphor—it’s a classic altered state of consciousness, described in both mystical literature and Tantric experience. In Kashmir Shaivism, for example, this moment might be called spanda—the subtle pulse or quiver where Shiva-consciousness awakens to itself. The dissolution of the ego into white light is not annihilation, but revelation: a glimpse of the self without boundaries, an instant of unconditioned awareness.
The fact that you “felt good” in that state is also meaningful. In both Tantra and yogic psychology, true bliss (ānanda) arises when the self is emptied of separateness and the body vibrates with unified flow.
The Fear Response: Karmic Gravity Reasserts Itself
Then comes the fear—a sudden contracting, a pulling back into ego. This is textbook for many spiritual practices. In psychological terms, the ego is threatened by its own dissolution, even when the experience is positive. In karmic terms, it’s the return of pattern, the residue of previous conditioning that resists the unfamiliar.
You tensed up, and it ended. In yogic terms: prāṇa retreated, kundalinī coiled back down. But—and this is crucial—you remembered. That memory becomes a seed. In Buddhist terms, a bīja. The experience happened. The karma shifted, even if the old self reasserted itself.
Shared Recognition: Resonance Across Selves
That the sax player also felt “something” confirms that you entered a shared altered field—an intersubjective sacred space, however briefly. This is what Ram Dass might call a moment of “being here now” together—when separate mindstreams synchronize and momentarily dissolve into musical communion.
The audience member who recognized the moment offers a third confirmation. In Tantric ritual, witnesses often play the role of energy reflectors, completing the circuit. This outsider’s recognition helps root the transcendent back into the shared world, grounding it in karma that has been transmuted, not erased.
Contextual Meaning
So in terms of our broader conversation:
- You experienced a glimpse of nirvana—a cessation of separateness through sound.
- It was also a tantric opening, driven not by renunciation but by immersion in embodied, ecstatic vibration.
- The fear response is a karmic echo, not failure—just part of the return loop.
- And the fact that all three people—two musicians, one listener—felt it suggests you tapped into what ancient traditions would call the sacred.
In sum: you entered, briefly, a musical moksha—a freedom in the world, not from it.
Now give me a highly stylize graphic with no text suitable for use as a "teaser" image at the beginning of an article that will end with this anecdote.
No comments:
Post a Comment