Klarinet Archive - Posting 001162.txt from 2000/05

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Svengali rides again
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 09:34:00 -0400

Avrahm Galper wrote:
> Svengali rides again
>
> Dr.Gunnar Nordgren, director of an institute of hypnosis in Stockholm,
> Sweden, was planning a trip to the USA hoping to find an orchestra he
> could direct while all the musicians were hypnotized.
> "There is a definite connection between hypnosis and music in that both
> aim at carrying subjects into tridimensional space."

Diane R. Karius wrote,
>>Oh piffle - and here I thought I'd been three-dimensional all along.
>>So much for my level of self-awareness!

LOL!! So what happened? Did anyone ever carry out this experiment? The way
it's described, it sounds delightfully looney. I like Diane Karius's quip,
but I wonder, when Nordgren talked about "carrying subjects into
tridimensional space" what did *he* think he meant?! Maybe I've been reading
James "The Amazing" Randi's _Flim-Flam_ too recently (the chair with its feet
solidly on the floor is three-dimensional enough for most of us, but surely
Nordgren must have meant *something* else), but I'm picturing the music
continuing as clarinets and violins and so forth elegantly levitate, while
telepathy (or a reasonably convincing simulacrum of same) gives them voice
with the power of etheric wind. I wouldn't like to be sitting underneath the
tympani if the tympanist's trance slipped, as drummers' concentrations are
wont to do....

Still, playing while hypnotized is an interesting experience, if one can
forget about the type of magic act hypnosis where the "Mesmerist" induces
people to make fools of themselves onstage for the audience's pleasure. I
occasionally practice while in a natural (not drug-induced) autohypnotic
trance, which is altered consciousness, not *un*consciousness. I've found
that a light trance can help me to block out distractions and to perceive
things in the music that I hadn't noticed before. A trance also lets me
concentrate fully on a repetitive exercise that I might otherwise find
uninvolving.

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~
Chon's Law: The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the
less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all
your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
~~~~~~~~~

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