At 14:21 06/06/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Keith,
Just a thought from my own world here. The Arts as opposed to academic thought is concerned with the body as a whole instrument. Consciousness is a working concept rather than a mechanical or as Harry would say, an Object-ive reality. We are alive and in flux and it is in doing that flux that we attain mastery. On the other hand Object-ive reality is digital (again a "working" concept) that stops time in order to examine something visually.
Those of us who work with sound know that is an impossibility even in the sound studio where we can do some rather amazing things digitizing sound waves but still cannot separate an oboe from a voice once they are "mixed." Eventually they will figure that out. That object-fying or digit-izing is what in the art is called "consciousness". The "unconscious" or "subconscious" is another working term. Practically it refers to action or thought taken from the whole instrument. The intuition is the move from the mega (unconscious) to the specific (conscious).
All knowledge is probably learned with the potential for knowledge being genetic. I don't speak much about the brain because it is constantly changing as is the information about such things as the muscles. I do like Pribram's theories about "holism" because it conforms to my experience of thinking from different parts of the organism. You can't "think" from the brain, you with to experience the whole and the whole speaks from its parts dependant upon the action needed. You "Think" with you hands if you are a pianist and with your intellect. With the articulation of your instrument if you are a dancer and with your intellect. With the voice and breath if you are a singer and with your intellect. All of the above integrates the emotion as well.
Not long ago, incorrect information from science, about the way that muscles worked, destroyed a whole generation of singers who tried to conform to the latest "scientific knowledge" which were just theories and inappropiate to build a person's life and technique on. We had the same thing happen with the theories of thermodynamics which were supposed to be the way the body worked with the breath but which again was far too simple to support anything as complex as vocal technique, except for choir singers. Science has ruined pianists hands and many singers voices with their latest discoveries that were just someone's desire to get fame by publishing their theories.
We can't build lives and careers on fantasies. We work from practical experience and from the heritage of language and practice. So we find the concepts of consciousness to be useful. Although if another word appeared tomorrow that was more useful we would abandon it. There is a third phase which Donald Schoen has termed "Reflection in Action" which is a type of awareness during action that is only the realm of the masters. That means that you are able to be totally aware of your instrument both in an act of specific control and intuitive trust that becomes an information loop. Generally, with the average professional it is an act of thinking before doing and then abandoning themselves to the action without thinking except at specific practiced points. Gradually over the years you "become" the music so completely that there is no distinction between thought and action and that is "reflection in action." A flawed concept but a step forward maybe. Indian people with the four directional learning process and the seven layered spiral of growth are the closest in their pedagogy to what artists experience in learning with their bodies that I find complete. But those processes are over a thousand year old. I suspect that there is a better explanation but science has not come up with it to date. Certainly digital thought and physical exploration is no answer thus far anymore than they can explain the coordination of a concert pianist or the act of love.
Ray Evans Harrell
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
