Experience the Inward Journey of Music; Creating A Triple-Win Experience for the Music Consumer

Carlos R. Salcedo, Project Manager - IT Infrastructure @ Guitar Center - Written Roctober 17th, 2017

The Ultimate Vision

Creating a win-win-win scenario is a considerable challenge for any savvy business person, entrepreneur or well-intentioned dreamer. It might also be where the actual inception of dreams occurs; at the crux of the pinnacle scenario for the Music Consumer, Guitar Center Retail, and the entire Music Industry as a whole. As a participant of the human experience, I feel that it’s important to share with you that, mother music, in all of her most natural essence is still, one of the most fulfilling acts of live love-sharing that we can ever hope to experience. The secret to the law of attraction here is something very tangible then; a oneness that can exist at both the benefit and revival of an entire economic industry, the same industry we all know and love to be, the Music Industry.

The triple-win scenario is where the real magic, happens, and for those entities that can align themselves to see this, should, therefore, strive to stay above the bar and achieve this dream. I remember the first time that I had watched Stephen Herek’s film, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), and thought to myself, “Wow! Can this vision of a unified people really come to exist through music, and maybe someday, be our future? Will the love of sharing music help us all to see past our differences, work together and accelerate evolution for the betterment of all humankind?”

Well, my musical friends, business partners, and interested readers let us never give up on this unified vision; a vision quest for a coalesced global rhythmic consciousness; a musical movement that will endeavor through the hardships of our times and help to usher in a new epoch. Yes, it is up to us, to take the wheel and steer into a modern age of listening, understanding, compassion, and respect for one another. I know this all sounds a bit artsy and right-brained, albeit transcendently enlightening, well that’s the hope.

However, I do believe that Mother Music will be there to help guide and inspire us to pursue these very ideals of a “connected unification through creative expression, an open mind, a willing spirit, and science and technology.” Therefore, I know that we can all benefit tremendously from the positive effect that music can have in our lives when we just let ourselves experience the inward journey. I also feel that part of the message I’ll share with you can be of much benefit to those individuals and families that are seeking to heal for a loved one battling depression, or survivor of abuse. Also of very high significance that I am compelled to share is music’s healing power for those members of the autism spectrum. At this point, I believe that I can explain this journey, creatively and technically, as the transcendence of; self-introspection, cognitive neuroplasticity and the creative dynamics of survival in a post-modern world.

To share with the reader a small bit of background about your writer:

For several decades now and as far back as I can remember, which is about the age of 5, one of the dreams that I’ve sought to share with anyone and everyone who’s interested, is to partake in the joy of music. My mother will tell you that, I was dragging a short-scaled acoustic guitar by the neck around the block, playing and serenading a few of my neighbors, as early as the age of 3. So, I found it easy to connect with people in that way and learned that music and spirituality, had for me become the great unifier of like-minded musical brethren.

Self-Introspection

“Music is like the bonfire that moves people to dance around its warm embrace…and as it moves and breathes, so do the people dancing around it.” – anonymous.

Personally, I don't believe that people often think enough about the origin of words and their meanings (understandably so), observing etymology for what it is, and what the source of words may ultimately suggest. My attempt to understand the meaning of music is the origin of my musical journey, and as if on purpose, the journey had once again evolved because of a shopping experience at Guitar Center. I was an assistant manager at the GC Sherman Oaks store in 2010 when I had purchased a book called, The Music Lesson, written by Victor Wooten. The ideas about the meaning of a single-word shared in this book had affected my life so significantly, that I believe I experienced a change to my very core, existentially speaking…that word is Music. The rub is, “If we are to live life attempting to understand human nature, then we must strive to live by the ‘Laws of Music,’ and share alike.”

Sir Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion apply to all things; living and non-living, seen and unseen. However, how do the laws of music also apply to living things? I hadn’t really put much thought into this question before becoming a musician, or how such laws could exist, or how they could even apply to everyday life. I've thought about the origin of music plenty times before this book, but never before in simple word-root terms. And in this case of analysis, simplicity makes the most sense. The word, Music, derives from breaking down an ancient abbreviation/prefix of Mother (Mu-) and another ancient abbreviation for science (-sic), to arrive at the modern interpretation, the Mother of All Sciences. (Wooten, 2008)

Does this idea make you say, “huaahh?!” too? It all just seems so fascinating to me as well! If I had been approached when I had first walked into a Guitar Center store on the south side of Chicago at the age of 15 that someday, I’d be able to understand even a portion of how the laws of physics correlate to the laws of music, I may have been even more obsessed with becoming a professional musician even sooner. Even after graduating high school in the top 5% of my class, I had subsequently changed my major three different times. When I was a teenager, had I known that music carried with it the ancient powers of truth and inner-healing, I would’ve have pursued this dream from the first time I matriculated into university.

What I’ve learned from all of this is; “The Secret = Is to Allow Oneself to Experience the Inward Journey of Music. Make it, ALL about the Experience. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” I believe that this inherent global rhythmic consciousness helps to inspire us to become better as people, from the inside out and that we all share and participate in each other’s lifelong experiences. It's just that through music, well, it’s a bond that's close to the heart. Whether it is performed as a duo, trio, symphonic orchestra, or our favorite band configuration, as a FabFour, we must not be afraid to work together, even though music can also stand on her own. The memories are always better when we share in the realm of artistic creation. Perhaps, this experience is much more of an idiosyncratic alignment with our creative stream of consciousness, than we are comfortable paying attention to?

Cognitive Neuroplasticity 

There is some critical information that I have an overwhelming need to share with everyone out there, specifically regarding the autistic spectrum & the cognitive benefits of music. Educating the music consumer on the latest advancements in neuroscience may prove to be profoundly beneficial for the educational future of young musicians, seasoned pro or novice musician as well since we are all just human. Cognitive Neuroplasticity is a reasonably new evolution in the way in which neuroscientists understand how the brain operates, and how we can continue to learn as we mature over our lifetime. So of course, this is an essential section of info to share with all of the parents out there. Neuroplasticity refers to the capacity for change in neural pathways, synapses and overall brain functions over a lifetime. With these changes, we afford the opportunity to, delete the neural connections that are no longer necessary or useful, and strengthen the necessary ones, which is what happens every time we play and practice music. (Collins, 2014) As a new parent, I am once again learning new ways to process information and organize my ideas and behavior. I am struck again by how much music has helped me to remain cognitively resilient, so of course, I’d like to positively reinforce this in my child, if he so chooses as well.

I am fortunate to have nearly 13 years of experience as a music teacher, and I’ve personally witnessed just how much of a dramatic positive impact that was learning an instrument can have on a child, their psychology, self-confidence, and memory. Having assisted in managing the first Guitar Center Lessons location in the world, and as a former operations specialist for GC lessons, I helped in training and opening additional lessons locations across the nation. During this time, I personally encountered and engaged with over a thousand students and witnessed their experience of how music can influence their worlds. However, one of the most astonishing correlations I had seen, was the impact that music lessons had on students that were on the autistic spectrum, and although the change may have been over a slightly more extended period, the results were nonetheless significant.

Around holiday retail season of 2014, I had the pleasure of managing the flagship lessons location for Guitar Center, called GC Studios in Woodland Hills, CA. Around this time, a grandmother was checking in her grandson for bass guitar lessons as she had done so on a recurring basis every Wednesday, for a little over a year, he was age 15. She walked over to me and had conversed small talk as we had typically done, but then she felt the need to share with me something more personal; that she has witnessed a miraculous improvement in her grandson’s demeanor, self-confidence and memory, over the time period of their lessons experience. I was so overtaken by emotion and excitement after our conversation, because I knew that I was on the right path… primarily why I had studied biomedicine over a decade prior, and that my switch to music and business after medical physiology, would not have been in vain. The Guitar Center Lessons environment is an incredible learning environment, where the culmination of creative and technical forces combines to equal a truly authentic experience of; joy, excitement, open-mindedness, and the diverse involvement between student, teacher, parent and performance audience.

In a whole other scenario of studying the healing powers of music, there have also been cases studies to examine the healing functions of improvised songs used during music therapy of children and adult victims of sexual abuse and other psychological traumas. To share an excerpt from Robarts’ psychodynamics case study, “When a song arises in music therapy, we hear something special. Freshly minted in the moment, [a] song comes from the deepest roots of our being, our embodied self, and enters the creative flow of life. Person means literally ‘to sound through’ and so the voice, with its subtleties of intonation, rhythmic flow, intensity, and texture, carries [with it] the essence of each person’s individuality” (Robarts, 2003).

I firmly believe that the next scientific genius of our time, the future Einstein-like minded revolutionary, will be a musician who has studied music and had most likely taken lessons since they were a young child. To share on some research regarding Albert Einstein and his close connection with music; while working on his Earth-shattering theory of General & Special Relativity, Albert was noted to have played pieces of harmonious music on the piano, in between working on out the complicated calculus of this theorems. As his wife had observed; “[Besides the violin] He also plays the piano. Music helps him when he is thinking about his theories. He goes to his study, comes back, strikes a few chords on the piano, jots something down, and returns to his study.” (Jones. 2013) Perhaps, Dr. Einstein’s violin and piano playing may have helped him tune-in his mind, body, and soul accordingly to a more transcendent and harmonious place, helping him to construct his century-old theory, that modern-day physicists are only now in a better position to understand?

I hope this section has been an enlightening one in helping us all to better understand, why providing educational background on the science behind how and why we all play music, has the potential to have multiple groundbreaking wins, for the general Music Consumer, Guitar Center and all of the Music Industry!

Creative Dynamics for a Post-Modern World

Someday, it just may be possible for us to say that, due to the increased learning capacity of our musical minds, creative and technical skills, there can be a significant benefit to the American economy as a whole, and therefore, the global economy? The competitive advantages we learn through music may even help to promote a healthier GDP output for the United States’ ever-growing service economy, as we provide and create new solutions to current socioeconomic and world challenges.

As we know, this strategy begins with our children, as well as the flexibility of adults to acclimate to this change. Children of all ages love to play and dance to music, as music can also be used advantageously to socially normalize asynchronous development across childhood peers, either due to being under-advanced cognitively or of a gifted IQ for a given age range. (Pruitt, 1998). In fact, playing music has been found to produce both enhanced volume and activity in the corpus callosum, which has been found to be the area of the brain responsible for cross-hemispheric communication. (Collins, 2014)These noted benefits of the regions of brain development are associated with high levels of executive function, a category of interlinked tasks that include; planning, strategizing, attention to detail, and requires the simultaneous and introspective analysis of both cognitive and emotional functions. (Collins, 2014)

Another creative social dynamic that can benefit from musician-business leaders, since they are usually more “in-tune” with their social environments, is the opportunity to improve global business relationship development initiatives. While planning and executing training, and operational best practices for enterprise as the former GC Lessons program specialist, an idea entered my head that I believe could greatly benefit children and adults, and could be focused around the central idea of, “Executive leadership training, through music creation and performance.”

To recommend assistance in reinforcing the positive lessons learned from incorporating a new methodology for leadership development, perhaps someday the Guitar Center Lessons program could eventually offer something like a, "Little Leaders Executive Leadership Training Program?” The primary emphasis here would be on leadership development, via the experience of learning to play and create music together as a team, which means involving all of the team building components; Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. Children and adults would benefit from learning conflict resolution in a creative and competitive environment, which is a critical skill in business and everyday life. Developing this appetite for inclusion on a broad economic scale, is where the next immediate challenge may arise, as public schooling systems have had to, unfortunately, cut back on budget allocation to music and fine arts programs across the country.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

I hope you have enjoyed this article, just as a sheet of music is read and can be interpreted differently by many players of varying skill, so can this message of love be interpreted differently, yet remain the same at its core. I also hope that I have conveyed here, how the triple-win scenario is where the real magic of the music experience happens. That the win-win-win experience becomes one surrounded by a feeling of inclusion, authenticity, and the celebration of the privilege that it is to be alive right now and get to experience the creation of art, joy, pain and love through music.

Nikola Tesla, the most influential inventor and technological change catalyst of the 20th century, has been quoted to have said that, "If you wish you understand the Universe, think in Frequency and Vibration." To me, that pretty much sounds like the Universe that musicians live in all the time. After all, Jimi Hendrix has also been quoted to have said, “When the Power of Love Overcomes the Love of Power, the World Will Know Peace.” Therefore, go bravely into the night, and let us not hesitate to share what we’ve learned; the message of love and peace through music, and how creating win-win-win scenarios for people will genuinely possess the sustainable potential to affect immense global impact. Again, not just for musicians and non-musicians alike, but the entire Music Industry and Global Commerce that will reflect when we’ve made the right modifications in our behavior, through music education.

God Speed.

Sincerely,

Carlos “Los~Guitarlos” Salcedo

* If you've enjoyed reading this article, please feel free to like & share! Thank you kindly!

References:

Collins, Anita. [TED-Ed]. (2014, July 22). How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-playing-an-instrument-benefits-your-brain-anita-collins.

 Jones, Josh. [Open Culture]. (2013, June 25th). The Musical Mind of Albert Einstein: Great Physicist, Amateur Violinist and Devotee of Mozart. Retrieved from https://www.openculture.com/2013/06/the_musical_mind_of_albert_einstein.html

Pruitt, David. B. (1998). Your Child; What Every Parent Needs to Know About Childhood Development from Birth to Preadolescence. Pgs. 109-119, 234-270. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. New York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

 Robarts, J.Z. (2003). The Healing Function of Improvised Songs in Music Therapy with A Child Survivor of Early Trauma and Sexual Abuse. In S. Hadley (Ed.) Psychodynamic Music Therapy: Case Studies. pp. 141 -182. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona.

Wooten, Victor. L. (2008). The Music Lesson; A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. New York, NY. The Berkley Publishing Group