Give it a chance, and this Music Meets Meditation lesson will help you elevate your musicianship.

Ultimately, you'll become a better guitar player.

Have you been my student for a while now? :) You might have noticed that I'm big on Meditation, and I believe that is a valuable practice for many different areas of your life. However, my goal in this lesson is to help you understand how we can take advantage of what I call Mindfulness Meditation to develop your guitar skills.

You might have explored this mindfulness idea before, but to make sure we're on the same page, let's start with the basics!

What's Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a meditation practice that comes from Buddhists. The basic idea is to be very present in a particular moment. Usually, the most common way to learn to be mindful is by focusing intensively on your breathing. You'd focus only on your breathing for a given period. If you do that regularly, you'll improve your concentration, so you're less distracted by external stimuli.

💭 I got into mindfulness in 2016 mainly as a tool that'd help me clear my mind. I've got a super active mind - a monkey one; it just doesn’t stop! Getting into Meditation was amazing and improved my day-to-day life a lot - I was sleeping better and feeling way more relaxed!

On top of it, I've discovered Mindful Running. Instead of concentrating on your breathing, the fall of your feet becomes the sole focus of your attention.

I've done Mindful Running for a while, which inspired me to think about how we could bring mindfulness into guitar practice. And that's how we've got into today's lesson. :)

What's Mindful Listening?

Back in the day, before all this technology and social media distractions, music had a more dominant place in our lives. I'm sure that students from my generation or older will remember that listening to a new album that was out was a pretty big deal!

💭 I remember sitting in between speakers, back in Tasmania, listening to new music that was out. I'd order a new album from the store, wait months for it to arrive, and then spend weeks listening to that one record. I'd really absorbed it and appreciate its value to my life. I'd be so immersed by the things going on in a song! I'm sure that helped me become a better listener and musician!

But that's not the reality anymore, and we don't really make time to listen to music like we used to do back then. Like, not just having something playing in the background, but really listening closely to the music.

Mindful Listening used to be something natural to most music lovers, but unfortunately, that's not the reality anymore! And, sadly, because that's an incredibly important habit on many different levels. Many of the great players I admire often talk about the importance of listening (for real) to music. But, with music being so available these days, taking time to really appreciate the songs you love is a big deal and something we should all practice more!

How to Practice Mindful Listening

Start by getting a playlist ready in advance - add in the songs you'd like to absorb. Then, find a quiet room to get comfortable and get yourself still. While listening, start by letting your focus wander over the music and see where it lands.

Now, try to get into that aspect and drill deeper into it. It might be the guitar tone and then how it sits in the track or the sound of the pick hitting the strings. It might be the drum groove and then the high-hat, the locking in of the high-hat and the acoustic guitar, or the pattern it makes.

It's not really important where your focus ends up. Still, I think it can be helpful to try to guide yourself deeper into wherever your focus drifts.

💡 Some experience in Meditation will be a big help to get yourself started! I used the app Headspace for a few months to get going and found it really helpful! These days I use the Waking Up app almost every day and that takes things a bit further along, but perhaps isn't as beginner friendly if you are completely new to it all! But there are loads of resources available that you can explore.

Practicing mindful listening has opened up some albums that I was already very familiar with, and I've discovered new layers to explore. I now sometimes listen to something with a very specific aim.

For example, I wanted to explore Angus Young's vibrato. So, while AC/DC is probably not the music we usually associate with Meditation, I went in a mindful state with all of my attention centered on this one thing. Another thing I got into was exploring the 'pocket' of funk grooves and trying to focus on the relationships between the instruments and how tight (or loose) they were. Music production, focussing on reverbs and textures, and exploring guitar layers are also fascinating journeys.

Explore!

You can choose to get into the zone and let stuff happen or explore something specific. No matter what you choose to do, just let yourself get absorbed into the music. It's all good - there are no rules, just fun things to explore.

📚 If you'd like to go even further, I'd recommend checking out the book The Music Lesson by Victor L. Wooten. This is a really deep and compelling book - so insightful. Many life lessons are hidden in a search for spirituality through music. It contains some of the best explanations of how music works at the big picture level.

Many guitar players neglect developing their listening abilities, but I truly hope you won't be one of them. You don't have to call it Meditation. Call it Deep Listening or something like that - as long as you find time to really listen to music and pay attention to its elements.

If you want to be a musician, getting in touch with music deeper will help you connect with your instrument. Whether you go for the full experience or not, don't neglect your musical imagination or your listening skills.

Yeah - wow! Sharing all of this was something new to me, but I hope you enjoyed this guitar lesson. If you're following my Beginner Guitar Course, we'll get one of these Understanding lessons in each module of this Grade 3.

Up next - we'll get into guitar tone and learn the basic settings! Ready? Go!