Tangier Sound

Way back in 1998 my father and I walked away from a popular radio show to begin exploring a new broadcasting medium called the Internet.

Our first web experiment was kafiristan.com. The name was taken from the Rudyard Kipling story The Man Who Would Be King.

Kafiristan.com was one of the first – if not the first – web sites to use streaming audio to present banjo and guitar instruction and it was also the first place I started to put my ideas about making music and teaching down on paper. The following is a project I played around with on and off for a few years as a way to wrangle my ideas before starting work on The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo

Zen in the Five-String Banjo

Patrick Costello 1998

“I’m not going to show you my art. I am going to share it with you. If I show it to you it becomes an exhibition, and in time it will be pushed so far into the back of your mind that it will be lost. But by sharing it with you, you will not only retain it forever, but I,too, will improve.”
ED PARKER

Late one night a blind man was about to go home after visiting a friend. “Please,” he said to his friend, “may I take your lantern with me?” “Why carry a lantern?” asked his friend. “You won’t see any better with it.” “No,” said the blind one, “perhaps not. But others will see me better, and not bump into me.” So his friend gave the blind man the lantern, which was made of paper on bamboo strips, with a candle inside.

Off went the blind man with the lantern, and before he had gone more than a few yards, “Crack!” — a traveler walked right into him. The blind man was very angry. “Why don’t you look out?” he stormed. “Why don’t you see this lantern?”

“Why don’t you light the candle?” asked the traveler.

Oh man, what have I gone and done?

Zen in the Five String Banjo started out as a half-joking way of illustrating some hard to express ideas. When I was a student of Kenpo karate my instructors used koans to help me get a grip on things like pushing myself past my preconceived limitations (as well as beating the poo-poo out of my opponent, let’s not get too romantic here!) and when I left the martial arts to pursue music I took the methods used by my sensei (what’s the plural for sensei? I don’t know- but I‘ve had quite a few) in the dojo to the woodshed .

When kafiristan.com went online it seemed natural to put a bit of Zen into the site. I never dreamed it would reach so many people. I’m grateful, but a little confused too.

This is the last revision of Zen in the Five String Banjo. I am at a crossroads in my life right now and if I keep rewriting this I may fall into the trap of thinking that my words are somehow important. In fact, the colored text is where the important stuff is- I left my ramblings to the black text, makes it easier to sort out my babbling.

Rule number one: never believe your own press.

You can’t keep walking on tiptoe
or walk in leaps and bounds.
You can’t shine by showing off
or get ahead by pushing.
Self-satisfied people do no good,
self-promoters never grow up.
LAO TZU

Rule number two- know when to stop diddling around with a project and move on.

To run things,
don’t fuss with them.
Nobody who fusses
is fit to run things.
LAO TZU

So here it is, one last time warts and all. I hope that you find something useful in the ideas expressed here, and I also hope you won’t put too much weight into my words. I wanted to keep this freeform so that you could wander through it and find something every once in a while. If you get something out of this it’s only because you already had it in you. Please keep in mind that it’s you who makes the music- all your hands do is hold the banjo. The good stuff comes from that place in between, your heart.

A distraught man approached the Zen master. “Please, Master, I feel lost, desperate. I don’t know who I am. Please, show me my true self ! ” But the teacher just looked away without responding.

The man began to plead and beg, but still the master gave no reply. Finally giving up in frustration, the man turned to leave. At that moment the master called out to him by name.

“Yes!” the man said as he spun back around.

“There it is!” exclaimed the master.

One of the hardest things I run into teaching is getting past that “I can’t do that” mentality with my students. I remember one fellow who wanted to play the banjo in the worst way, but every time I would suggest something he’d shout back at me “that’s impossible!” or “But that’s hard!” I finally had to tell him to look for another teacher. I don’t think he ever really understood why I gave up on him. I was wasting my time because he had given up before he started.

“If you don’t get it from yourself, where will you get it?”
Zen saying

My father and I cannot “teach” you to play the banjo or guitar. In fact, there is very little anybody can really teach you. The only thing we can do is offer a handful of suggestions to help you find your own path.

A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, “I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it.”

The teacher’s reply was casual, “Ten years.”

Impatiently, the student answered, “But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?”

The teacher thought for a moment, “20 years.”

I always find it amazing when a banjo student comes in for a first lesson and announces that they want to play “just like” their favorite player.I usually don’t see them again after two or three lessons. As soon as they see that it will take time and effort to learn how to play well, (let alone like someone with twenty years of experience) they give up.

I am even more amazed at the amount of books, tapes, and videos telling new musicians that that is the only way to learn the banjo. There are a lot of people looking for the “fast” or the “easiest” way to make music, and they are willing to spend a good deal of money to find that magic solution. The funny thing is those quick-fix approaches to learning music very rarely work.

There is no “magic formula”, there is no “fast” way to learn, and most importantly there is no such thing as talent. Every individual learns at their own pace, some pick things up faster than others do. The gathering of knowledge is not a contest. True, it would be nice if someone could pick up a guitar or banjo and play at a professional level without putting any effort into it, but where would the inspiration be? The hours of practice required to gain an understanding of any given musical instrument – The frustration, the plateaus, the realization that you will never be finished learning – are an important part of a musicians development. Everyone has to go through it, to pass off that achievement by calling it talent is passing off the hours of hard work and dedication that a musician has put into his art.

In the end, what we perceive as talent is just self-control.

After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull’s eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot.

“There,” he said to the old man, “see if you can match that!”

Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow’s intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit.

“Now it is your turn,” he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground. Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target.

“You have much skill with your bow,” the master said, sensing his challenger’s predicament, “but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot.”

A student went to his meditation teacher and said, “My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I’m constantly falling asleep. It’s just horrible!”

“It will pass,” the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. “My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It’s just wonderful!’

“It will pass,” the teacher replied matter-of-factly.

At the same time do not become so infatuated with another persons “sound” or “style” that you do not take the time to develop your own. You are not (insert your favorite musician here), you have not walked in his shoes or
lived a day in his or her life. You will never play exactly like someone, after all wherever you go you are still you.

Zen monks avoid getting tangled up in hero worship with gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) cynicism, calling fellow monks “old rice bags” and such.

One day Master Huai Jang asked a student who was practicing mediation, “What are you doing?” The student replied “Trying to be a Buddha.” Huai Jang picked up a stone and began rubbing it. “What are you doing?” asked the student. Huai Jang answered “I am trying to make a mirror.” The astonished student told him, “No amount of polishing will make a stone a mirror.” Huai Jang commented wryly, “No amount to meditation will make you a Buddha.”

How many cares one looses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
COCO CHANEL

Question everything. Tradition has a weird way of getting messed up over the years.

When the spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat who lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up. Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly treatises about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice.

“Style” is something a lot of novice musicians make a fuss about. I hear it all the time, “Oh this guy has a great style” “I want to come up with my own style” Like a persons style of playing happened by accident or design.

Who are you?

Where have you been?

Those two questions have different answers for each individual, and those answers go a long way to shape your style.

“Well sir, I just make it sound like I think it ought to…”
MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT

Let nature take it’s course. Don’t try for artificial perfection.

A priest was in charge of the garden within a famous Zen temple. He had been given the job because he loved the flowers, shrubs, and trees. Next to the temple there was another, smaller temple where there lived a very old Zen master. One day, when the priest was expecting some special guests, he took extra care in tending to the garden. He pulled the weeds, trimmed the shrubs, combed the moss, and spent a long time meticulously raking up and carefully arranging all the dry autumn leaves. As he worked, the old master watched him with interest from across the wall that separated the temples. When he had finished, the priest stood back to admire his work. “Isn’t it beautiful,” he called out to the old master.

“Yes,” replied the old man, “but there is something missing. Help me over this wall and I’ll put it right for you.”

After hesitating, the priest lifted the old fellow over and set him down. Slowly, the master walked to the tree near the center of the garden, grabbed it by the trunk, and shook it. Leaves showered down all over the garden.

“There,” said the old man, “you can put me back now.”

Practice makes perfect. It’s a pain in the @#&%(*, but practice makes. . .

A dramatic ballad singer studied under a strict teacher who insisted that he rehearse day after day, month after month the same passage from the same song, without being permitted to go any further. Finally, overwhelmed by frustration and despair, the young man ran off to find another profession.

One night, stopping at an inn, he stumbled upon a recitation contest. Having nothing to lose, he entered the competition and, of course, sang the one passage that he knew so well. When he had finished, the sponsor of the contest highly praised his performance. Despite the student’s embarrassed objections, the sponsor refused to believe that he had just heard a beginner perform.

“Tell me,” the sponsor said, “who is your instructor? He must be a great master.”

The student later became known as the great performer Koshiji.

Don’t be afraid to play in front of people. The pressure you feel under the attentive eye of an audience will help you get away from being too conscious of the mechanics of the instrument and deeper into the emotions that inspired you to play in the first place.

A master of the tea ceremony in old Japan once accidentally slighted a soldier. He quickly apologized, but the rather impetuous soldier demanded that the matter be settled in a sword duel. The tea master, who had no experience with swords, asked the advice of a fellow Zen master who did possess such skill. As he was served by his friend, the Zen swordsman could not help but notice how the tea master performed his art with perfect concentration and tranquility. “Tomorrow,” the Zen swordsman said, “when you duel the soldier, hold your weapon above your head, as if ready to strike, and face him with the same concentration and tranquility with which you perform the tea ceremony.”

The next day, at the appointed time and place for the duel, the tea master followed this advice. The soldier, readying himself to strike, stared for a long time into the fully attentive but calm face of the tea master. Finally, the soldier lowered his sword, apologized for his arrogance, and left without a blow being struck.

It is not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring.
SPANISH PROVERB

Don’t focus too much on the words and music of any single performer. Music is a language and the best way to learn a language is to use it. Blues, rock, reggae, folk, old-time, country- there is so much out there and if you exclude or pass off any of it you may find out after years of study that you missed the point.

A renowned Zen master said that his greatest teaching was this: Buddha is your own mind. So impressed by how profound this idea was, one monk decided to leave the monastery and retreat to the wilderness to meditate on this insight. There he spent 20 years as a hermit probing the great teaching. One day he met another monk who was traveling through the forest. Quickly the hermit monk learned that the traveler also had studied under the same Zen master. “Please, tell me what you know of the master’s greatest teaching.”

The traveler’s eyes lit up, “Ah, the master has been very clear about this. He says that his greatest teaching is this: Buddha is NOT your own mind.”

Or even worse than missing the point, you might wind up in a whole new realm of silliness.

Four monks decided to meditate silently without speaking for two weeks. By nightfall on the first day, the candle began to flicker and then went out. The first monk said, “Oh, no! The candle is out.” The second monk said, “Aren’t we not suppose to talk?” The third monk said, “Why must you two break the silence?” The fourth monk laughed and said, “Ha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”

A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into the river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for his life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive. “I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived.”

Music, like life, flows like a river. Fall in and let it carry you where it wants to go. Learn off everyone you meet and treat every musician with an equal amount of respect.

Word spread across the countryside about the wise Holy Man who lived in a small house atop the mountain. A man from the village decided to make the long and difficult journey to visit him. When he arrived at the house, he saw an old servant inside who greeting him at the door. “I would like to see the wise Holy Man,” he said to the servant. The servant smiled and led him inside. As they walked through the house, the man from the village looked eagerly around the house, anticipating his encounter with the Holy Man. Before he knew it,he had been led to the back door and escorted outside. He stopped and turned to the servant, “But I want to see the Holy Man!”

“You already have,” said the old man. “Everyone you may meet in life, even if they appear plain and insignificant… see each of them as a wise Holy Man. If you do this, then whatever problem you brought here today will be solved.”

Learn to simplify.

Thirty spokes
meet in the hub.
Where the wheel isn’t
is where it’s useful.

Hollowed out,
clay makes a pot.
Where the pot’s not
is where it’s useful

Cut doors and windows
to make a room.
Where the room isn’t,
there’s room for you.

So the profit in what is
is in the use of what isn’t.
LAO TZU

1. Out of clutter, find simplicity.
2. From discord, find harmony.
3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
ALBERT EINSTEIN (three rules of work)

One last thing:

A lot of folks seem to believe that they need a certain brand of banjo, or that they would be a better musician if they had more talent (as if there was such a thing).

Before you bemoan your fate look around you.

Think about the places you have been, and the things that you have done.

Realize just how lucky you really are.

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life.

One day he passed a wealthy merchant’s house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. “How powerful that merchant must be!” thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant. To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. “How powerful that official is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a high official!” Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. “How powerful the sun is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be the sun!” Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. “How powerful that storm cloud is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a cloud!” Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. “How powerful it is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be the wind!” Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it – a huge, towering rock. “How powerful that rock is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a rock!” Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. “What could be more powerful than I, the rock?” he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

There is a parable about a poor man walking through the woods reflecting upon his many troubles. He stopped to rest against a tree, a magical tree that would instantly grant the wishes of anyone who came in contact with it. He realized he was thirsty and wished for a drink. Instantly a cup of cool water was in his hand. Shocked, he looked at the water, he decided it was safe and drank it. He then realized he was hungry and wished he had something to eat. A meal appeared before him. “My wishes are being granted,” he thought in disbelief. “Well, then I wish for a beautiful home of my own,” he said out loud. The home appeared in the meadow before him. A huge smile crossed his face as he wished for servants to take care of the house. When they appeared he realized he had somehow been blessed with an incredible power and he wished for a beautiful, loving, intelligent woman to share his good fortune. “Wait a minute, this is ridiculous,”said the man to the woman. “I’m not this lucky. This can’t happen to me.” As he spoke…everything disappeared.

He shook his head and said, “I knew it,” then walked away thinking about his many troubles.

Note:
A lot of the koans here are old stories that can be found in a wide rage ofpublications. If you would like to learn more please stop by one of the best sites I have found on the subject, Zen stories to share with your neighbors http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/zenstory/zenstory.html