Modelling Mozart. With John Cassidy-Rice.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
I’d been looking forward to this meeting as John has done this with us once before a few years ago, and I really enjoyed that session. All inhibitions were supposed to have been left on the table by the door, but I think there were one or two sneakily hung onto!
We started by establishing our music credentials for the task of recreating the last 1000 year’s of music in one short evening. We were all superbly qualified as not one of us was musical! This John assured us was the very best place to start from.
In order to help us be in the correct ‘state’ for composing John helped us discover which part of our brain to use, and we then explored the differences in making sounds from different parts of our body. Talking through our nose, our mouth, our throat, our chest, our belly and with clenched buttocks! If you weren’t there just imagine what you were missing.:-)
Time for a bit of Brain Gym (educational kinesiology) to rev up our right / left connections, and some ear massage to loosen up the spine!  Followed by writing our name with our non-dominant hand. Good thing I knew who I was, ‘cos reading what I had written might have confused me.? We drew some ‘lazy eights’ and incorporated the alphabet again using our wrong hand (in my case the right one) and then had another go at writing our name. I’m now absolutely sure that it was me, the second time was really quite legible. In fact I’m seriously thinking of using that hand in preference to the other spider.
John then outlined Mozart’s composing strategy.
He would begin with a good feeling (+K) then he would start moving or walking and soon sounds would begin to make themselves. Apparently he wouldn’t write a note of music until he had composed the entire work and could see the whole picture in his head. Then he would just write it all down, often whilst talking to friends or doing some other simple task. Easy really, two hours should be breeze!
So we started with feeling good. Why wouldn’t we? John helped us to access a time when we had a ‘really good’ feeling, all content free to save possible embarrasment! We explored the submodalities, ramped up the feeling and then split into pairs to help us all take the good feeling and anchor it for future use at will. I think it was shortly after this we took the break to prepare ourselves for the finale!!
Reconvened and refreshed we continued with Mozart’s strategy. The real advantage of our meeting room is its size for wandering about exercises, which is what came next. Mozart would access his good feeling then start walking and moving, sounds would be generated by this movement, as we discovered in our walk around the room. This would be the time, if this was a story, when some poor innocent stranger would inadvertently wander into the room, to be transfixed by the sight of a group of people wandering around, waving their arms and legs in the air and uttering a cachophony of wierd sounds. On this occaision the innocent stranger stayed safely downstairs in the bar and we were not disturbed. Well not by strangers! Possibly by each other? Possibly by our own actions?
Settling back into our circle, now was the moment, when the full awe of our composing could be revealed and set down for posterity, or to be used later in court. This was the point when I became suspicious that some of us had picked up our inhibitions again as we passed the door in, ‘cos not everyone had a sound to contribute to our composition. It didn’t however mar the sheer excellence of the written work we produced. (Is that Mozart turning in his grave?)
And so to the finale. We felt good, we moved, sounds appeared, we wrote them down, they became arranged (or was it deranged?) time to orchestrate them. Ken took the first go at conducting. He arranged the instruments (us) in groups and rehearsed the sounds, checked for level, (technical term) and conducted a brisk little number that left many of us quite breathless, and the rest speechless, or anyway beyond speech! No one felt they could follow such a virtuoso performance. This was great ‘cos it meant I didn’t need to be polite and hold back.
First I needed to rearrange the orchestra. I Matched tones, pitch and inside leg measurements. Pulled the strings, knocked the timpani into shape, and separated the woodwind from the passing wind. Finally all was ready and we launched into a wonderful rendition of new age music. As we shuddered to a magnificent crescendo I must admit a small tear left my eye at the sheer ebullience and dedication to excellence shown by the entire ensemble.
So what was the purpose of all this silliness? Did it move us from our ‘comfort zone’? Did it enable us to discover anything new about ourselves? Was it just a load of fun?
For me there was new information in finding out about Mozart. I might not adopt all of his strategy but I’m sure some of it, particularly ‘state control’ for right brain thinking will be useful. I had a lot of fun. There were plenty of smiles at the end of the performance, so I think everyone enjoyed some part of the evening.
Several times this year the meetings have highlighted our cultural ‘up tightness’. Could we admit to being a Genius at anything? Had we a ‘higher level’ skill to pass on to others? Could we let go of inhibitions long enough to make a new learning?
Is there something we could do about this? Has anyone some ideas? Would this be an interesting subject for modelling? Perhaps if we modelled our own ‘up tightness’ and then modelled an area where we were loose and relaxed we could look at the differences and cross fertilise ourselves to move towards a state of our own excellence and uniqueness. Please comment and give me your views. Email Nigel
Thank you John for your time, your enthusiasm and humour.
Did you know John runs another Practice Group over in Chichester? Follow this link to discover more. Chichester.

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