The Music Mind Experience
“Transforming the way we listen and play”
Addressing players (of any instrument) and listeners
(of any kind of music)
Players
- Expanding on the strategies outlined in “The Music Mind Experience”
- Responding to questions
- Adding new insights, points and stories
Listeners
- Expanding on the points outlined in “The Music Mind Experience”
- Responding to questions
- Life is Music: Exploring Music Mind principles for leading a better life
- The Spiritual Dimension of Music Mind
Life is Music
It is through listening that you will be able to cultivate joy within your mind and make your mind stable. It is through listening that you will be able to cultivate wisdom and be able to remove ignorance.
Dalai Lama
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. And the rational mind is a faithful server. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift
Albert Einstein
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Book Information:
Front Cover
Karl Berger:
“The Music Mind Experience”
Karl Berger’s book The Music Mind Experience is all about how we feel when we listen to or play music; and how we can intensify the powers of musical vibration in both listening and playing, transforming them into unforgettable experiences and convincing performances. “Karl gives us the tools to play a single note, or the phrases of an Indian Raga, with a state of mind which holds the present moment with spacious awareness” comments the bansuri flutist Steve Gorn. “Even the simplest musical thought can be a profound experience”, adds rock violinist David Soldier. Karl states: “We reach beyond all intellectual and stylistic concepts and let ourselves feel the magic and abundance of intuitive playing and listening that we all naturally share”.
Karl Berger’s book The Music Mind Experience is all about how we feel when we listen to or play music; and how we can intensify the powers of musical vibration in both listening and playing, transforming them into unforgettable experiences and convincing performances. “Karl gives us the tools to play a single note, or the phrases of an Indian Raga, with a state of mind which holds the present moment with spacious awareness” comments the bansuri flutist Steve Gorn. “Even the simplest musical thought can be a profound experience”, adds rock violinist David Soldier. Karl states: “We reach beyond all intellectual and stylistic concepts and let ourselves feel the magic and abundance of intuitive playing and listening that we all naturally share”.
Musician’s Responses
This book has something of deep value for everyone: musician and listener. It is a fantastic resource. In my opinion, required reading for musicians at any level from novice to master. Very easy to read and follow, it reveals a lifetime of dedication and study.
Karl’s purpose is to “reach beyond all intellectual concepts and to feel the magic of intuitive playing and listening that we are all born with.” That’s it!!! That’s what it’s all about.
The language of music belongs to each of us and The Music Mind Experience honors that, giving us all something to explore.
Karl’s purpose is to “reach beyond all intellectual concepts and to feel the magic of intuitive playing and listening that we are all born with.” That’s it!!! That’s what it’s all about.
The language of music belongs to each of us and The Music Mind Experience honors that, giving us all something to explore.
John Medeski
Keyboardist, composer
Read this fascinating book, the summary of a lifetime’s experience of Karl Berger, founder of the Creative Music Studio. He beautifully describes what all successful music performance is about. Feeling, flow, presence and more...
I feel a strong resonance to everything Karl says. He shows us that music is a universal language and that we all have a hidden capacity of unexplored, infinite creative potential. Listening is the key to all the Music Mind points. Yes!
This is a very practical and honest book, full of wisdom, with a beautiful spiritual dimension. A good companion for creative musicians as well as music lovers.
I feel a strong resonance to everything Karl says. He shows us that music is a universal language and that we all have a hidden capacity of unexplored, infinite creative potential. Listening is the key to all the Music Mind points. Yes!
This is a very practical and honest book, full of wisdom, with a beautiful spiritual dimension. A good companion for creative musicians as well as music lovers.
Markus Stockhausen
Trumpeter, composer
I think Karl’s book is miraculous because it speaks in a simple but profound way to musicians of any background. And it will be very useful in the life of listeners, including other dimensions of communication. It opens worlds. Karl’s direct way of speaking can lead to this book becoming a real universal treatise on music of all time.
Luciano Troja
Pianist, composer
In Karl Berger’s (with Rick Maurer) scintillating The Music Mind Experience: Playing, Lis- tening, Singing, Moving, music and musicmaking are metaphor for life and living. The book grips from beginning to end, like a satisfying Miles Davis classic. Pulsing with lively ideas about why and how we make music, and bursting with personal anecdotes from, and remembrances about, some of the greatest musicians from the world of jazz and beyond, The Music Mind Experience offers an opening into a world view; it is as much a philosophical tome or a spiritual guidebook as it is a book about music and is essential reading for all.
Laura Kaminsky
Composer
Reading Karl’s book reminds me of what I’ve learned from conversations with the great musicians I’ve known. These masters spoke the truth about getting in the “flow” and the best mental attitude while playing. I’ve found that these techniques are universal .
Karl’s book speaks to these - reading through it makes me more confident that I’m on the right path.
Karl’s book speaks to these - reading through it makes me more confident that I’m on the right path.
John Scofield
Guitarist, composer
Karl Berger shows that no matter the style of music you make or listen to, there are universal ingredients. These are: a sense for rhythm, a sense for sound, a sense for space, and a sense for dynamics. By cultivating these, even the simplest musical thought can be a profound experience. Take up this master chef ’s advice on how to combine these senses to taste for your own artistic recipes.
Dr. David Sulzer aka David Soldier
Composer/violinist, neuro-scientist
This is a fantastic book that will inspire folks for generations. “The Music Mind Experience” is a deep lifelong study. Karl Berger, the founding father of the Creative Music Studio, along with vocalist Ingrid Sertso, has lived the life of music. Collaborating with writer Rick Maurer this series of interviews is an amazing document of thoughts and impressions that give us all an insightful way of thinking and feeling the Music of the Universe. I LOVED IT !
Joe Lovano
Saxophonist, composer
Karl Berger has been, and continues to be, of great value to many of us, in many ways; in his lifetime as an educator he has made it OK for hoards of musicians to explore their particular and personal musical identities without fear of censure, and he has played some scintillating, provocative music along the way too. His openness to the world around him has allowed him to grow throughout his life; this book can only be the product of someone who jumps out of bed every morning with his sense of adventure intact. Sadly, education is often deadening. But in Karl’s hands, and in the pages of this book, it’s bursting with life.
Carla Bley
Pianist, composer
This book will be of interest and very useful to all musicians, regardless of genre. I am reading it with every spare minute I have. It is very clear, and it is an inspiration. Congratulations on making such a wonderful summing up of your great contribution to music teaching, perform- ing and listening.
Tom Buckner
Vocalist, composer
Amid an ever rising tide of materials on music education, every so often an absolute gem appears, with Karl Berger’s The Music Mind Experience a shining example. Written by a preeminent artist/pedagogue/visionary, the book reminds us of the interior, spiritual foundations that must assume a central role in any sort of program of musical development and shows how to access this realm. This principle is of particular importance when it comes to navigating a musical landscape that increasingly transcends genre category, a goal around which, of course, Karl originally found- ed the Creative Music Studios in the 1970s. I could not be more delighted to have discovered this resource and partake of yet another of this iconic figure’s seminal contributions to contemporary musical life.
Ed Sarath
Cornetist, composer, University of Michigan
The Music Mind Experience is the culmination of fifty years of thought and teaching by Karl Berger. During those decades Karl has influenced thousands of musicians with his unique insights. You can read about scales and rhythms and chord changes in a lot of other places, but Karl’s teach- ing goes beyond all that. It’s about where we find ourselves when we play: in the sound and in the moment, in the silence and the story.
Karl has never thought about or spoken about music like anyone else. Music Mind is not so much a music lesson as it is a lively conversation between a sophisticated thinker and a thoughtful interviewer. It’s an easy read, but it’s deep. Karl illuminates the experience of playing music with the insights of a philosopher and a practitioner of meditation. This book deals with the subtleties of musicianship that apply to any kind of music - which has been his central theme all along.
If you internalize the wisdom in these pages, it will change you
Karl has never thought about or spoken about music like anyone else. Music Mind is not so much a music lesson as it is a lively conversation between a sophisticated thinker and a thoughtful interviewer. It’s an easy read, but it’s deep. Karl illuminates the experience of playing music with the insights of a philosopher and a practitioner of meditation. This book deals with the subtleties of musicianship that apply to any kind of music - which has been his central theme all along.
If you internalize the wisdom in these pages, it will change you
Larry Chernicoff
Designer, composer