Re: Bob Brozman

["Rick Walker" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Dennis wrote:

"Actually, all those trance-inducement practices depend on their mutual
abilities to trigger the appropriate brain-wave activity ,,,,,,,,

........... while the "manifestations" appear different (internal
vs. external, mental vs. physical, etc.,) those can pretty easily be
attributed to the culturally different "set" of the trance-induction
situation itself. Musically, or should I say
physio-psycho-acoustically, the same things are happening in all of
the traditions.

...............................

It all comes down to brainwaves. If you can train in on those, you can
trigger it.

After all, remember what the dormouse said ..."

Feed your head,   Feed your head.

thanks for your insight,  Dennis.
I respect your knowledge on this subject but  my own experience doesn't 
agree
entirely with your conclusions (it's okay to agree to disagree, here, I 
think and I want to
let you know that I respect your research and personal experiences)

The only thing I can say is that after having done  a tradtional Peyote 
sweat lodge  ritual with completely non-syncopated rhythms
and having watched a Haitian Vodun ceremony where people were 'possessed' 
by 
the Orishas after the famous 'crack in the universe'
polyrhythmic breaks were played that disrupted the trance inducing 
polyrhythmic drumming of the three drummers, the quality of
trance was vastly different in form and energy.

I do believe that it's all down to brain rhythms and certain entrainments 
as 
you say,  but I think there are lots of different mental states
that can be achieved by different methods which may differ radically from 
each other, both in their triggers and in their manifestations.
These all are 'altered states'.

I am not,  however,  an expert,  and I'd love to learn more about this 
subject.  I"m only working from what I know  and the intellectual paradigm
that came from the the information theory garnered from studying with 
Gregory Bateson  and, to a lesser extent,  John Grinder.

It's rather difficult to strap electrodes onto trance participants
 (unless someone has perveresely accomplished this without my 
knowledge---do 
you know more about this, Dennis?)
so it would be difficult to really solve this dialectic from a Western 
scientific pardagimatic approach
but I would be flabbergasted if the brain is doing the same to both sets of
trancees in this case.

What else can you add to this, Dennis?  I"m curious to know more about the 
depth of your knowledge.

respectfully Rick

PS only one thing really bothers me about your post,  I have to admit, 
though:
  why on earth did you stop drumming?
It seems to be one of the very quickest way to get people to entrain that 
I 
know of.

Last night I played with the Akron Family (and the DoDos) at an amazing 
gig 
where
we just played the simplest rhythms in the world and the capacity crowd 
went 
ape shit crazy.
There was definitely trance action happening.  I was aware of it in my 
self..........in the musicians
on the stage and definitely in the crazed dancing crowd by looking in 
their 
ectstatic faces.

  LOL.........................now we have to segue, of course,
back to the tediious drummer joke thread that I inadverntently started 
(with 
apologies to the whole list).

Rick