What is your area of expertise?

[tiltbillings]

(Not very Buddhist to plug ones website huh?)

It is neither nor. No problem doing so in the Lounge.

[Mawkish1983]

Gooood, 'cause I do so all the time!

[pt1]

It is interesting to see that music figures in quite a lot of postings here. Is there a special affinity between music/musicians and buddhism?

Maybe it's just that musicians have that incessant need for an audience, hence they're the ones who post most often ... Yeah, I'm an amateur musician too

Best wishes

[Anicca]

It would also be interesting if those who are musicians, would write a little about what instrument and what kind of music they are playing.

Percussion - everything from pre-cambrian to post modern - it all uses percussion!

[Phra Chuntawongso]

I guess I am expert at getting it wrong.
So often I just seem to forget that suffering is neither mine,or is permanent.
I am a vipassana meditation teacher,but would not say I was an expert in this field,still a rookie.

[alan]

Hi Annica
You must be an Art Blakey fan!

[alan]

Anicca--here is what happens to those who get too caught up in the percussion. http://www.flickr.com/photos/49904366@N06/4671115308/

[Kare]

Hi Annica
You must be an Art Blakey fan!

I'm a great fan of The Animal:

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[Annapurna]

It is interesting to see that music figures in quite a lot of postings here. Is there a special affinity between music/musicians and buddhism?

I think it has more to do with "more male posters" than female posters..

I noticed that nearly all the men I know have a large collection of music while women don't...

Do you think it could have to do with usually women getting serenaded by male admirers and less vice versa?

Human birds, so to say?

(I would not call it areas of expertise)? Well, Dhamma (of course), and ancient history and languages (and lots of other things ...)

History and languages here too. Nothing like a well researched history novel, docu or movie, -I used to abhor history and have learned in this new way a lot more than in school.

[Annapurna]

I was in a rock band in the 60's.....The rest is silence, he said mysteriously.

Oh, no, just WHO are you, who -oo??

[PeterB]

No, I am not Pete T. I should be so rich.

[bodom]

No, I am not Pete T. I should be so rich.

Peter Beckett? lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Beckett" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Anicca]

You must be an Art Blakey fan!

One of many!

I'm a great fan of The Animal

Got plenty of the Animal style when needed - never enough of the Buddy Rich masterful finesse though!

Counting measures rest in the Orchestra taught meditation - huge periods of physical inactivity (sitting - hands in lap - vision going blurry) - yet you do not dare lose your place (mindfulness) - one pointedness focused on the music - 4 gazillion measures of changing meter Tchaikovsky to get to that single triangle 'ting'!

Improvisation taught anatta. There are pipelines of creativity that flow through the universe that can take many forms - one form being music. When the body becomes the conduit and the creativity flows through the body and out the instrument - magic happens.

So many times've been asked - "How do you do that?" - only possible answer: - "don't know - i didn't seem to do it - it just happened - can't recreate it..." after a tune, a bandmate - "Yeah - do that again next time!" - answer: "Do what? don't know how it happened..." truly times of not clinging to "what to play" - coupled with a complete willingness to go over the edge, beyond the boundary, to become completely lost in an unknown, uncharted territory - never mindlessly - always focused.
The less the ego - the more things happened that seemed humanly impossible. I can't explain how good it is to find the Buddha's teaching after all the decades of not knowing the Dhamma. It puts so many lifelong experiences in order.

Of course that was improvising - my wife cannot improvise but excels at interpretation - she knows instinctively how to make Mozart Mozart and Bach Bach, if you know what i mean ... but she can't make a lick of music without the black and white notes on paper to guide her... different strokes - different folks - but it is all Dhamma!

[Tex]

I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I'm pretty good with a piano and a guitar. After twenty years, there'd be something wrong if I wasn't.

[Kim OHara]

After all the responses so far, I don't know whether I should even bother mentioning my 'area of expertise' ... it's just too ordinary.
I moved out of maths/physics and into music (mainly teaching) soon after leaving school, but I have kept in touch with science in general and particularly (over the last ten years or so) environmental sciences.

Actually, mentioning my music gives me a way to bounce off Tex's comment, 'After twenty years, there'd be something wrong if I wasn't [pretty good with a piano and a guitar].'
A top-level performer was giving a talk to (mostly) adult (mostly) amateurs about building performance skills, and someone asked him about how many years' practice it took to get to a certain level. He said something like, 'Years? Years don't tell you anything, don't matter at all. It's hours of practice that counts. You can play five minutes a week for ten years and get nowhere at all, or you can play eight hours a day for a month and improve out of sight. You know, I reckon we should be like airline pilots and say, "I have X hours on the instrument." That really means something.'
That airline pilot analogy really stayed with me and I have been quoting it to my students ever since.
To those of you who teach: it's yours now. Use it well.
To those who meditate (and isn't that all of us?): It's yours, too.

Kim