Passion Play

Redlining the passion gauge

“…years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air.”
  ~ Ramble On

Mage Music 45

Back in the day when hot cars were as all-consuming as the new music brought to us courtesy of such guitar marvels as Jimmy Page, we talked about redlining.  It had nothing to do with smarmy financial practices and everything to do with living on the edge.

The term redline comes from the red bars that are displayed at the high end of a car’s tachometer.  If you were drag racing, street racing or just getting off the stoplight fast because you felt like it, you wanted those RPMs to be high to deliver the most power.  Winding the engine up to the red line got you the maximum possible from the engine at the risk of blowing it up.  It was dangerous, it could be costly.

It was worth it.  We couldn't help ourselves - we were passionate about the cars and the music and pushing the envelope.

Passion

On the emotional tachometer, passion is the human redline.  It’s not something that can ever be truly satisfied because it’s not like a desire for ice cream that goes away after you've had a banana split.  Passion is enduring and powerful - and when you mess with passion, you are in a handle-with-care state of being.

If you're a Mage, though, you can't avoid passion - it is actually two-thirds of the process of Magick.  

Desire can range from mild thoughts to an all-consuming lust for something.  Will - the drive to do something about that desire – can range from barely there to an unrelenting force.  When combined desire and will are at the high end of the emotional range, they earn the label of passion. 

You don't have to be a Mage to intuitively understand that any ritual of Magick needs to have some oomph behind it.  No one would expect a ritual to amount to much if the Mage only kinda-sorta wanted to, and only more-or-less felt like doing it.  With a car, high octane fuel provides more compression before detonating. Passion is high octane fuel for Magick.

But like with a car engine, redlining passion is risky.  Powerful surges of emotion are like powerful surges of adrenaline or high octane car fuel – they have to be burned off before they blow up the engine.  With adrenaline you have to take physical action.  With powerful emotion at the level of passion you have to feel it, surrender to it and let it take you where it will because if you try to control it you risk blowing up. 

Here's the tricky part:  The powerful surges of passion are barely controllable, and yet a Mage must channel passion through the ritual, the controlled component of Magick.  The Mage must have the technical ability to do justice to the music, and that ability must live in muscle memory so it doesn't constrict the flow of passion.  The skill (technique) must be such that the Mage doesn't think about the musical instrument as much as let it be played directly by the passion.

It's simple but...
If Magick was easy, everyone would be a Mage.  If channeling passion through a musical instrument was easy, everyone would be a Mage Musician. Magick is simple but it is not easy.

"That's my lifetime achievement - that people would be inspired by the music."

~ Jimmy Page, Echo music award 2013

Mage Music and music lovers everywhere congratulate Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin on receiving the Echo music award.  Believe me, we're inspired.

Ain't No Emo Here

"I don't deal in technique, I deal in emotions."
   ~ Jimmy Page 1977 Guitar Player interview.

Mage Music 44

Magick is a process of desire + will + ritual. Yes, I know I keep telling you that, but only because it's so important. Each of the parts is necessary, and the whole is fueled by emotion. It's possible that powerful enough desire and will could drive the Magickal process without emotion fueling it, but it's hard to believe any Mage with that much will and desire could be emotionless about it. After all, emotion fuels just about everything we humans do.  Emotion is connected with the most primitive parts of our brain - and not coincidentally, so is music.

It is because of the close inner connection of music and emotion that hearing music can make us feel emotion. In a sense, music (or the right kind of music) is emotion made manifest in the world.

The right kind of music - Mage Music - draws emotion out of our hearts and souls, mixes it with Magick and returns it to us so we are uplifted and purified.  Emotion:  It's what we live for. The rest is just experience that gives context for the emotion.  That's why we listen to Mage Music - it may not be the most beautiful, technically brilliant stuff, but it delivers what we crave.


Ain't Emo  

Not to pick on Emo, but it really is a poor excuse for what Wikipedia says is supposed to be "emotional hardcore" music.  I don't think so.  Emotion expressed as music isn't from "melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics" but is from Magick.  A Mage digs deep into his own emotion and puts it forth through the ritual of music. No wonder Jimmy Page, having become arguably the most technically accomplished guitarist in the world, left technique behind in favor of the messy business of emotion.  If a musician can't deliver emotion, then all he's delivering is sound.  It might be entertaining but it won't be Magick.

♪ ♪ ♪ 

Playlist

You might want to go back to listen to last week's playlist just for the pleasure of hearing how Jimmy Page pushes the envelope, exploring new ways to bring forth emotion in his music.  I love listening to the music I chose for this week's playlist because Domino (which is on both week's lists) and both the Embryos are such gutsy, meaty pieces.  No emo there - they are luscious and dripping with emotion and not a confessional lyric to be heard.  That's why I prefer Mr. Page's instrumentals - no matter how brilliant a vocalist he might perform with, it is Jimmy Page who brings the Magick to the music and it is his work I want to hear.

Domino evolved to become Embryo No. 2.  There are echos of the past and hints of the future in these two works, and that's worth listening for as well.

I threw in the bit of Ramble On that Jimmy Page did for It Might Get Loud because of his overdubbed commentary.  And last but not least, I find Jimmy Page's words at the end of Domino to be particularly lovely:  "That's the first time I've played that number for anybody, so thank you very much indeed."

No, thank YOU, Mr. Page.

It's Your Magick Too

"A rock concert is in fact a rite involving the evocation and transmutation of energy."
~ William Burroughs, Crawdaddy Magazine, June 1975. Rock Magic: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, And a search for the elusive Stairway to Heaven 


Mage Music 43

This week's Mage Music came about because of a birthday playlist request.  You may have noticed I stopped doing playlists in these posts.  I realized how much time choosing the right music takes and, as important as this blog is to me, I nevertheless decided I needed to use that time for other things.  That makes this playlist a little more special.

I wanted to pick songs that have Magick for me personally (even though the list is meant for someone else), not just songs that are well performed.  The songs are not necessarily beautiful, the playlist doesn't even flow well from one song to the next.  I picked the songs because it seems to me in each one Jimmy Page was pushing, exploring, reaching for something deeper and more meaningful than ordinary music conveys.  I chose these particular songs, too, because the more closely I listen, the more they prompt me to join in that reaching.

This made me think about Mr. Burroughs' comment about what a rock concert is about, and what music brings to us, the audience - or, more specifically, about the Magick from the audience point of view whether or not the audience is at a live concert.

But I'm not going to talk about any of that this week.

You'll have to forgive me - or be PO'd if you prefer - for my not going further with these ideas right now.  I'm taking a little time off for other work.   Perhaps some of you have thoughts on this - I welcome them.  Right now, though, I'm leaving you with the birthday playlist and getting back to my other work.  Enjoy!





PLAYLIST

Note:  I recommend not looking at the visuals, and not paying attention to lyrics.  These songs are about the vision of Jimmy Page as expressed through the music produced by his own guitar.

White Summer Black Mountain Side	1969 (live)  Led Zeppelin June 27, 1969 London's Playhouse Theatre First released on LZ 4-disc boxed set 11/08/90
Lucifer Rising Outtake 2	1972 (studio) Jimmy Page, Album: Lucifer Rising
Guitar Solo	1977 (live)  Led Zeppelin  May 30, 1977 Landover MD (from bootleg Double Shot - sorry, the end of the song is cut off for some reason)
Cadillac	1986 (studio)  The Firm, Album: Mean Business
Emerald Eyes	1988 (studio)  Jimmy Page, Album:  Outrider
Saccharin	1993 (studio)  Jimmy Page, David Coverdale.  Unreleased.
Domino	1999 (live)  Jimmy Page, NetAid Benefit Concert.  Unreleased.
Nobody's Fault But Mine	2007 (live)  Led Zeppelin + Jason Bonham, Celebration Day O2 Concert
Ramble On	2008 (live) Foo Fighters, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones.  Wembley Stadium.
Summer's Day	2011 Happy birthday, Sue Clement.  Hope your day is special.

Devolution Device

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est: And thus knowledge itself is power 

~ Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrae (1597)

Mage Music 42

Back in Merlin's day Magick was still an accepted scientia, that is, a form of knowledge.  Today scientia is understood to be a discipline with exclusionary rules rather than of direct and personal knowledge. Magick has been reduced to the sleight of hand of Las Vegas, which is no Magick at all.

Magick is scientia in the original meaning of the term.  Knowledge of the true nature of Magick persists, though modern science can't explain it.  These days if a thing isn't science then science says the thing is fiction, and that makes the scientia of Magick harder than it has to be.  Of course, Magick never has been easy, truth be told - not even for a Merlin. After all, Magick taps into the foundational energy of the Universe, and if that isn't a challenge then what is?

Ironically, humans have an intuitive knowledge of how the Universe and its parts work because not only do humans live in this Universe - they are a microcosm of it. How could humans not understand Magick, then? We only have to look within.

Do Not Enter

Science has made fiction of Magick in self-defense, even though Magick is an extraordinary and yet natural process of human manipulation of energy that works perfectly well. Magick has an impact on reality that can be directly known, if not exactly duplicated, measured and quantified. So what does it matter if science can't explain it? 

It matters because what Sir Francis said is absolute truth: Knowledge itself is power. How could anyone have control over anyone else if everyone could have knowledge... and thus power?  Ideas like that give entities that are in positions of control (governments, religions, science and other institutions) the willies - it's bad enough to them that there are artists loose out there.   

We have no Merlin these days because people with true knowledge threaten the social, scientific and political status quo, and wielders of true scientia can't afford to be blatant about it.  There isn't an Inquisition any more, but history warns us that there are plenty of ways of dealing with Mages that are darned effective besides inflicting physical pain, as traditional as that has been.

Still, there's no stopping scientia.   Discretion may be the name of the game in these modern, so-called "enlightened" times, but there still is Magick and there still are Mages. Some of them just don't use the same tools of the trade as Merlin did.

Just for fun

All In Good Time

The Mage musician's first notes begin to weave the spell.  It becomes harder and harder for the listener to focus on the guitar’s individual sound as the ritual builds.  The music becomes ripe with meaning above and beyond lyrics or melody…  and then suddenly Magick bursts into the world. 

Mage Music 41

Mage Music 41 - All In Good Time

Oh please.

In the movies and sword & sorcery books – and in wishful thinking - people believe that all it takes is waving wands or casting spells and then some Magick happens.  Sorry – that is just fiction, not reality. Even the greatest ritual, fueled by the most powerful desire and will, doesn't get Magickal results just like that <snap of fingers>.

Yes, the description at the beginning of this post is real enough – as far as it goes.  The thing is, Magick is not just the song you hear or the ritual you see, and Magick doesn't happen the moment the Mage says so mote it be.  

When you’re taken up by the Magick of the music - or the movie or novel - it's easy to overlook the fact that the real-life back story would have to include how long it took the hero Mage (or the bad-guy sorcerer) to reach the level of proficiency needed to get to that point.  Even if some of the months or even years of struggle to master the skills is depicted on screen or in print, having to actually sit through a the truth of all that hard work (work that is likely liberally sauced with failure) would be boring enough that you'd demand your money back.

Fiction can skip all the slow parts, but reality can't.  The reality is that little Jimmy put in hour after hour learning to master his guitar, taking days and weeks and months and years to prepare for stepping onto the stage and "effortlessly" creating Magick.

Time is of the essence

One of the defining aspects of ritual is time.

Dealing with time is an art in itself.  The infinite is timeless and all things that can happen in reality are happening at the same time.  Magick is, among other things, an interface between the finite and the infinite, and thus Magick partakes of the timelessness of the infinite to a degree.  It is the sequentiality of time on the human plane that keeps things from happening all at once, including in Magickal ritual.

Humans, even Mages, can’t help being stuck in sequential time, but that is a good thing.  Without sequential time we would not have music.  Inherent in movement is stopping, inherent in sound is silence. Thus, part of the art of dealing with time is knowing when to pause and when to stop – to know when enough is about to become too much.

The Mage begins the Work long before the first note of the guitar resonates in the world.  The requirements of the ritual have shaped the preparation; the preparation provides the momentum that builds over time until the point of change is imminent.  Only then is the first note of ritual sounded.  The ritual must take only the time needed to tip the momentum into change. More than that is too much, for Magick happens in its own good time. Amen.

Two for the price of one

“We went in there with such a will....”

     ~ Jimmy Page, BBC interview 2007

Mage Music 40

There are a couple of things I want to talk about very briefly today.  They really should be two separate posts but oh well. This week you get two for the price of one.

Leveraging
There are two ways for a person to move a very heavy object:  Work at it really, really hard or use leverage.  Smart people don’t sweat it if they don’t have to, and Mages don’t get very far without being smart.

A Mage would have to be very, very powerful to generate all the energy required from his own person to manifest most of the monumental works of Magick.  Even if he was very, very powerful, the continued effort to fuel Magick that way sooner or later would consume him. We've seen more than one Mage musician flame out that way.  Thank the gods (or name your deity of choice) that a smart Mage can leverage power by tapping into the energy of the infinite.

Giving up the need to control, giving up specificity of process in favor of letting the Universe provide answers while still using desire and will to focus the energy through ritual is not as easy as it sounds.  It requires a master-level juggling act of Magick to pull it off.  I think we all agree that Jimmy Page is capable of that.

Most musicians would make playing at the highest level possible the primary goal for a one-off performance like the O2 Concert.  It would be a “have to do” thing - yet ironically, having to put forth a best performance makes it harder to reach.  That kind of pressure can lead to performance anxiety, to fatal doubt that undermines Magick by weakening the will.

They - Jimmy Page et al - didn't do that, though. Instead,  they went onstage with the desire to live in the musical moment, using their will to follow their hearts the way they always had.  Rather than attempting to force the manifestation, they felt their way to their desired end by following the sound and letting it lead them to the Magick.  In letting the music be their master, they opened to the infinite and let the energy pour in.  And we heard it as Mage music.

But was it really Magick?

What if Magick was just a fiction, only existing in novels about kids with lightning bolts on their foreheads, or TV shows featuring professional wizards who consult with skulls named Bob?

What if there was no such thing as Mage music?

Nah.

We know Magick exists because we hear it for ourselves when we listen to the music of Jimmy Page. We recognize it personally when the Mage himself creates it right in front of our eyes (or ears). We know Mage music because we experience it.  We live in it and because it becomes part of ourselves we don't need anyone else to tell us when it's there. We know Magick is real because we feel it.

When the music sings in our own souls and we resonate with it and are brought out of ourselves to something more than these physical bodies because of it - that is Magick.

That is Mage music.  Thank you, Mr. Page.