Following Michael’s instruction, I’ve started meditating every day. Well, almost every day. It has really helped me in all aspects of my Life, especially with my connection to Music and the natural world. I’ve also become a fairly decent naturalist and tracker. I attribute most of it to daily meditation.
Things are really going well now that I’ve processed most of what Michael has shown me. His lessons and concepts were relatively simple to grasp once I was made aware of them. I also had to become familiar with his teaching style. For example: When he first told me that notes were overrated, I didn’t quite understand what he was getting at. I found out later that he didn’t actually believe that statement. He’d told me that just to make me focus more on the other elements. He felt, as I now do, that the other elements are neglected by most teachers and musicians and that they need more attention. I finally understand it.
His stretching-the-truth style of teaching was new to me, but once I understood how and why it was used, I added it to my own teaching method.
Awareness was also an integral part of his teachings, and it’s become a part of mine. He made me aware of things that I’d never thought about. Now that I’ve tuned in to his way of thinking, I’ve made it my own and produce my own miracles.
One day while I was in an art museum in Paris, a strange thing happened. I noticed a string of faint but glowing tracks on the marble floor. I’d never seen tracks like those, so I did what any tracker would’ve done; I followed them. They led me to a kid who’d been separated from his parents. He told me that he’d stopped to look at something, and when he turned around, they were gone. His tears were almost too much for me to bear. I found an employee and told her what was going on. That led to a quick and happy reunion with his family. The incident wasn’t as strange as the fact that the whole thing took place in French. I’d never spoken French until that moment.
It was later that I remembered getting the tingling feeling when I saw the boy’s tears. It was the same feeling I get every time I sense the hawk or when I picked up Uncle Clyde’s harmonica and realized I could play it. The feeling is still kind of surreal. Like a premonition, it always precedes the experience. Whenever it shows up, I know that something special is soon to follow. I finally understand my childhood attraction to Spider Man. It’s as if I have my very own spidey sense.
When I returned from Paris it started happening all the time. I would just know things without knowing where the knowledge came from. At first it surprised me, but now I expect it. This confidence makes it come on even stronger. Every time it happens, I joke with myself that it’s Michael inside my head.
Thanking my bass is a new habit of mine. I used to give thanks only when I was about to eat a meal, but now I say “thank you” to everything. I thank my headaches, my clothes, my television, and my Life. And I thank Music. I thank everything all the time, and it really makes a difference.
The first time I really thanked my bass was an amazing experience. The whole concept was new to me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, but I poured myself into it.
I thanked the tuning pegs for enduring the heat as they were being melted down. I thanked the strings for being wound and twisted. I thanked the wood for being cut, scraped, and sanded. I thanked the wires, the pickups, the electronics, and batteries. I even thanked the people and thoughts involved in manufacturing each part. I thanked everything I could think of for going through what it went through in order to produce an instrument for my benefit. I also apologized for not doing so before. The whole process took about twenty minutes.
Once I was finished, I stood up, put my guitar in its case, and picked up my other bags. As I bent down to pick up my bass, it seemed to lift itself and fly over my shoulder. I stood there in shock. Usually the case alone is enough to give me a backache, but that time it felt as light as a feather. Aw man Michael, this stuff really works.
The strangest of all coincidences happened while I was visiting my parents in Virginia. I was in between tours and had decided to go back to my hometown for a few days of vacation. While I was there I made contact with many old friends and spent some quality time with my folks.
I decided, for some reason, to go out jogging early one morning. When I got outside I realized that it was a bit chillier than I thought; I hadn’t dressed appropriately. The sun had not yet risen enough to warm the day. Running was not my favorite hobby, and I was not about to run while cold.
Not wanting to waste any time, I went back to my parents’ house to grab the first thing I could find to stay warm. Realizing that I’d locked myself out of their house, I grabbed my mom’s yellow rain jacket off the porch and the wide-brimmed brown hat my dad used for gardening. Since my folks weren’t up yet, I figured I could use the garments without them being missed. I realized that the clothes, along with my blue running tights, would make me a peculiar sight.
I ran further than I thought I would that morning. Not being an experienced jogger, I found myself exhausted, several miles from my parents’ house. I’d forgotten that I would have to run back. I decided to walk.
On my way home, I decided to take a shortcut (or so I thought) through a department store parking lot. From a distance I noticed what looked like a unicycle leaning against the store’s garbage Dumpster. Getting closer, I realized I was right. A longtime fan of the circus, I took the unicycle, planning to make it ride-able someday. The rim was bent, making the wheel wobble as I rolled it down the street.
The town had changed a lot since I was last there. That, coupled with the shortcut, had me thoroughly disoriented. Once I realized I was lost, it happened.
It started with the now-familiar tingle, which was stronger than usual that day. I didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but I knew that something or someone was speaking to me. I heightened my awareness and sent out my feelers in every direction. Nothing stood out so I kept walking until I reached the next apartment complex. It was there that things started to feel familiar although nothing was recognizable.
As I walked by, I noticed a flash of light come from somewhere on the third floor of one of the buildings. I wondered if it was just a reflection from the sun. Unable to ignore it, I found myself walking up the stairs to the third floor, unicycle in tow.
Once I reached the area where the flash had come from, I noticed I was standing outside an apartment. The door was right in front of me. Don’t ask me why, but I just walked right in.
As I entered the apartment I could immediately tell I was in a single man’s home. Stuff was scattered everywhere. I looked across the room and noticed a young man in his early twenties sleeping on the couch with, you guessed it, an electric bass guitar in his lap.
Interesting. I walked over to get a closer look. As soon as I was standing in front of him, his eyes opened.
“Who are you?” he asked, maybe calmer than he should’ve been.
Not knowing what else to say, I went with my gut. “I am your teacher,” I answered.
“Teacher of what?”
“Nothing.”
“How’d you get in here?” he questioned.
“You asked me to come.”
“I did? Did I give you a key?”
“I don’t need a key.”
“What are you gonna teach me?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?”
“Exactly that. Nothing. I can teach you nothing because no one can teach anybody anything. But I can show you things.”
“Can you show me music?” he asked.
“Yes I can, but not as well as Music herself can show you.”
“What do you mean ‘music herself ’?”
“You’ll see, or not,” I answered, sporting a Cheshire-cat grin of my own.
“If you’re not a teacher, who are you and what do I call you?”
I thought before I answered. I could’ve told him anything. “Victor,” I said. “Call me Victor.”
He sat up on the edge of the couch. “Ok
ay, Victor, let’s get started then.”
Wow, he’s already much further along than I was. I wasn’t sure if I was as ready as my new student seemed to be.
Then I realized what was happening. For the first time I fully understood what Michael was getting at when he told me something about being the “keeper of the flame.”
“Remember,” Michael had said, “it is easy to learn to play your instrument, but playing it well is not enough. It is time for you to enter the world of a true musician. It is time for you to become an ally of Music and share her blessings. You are now the keeper of the flame. Please keep that flame alive and do not, I say, do not allow Music to die.”
What am I getting myself into? I’m not Michael. This is his gig, not mine. But I was there and he wasn’t. So I decided to go with it. What else was I to do?
As I started to take a seat, I glanced down at myself, realizing what I must look like. “Dress and act ordinary, and you produce ordinary students,” were the words that came to mind. I decided, at that moment, to do my best to live up to that statement.
Michael would be proud. Playing with that kid’s mind was already fun, and I was looking forward to more.
Accepting my new role I took my seat, pulled the brim down over my eyes, and held the unicycle in my lap. Sitting poised and ready, I prepared to strum the spokes.
“Where do you want to begin?” I asked the kid.
As he sat up in his chair, an all-too-familiar phrase was spoken:
“Boy, do I have a lot to learn!”
About the Author
Victor Lemonte Wooten is a four-time Grammy Award-winning musician and a three-time winner of Bass Player magazine’s Player of the Year award (the only bass player to win this award more than once).
The youngest of five brothers, he started playing the bass guitar around the age of two and was the bass player in the family band, The Wooten Brothers, before he started school. Victor credits his brothers and his parents for his outlook on Music and Life.
His unique gifts as well as his love for sharing them inspired writer Paul Hargett to write an authorized biography about him titled Me and My Bass Guitar (Amberock Publications, www.meandmybassguitar.com).
He continues to record and tour with his own band and as an original member of the Grammy Award-winning ensemble Béla Fleck & the Flecktones.
Victor lives with his wife and four kids in a log cabin near Nashville, Tennessee.
To find out more about Victor Lemonte Wooten, his Music, his Music books, his camps, and other interests, please visit:
www.victorwooten.com
www.thebassvault.com
www.flecktones.com
The Music Lesson Page 25
