Naturally, I’m curious about it. I know what it is, sort of. And I want it to happen all the time, but don’t know how. When it does happen, it feels like a miracle. That, and like an old friend too.
    Let me explain.
    First of all, before I get to that, I need to tell you about creating jazz music. There’s a technical side to what makes a song jazzy. That special vibe comes from augmenting root chords with major 7ths and 9ths, putting parts of the riff on the off-beat, and resolving dissonance in a particular way. Oh, and there’s the Devil’s Interval. Come up to my keyboard at the coffee shop and have me demonstrate that thing for you (if you dare!). Over the last few years my practice sessions have been exploratory, finding what technical nuance produces what jazzy feeling. Songs emerge, search for their own jazz vibe integrity, get polished up. After a few weeks I’m confident enough with them to share them with the public.
    A coffee shop is a wonderful place to do so. I’m on eye level with my listeners rather than in a pit or on a stage. Being physically close I can sense what folks are tuning into. It’s great when they come up to the piano and talk with me. Recently, an amazingly articulate five year-old in a wonderful purple dress engaged me in a delightful conversation. More about her later.
    But there are some coffee shop disadvantages. Most people relegate my music to the background, choosing to just scroll on their phones or focus on their table conversations. Occasionally, those table conversations get loud. Laughter sometimes breaks out in the middle of a perfectly serene and reflective piece of jazz. And then there’s the noise from the blender shredding up the ice cubes for the smoothies. It kind of shreds the sound space too.  
    Those sort of things can take my mind away, cause me to lose my place in the music. Which is why I have to figure this thing out, this thing I mentioned at the outset of the blog.
    Let me describe it. When it’s there, I become one with the music despite what is going on around me. My gut feels the emotion of the song. The song’s wisdom is whispered yet again in my ear. All vestiges of nervousness disappear along with the fear that I’ll probably just flub things up.
    I am in the zone.
    The amazing thing is that sometimes other people join me there, in that zone, not as musicians but as listeners. I feel them in there with me. So this zone thing is not just in my mind but also a space people can share together.
    Do you remember the little girl wearing the purple dress? That day she came up to talk with me she also joined me in the zone. She danced, first as if she was a solo dancer on stage and then she brought her younger brother to dance with her, ballroom style.
    But the bubble of the zone can burst. And, I’m out of it again, back to just playing riffs, harmonies and off-beat rhythms. I might even loose my place in the song, end up in some musical blind alley, have to go back and orient myself again.
    It’s not at all how I want to be. That is why I need to figure this thing out. So, I have set about noticing everything I can about being in the zone. In doing so, I’ve realized something.
    Let me explain (yet again!).
    My most recent piano lesson was about fifty-five years ago. Back then I was reading music off the page. My teacher taught me to always be reading the music a bar or two ahead, ready for what was coming up next, the immediate next. Doing that, what I was playing at the moment could seamlessly transition into the subsequent musical phrase.
    Now while playing my original jazz compositions it helps to stay in the moment by being mindful that the moment is about what is emerging rather than just what is. It is never about the end of the song, just the immediate next. It is about listening for how this moment evolves, what comes naturally from it.
This is not the first time that I have had experiences in the zone. It happened before when I was working as a psychotherapist.
    Let me give you some background. As therapists we were taught intricate theories about human personality, mental disorders, development across the age span, relationship vulnerabilities, psychological trauma. Then we were taught protocols of interaction with our clients that were scientifically researched to insure they would be helpful. We were schooled extensively in proper ethical behaviour. All this stuff was to be running around in our brains while we talked to our clients so we would do the right thing with them.
    Typically when I was working as a psychologist, if you were to stop me mid-session I could give you a good account of where within all of those teachings I was in working with my client at that moment.    But occasionally, a session would take place when all that other stuff went from my mind. My client and I shared a natural engagement of presence, and wisdom, and compassion, and hope. A profound respect for the personhood of the other had taken over. It would feel enormously deep and infinitely long. While in that engagement, we could allow an immediate next to emerge: a next feeling, a next understanding, a next intention. However after the session when I would come to do my notes, I couldn’t remember the content of what we’d talked about. There was simply the sense that some profound healing had taken place.
    I had been in the zone.
Oh, and by the way. There are Youtube videos on being in the zone. I haven’t watched them.