Cheb-i-Sabbah and the spirituality of the musical moment
Submitted by Palmito on April 8, 2008 - 5:31pm.
My wife Amanda Dates, a yogi from whom I've learned deep lessons, pointed me to this interview with San-Francisco-club-scene icon Cheb-i-Sabbah. She knew I resonated with the sentiment that dancing in clubs is akin to a spiritual moment. Below is another quote I liked from the interview, which - if you substitute "DJ" for "drummer" - expresses something I feel the same about (organized) percussion ensembles:
When you are working at a club, what sort of experience are you hoping to create for people?
An experience of community, of sharing something that is a gift; that's the goal, really. As a DJ you have one or two hours when you have this fantastic feeling of participating in a kind of trance. That feeling
is largely missing in Western culture; it's also being lost in the other cultures where it actually came from. Before and after that experience you go back to the everyday, which is all up and down for all of us.
The life of the DJ or of a musician is like everybody else, but you have those times, those windows, where you actually share the music and you participate in a kind of ritual.
When you are working at a club, what sort of experience are you hoping to create for people?
An experience of community, of sharing something that is a gift; that's the goal, really. As a DJ you have one or two hours when you have this fantastic feeling of participating in a kind of trance. That feeling
is largely missing in Western culture; it's also being lost in the other cultures where it actually came from. Before and after that experience you go back to the everyday, which is all up and down for all of us.
The life of the DJ or of a musician is like everybody else, but you have those times, those windows, where you actually share the music and you participate in a kind of ritual.
The entire interview is worth a read.
