Last Call: What Is Musical Telepathy?

“You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.” —Rumi

I’ve been listening to a controversial podcast called The Telepathy Tapes, which explores telepathy demonstrated by mostly non-verbal autistic young people. Citing rigorously controlled studies, the podcast claims that non-verbal youth with autism are able to tell exactly what their mothers, caregivers, and teachers are thinking while in another room—be it random numbers, photos, anything … 10 out of 10 times in a row. The pod also shares stories where teachers and parents of these same kids relate examples of the kids knowing what’s going on in the parents’ or teachers’ lives when they are apart. It reminds me of the so-called “Remote Viewing” programs the U.S. military and CIA ran from 1970 to 1995—the chief difference being that the kids are totally accurate while the military remote viewers consistently failed.

Some of the kids describe telepathy gatherings, where anywhere from two to over a thousand autistic youth in separate locations regularly meet. They call it “talking on the hill.” While linked together through this telepathy, kids share information about books, movies, science, music, anything that interests them. The Telepathy Tapes suggests that this tapping into a collective consciousness could explain the savant child who sits at a piano and plays Beethoven or blues without any training or experience. The savant didn’t learn piano; the savant is tapping into something.

Most scientists stay away from anything that smells of the paranormal. In neuroscience, the prevailing view is that consciousness is a result of the brain’s metabolism and interactions between neurons; it begins and ends in the brain. But I suspect for our tribe (musicians), we know that there’s way more to the world than what we can see or measure.

Years ago, I wrote a column about how musicians playing together experience paranormal events on stage. You know, that musician magic where improvising players in an open jam simultaneously hit identical triplets while not even looking at each other, or lock into super-tight, unrehearsed complementary or unison melodies. Musician ESP is a phenomenon all players experience on some level if you play long enough with the people you connect with. It defies logic, but when you experience it, you know it’s not a coincidence. It’s a mindmeld without touching or trying. That’s when music goes from formulaic to truly magical. That’s the stuff that hits you on a deeper level, perhaps because it comes from a deeper place.

“When I am playing at my best, I am less about control, more about flow.”

I’m not sure how improvisation works for you, but I suspect it’s like my system. I’ve spent a lifetime learning patterns: some I’ve taken from others, some I’ve stumbled upon myself. When I’m taking a solo, much of what I’m playing is an amalgam of patterns, riffs, and melodies I’ve played many times before, but arranged together on the spot. So, does that even qualify as improv? What I try to do is step out into new territory, but there’s not a lot of terra incognita left. These riffs and patterns are the vocabulary we’re using to communicate. Authors or great orators are, for the most part, using the same words and ideas we all use. They are just really good at arranging them. Likewise, there are great musicians using the same riffs and licks we all have, they just string them together really well. But there’s a big difference between speaking a universal truth from your heart and repeating a variation of a cliche.

Pat Metheny has a song called “It Starts When We Disappear,” from 2021’s Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV). Over the course of 13 minutes and 48 seconds, you hear Pat and his band disappear and music takes over. I spoke to my friend and sometimes bandmate, Chris Harrah, about this, and he calls it “bringing the resistance down to zero,” an analogy he cooked up that hints at his physics background. Chris explains it like this: “You hear the music from something bigger, like a current through a circuit, and we (our minds, bodies, etc.) are the resistor; our goal as musicians is to get that resistance down to zero, when the music flows directly out of you. You could even say the ‘source,’ aka where the music comes from, is the current. My goal is to bring the resistance down to zero, resulting in no drop in voltage (source).”

When I am playing at my best, I am less about control, more about flow. Less about achieving, more about being. I’m not thinking, I’m not even sure I’m there. Gravity is invisible, but nobody doubts it exists. A magnetic field stretches far beyond the magnet, invisible but definitely there, like magic. Wherever you are, you are surrounded by invisible radio transmissions for phones, wi-fi, radio, television, etc. I suspect there are fields from our minds that stretch far beyond our body, reaching out. I want mine to tap into music.