Kenny Werner: Becoming the Instrument

When we hear music, we often experience how the physical flirts with the spiritual in profound and moving ways. Werner contends that this confluence is possible not only in music, but also in your daily personal and work life, and it's easier than you think.

In Becoming the Instrument, Werner shares insights and anecdotes from his 40 years of studying, performing and teaching music, including a guide for accessing the spiritual in our everyday existence and applying it to the pursuits we love. Werner shows us how to lift our daily performances to their highest level by being spontaneous, fearless, joyful and disciplined.

Whatever you are trying to master, Werner says the key is learning how to slip into "the space," the place beyond the conscious mind that allows us to effortlessly embody whatever we are doing. Entering this sort of flow state might seem esoteric and difficult to achieve, but his easy exercises will allow you to access and achieve mastery, because "mastery is not perfection, or even virtuosity. It is giving oneself love, forgiving one's mistakes, and not allowing earthly evidence to diminish one's view of one's self as a drop in the Ocean of Perfection."

NOTES

MLF: Humanities

This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Kenny Werner

Pianist and Composer; Artistic Director, Effortless Mastery Institute, Berklee College of Music; Author, Becoming the Instrument: Lessons on Self-Mastery from Music to Life

In Conversation with George Hammond

Author, Conversations With Socrates

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on February 3rd, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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