Anjani's interview, part 2

[tom.d.stiller]

When I read her comment, I agree, on the basis that I felt she was referring to, ". . . Now be the shipwrecked woman who has nothing left to give. You are devastated. Sing it but don’t sing it." That's very direct and specific [in its way] feedback-description from Leonard, of which Anjani understood its essence, and responded with exactly what Leonard had in mind, hence what we hear on the record.

Now, to the trance issue. That is very interesting info ~ whether it refers in a way I don't fully understand re: Anjani, or just trance states, in general.

Hi Elizabeth,

I felt the same. But I don't see a "direct and specific feedback-description" there, but a very elaborate double bind. He hands over to her an impossible task: "Sing it, but don't sing it." He creates a "context of uncertainty".

I referred to trance states in general, but the situation Anjani described is an excellent example of one.

I wish I had the time right now to answer more thoroughly, but I'll try to do so tomorrow.

Tom

[lizzytysh]

Please do try to expound on your explanation, Tom. For me, it's very specific in its [albeit] nebulous nature. It's phrased in a way that clearly Anjani understood very well. I can't sing [well, we all can sing, but you know what I mean], but I feel I know what he meant with his seemingly contradictory, 'non-specific' directions to Anjani.

I'm, of course, not being argumentative, but am really interested in your trance perspective of their exchange.

~ Elizabeth

[tom.d.stiller]

Please do try to expound on your explanation, Tom. For me, it's very specific in its [albeit] nebulous nature. It's phrased in a way that clearly Anjani understood very well. I can't sing [well, we all can sing, but you know what I mean], but I feel I know what he meant with his seemingly contradictory, 'non-specific' directions to Anjani.

I'm, of course, not being argumentative, but am really interested in your trance perspective of their exchange.

~ Elizabeth

I really wish I had the time to give this a thorough treatment right now, but other things do have priority, those things being my job as a programmer, my involvement in the FAQ project, the final touches on the "Old Ideas", a vain attempt at a consistent reading of "Dear Heather" as a whole. In addition to this I try to improve my non-existent Spanish by reading Gabo's "Cien Años de Soledad". Moreover I just happen to help my son in doing preliminary research for a thesis on the "Theory of Revolution: A comparative approach to France 1789 and Russia 1917". Most of all I have a family, a private life. And I need to sleep now and then.

Therefore I have to be brief, and maybe somewhat inconclusive. After all, my research on trance, hypnotherapy and related issues has been done more than a decade ago, and you keep forgetting things. Sometimes it seems that we forgot just those things we needed right now to explain an issue in a few comprehensive words, and we are ditched on vagueness beach at low tide. All we have left is a "gut knowledge" derived at by studies in the past and subconscious observation. I'll try to give at least a few hints at what I've been talking about.

Hearing the words "hypnosis" and "trance" some images inevitably come to our minds. Unfortunately most of them do not stem from real hypnotherapists' work, but have been implanted by watching show hypnosis and movies. A gold watch, used as a pendulum by a benevolent doctor or by a malevolent criminal, ticking the patient or victim into a state of deep trance; a dramatic change in the behaviour of the person... I guess you know the scenes.

Some elements are not totally wrong. There are techniques of hypnosis that work in a similar way; they have been developed in the 19th century. The most influential hypnotherapist in the second half of the 20th century, Milton Erickson, long time editor of the "American Journal of Hypnotherapy", however, discovered there are less dramatic ways to do the job. He often succeeded without inducing a formal trance. Following his clues, and those given by people like Gregory Bateson, Don Jackson, Jay Haley, Paul Watzlawick, many hypnotherapists came to the conclusion that in most cases it is not necessary to formally induce a trance, but that some kind of "everyday trance" is sufficient to create a change in the patient's behaviour.

So what is "trance"? When you're at your desk, looking aimlessly out of the window, it usually takes just a few seconds, and you're in a trance. When you dance, maybe with your eyes closed, you'll be in a trance before you could have finished saying a sentence like "Who is this darn Jack Robinson?" Erickson wrote: "Trance permits the operator to evoke in a controlled manner the same mental mechanisms that are operative spontaneously in everyday life."

Perhaps one of the most useful definitions of hypnosis is "a goal-directed striving which takes place in an altered psychological state." (Ronald E. Shor, Amer. J. Psychology, Vol. 13, 1959, pp. 582-602)

The first step in hypnosis is creating a rapport between the therapist and the patient. What does rapport mean? : Affinity, agreement, understanding, harmony, empathy, compatibility, partiality, unity.

Out of this agreement the client will spontaneously do what the controller wants her to do.

In the "Undertow" session Leonard builds rapport by saying "That was a great performance." He picks Anjani up where she was at the time, believing "it was technically and emotionally perfect". She was "so happy with it" (her performance). Leonard first confirms her feelings. I can imagine the way he said those words, completely honest, calm, with a soft and low-toned voice, full of empathy.

Then he continues: "Now be the shipwrecked woman who has nothing left to give." His voice will have changed, not dramatically, but significantly enough. Still there was affinity, harmony, unity, empathy. Though the words don't explicitely state "The performance wasn't that great after all", there is an undertow in the sentence that drives Anjani to immediately feel that Leonard wasn't really content with her "technically and emotionally perfect" "great performance".

Now she really feels like having "nothing left to give". She accurately describes her state of mind, in the interview, as "now a bit distressed".

Leonard, empathically sensing her growing unease, deepens the rapport by saying, probably after a few second, again in a reassuring voice: "You are devastated." And she feels devastated, then, "strangely disconnected from everything I was sure of".

Now she's ready for the final blow, again delivered gently: "Sing it, but don't sing it." - Well, Elizabeth, I'm not being argumentative either, but no matter how hard I try I cannot find anything like a directive in this. It is simply impossible to "sing it" and "not to sing it". He leaves her there, ditched on a beach, with a chill in her soul.

The short exchange of words didn't tell her to "sing like a devastated woman, ditched on a beach where the sea hates to go". Leonard altered Anjani's psychological state: he made her feel like the woman whose voice he wanted to hear. and spontaneously, without having any directions as to how to sound that way, she sang like a devastated woman, because he turned her - of course, only temporarily - into one. And again Erickson: "to evoke in a controlled manner the same mental mechanisms that are operative spontaneously in everyday life".

Jean Paul Sartre once wrote that he never had the time to write short books. Well, I just didn't have the time to write a short answer.

I hope these clumsy words elucidated a bit what I had tried to say. At least you can't say I've never tried...

Tom

[witty_owl]

Very well said Tom. This viewpoint gives me even more to think about. Not just with regard to this recording session but to the ways humans communicate and the power of thought and suggestion. Thanks for posting this; it clarifies the nature of both trance and hypnosis.

Cheers, Witty.

[Tchocolatl]

I like this interview which sheds some light on the songs. I am not surprise to read that he told her to "be". I think he was doing his songs like an actor, that he was not just singing them, but acting them (I wrote this about "That don't make it junk" once, and this song came to my mind right one, again).

Tom what a great answer! Espacially for a man that did not have time. But it makes me think more of what Hitchcock did in The Birds : frightening his actress to death without asking or warning her just to have her doing a better performance.

Here I just feel he was explaining to her what she has to do to acheive the result he was searching for. In another message I wrote that I sometimes feel extremely sorry for a singer when I hear his perfect technical performance but it is so....dull...that all these years of practice, talent, and works do not weight... anything... compare to a Leonard Cohen performance, even though he may not have "such a great this and that" like the other signer, according to the critics.

Few evenings ago I heard Edith Piaf's L'accordéoniste and despite the old fashion mucical arrangements it was wonderful. She was not singing she was that woman who lost everything while losing that man who sings.

He kowns what he is doing this great GREAT artist.

[tomsakic]

That all explains why nobody can sing Leonard's song than Leonard. "Sing it but not sing it" - the answer is in that Zen - why all tribute albums are far bellow his range, particularly Tower of Song with its "famous" singers, and that's why recently my girlfriend was shocked by Perla Batalla's (in other circumstances great) performance at Hal Willner's show ("She's betraying all important in his songs", she complaint). That's why I went crazy while I was listening (and unfortunately watching) Rufus' theatrical performance, affectation and roaring over Everybody Knows. I mean, there's a purpose of such Leonard's delivery, with clean, rough edges and the feeling it has some meaning, direction and purpose. It's in his way of singing and in the musical arrangements; just compare his Everybody KNows with Don Henley's or Rufus Wainwright's. With all that extravagance in versions of those people from Tower of Song - nevertheless their so-called "great vocal range" and "pitch" and academically perfect delivery of the song. That's why the greatest covers are those who understand that, like Johnny Cash.
That's why I don't think Sharon and Anjani are "without identity" or with robotically empty voices as some critics wrote. They both learned something from Leonard, Sharon on Ten New Songs, and she clearly demonstrated that in The Letters, and Anjani in exactly that moment she described in the interview. They got Leonard's way, I'd say, maybe the only one.

[linmag]

Perhaps we could paraphrase "Sing it, but don't sing it" as 'sing it, but don't perform it'. It reminds me of Leonard's advice in How to Speak Poetry, "Do not act out words. Never act out words." People already know what you are talking about. They have already experienced it - they just need reminding. It's part of the way Leonard leaves space for the reader/listener to experience his work through their own life.

[Tchocolatl]

Great! This is exactly what I was thinking by "act" : "don't act", in fact. Phew, this could begin to be very confusing but it is just more clear! (Ah! The importance of the accurate term(s)). "Just make them remimber what they have experienced." It has something to do with the skill of being in tune with the emotional human wavelength much more than some fashionable theory about art, I guess, but without any technique, it would be impossible to acheive. Double work. And after, some complaints because he is "slow". He is not slow he is doing great work, and it takes time.

[Kush]

With all that extravagance in versions of those people from Tower of Song - nevertheless their so-called "great vocal range" and "pitch" and academically perfect delivery of the song. That's why the greatest covers are those who understand that, like Johnny Cash.

If I am allowed an alternate opinion on this forum without inviting the flames of hell --- Tom, with all due respect to the late great Johnny Cash (who I like a lot), he CANNOT sing. He never could. Like Leonard Cohen he carries a tune well - once this way, then the other. With a little help from studio experts and modern technology plus a deep voice, they both operate very well within their limitations to create a fine effect on record. And yes, I agree that LCs vocals are perfectly suited for almost all of his songs.

[tom.d.stiller]

Nobody sings Cohen like Cohen.
Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan.
Nobody sings Cash like Cash.

Mostly the others, though technically better singers, just fall short. With a few exceptions, of course.

Tom

[witty_owl]

And nobody sings Warrigal like Warrigal!
Cheers,Witty.

[tom.d.stiller]

I have to believe this, since I haven't heard Warrigal sing Warrigal.

[tomsakic]

I expected you here, Kush, knowing for your love of some of Tower Of Songs covers Anyway, I still think what I said. Rufus is great when he sings his own songs, or Hallelujah in Shrek, but this Tower of Song in NYC was a disaster. I also must disagree about Cash. What means "to sing well" - they said Elton John sings well, or Aaron Neville, or Judy Collins. Their covers are - in terms of so-called "singing well" - I guess great, but unbelievable boring to me. As someone wrote above, some artists do sing great, but that's all for nothing as they songs are totally unimportant and empty of any kind of emotion/feedback etc. OK, Rufus understanded [LC's songs as great Kurt Weill/Brecht's "performance", and I can enjoy his approach in most of the moments, but everywhere, everywhere but in 4-5 covers I'm missing Leonard's way: clearly stated lines, clean musical edges, nothing is diversing you from the direction the song is going to, the message, the purpose (if we can say there's the purpose in a song/poem), while Rufus sings each line in another way/affectation - Laurie Anderson or Linda Thompson got it the better way. That's why the (in)famous "ascetic, empty sound of Leonard Cohen music" is there - "there's a purpose, I mean, that's deliberate!" (L. Cohen). I do like country, gospel, blues, Willie Nelson, but my love for such music doesn't mean I'm trying to get Leonard by force to stuck into those genres (like, "Judy Collins sings his songs better"). And of course, I always come back to the total emptiness and utterly boredom of Billy Joel's or Sting's covers. Also, I simply am not musically trained so I can't understand what means that LC cannot sing, when I hear him singing pretty well, plus he's having pretty magnificent deep voice. The dozens of DH reviews said "yes, he can't sing and he never could" How do those people prove that? What are the objective terms of such declaration? He does sing better than Bob Dylan, I'd say from my ignorant point of view. How can somebody compare Elton John and Cohen and then conclude Elton John sings better while he's affectating in high notes interesting only to the fans of operas?

[Kush]

OK to each his own, my friend.

Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan.

I used to say that, I've changed my mind now as I started getting away from Dylan himself and started hearing cover versions in diverse styles.

[tom.d.stiller]

OK to each his own, my friend.

Nobody sings Dylan like Dylan.

I used to say that, I've changed my mind now as I started getting away from Dylan himself and started hearing cover versions in diverse styles.

I resumed saying that, since I found out that the good covers never even try to sing Dylan like Dylan.

Van Morrison sings Dylan like Van Morrison. If you don't know it's Dylan, you're lost...