{"id":2891,"date":"2010-11-21T10:37:43","date_gmt":"2010-11-21T15:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/?p=2891"},"modified":"2015-01-13T10:42:30","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T15:42:30","slug":"jazz-student-talks-about-transcendental-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/students\/jazz-student-talks-about-transcendental-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning jazz student talks about the role of Transcendental Meditation in music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/keelan-dimick-video.jpg\" title=\"keelan-dimick-video\" class=\"alignleft\" width=\"160\" height=\"160\" \/>When Keelan Dimick was 13 years old, he took first place in the junior division of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uidaho.edu\/jazzfest\">Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival<\/a> competition. The odd thing was that Keelan hadn\u2019t had any formal training in piano until four months before the competition.<\/p>\n<p>Two years after winning at the junior level, Keelan took first place in the senior division. By the age of 17 he was recruited by many of the top music schools in America and last year entered the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msmnyc.edu\/jazz\/\">Manhattan School of Music\u2019s<\/a> jazz program\u2014one of the top music programs in America.<\/p>\n<p>In this video Keelan talks about his experience playing music and why he feels the practice of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/meditation-techniques\">Transcendental Meditation technique<\/a>\u2014which he has been doing every day since he was ten years old\u2014is an essential part of his training and his preparation for performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I transcend I experience deep quietness and silence and bliss. It&#8217;s the only time and the only thing you can do in life that allows you to kind of take a step out of what we see as reality and therefore allows you to see more holistically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour mood affects how you play\u2014I mean everything really affects how you play. Each person has his own personality, and everything you do, even though it&#8217;s subtle, has a hint of your personality in it. So if a guy is really relaxed and calm, most likely that&#8217;s going to be his flavor of playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I am fully rested and do my program, there&#8217;s nothing really that&#8217;s a stress. I&#8217;ve got to be honest because nothing really affects me on the outside. And that&#8217;s why I feel that it&#8217;s really important for students especially to start TM. Because they\u2019re young and they are doing a lot of things, they need to have that deep rest so that they can, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/category\/maharishi\/\">Maharishi<\/a> says, \u2018pull the arrow back\u2019 so that they can go further and experience more bliss in their activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>Written by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.speakingfreelywithdennis.com\/09\/\"><strong>Dennis Raimondi<\/strong><\/a> who has a Masters Degree in Education from Harvard University and is a former member of the Dean&#8217;s Council at Harvard University&#8217;s John F. Kennedy School of Government. After an extensive career in education and business, Dennis is the host of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.speakingfreelywithdennis.com\/09\/\">\u201cSpeaking Freely\u201d<\/a> on KRUU LP 100.1 FM, Fairfield, IA. It is also broadcast on the Harvard University radio station, WHRB FM 95.3, Boston. Dennis is a member of the National Press Club.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/contact-us\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/Contact-us-button-TM-blog.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Keelan Dimick was 13 years old, he took first place in the junior division of the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival competition. The odd thing was that Keelan hadn\u2019t had any formal training in piano until four months before the competition. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tm.org\/blog\/students\/jazz-student-talks-about-transcendental-meditation\/\">See video post<\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_excerpt -->","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students","category-vlog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2891"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12550,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions\/12550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.tm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}