Minter Dialogue with Evelina De Lain

Evelina De Lain, born in the Ukraine, is a London-based classical and jazz pianist, composer, author, performance coach, educator and producer known for her crossover composition style. In this conversation, we discuss her journey from a small town in Ukraine to London, the astonishing encounter of her husband, her travels around the world through playing music, her impressive feats of playing a grand piano at altitude and atop an active volcano, and her music-based therapeutical approach “Inside the Music.” A fascinating story.

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate it here.

To connect with Evelina De Lain:

• Find/follow Evelina De Lain on LinkedIn
• Check out Evelina’s wikipedia page here
• Find Evelina on Instagram

Other mentions/sites:

• Evelina’s Guinness Book of World Record achievement
• This is your brain on music by Daniel Levittin
• Catalpa Trees
• Check out these Singing Bowls
• The Druid Awen
• Richard Schwartz, IFS
• Eric Berns – Mind Tools
• Is Musical Instinct a Universal Human Trait 
• Gwangsu Kim, Dong-Kyum Kim & Hawoong Jeong (Korean) Research in Nature Communications – Spontaneous emergence of rudimentary music detectors in deep neural networks

Further resources for the Minter Dialogue podcast:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Show in this podcast tab, on Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, please go over to rate this podcast via RateThisPodcast! And for the francophones reading this, if you want to get more podcasts, you can also find my radio show en français over at: MinterDial.fr, on Megaphone or in iTunes.
Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

SUMMARY KEYWORDS: music, play, piano, feel, experience, desmond, evelina, find, minter, called, people, volcano, stress, day, grandfather, grand piano, ukraine, parts, sounds, write

SPEAKERS: Evelina De Lain, Minter Dial

Minter Dial  00:06

Hello, welcome to Minter Dialogue, episode number 556. My name is Minter Dial and I’m your host for this podcast, a most proud member of the Evergreen Podcast Network. For more information or to check out other shows on this network, go visit evergreenpodcasts.com.

So this week’s interview is with Evelina De Lain. Evelina, who was born in the Ukraine is a London based classical and jazz pianist, composer, author, performance coach, educator and producer known for her crossover composition style. In this conversation with Evelina, we discuss her journey from a small town in Ukraine to London. The astonishing encounter of her husband, her travels around the world through playing music, Evelina isn’t impressive feats of playing a grand piano at altitude, and the top and active volcano, as well as her music-based therapeutical approach inside the music. A fascinating story, you’ll find all the show notes on Minterdial.com. And if you have a little moment, please do go drop in a rating and review. And don’t forget to subscribe to catch all the future episodes. Now for the show. Evelina De Lain, how lovely to have you on my show. We met maybe a year ago, I’m not even sure but I’ve had, I feel so many experiences with you, whether it’s been at a dinner party in a seminar, or lying underneath your piano, Evelina De Lain. Who in your words, are you?

Evelina De Lain  01:47

Oh, my god, is that what the opening with one of those easy questions, right? Yeah. Wow. Okay. I wasn’t prepared to answer that. I mean, I can tell you a couple of my identities, you know, a couple of things that mostly describe what I do. So, yes, I’m a musician. I’m a high performer. I have a world records in the highest performance on the grand piano. I am writing my dissertation in music therapy for business. So, I’m just completing my I just submitted my research proposal and it’s been approved. So, that’s good. So, basically, yes, I’m writing how to turn stress into you stress, which is a positive form of stress. So, we’re training distress and to use stress and utilizing it to help our work performance. Because basically, I, as a performer myself, I like to get other people to their highest performance. I’m married, I’m happily married. So, I think that’s what I am as well, a wife. What else? Am I Ukrainian? I wrote the book, but decided not to publish it, because I, I got everything I wanted out of that. So, yeah, those are some of the identities and then let’s see how that all relates to the actual self.

Minter Dial  03:31

Beautiful, well, you know, I mean, I’m writing much about this notion of identities and, and trying to find congruence between them. And it’s, you know, as, as, especially when we have a little ambition we’ve traveled, there can be many parts to us. So, it is it is often a confusing thing. At least. It’s a work in progress, I suppose. Right?

Evelina De Lain  03:56

That is absolutely right. And hearts work in my work as well. So, I look at what kind of parts of or subpersonalities were made of I refer to Richard Schwartz’s work on Internal Family Systems. Also, we all know Eric burns work on, you know, whatever parts were made up of, or whatever identities, and what is there to unite all of that, you know, what is there that joins those parts of us? And as a union, I would say there is an underlying self. And also speaking of traveling is so interesting. I’ve been to 100 countries, and you don’t come back the same person. So, who are you really, you know, after you came back from your travels, you’re already a different person.

Minter Dial  04:51

Patchwork, so Evelina. You were you were born in Ukraine. You live in England. I wanted first to discuss your journey from Ukraine to land in England. Because you came here as I remember it, but 20 years ago.

Evelina De Lain  05:13

Yeah, 22 years ago, yeah. 2002. Yeah, very, it was a long journey. I was born in Soviet Union. So, Ukraine kind of was a part of Soviet Union, back then. I was born in the 70s, in the Soviet Union and the Soviet system, I went to Soviet school, I experienced that system a little bit as an outsider, because my mom was a dissident. So, we always looked at the system critically. And recently, I have been recognizing a lot of those kinds of ex-Soviet traits, obviously, in a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. So, it kind of helps to have a background and, you know, in Soviet culture, so to say. And then what happened, when I was born in this tiny mining town, they found the uranium there in the 90s. And so, maybe we were supercharged in the in some way. But I remember was seven years old, and I went to a mind, you know, that’s what we did see is, we didn’t have many places to play. So, we used to play on the mind, in one of those pits, you know, leftover from the mining. And I remember looking, and thinking, Am I from here, and it felt so absurd, because I’ve never seen any other worlds. Ever. I had a strange feeling that I didn’t belong to that world fully, even though that was the only world I knew. But I had this internal notion of other worlds. And also, same year, my mom’s best friend showed me how to play Blue Moon. And before that, I only played classical music, and I hated it because it was kind of imposed on me as my mom’s Gestalt that she wanted to close. But when I heard jazz, and when I had like, my first experience with playing jazz, I was like, oh, yeah, that’s where I’m from. I’m from the land of jazz, like I had this real, strange recognition as I knew what that was about. And I think recently, I have reevaluated that moment, because I was in Wales last summer, on the day when super blue moon was there. And then remember that story. And I was like, why am I here? Because of that one experience 40 years ago, learning Blue Moon and opening new worlds. So, that’s where my journey probably started. Two different worlds two English speaking worlds, and rewind probably to when I was 25. That’s when I first arrived to the UK after having worked in Japan as a Marilyn Monroe double. Yeah, dive in. And then I came here on a student visa. I had many adventures. And yeah. Since then, I’ve been here I’ve made my life here. I feel like my home was here. But recently, in the last few years, I have reevaluated my relationship with Ukraine as well. I have rediscovered my Ukrainian roots, but also many other roots. I just had my DNA test and turns out I’m 4% Mayan. And I that was completely bizarre, especially new years I’ve been following Mayan culture haven’t lived in Guatemala for a while, so that you do what a patchwork we really are. And, you know, like, I discovered Mayan Calendar, kind of in Guatemala and I have been following Mayan Calendar since then. Finding that is quick drive, and then finding out that I’m 4%, pre-Columbian Mayan, it goes like wow, what happened? Were they seafarers? How did my great great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather that to Europe, How incredible is that like to think what happened? In like those 1000s of years, 500 years before you were born? What did this go those people go through? And yeah, it just makes you kind of more glad to be alive, you know, honoring all those people who came before you.

Minter Dial  09:53

It’s an interesting thing to think about that we are just transitory on this earth and that we carry a responsibility of sorts to respect and honor the past generations. So, right now, you have this great Wikipedia page. And I’d love for you to talk about your world records, because you have at least two if I understand correctly. And that let’s talk about the first one where you performed in the Himalayas, at nearly 5000 meters. What, what on earth inspired you to want to lug a grand piano or I think it was a grand piano all the way up 5000 meters and play it in the freezing cold?

Evelina De Lain  10:44

Ah, yes, it wasn’t my idea. It’s one of those synchronicities to happen in your life, where so many things collide together. So, seven years ago, my mom died unexpectedly. And it was a really shocking experience. And she was also my teacher, my first music teacher, and haven’t been bound by that family system. I was looking for ways to honor her make her life, meaningful, valuable. Before even thinking of my own life, which is, you know, this is a kind of maybe a rite of passage, or was it wrong? I’m not sure now. So, I was looking for things, how to make the soul natural how to make the soul meaningful. And as I was doing that, I bought a club in Nova. So, I wanted to practice more, I wanted to play more classical music. And this Clavinova is mahogany. And I was looking for a mahogany chair and I couldn’t find one. So, I went to one of those antique piano shops and Camden Market, thinking maybe they have an antique mahogany piano chair, and I entered this little shop with lots of pianos. And it was kind of like, that’s, like, you know, kind of movie looking shops, you know, from many years ago, very vintage. And I heard the grumpy voice from like, behind the piano saying, We’re closed on they said, ask if you have a chair, and the guy came out. And he says, what kind of chair you’re looking for. And so, I’m looking for a mahogany piano bench. And he said, I don’t have anything in mahogany. And that’s when they saw my piano. I’m looking at right now. I wish I had it in shots. So, I saw beige, grand piano and I asked what is this piano, and he said, the European history and I said, Yeah, he said, well go play it. And I started playing E flat Nocturne by Chopin. And he was shocked. He said, That was my grandfather’s favorite Nocturne, the first thing he and my grandfather was supposed to play on Titanic. But my grandmother saw a dream that the boat was going to sink. And he was already in the docks, boarding the Titanic, and she grabbed his legs. And she said, I wouldn’t let you go like, And so, one of the replacement pianists had to go. And his grandfather had to stay in the UK and then he had Desmond’s father and then, Jasmine’s father had Desmond. And here we are now being connected to that grandfather through the nocturne of Chopin. And Desmond says, Oh, this piano chose you. And they said, Well, I just bought the club, you know, how can I just bind a balloon or grand piano? And he said, No, I think he chose you. You can come back and play it anytime. So, I came back next day, and then I come back came back two days later. And then he said, Would you like to play the highest concert in the world? And before he even finished and said, Yeah, he goes, you can play your music and you can play Chopin. And they said, Yeah, that seems like a great way to honor my mom. And so, we started planning the expedition. And in those days, I was studying a lot. Maslow’s pyramid Maslow’s high RTM needs obviously he didn’t draw a pyramid. So, I was thinking that what a great kind of passage through this need of, you know, esteem and achievement, right? And then maybe I can transcend that after that. And so, we did it a year and a half later. With Desmond. We took the piano up the Himalayas, there was of roads, so there wasn’t anything like a helicopter and you’re throwing that there was a road. Yeah, so you could drive it. I mean, I’m not going to say it was easy. But like, we drove it, and then we only dragged it maybe 200 meters. It was hailing. It was snowing. It was very, very hard. But I did it. I played for two hours. I said it was an honor of my mom. One week later, Desmond passed away. Wow. And on the day that my Guinness record was approved, my cat passed away. So, And so, my mum was 69 Desmond was 69 and my cat was 13 which makes him 69 In human years. And I think that’s when I was like, Okay. What a strange I was studying hero’s journey or studying synchronicities. I was looking for what it matters, and Desmond’s honor, I decided to plan a volcano. So, basic, actually, it didn’t start like that. I went to Guatemala to drink some Ayahuasca to make sense of all of this. What happened? And as I drank Iowa, myself as Jagger, so I was like, okay, die is so interesting. So, I stayed in Guatemala for a while. And I started talking to my own shamans, and they said, Actually, who are you in Mayan Calendar, and then we checked it, and I was a Jaeger. And I was like, Okay, maybe I’ll stay here longer to find out what it’s all about. And as I stayed there, I met one of the shamans. And she said, Oh, do you want to play on the volcano? Didn’t you think of that before? And I was like, Actually, I wanted to volcano on my first day in Guatemala. And I thought, Wouldn’t that be amazing? And she’s thought, I know where he can get a grand piano. And so, yeah, I did it. And first, I played on the mountain, on top of sacred lake. And they wanted to honor the lake, the spirits of the lake and local people who helped me. And then we decided to play piano, but then we didn’t know how, how do we organize it? Who do we call? How do you call to play on the volcano? So, I just went on Google Maps, and I just Googled, you know, Vulcano, Pacaya. And they just looked at the numbers that came up. And there was this hotel called salamander or something, or whatever. I just called the number and they said, Do you speak English? And they said, No. So, I called my friend who spoke, spoke Spanish. And I said, Can you please translate that I want to play on the volcano? And he translated and they said, Oh, tomorrow, somebody will call you. And so, next day, somebody called me who spoke Spanish, and I said, I want to play in the volcano. And they go, how about next weekend? God, okay, that can be arranged. And so, I took this whole expedition to the volcano. And it was, you know, a strenuous journey on didn’t have a road, so we had to carry it. Eight Mayan men had to carry the grand piano up the volcano, we went quite close to the crater. It’s an active volcano. And I played sunset concert and the sunrise concert. And after that, I didn’t feel the need to enter it in the book of records anymore, because first of all, you have to pay for it. And second of all, I just felt like, I did it for different reasons. You know, I didn’t need to. I didn’t need external validation anymore. So, I’m going to call it my unofficial record. I’m pretty sure I haven’t found anybody playing in the volcano. Before but maybe they did since. But, yeah, I did it and It was a very transformational journey. After that I went traveling for six months, kind of writing it all down and thinking what it all means. And yeah, it took me on new roads, you know that eventually I climb on blonde and they jump from the top of it with a par glides, but without the piano. Like, that was just for me. Yeah.

Minter Dial  20:24

Well, that sounds good. You sound like someone Evelina, who is very in touch with your surroundings? The signs that are out there, maybe abstract and subliminal? Is that a fair statement?

Evelina De Lain  20:42

Yes, I feel that I constantly live in this liminal space, a space between myth and reality. I study myths a lot. I study synchronicity a lot. I, as I mentioned, I’m a Jungian. I want to the Jungian Institute to get studies. And I feel like in my life, the line between archetypes and reality is blurred. Between the archetype, the myth and reality is blurred. Like, if other people talk about being lost in the forest, it’s a metaphor, my case it will be an actual reality. And I’ll have a grand piano with me, which is what we got lost in the forest with a grant, and then a guy who looked like an angel and came down the mountain said, Actually, you can’t pass that way. You have to go that way. And we were like, with a grand piano. He goes like, yeah, you can pass. And how does a Mayan hasn’t know where we can pass with a grand piano? And why wasn’t he surprised? By those things, like, you know, people you meet on your road was always meant to happen? Or why was it there? I mean, am I special? Or? I mean, I don’t think so. But how come millions of ways had to collide in that one space time continuum. For me to, for example, get married to a guy from my village. You know, how we are this that? Were like an alchemist, you go around the world, but then you find the treasure in the land you’re running away from? And can you predict it? Or what led you to it? So, I always think about those mystical experiences. And, you know, I think it’s fun. And we will never find out. I think why. But it’s fun to think about it while we’re here.

Minter Dial  23:03

Well, and I certainly recall how you described your encounter with Nikita, because while you both came from the same town, small town, small mining town, you met elsewhere, in the most peculiar and different type of circumstances.

Evelina De Lain  23:23

Yes. And connected to grandfathers again, it was very peculiar because I was in Ukraine, as well in Odessa, visiting my relatives. And through a very bizarre set of circumstances, I ended up in this city square, looking at a tree that, strangely turns out to be my entry of happiness and love. And it was a very strange tree. It’s called Calpis. It’s not the very common tree. There are a few in London. I try and visit them as my sacred trees. And so, basically, I was with a friend of mine, who was also a psychotherapist, and we were looking up this tree. She said, Do you know what this tree is called? And they said, No. And she said, this tree is called Catalpas. And at that very moment, that guy came up to us who was also he said, What is this tree called? And I said, now that I knew just for about two said, Oh, this tree is called could help this. It just made me feel very knowledgeable even though it’s only been like five seconds since I’ve learned the name of the street. And he said, This is so weird. I was just thinking my grandfather showed me this tree when I was small. And I was just thinking, My grandfather’s telling me this tree is cold. And then I saw you put the tree so find out what the Trees cold. And I was like what? So, your grandfather took you to the street where and he goes always some small town that nobody knows. Check me I know some small towns and he goes now nobody knows that town. And I said, I know some small towns and they set out this places called Yellow Waters. I was like, Oh, wow. That’s where I’m from. And nobody knows that place. It’s kind of during Soviet Union, it was one of those closed places. It was not on the map or anything, because it was part of a defense system, because that’s where the mine and then they found the uranium there. So, obviously, it was those towns that was widely known, even Soviet Union. So, and it’s a very small place, I think it only has like 30,000 people there. And you don’t usually meet those people traveling. Especially the I’ve been in UK for 20 years, and I’ve been traveling 200 countries. And after a bird my mama was like, I’m done with that town. I’m never coming back. I want to put it behind me like that town only brought me misery. And yeah, long story short, for the last three years that down have been bringing me happiness and made me reconnect with those parts of me. And bring back those rejected parts of me that belong to that town, to that upbringing, to that culture, made me appreciate it as the love-giving parts of me and the love-giving parts of my life. And yeah, how bizarre, another grandfather bringing people together? What is it about grandfathers? A very interesting experience with your grandfather?

Minter Dial  27:01

Indeed, that’s something I was thinking about as I listen to you. So, you, you get married to Nikita. And, then I wanted to also, so let’s just go back one moment, just back to the world record thing with Desmond, because I remember myself when I was at university, I had this grand plan of getting a Guinness Book of World Records. We’re talking about this in the 1980s. And, but I didn’t, I was more it was more harebrained idea than anything else. Did Desmond, had he already evaluated that this would be a world record. I mean, did you have to sort of did you want to check this out before you did it? And then because if you know if you if you were at 4997m, and there was a woman who did it at 5001m? That would have been a silly thing. To what extent did you have to research where you’re going? How high you had to be? How long did you have to do to make it a Guinness Book of World Record? Enough?

Evelina De Lain  28:10

He did. He did evaluated he did his research. He knew that nobody else did it. At that altitude, at least nobody that we could Google, or Well, obviously, we did check the records. And back then, for us, it was about the record. Now looking back at it, it’s been five years, obviously, you know, it wasn’t about the achievement. It was about who you become as a result of that. But back then it was very much planned. It was his idea. As I said, I would probably not think of something like that. However, it did satisfy my mom’s ambitions at the time that we’re living through me because my mom always had this perfectionist idea of like, you have to be the best you have to be the best. And obviously, how can you be the best pianist? I mean, I can’t be I couldn’t even play for 14 years because I had repetitive strain injury. So, I couldn’t be the best classical pianist, obviously. But I could be the highest. I could be the highest. So, in a way, I felt like wow, if obviously, I am a person who couldn’t play for 14 years, and I have restored my hands on it to the point where I can play now. But I can play at that extreme altitude extreme weather extreme, cold, extreme conditions. Desmond and I did have creative differences a lot. However, on the day, everything came together. He was only going to like do it for 10 minutes, but I ended up playing for two hours. It wasn’t necessary for the work Good. I mean, you could get a record even if you played for 10 minutes. But I played for two hours. And on the way down the mountain, we saw Snow Leopard. And because it’s such an elusive Can’t they call it a ghost cat, because even people who lived there 40 years what’s seen the snow leopards, so and the taxi driver just stopped and he was sitting right on the road on the same road, we took our piano up and down. And the driver stopped and he said, Look Snow Leopard, and we all go out. And we looked at the snow leopard, and he looked at us. And he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t running away. But we were chased to get back into the car and go down because one person suffered from the mountain sickness. But the snow leopard was there. And I was like, Well, you know, if we’re thinking and poetic, mythological terms, was it the spirit of the Himalayas that blast our adventures? I don’t know. Did the mountains want to hear the music? How do we praise nature? I mean, I am definitely not religious in in like a common sense of the word I do not believe you know, in Christian God or anything like that, but when we talk about divine you can definitely feel it right. What drew it’s called our when? What is it? We can feel it right we feel that feeling of or is that when we experience divine call it God call it call it divinity call it participation mistake. Call it out when? And then, for me, I experienced it, I experienced it. When I’m up in the mountains. I experience it when I’m standing on top of the mountain. That’s when I feel that our when right. But then somehow life made me a musician. So, what better way is the divine? But with your skills with your music? If I’m a child of nature, which we all are? Did nature Give me those skills? But and then did nature give the skills to the teachers who honed my skills? And how did they get here? Did I get here because I’m a child of nature. But then what better way to praise God praise nature, then to use my skills in order to praise nature, so I kind of thoughts. Yeah, people said it’s weird. Why you taking pianos into the mountains? And I say it would be weird not to. It would be weird for me not to praise nature with everything I have to offer. And this is why I didn’t want the second world record because I didn’t do it. For the records in the end of the day. What Yes, I did it to test my limits. And yes, of course, we have ambition. That’s what shows us the expansion. You know, ambition leads you to expansion. And when you expand it, you go like, ah, whatever, this ambition doesn’t matter, but only from your expanded self, right? Once you’ve got there, once you got there, you can’t get you can’t get to it and transcended part of the pyramid without, you know having a self-esteem but how to esteem you do need some sort of validation? Yeah, you do need some sort of common ground with the world. Because, you know, if you’re sitting in your cave, having never had an external validation, having never achieved an ambition. You know, and you heard the tree fall, but then nobody knows, right? And then you have to check ourselves, do we find ourselves in the eyes of the beholder? At the beginning? We do. We do need to reflect on the world to know our value. And once you reflected enough, but not that reflected but do we bypass that step? I don’t think we can. So, now I can put people under my grand piano and share that participation mistake. And because I have this record in the highest performance, I do have this confidence as once upon a time the highest performing performer on Earth. My record was beaten by the way. Oh, yeah, a year ago, which is fine. I mean, I’m fine with that. I had the full four years like the Olympic champion, right?

Minter Dial  35:27

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everything is transient, if they choose to teach us anything. So, for the last part of our chat, let’s talk about music, its role and what you’re doing with therapy, because at the end of the day, not everyone’s a musician, but pretty much everybody likes some form of music.

Evelina De Lain  35:53

Yes. And you know, being a researcher now, it it is fascinating how much you can discover about what music is to us. One of the I mean, we always knew music was a proverbial language, right? We always knew that every culture on earth has some form of music. We always knew that early hominids could make music before they could make words. Yeah, we always knew that the first thing people did was take a stick and bang it on a rock percussion as the first instrument right than bone flute 40,000 years old. Did people speak before they could play that bone flute or harm to their babies, lullabies? So, we always knew music was proverbial, we always knew music was ingrained in every culture. In every part of the world. However, the latest research from 2024 by a Korean researcher named Yun Coincidently, strange, strange of all names, his name is Jung. He proved that not music is a proper kind of language. He proved that music is a common trait, which is even higher than any kind of language or perception skills. He proved that AI speaking of your field of expertise, AI can discern music in between all the other types of sounds. So, Jung postulated the Korean young, not Swiss young, he postulated that music is a common human trait that big made us humans, because we needed to process sounds of nature. That’s why we evolved to have a neural network that processes sounds of nature, which is a music network. So, it is a common human trait. So, isn’t it interesting that we can always rely on some type of musical experience to make us closer to ourselves? Obviously, it harmonizes two hemispheres because one is verbal and one is nonverbal. And what is the bridge between verbal and nonverbal? Is music, both of them can understand music, you know, basically, when I put people under a grand piano, right, and I make them experience music, not only as a spatial audio experience, but also physically because you physically feel those vibrations. You know, you feel those frequencies, you know, you can hold on to the soundboard. Did you feel the music pass through you? It’s like the ultimate Gong BA with probably more frequencies, the piano is vibrating at more types of frequencies than the gong bath. And then what happens what happens? I started studying those experiences and they turn out to be pretty universal. I’ve tested it on about maybe 200 people more than 200 people. And I always hear similar types of themes like feeling of unity, feeling of oneness, flow, falling through the gap, not being aware of time. A lot of people get images. A lot of people get a feeling of overwhelm, but like that nice overwhelm where they feel whole. And so, in my research, I study how that reduces stress turns negative affective states into positive or desired affective states. And consequently, enhanced performance. How can you perform when you’re stressed? What about you Minter? How do you perform under stress?

Minter Dial  40:20

Well, like you said, at the very beginning, there’s always there’s good stress and bad stress. And I tend to lean into the stress. Maybe I have this meta moment, when I’m, for example, in sports, I will, I can play a friendly game. And then there’s the competitive game where there’s something on the line. And the idea is, well, you know, this service, I have to get it in. Because if I don’t, I will lose this game. And so, I kind of relish those moments every day, like I this is it, this is show uptime. And so, I try to lean into the stress of it, and, and move from fear into some other zone. That’s how I think about stress. And I also have a little ritual before I play any competitive sport, I will listen to music before in fact, I listen to one specific song that’s important to me called crazy world by Aslan, the Irish band, but it’s a it’s a, there’s a ritual element to it, there’s a connecting into the vibrations. And that the further thought I have, which I don’t remember, if I shared this with you is that I, I am strongly convinced that music is a the best way of proving the theory of string, the string theory, which astrophysicist will talk about as an unproven unprovable type of existence, but that we are all made up of little strings that the smallest Planck length material in the world is a little vibrating string, which forms atoms, which forms molecules, which forms our bodies, and that we are all vibrating with the music, the and there’s cosmic music, there’s, you know, the natural music and other things. And actually, we probably even between us in terms of people have our musical strings vibrating when we connect. That’s, that’s my unscientific approach, because I’m just more of a creative thinker when it comes to that. And I love the my experience under your piano, because it’s a very visceral experience. Like you say, I’m a big fan of the Grateful Dead. And when the have two drummers, and it can happen in other moments, like with a bass guitar in particular, but when the drummers start doing their solos, usually in the second set, they will have a 30-40 minute drum solo. And, and, and the drums when you’re into it, especially if you’re dosed. You feel the drums into your system be through a beautiful sound system, of course, and that that feeling is hormonally interesting. You’re just, well, you’re really in a flow at that moment, of course, dosed helps.

Evelina De Lain  43:45

Yes, and you know, I feel like I can relate so much to what you’re saying. That’s why I called my experience inside the music. You are literally music and one of the researchers research one of the researchers let me say one of the studies I have read says that music is always a participation and body experience because you can only complete experience of music with your body and this is exactly what we’re talking about. You know, if the tree falls into the forest, into the in the forest and nobody is there to hear the tree did I play music and you are disembodied at that time, whatever that means. Did I really play music? Even when I play, right, I use my body to play. When you listen. You use your body to listen. And when you experience you use your body to experience. And this experience touches all senses and all parts. And this is why we are so fortunate to be able to find ourselves inside the music inside that experience. And I always feel this participation mistake in a big theater, or in a big concert hall. When people start clapping, I cannot help but cry my eyes out every time there is a big Ovation going on. Why? Because, say if you’re in the Royal Albert Hall or to write, there’s 5000 people, 10,000 people, and they all get synchronized. When they class, it’s kind of whatever. Then they all start getting synchronized. You all clap in sync 5000 People 10,000 People, obviously happens in football games, but like, I’m not a big football fan. But like people start singing or clapping, and it all syncs. How can 1000 people sync up in that moment, right? How if you put 10, metronomes, 20, metronomes, 50 metronomes? And you start them all separately, do you know that they’re all going to sync up? You can find those videos is bizarre. All the metronomes are going to sync up no matter when you started them. Right? Same happens with us with people we share that field. And often it happens in participation missed mistake experience experiences like concerts or football game, right? Or a theater where we get immersed into this field body, right? Field Theory string theory, we can go really deep into science, I mean, we’re not scientists. So, we’re looking at it as creative researchers. So, we probably would not be able to explain it from a physics point of view. But then we take these frequencies and vibrations, and we take them from the esoteric world. And we reclaim them back in the actual vocal sense of the word, there is a frequency there is a vibration. And when we all clap, a standout, some people and we become one body, one synchronized entity. But then, when you are under the piano, right, or you’re in a close proximity inside your own band, or your favorite band, like I created this experience because I want to sit in the middle of a quintet, a string quintet. They sat in a circle, I was sat in the middle. And that’s how I realized, Oh, if I put people on their piano, they can get the same experience I’m getting right now being sat in the middle of the string quartet. That participation mistake, we all become one. But two, what do we become one with? What even in that moment, right? If I play mortared becoming one with Mozart right? And with everything he had access to, right, those notes live in your body. So, do we get access to collective unconscious? Do we get access to this subliminal, or liminal space? Do we get access to this field? That connective field that unites all of us, not just the parts of our brain and parts of our body, but all of us in that space time? And that fits into everything I’ve experienced regarding synchronicity, blow and I’ve experienced that climate mon blonde. And my guide said, you know, you climb among blonde is like me having three piano lessons and becoming a conductor of London Philharmonic. And you’re not going to do it. And they said, You know what, you’re wrong. I only have 10 lessons. And I’m going to do it. And they did it. But not because I wasn’t experienced climbing, but because I know how to get into the state of flow. And I knew I was in the state of flow, because after I flew down to Chamonix on the power glide, and I had two hours of sleep, and I woke up and I had no muscle pain, no recovery. I mean, my recovery already happened. How could it be if I’m not really a sports person or an experienced climber? You know, they tell us in the state of flow recovery is 400%. Better, right? If you are in the state of flow, and I’m sure you’ve experienced it in your games, right, but then we can experience it through music, we can experience through art, we can experience it through our one, just standing there in a forest watch. I know listening to music, having a metal dance. So, essentially, do we all have access to this invisible world? Think we do, maybe what we’re doing here. And what I’m able to do when I play piano, with you, under my piano, I am a guide who can open the doors. But what enters through the doors is not me. It’s not my talent. It’s not my abilities. I’m just a skilled guide to skilled door opener. But then there’s is that field that we’re all connected to anyway, just sometimes somebody has to open the door.

Minter Dial  51:07

One of one of the one book that I think for anyone who wants to do some follow up on this, that’s really worthwhile. And maybe you’ve read it, too. It’s another musician, who’s also a neuroscientist from University of McGill, same as Daniel Levitan, and he wrote a book called this is your brain on music? Yes, it’s a phenomenally accessible book to read and check in on. So, the last zone I wanted to talk about so if someone who’s listening to this is either stressed or is wanting to perform better at work? What kind of advice would you would you provide for them? Because they’re going to be in their house? They’re listening to us wherever they are walking their dog, or, or, or whatever. And by the way, Hi. Where what would you what? How can I bring music into my life to help me perform better? Or to de stress? What do you what are the recommendations?

Evelina De Lain  52:15

Well, first of all, if you’re listening now, and you’re in London, come and have a research with me, because I still need research subjects. And then we can test this theory, right, this hypothesis? Does music make you less stressed and perform better as a consequence of you feeling less stress? You do not have access to a music intervention like this? What could you do? Obviously, you could create those experiences for yourself, you could lie in the Shavasana. You can get spatial audio, right? You can play sounds of singing bowls. Basically, you can learn to play singing bowls yourself. You can get as many singing bowls as you can order as many percussive instruments as you can. Because we’re all meant to play percussion. We are percussionists, by music experience, right? We can all sing, we can learn to chant, I would say if you are inclined, you can chant any kind of mantras. Find your desired experience, Mantra, and chant it, find your note and chant it. Learn singing, you know, everybody can learn singing use your bodies and instruments, you know, find your 432 Hertz. You know, you can use an app on your phone to find where do you sound at 432 hertz, they say it’s a magic frequency. You can test it for yourself, and then write to us in common, what worked for you. But if you walk in with your dog, I think you’re already doing this you’re turning distress into us stress. So, good luck to you anyway, you’re doing things right. Anyway?

Minter Dial  54:05

Love it! Well, I’m going to we’ll put some show notes so that people can go check out some singing bowls are the app that allows us to get to the 432 hertz, just to bounce back off what you said something that I enjoyed doing. First of all, I love to sing and play guitar, of course. And I always integrate music into my day. And I think we don’t do enough of that we don’t integrate enough beauty and art into our daily existence. And when I’m stressed for example, if I have a big speech to make, and I’m finding myself in a stressful place, what happens of course, is that my vocal cords get tight. I start speaking higher, quicker. And the idea of going into some Chances are the baser note I try to find some lower notes in my body. It, it first of all relaxes me. Yes. And I find that useful. You don’t need to do it before speech, you can just do it before you have to write something important. Yeah, just try to resonate deeper into yourself.

Evelina De Lain  55:22

Because the low sounds release dopamine. And apparently you know you as the lower the better. You know if you can chant low, then you are going to release dopamine for yourself or even listening to somebody chanting really low, that will work.

Minter Dial  55:41

Lovely. Well on these this lovely, actionable way to go. It’s been great having you on the show Evelina. So, and the idea of going over and listening going underneath your piano, hopefully, Londoners take you up on that. How can people contact you follow you understand your work? Check out your world record, what are the best ways to track you down, to follow you?

Evelina De Lain  56:07

Yeah, just my name that you can see on the air or in the description of this podcast within the Delaine you can find me everywhere. can find me on Instagram. You can find me. Facebook, LinkedIn. My email is Evelinajazz@gmail.com. And yeah, and remember, remember, if you’re feeling stressed, it’s not a diagnosis, it’s just a state. That’s what I would like to leave you with. It’s a state. It’s just a state. And like you said, states are transient. So, you can always change one state for the other. So, find out what are the desired states you would like to have instead of the, so we’re going to call it negative affective state and positive affective state and do something that changes your state. And you know, if you would like to know more about it, write to us and we’re going to chat and find out how you can change your state is sometimes even as simple passing through the arch through the door. You tell yourself I was in that state. Now I’m in that state and hopefully after you’ve listened to this, your state has changed as well.

Minter Dial  57:29

Well, I feel elevated in our conversation, Evelina, ever later. superlative thank you so much. So, a really heartfelt thanks for listening to this episode of The Minter Dialogue podcast. If you liked the show, please remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast service. As ever, rating and reviews are the real currency of podcasts. And if you’re really inspired, I’m accepting donations on www.patreon.com/Minterdial. You’ll find the show notes with over 2100 blog posts on minterdial.com on topics ranging from leadership to branding, tech and marketing tips. Check out my documentary film and books including my last one, the second edition of “Heartificial Empathy, Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence” that came out in April 2023. And to finish here’s a song I wrote with Stephanie Singer, “A Convinced Man.”

I like the feel of a stranger

Tucked around me

Precipitating the danger

To feel free

Trust is the reason

Still I won’t toe the line.

I sit here passively

Hope for your respect

Anticipating the thrill of your intellect

Maybe I tell myself

There’s no use in me lying.

I’m a convinced man,

Building an urge

A convinced man,

To live and die submerged.

A convinced man,

In the arms of a woman

I’m a convinced man

Challenge my fate

I’m a convinced man

Competition’s innate

A convinced man

In the arms of a woman.

Despise revenges

And struggle to see

Live for the challenge

So life’s not incomplete

What’s wrong with challenge

I know soon we all die

I’m a convinced man

Practicing my lines

I’m a convinced man

Here in these confines

A convinced man

In the arms of a woman.

I’m a convinced man

Put me to the test

I’m a convinced man

I’m ready for an arrest

I’m a convinced man

In the arms of a woman.

I’m a convinced man… so convinced

You convince me, yeah baby,

I’m a convinced man

In the arms of a woman…