LISTENING: Music - Movement - Mind is a conceptual and practical book about the creative
relationship between mind and body in the context of music and martial arts. It describes the
potential of this relationship for our creativity and inspiration. Over the past 20 years the
musician and composer Nik Bärtsch founder of the so-called Ritual Groove Music has developed
techniques that not only offer musicians and martial artists useful and surprising tools but
also support focus and thus simplify learning processes in other fields of activity and in
daily life. In addition to the individual learning aspect Bärtsch presents basic collaborative
and community-oriented strategies. The content of the book is based on the long-standing
experience of the author Nik Bärtsch and his wife Andrea Pfisterer as performers in live music
as aikido practitioners cultural entrepreneurs and teachers of music and physical techniques.
They reflect their experiences and questions on a practical philosophical aesthetic and
poetic level and offer and encourage new connections and perspectives for creative people.
"Imagine a composer as an engineer listen with all your senses like a martial artist train
your sense of tempo time and timing like a drummer act with a partner like a unit." (Nik
Bärtsch) Through essays and pictures interviews exercises and games the book conveys the
authors' poetic understanding of body and mind and inspires the individual creativity and
consciousness of the readers regardless of their background. The visual material includes
photographs drawings and diagrams album covers and graphic word fields. The publication also
documents the stages of Bärtsch's musical development as composer solo pianist and bandleader
of Ronin and Mobile two formations that enjoy international recognition.
