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Hey boys and girls, here's a fun FUN thing we like doing in Victor's tree house on Thursdays:
ALTERING YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS WITH MUSIC
(aCtually, this is SeRious sTUff):
A TECHNIQUE SECTION:
Music is a good metaphor for life.
Like life, it just repeats something over and over.
Like life, it's just energy. A dance.
Like life, it makes joy and sorrow into one.
And like life, before it starts there is silence
and, when it stops, there's silence again.
Most accounts of shamanism deal with the visual: visualizations, visions, trance and dream images, power objects, and so forth. When drumming is discussed, it is usually described as a means of stimulating our inner eyes. However, in Awakening Intuition, Frances Vaughan states: "Although visual imagery is dominant for most people in this culture, many people are more responsive to auditory ... images."
About 25 or 30 years ago, western musicians discovered that music, certain types of music, can alter consciousness. So, today, it is possible to find consciousness elevating music being made by many electronic composers (Michael Stearns, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Paul Kalbach, Paul Lanski, Phillip Glass, Meridith Monk, etc.). Other types of western music have more occasional examples: rock groups (Santana, Mike Oldfield), reggae (Shelly Thunder), and a few jazz people like John Coltrane ("Cosmic Music") and Herbie Hancock.
This music is usually of five compositonal types and these types are often combined. I do not wish to give the impression that my rather simplistic analysis describes something as complex as much of this music, or even its entire means of altering consciousness. The effect that a certain piece of music has upon our minds is of course synonymous with the piece itself, the experience that the totality gives to us in hearing it. So, to say that this music is of five types is only an approximation for a purpose.
The first type makes use of the fact that certain melodies, certain tunes, melodic themes, have a power to affect our nervous systems. No one knows exactly why these particular tunes do this, and it would be impossible for me to describe what these particular themes are, but if you hear them, you will know what I mean. The melody of the 4th movement ("Ode to Joy") of Beethoven's 9th Symphony is a perfect example. No one needs to understand the German words to know that Beethoven has truly written an Ode to Joy. Occasionally a pop song will come along whose tune sans words will etch itself in our memories. And then there are the tunes in the romantic music of Ravel and Faure ("Requiem Mass"), or in Oldfield's "Omnadawn" and Michael Stearns' "Ancient Leaves." When this kind of musical device is used by itself, the effect produced is both pleasurable to large numbers of people and of limited consciousness-altering propensities. A certain variety of tune induces relaxation and a positive, quiet state of mind and has spawned a new class of popular music that is often grouped under the heading: "New Age."
The second type of consciousness altering music is very repetitive music. In it, the same musical phrase is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. The effect is like the sound of an endlessly dripping water faucet. The mantra is the model here and some of its best examples are: "Magic" by Spirit Drummers (Primal Productions), Tuareg "Medicine Chants," "Music in Similar Motion" by Philip Glass, "Finding the Pulse" by New Mexico Ceremonials and "Live Recordings inside the Human Womb."(Also, the chants and music put out by the ARICA foundation some years ago, if you can find them).
The third type, rather than having a repetitious, hypnotic effect is quite the opposite. In it, the music is very chaotic and discordant. In it, there seems to be no order but only cacophony and noise. In fact, some modern composers, like Terry Riley and John Cage, use chance methods for composing their music. John Cage used a method of punching holes in an old inner tube, stretching the inner tube over a musical staff sheet and marking dots on the sheet where the holes were."In C," a work by Terry Riley, has a score of 53 short musical phrases. Using any number of musicians, each is assigned a phrase to begin on. During the performance, the players may stay with any one phrase for as long as they like, improvising with other players, and setting their own tempos. The performance ends when all performers have finished the 53rd phrase. The Columbia Records recording of this work performed by the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in the State University of New York at Buffalo is very good for changing consciousness. The best way I can describe the psychologic effect of this kind of musicis to say that it causes our minds to begin to hear an order in the chaos and we become "lost" in that order.
The fourth type is very complex music, a Bach fugue for modern ears. In a way, this type includes within it all the advantages of the above types: beautiful themes, a constantly repeating tune and endless variety. The richness of the texture and the multitudinous interweaving themes stretch our minds to encompass a new reality. Such music as the Musango Marimba Ensemble's, Michael Stearn's "Encounter" and "Morning," Paul Kalbach's "Wanna Buy a Duck" and "Snoid Tap-Dancing in Tennis Shoes" (available from the composer), Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians"and "Drumming," Paul Lanski's "Idle Chatter" and much, much African. Suggested African players: Mapfumo, Mujuru and Dumisani. Suggested African works: Olatungi: "Drums of Passion" and "Invocation," Nonesuch recordings: "Africa: Drum, Chant & Instrumental Music" and "Music of Burundi," Makeba: "Sangoma," "The Kora and the Xylophone" (Lyrichord), and Boka Marimba's new CD: "Weaver of Rhythms." Indian ragas are also excellent examples.
Finally, there is the type of music that is not music at all but a long extended tone often in a low (bass) frequency: Ahhhhhhhhhhh...., Oooommm-mmmmm..., Uuuummmmmmmm...., etc. Usually the tone is in accord with a melody or simultaneous musical elements. These tones resonate us, which is their purpose for their model is the trance producing sounds vocalized in eastern religions. "Tantras of Gyuto: Mahakala" (Nonesuch Records) is a good example of Tibetan chanting that can alter consciousness through a continuous low drone. In addition, synthesizer composers like Michael Stearns often use an extended and powerful continuous bass pitch below, or before, other more melodious elements. Related to this type of effect--though not really a low drone--are the chanting voices of shamans. And here, I am really at a loss to categorize the elements of this chanting. The only thing I can say is that the shaman is a shaman because he perceives the Other Reality and moreover can communicate it musically to those around him.
And that is really what all of this music is. The composer or musician sees Reality. And why we are able to open ourselves to this Reality completely is that, upon hearing it, we can believe that this Reality describes a universal "goodness" or harmony. In other words, we love this music and allow it to affect us because that music comes out of the minds of real healers.
This music that Westerners have just discovered in the last 25 to 30 years, has been known since the beginnings of the dawn of time to so called "primitive people." It was very important to them in their higher understanding of the powers of the earth. To know the beings around them, it was necessary to enter that UNKNOWN world through trance. This was the original purpose of music. Thus, some of the best examples of consciousness altering music can be found in the music of Australian Aborigines, Africans, and North and South American tribes. But even more importantly, it began and can be found in the world of nature, itself. For it is the natural sounds that produce the strongest trance state in us, and it is these sounds that help to bind us to the earth. The raucous chorus of thousands of insects at night, which actually mimics the sound of our own nervous systems, the subtle overtones and pitch changes of ocean breaking on pebbles, wind hissing in the trees, and plaintive bird songs are particularly useful.
TRANCE INDUCTION
Because music can directly affect our nervous systems, the listener, like the visual trancer, must be an active participant in the experience. It can only alter someone if he or she so chooses. Also, if someone listens to it as background music, or while doing something else, it probably won't have much of an effect. To actively participate requires special listening techniques. Although these techniques are individual, something that each person needs to adjust for him/herself, I might give the following suggestions:
You will need a good sound reproductive source and you will need to experiment a bit to see if you prefer listening through speakers or headphones. If you live in a situation where you must be concerned about a high volume level, you will definitely be better off with headphones. Headphones also enhance the effect of "the sound occurring within your head"--a factor of the trance. You probably will need to go through some induction rituals before beginning. These would include turning off the lights, lighting a candle, burning incense, saying prayers, chanting, use of power objects, picking proper place for listening, finding the best body position, etc. After the music begins, you will need to adjust the volume for maximum effect. Generally, I would say, if listening to speakers, you will need to make the volume loud enough so that you have the sense the sound is filling the space of the entire room, but not so loud that it irritates you and makes you tense up rather than relax. An alternative level, however, is quite soft. Here, the experience is one of hearing the sound far away as in a dream. With headphones, one also must pay close attention to selecting the correct volume.
As you listen, make your mind blank so that you just focus upon the sound. That is, we all have this constant barrage of thoughts running through our minds--an internal voice that talks to us. Silence that voice so that its space is replaced by the space of the musical sound. At the same time focus your awareness upon your head and face and particularly your inner ears. Feel them. Then fuse your awareness of the music with your awareness of your ears into a single awareness. (You can also fuse visual images to the music at a later stage.) If you do this, you may experience a sudden shift in your hearing. This "shift" is difficult to describe in words. One way is to say that you begin to hear your own physiologic hearing apparatus, your inner ears--and you will have the impression the music occurs in your head (which is in fact biologically true). But such descriptions are not important. What is important is experience--the experience that you begin to have in listening in this way, and allowing your knowledge of this experience, over repeated listenings, to grow.
An interesting fact about our anatomy is that we can shut our eyes with eyelids but have no similar arrangement for our ears. Select the sounds for trancing carefully. You are going to let down the normal censoring mechanisms that you have for filtering sounds and open your hearing. In our daily lives, we all erect an unconscious barrier in our sound perception. Because we are constantly bombarded by many sounds that come from our man-made world--tools and machines, radio and television, extraneous conversations, etc.--we close our hearing somewhat and only allow sounds to partially affect us. This is good because sound can have a very strong impact upon our state of healthfulness. It is therefore important, in developing this listening ability, to be selective in one's hearing: to open oneself to HEALTH-PRODUCING sounds (good music) and block out disease producing ones. (For that reason some shamans that I know wear ear plugs when they are still in a sacred condition in a polluted sound environment.) In listening to this music, which is health producing sound, we try to let down all hearing barriers and just allow the music to flow into us. Again, this "flowing in" is difficult to tell in words. When the shift occurs, you may experience that the music sounds different because you are no longer judging it. Then you may experience that your head and body have ceased to exist and its space is now occupied by the music.
If you practice this technique for awhile, you may begin to notice some of the evidences of altered consciousness: first, a deep relaxation. Then, that you can use this state to heal your body by fusing the disease with the sound: get rid of headaches and other pains, alleviate minor stomach upsets, prevent colds and flus at their inception, and, in general, and most importantly, as preventative medicine. You may also find, when in this state, that you have visions and/or intuitions about other people, life situations, the future, etc.
