Lynne McTaggart - Living the Field Sound Therapy

LIVING THE FIELD SOUND THERAPY

LIVING THE FIELD

LIVING THE FIELD Contents

Sound Therapy

Lesson 1 Tuning in to the right frequency Lesson 2 Hearing the sound of health Lesson 3 Powerful sounds from the Ancients

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Lesson 4 Living in universal harmony Lesson 5 All of heaven in a single note Lesson 6 Chanting your way to health Lesson 7 In the beginning is the breath

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Lesson 8 Chanting the tonal prayer Lesson 10 Singing along with the chakras Lesson 11 Overtoning for healing Lesson 12 Good vibrations that heal

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LIVING THE FIELD Tuning in to the right frequency This is the first of a series of lessons about the use of sound—harmony and vibration—to heal and to raise con sciousness, both individually and col lectively. The Field teaches us that we a re a connected sea of energy and, ulti mately, that we are beings of light. This is complemented by the work of Swiss physicist Dr Hans Jenny, who discov e red that every cell in our body is con trolled by an electromagnetic field with its own fre q u e n c y.

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hat we are beings of light gives sense to energetic or vibrational healing systems such as homeopathy and acupuncture, which can tune the body back to health. As Dr Richard Gerber, author of Vibrational Healing (Santa Fe: Bear, 1988), once said: “If we are beings of energ y, then it follows that we can be affected by energ y.”1 Biologist Dr Rupert Sheldrake describes our bodies as “nested hierarchies of vibrational frequencies”, which appear as discrete systems functioning within larger, more complicated ones that are themselves contained within even larger and more complex vibrational structures.2 This nested hierarchy goes beyond the human body and its intercellular connections, and extends out to the planets and galaxies, which, in their turn, are vibrationally connected. Similarly, every living and ‘inanimate’ object on the earth, including people, trees, plants and stones, are also in communication – and, ideally, in harmony. It’s a realization the ancients shared. The importance of sound is reflected in the philosophy of Nada Brahman (Union through Sound), and can be found in Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. We know the Ancient Egyptians and the Ancient Greeks also understood the importance of sound, and used it in religious ceremonies, while the

Sound Therapy Lesson 1

Pythagorean School developed the theory of planetary vibrations in the Music of the Spheres. In modern times, harmony and vibration are used in many forms of therapy, such as bioacoustics, cymatic t h e r a p y, harmonic resonance, HemiSync from the Monroe Institute, mantric chanting, music imagery, toning and tuning forks. Sound is not just used to bring a sense of inner peace and calm. It has physical applications as a method of reducing pain and even for reversing disease. The American physician Dr Royal Raymond Rife was using sound frequencies to reverse some cancers he said were caused by a virus until his work was banned in the United States in the 1930s. In this course of lessons, you will come to understand the significance of sound in modern therapies and to the Ancients and, more importantly, how you can harness it in your everyday life to effect change and healing. In this first lesson, we will begin setting the groundwork by looking at the science of sound, and how scientists and researchers have explored the world of sound and vibration to heal and change the immediate environment. There has hardly been a time when the physicist and his forebear, the natural scientist, was not experimenting with sound or endeavoring to understand its qualities and eff e c t s . Dutch mathematician Christian Huygens noted the power of pulsation in 1656, when he discovered that randomly swinging pendula would eventually begin swinging in unison. He described this phenomenon as the ‘principle of entrainment’, where weaker pulsations come under the influence of stronger ones. In an experiment by German physicist Ernst Chladni at the end of the 18th century on the effects of vibrations, he was able to create intricate sand patterns by vibrating a steel plate with a 5

Sound Therapy Lesson 1

LIVING THE FIELD violin bow. When disturbed, the patterns would quickly reestablish their original formation. But it was the work of Dr Hans Jenny in the 20th century which gave a firm scientific footing to vibration and sound, and inspired many other researchers and scientists to explore the use of sound therapy. Jenny (1904–1972) was a medical doctor who spent 14 years on meticulous research into the effects of vibrations on a variety of materials, including powders, sand, pastes and liquids. He used a simple, audible sine-wave vibration to create wonderful, natural patterns – they were physical representations of vibration.3 A substance, such as sand, was placed on a metal plate attached to an oscillator controlled by a frequency generator. A turn of the dial made the plate vibrate at different frequencies and, instead of creating anarchic mounds; the material was transformed into beautiful and symmetrical patterns. Jenny said he could hear the sound as a wave, see the pattern of sound and feel the sound through the vibrating plate. He called his work ‘cymatics’, which is encapsulated in his main book, Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena, which is now back in print. Although others have been inspired

by Jenny to explore the healing powers of sound, Jenny himself never saw his work as a therapy. Instead, he wanted to demonstrate the importance of sound and vibrational fields throughout nature, and its role in a variety of systems, such as biology, weather patterns and even social order. Despite his disinterest in sound therapy, Jenny saw people as unified energy fields or ‘wholes’, as he put it. Applying Sheldrake’s theory of nested hierarchies of vibrational frequencies, it is possible to see our physical bodies as a gross form of vibrational field, interlapped by other vibrations made up from our thoughts and emotions. J e n n y ’s natural heir is Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto, who has explored the impact of human energ y, thoughts, words and sound on the molecular structure of water.4 Others influenced by Jenny who have concentrated on therapeutic applications of sound include British naturopath Dr Peter Guy Manners and Robert Monroe, whose pioneering work has created the Monroe Institute. Manners suggested that every form vibrates within its own specific range of frequencies, which alters when unwell. As every cell has its own frequency, so every body has a composite harmonic frequency as unique as a fingerprint. In

The stress-busting molecule Although plenty of researchers have proven the stress-reducing abilities of music, few have explored the physiology of the phenomenon. Researchers from the Neuroscience Research Institute in New York believe that nitric-oxide molecules respond to music and sound, and cause the sense of relaxation and wellbeing. But the discovery goes way beyond the purely mechanical. Nitric-oxide molecules help create the auditory system and are an active agent in cochlear (inner ear) blood flow. A purely physical description tells us that cochlear nerve fibers enter the brainstem and are routed through the thalamus to the auditory cortex. It is along this path that the emotion centers within the limbic system are activated when music is played. But the essence of what is really going on continues to elude researchers. 6

health, the frequency pattern is steady and constant, but when dysfunction/ disease upsets the harmony of the body, an aberrant resonant frequency is generated. Manners would then transmit the original, healthy vibration until the sick tissue or organ started resonating with it, so restoring itself to health.5 Monroe worked along similar lines of empathetic frequencies, but to modulate brain waves. His work resulted in the HemiSync, an audio system that transmits binaural beats influencing brainwave patterns to improve emotional wellbeing, overcome sleep disorders and reduce stress. The Russians had also been working along similar lines throughout the 1960s, although their work only appeared in the West in 1983, when Dr Ross A d e y, chief of research at a California hospital, took delivery of one of their wave-emitting machines, known as Lida. The machine was designed to alter brain waves to treat nervousness; sleeplessness, hypertension and neuroses.6 Adey described the machine as “a distant pulse treatment apparatus” which generates 40-megahertz radio waves. The machine was issued with a pho-

tograph of a Lida on a stage in a theatre in which the entire audience was asleep, presumably as a result of the transmissions of the machine. It all added to the mystique of the Lida, and as much nonsense as science was spoken about it at the time. It was even suggested that the Lida was transmitting waves to the United States to change the thinking of the typical American. Bryan Hubbard Lesson 2: More scientific discoveries

Sound Therapy Lesson 1

1 Gerber R. Interview with Intuitive Times, Autumn, 2001 2 Sheldrake R. Of Sound Mind and Body: Music and Vibrational Healing (Cymatics video), as quoted by Jeff Vo l k 3 Jenny H. Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena, Macromedia Press, 2001 4 Emoto M. Messages From Wa t e r, Bantam Books, New York: 2000 5 Manners PG. Cymatics healing by sound, in The Eclectic Viewpoint, 10 February 2001 6 Associated Press release, 20 May 1983

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LIVING THE FIELD Hearing the sound of health In the first lesson, we introduced the subject of sound and harmony, and its role in healing and the raising of con sciousness. We started to look at scien tific explorations into the use of sound and, in particular, the work of Dr Hans Jenny. In this lesson, we look more closely at the use of sound as a healing thera py, and the pioneering work of Dr Alfred Tomatis and of the Maharishi Vedic Vibration Technology (MVVT).

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t is extraordinary how many times the theory of the Field coincides with many of the world’s ancient belief systems and religions. Vedic philosophy, for example, states that there is an unmanifest field of intelligence called Atma, which mirrors the theory of the Zero Point Field as an interlinked and intelligent sea of potential. Vedic philosophy goes on to tell us that, from Atma, comes the Natural Law, which underlies and governs the orderly functioning of the entire universe, which includes us. Human physiology is an expression of the fundamental structures of Natural Law, explains neuroscientist Professor Tony Nader. As he puts it, “the human body is a replica of the Veda.” The creative force of the Natural Law is vibration or sound, an idea that has echoes in Judaism and Christianity through the Holy Bible verse: “In the beginning was the Word”. Dr Hans Jenny, whose research work we looked at in Lesson One, stated, in a similar vein: “ . . . sound is the creative principle. It must be regarded as primordial. We cannot say, ‘In the beginning was number, or in the beginning was symmetry.’ They are not themselves the creative power. This power is inherent in tone, in sound.” Dr Jenny’s conclusion was anticipated in the Veda and other religious writings. All matter, says the Veda, including cells, tissues, organs and the

Sound Therapy Lesson 2

entire physiology of the body, is based on the vibrations of Natural Law. This sympathetic resonance is mirrored in the Zero Point Field and in quantum physics in general. As one of the basic tenets of quantum physics states that subatomic matter can behave either as a wave or a particle, so Brenda Dunne and Bob Jahn at Princeton University conjectured that consciousness might also have the same dual identity. Consciousness, they theorized, could resonate at the subatomic level with subatomic matter, and so influence it. This suggests that wellness and health occur when our bodies are in tune with the creative harmony; conversely, disease occurs when we are out of step with this vibration or pulse. In quantum physics, we would state that our bodies, when ill, are no longer coherent. If the intention were there, this incoherence could be altered—through thought, for example, or by vibration. Maharishi Vedic Vibration Technology Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, famous for bringing Transcendental Meditation (TM) to the West, has used the Vedic philosophy of Natural Law vibrations to develop the Maharishi Vedic Vibration Technology (MVVT), a technique for improving health. Practitioners have found that a vibrational impulse can “transform chaos, or disorder, into order”, according to the Maharishi Ayurveda Foundation. From the standpoint of the paradigm of conventional biology, the technique seems incomprehensible. The practitioner whispers or mutters to himself some specific sounds, determined according to the patient’s problem, and ‘administers’ them by blowing on or touching the affected area of the body. The Foundation says the influence of the sound or vibration permeates the 9

Sound Therapy Lesson 2

LIVING THE FIELD body and “enlivens its inner intelligence and self-repair mechanism”. Strange as the technique may seem, it has been the subject of some scientific research, which has shown that it can be a beneficial therapy. The most thorough assessment was carried out by David Scharf in 2001. He followed up the 4722 people who, by March 2001, had received the treatment in North America. He found that patients reported improvements after two or three sessions and that the e ffects were cumulative. Overall, around a third reported “less than 25 per cent relief”, while 29 per cent reported between 75 per cent and complete relief from their symptoms. The most common conditions being treated among these patients were musculoskeletal disorders and mental problems. The results were mixed, with a third of those with musculoskeletal problems reporting a “less than 25 per cent” improvement while 95 of the 366 polled (one-quarter) claimed improvements of up to 100 per cent. Respiratory problems were the ailments most successfully treated by MVVT, followed by gynecological disorders and cardiovascular problems. The least successfully treated were conditions of the eye, and hearing disorders such as ringing in the ears (tinnitus). Scharf’s findings are at variance with a smaller study carried out by

Professor Nader, who had looked at the effects on patients with chronic disorders such as migraine headaches, arthritis, back pain and gastrointestinal pain. “In many cases, the results were immediate and produced a high degree of relief of symptoms,” he wrote. The Tomatis Method Dr Tomatis, a French ear, nose and throat specialist who died in 2002, developed an audio therapy system for improving children’s learning abilities and for treating their attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorders (ADHD). This approach is less holistic than MVVT and is used for very specific purposes. It does not claim to treat any and every ailment, nor is it wedded to any philosophy or religion, even if its founding principles may seem similar. Tomatis’ therapy depends on developing an ability to actively listen—as opposed to our usual passive hearing— to sound waves and frequencies as they are subtly being altered and modulated. Active listening in this way, he discovered, can change and improve our psychological development, and our ability to express ourselves and communicate with others. It’s also been scientifically tested. Tim Gilmor carried out a meta-analysis of five studies, involving 231 children a l t o g e t h e r, and discovered that the Tomatis Method significantly improved

The mystery of NO Most of us associate music with relaxation and reducing stress—it’s a view shared and confirmed by numerous research studies. The process itself, however, has rarely been investigated, except by one group of researchers who think they now understand the chemical process that happens when we listen to our favorite music.1 They have isolated the nitric oxide (NO) molecule as being responsible for that sense of ease and wellbeing. It’s released as we listen and enjoy the music, say scientists at the Neuroscience Research Institute at New York University — but it’s not just a mechanical process. Nitric oxide also helps develop our hearing system and inner-ear blood flow. So as we listen, we relax, and as we relax, our hearing improves, which helps us listen, which . . . 1

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Salamon E et al. Sound Therapy Induced Relaxation. BioSonic Enterprises, 2002

linguistic skills, psychomotor skills, personal and social skills, and cognitive and auditory skills.1 The Tomatis Center in To r o n t o , Canada, has studied the results of the therapy in more than 400 children and adolescents. All of them had well-documented histories of learning problems and a pattern of underachievement in various educational tests. As part of the study, when the parents were asked for their feedback, 95 per cent of them said the programme had helped their children. The greatest improvement was in communication abilities, followed by better attention span and reading comprehension. In a follow-up study carried out six months later, 83 per cent of the children were found to have maintained their level of progress, and some had continued to improve.2 One study looked at the efficacy of the Tomatis Method for children who were severely developmentally delayed. Thirty children participated, and were assigned to either the Tomatis

Method, music stimulation, or no treatment. Both of the treated groups showed improvements, but the Tomatis children were the most stimulated. They were also more responsive than those in the music-therapy group according to tests carried out afterwards.3 In a further study involving six severely autistic boys, the researchers discovered that three of the boys showed positive behavioral changes by the end of the treatment. One boy was no longer considered autistic, while two others displayed only slight symptoms of autism. The other three remained within the range of severe autism.4 Bryan Hubbard Lesson 3: Ancient harmonic scales 1 2

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Sound Therapy Lesson 2

Int J Listening, 1999; 13: 12 Stutt HA. The Tomatis Method: A Review of Current Research. Montreal: McGill University, 1983 De Bruto CME. First Congress on Audio-Psychophonology, 1983 Roy J. Doctoral dissertation. University of Ottawa, 1982

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LIVING THE FIELD Powerful sounds from the Ancients

Sound Therapy Lesson 3

In the first two lessons, we looked at the science of sound and harmonics, and the ways it is being applied in our lives today in areas such as healing. Now, to put our modern discoveries into context, we need to go back to ancient civilizations and review the ways they used sound.

Not only is it untranslatable, but also it is also difficult to convey the correct way of saying it via the written word. Roughly, it should sound something like ‘Ohm-mah-nee-pahd-may-hung’, although Tibetans often pronounce ‘pahd’ as ‘peh’. There’s no need to be too much of a purist over pronunciation. The real point ound was a vital healing and cre- is that it is an incantation. As the Tibetan ative force for virtually every sage Kalu Rinpoche explained: “Through ancient civilization and culture: its mantra, we no longer cling to the reality use can be found in the history of the of the speech and sound encountered in Ancient Greeks, the Chinese, Tibetans, life, but experience it as essentially Egyptians, American Indians, Mayans empty.” and Aztecs, and throughout the Indian Many of these traditions have continsubcontinent. ued on to the modern day, and the mantra Sound was sometimes used by the remains an important element of general community. The Chinese routine- Hinduism. Although Westerners have ly used ‘singing stones’, thin, flat pieces been told that mantras are special and of jade that healers would strike to pro- sometimes personal, they are often intenduce different musical tones. Their most tionally meaningless sounds. Their pursignificant tone was known as ‘kung’, pose is to still the mind, a way to allow us which was considered the great tone of to dissolve into the infinite. nature and which corresponds in our Special mantras, known as ‘shakti’ own musical scale to F or F-sharp. mantras, are used to summon spirits or to Communities would also use mantras, contact a loved one who has died. sounds and even singing to raise conThe ‘Om’ sound is perhaps the single sciousness. The Sufis regarded the sound best known mantra and is chanted, ‘Hu’ as the ultimate creative sound while intoned or spoken as two syllables (mak‘Om’ (or ‘Aum’) and ‘Amen’ were, and ing an ‘Aaa-Umm’ sound). Hindu continue to be, the representative sounds mythology says that the god Shiva creatof God, or the creative force. The ed the universe by making the ‘Om’ Tibetans believe our F-sharp, A and G sound (see box, page 14), an idea that has to be the most sacred tones; interestingly, resonance with the Jewish and Christian the importance they place on F-sharp tradition of ‘The Word’ being the primal mirrors the beliefs of the Ancient creative force. Chinese. The descent of shakti downwards is The Tibetans’ most famous mantra is depicted by the Hindu as energy moving ‘Om mani padme hum’, which is sup- from the head, down the spine and to the posed to attract ‘chenrezig’, the embodi- abdomen (the mulhadhara chakra). So, in ment of compassion. So powerful is this our everyday life, we function at the lowmantra, the Tibetans believe, that seeing it est level of consciousness. written has the same beneficial effect as The practice of yoga, and kundalini intoning it. yoga in particular, is to reverse the energy Similarly, it can also be used if written flow back up the chakras. Each chakra within a mani, or prayer, wheel. Although has a different color, which corresponds it is an untranslatable phrase, the Tibetans to the insights of clairvoyants who see believe that all the teachings of the changing hues or haloes around bodies. Buddha are contained within it. The Vedas, the ancient holy scripts of the

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LIVING THE FIELD Hindus, tell us that there are seven chakras (which means ‘wheel of spinning light’), all of which are located along the spinal column. Each chakra not only has a different color, but also a different tone. In Western musical notation, each chakra’s tone would be as follows: Chakra

Color

Note

Base Sacral Solar plexus Heart Throat Brow (Third Eye) Crown

Red Orange Yellow Green Aqua blue Violet

C D E F G A

White with gold

B

The chakra system of energy is similar to the ancient Chinese meridian points, used to this day in acupuncture to release blocked energy, and in the Kaballistic Tree of Life. Ayurvedic medicine, developed in India, is based on the religious beliefs and disciplines of Hinduism. The Essenes, a Jewish sect believed to have heavily influenced Jesus, used sound in their mysticism and healing, although details of their practices are now lost. But it was not only sounds and tones that were considered sacred. Other ancient civilizations—and we know enough about the Ancient Greeks to

count them among them—also regarded speech as sacred. The Greek alphabet is seen by some today as a vast sound system with special, meaningful resonance. The idea was taken up by the 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who believed that the words of the Ancient Greeks had a life or spirit that would unlock the real meaning of existence. According to Greek esoteric music theory, the elemental tetrachord put pitches against vowels, so: Vowel

Pitch

Epsilon Alpha Eta Omega

A B C D

Much of this esoteric teaching is now lost to us, and we must begin again to piece together the discoveries of the Ancients. What we have left are the statues and monuments that taunt us with images of the importance that sound and music played in their lives. Sculptures in Baghdad, dated around 4000 BC, show musicians playing harps and flutes, while the Ancient Egyptians used to regularly put on extraordinary musical feasts involving 12,000 singers and 600-piece orchestras. The Egyptians believed that the primal creative force was Ik. Ik was unknowable, and we could only know it

The myth of Shiva It’s worth reiterating the myth of Shiva because it has many similarities to the theory of the Zero Point Field. The universe, according to the Hindu myth, was in its first, primal stage an ocean, and on its surface was supreme consciousness (or chitta). The ‘Om’ sound (which is personified as the female aspect of creation, or ‘shakti’) caused waves (‘chittavrittis’) on the surface, and these waves created the first sense of individuality. From these waves came the vast diversity of form and matter, which appears to be differentiated, but which has the underlying chitta, or Zero Point Field. Shakti then descended to the lowest vibrational level of consciousness, which is physical matter. 14

through its reflection Ki. God would compare himself to himself and so create duality, and from this seeming duality came the mystical statement ‘As above, so below’. What is interesting about all of these methods of intoning and using sound is intention—a conscious action with an expected outcome. The human voice and what we say—and, indeed, the way we say it—can have a powerful effect, possibly to an extent that we still neither comprehend nor appreciate. As Jonathan Goldman states in his book Healing Sounds (Element, 1992), the formula Frequency + Intention = Healing is an important one to understand. “It means that the intention of the person working with the sound is as important as the frequency which is being projected at a person to create resonant frequency healing.”

He gives an example of its use. Take a phrase such as: “I really like you” and project different qualities onto it, such as imagining saying it to a loved one such as a child or parent. Repeat the exercise but, this time, imagine saying it to someone to whom you are sexually attracted, and sense the difference. Finally, imagine saying it to a dreaded enemy, and feel the difference in energy between that and the previous two scenarios. “We can learn to use our voices for positive means or we can create the opposite effect. The human voice seems to be the most potent creator of sound frequencies that can be coupled with intention,” says Goldman. Bryan Hubbard Lesson 4: More on intention plus the mathematics of sound

Sound Therapy Lesson 3

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LIVING THE FIELD Living in universal harmony In the first three lessons, we looked at the scientific research into the use of sound and harmony especially as a healing agent, and at its importance to some of the world’s religions. In this lesson, we investigate the esoteric significance of sound and how it has been interpreted by mystical n u m e ro l o g y.

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ncient cultures, including the Greeks and Romans, banned the playing of certain kinds of music to the very young. They believed that sounds and music could be detrimental to health and wellbeing if the listener was too immature to properly assimilate them. These seemingly sacred sounds were passed down through what is called the ‘bardic tradition’. Today, Greek rhapsodists, English bards, French troubadours, African girots, Norse skalds and the Navajo singers may be playing the kind of healing sounds once banned by Ancient civilizations. But what is it about the power of harmony that the Ancients seemed to know and which we have now all but forgotten? How they came by this knowledge we may never know, but the basis can be found in physics and, in particular, in the new discoveries of the Zero Point Field. According to the Ancients, there is a Ray of Creation, with seven levels of materiality and vibration, and containing all of existence. At the finest, highest level, which vibrates the most, is the level of the Absolute (in our terms, the Zero Point Field). Below this are levels of increasing denseness with slower vibrations: the level of all possible systems of worlds; the level of our Milky Way; the level of the Sun; the level of the planets; the level of the planet Earth; and the level of the Moon. Each level is not discrete, but permeates and blends with the others so that even the densest is permeated by the Absolute. The seven levels of the Ray of Creation make the Law of Seven, repre-

Sound Therapy Lesson 4

sented musically as an octave: the Absolute = do; all possible systems of worlds = ti; the Milky Way = la; the Sun = sol; the planets = fa; the Earth = mi; the Moon = re. Seven was a number of great mystical importances to the Ancient Greeks. The esoteric teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (see box, page 18) were based on the Seven Principles, from which the Greeks were taught the importance of vibration and harmony. The seven laws are: 1 The Principle of Mentalism: ‘All is mind’ 2 The Principle of Correspondence: ‘As above, so below’ 3 The Principle of Vibration: ‘All is in vibration’ 4 The Principle of Polarity: ‘Everything is dual’ 5 The Principle of Rhythm: ‘Everything flows’ 6 The Principle of Cause and Effect: ‘Everything happens according to law’ 7 The Principle of Gender: ‘Everything has its masculine and feminine principles’. The Law of Seven has also been described as the Law of Shock. Shock has been interpreted as an additional force or energy that can ‘push’ all living things towards the note do—the Absolute. These shocks, which according to the Ancients can occur between mi and fa (the Earth and the planets), and between ti and do (all possible systems of worlds and the Absolute), have been interpreted as possible shifts in evolutionary consciousness as we strive towards the Absolute. In musical terms, we seek to complete an ascending octave through these forces, which can be harnessed and directed through physical sound. The notes that make an octave are mathematically interrelated—for instance, the ratio between the second and third notes is three to two (3:2), or an interval called a fifth. To understand how the Ancients 17

Sound Therapy Lesson 4

LIVING THE FIELD developed these mathematical relationships into a system of healing and transformation, we need to explore their legacy, what is left of the esoteric teachings. Pythagoras, who lived 600 years before Christ, is the best-known figure from that period to experiment with the uses of sound and harmony. He is believed to be the first person in the West to develop a system of correlations between musical intervals, a discovery he made using a simple single-stringed instrument called the monochord. “Study the monochord and you will know the secrets of the Universe,” Pythagoras is credited with saying. He certainly believed that the universe was one immense monochord, with the upper ends of the string associated with the Absolute and the lower ends with matter. There is a harmonic relationship between all the elements, the planets and the constellations, he believed. Along with his contemporaries who studied esoterica, Pythagoras knew that everything was vibrating (today, we might say that everything is an energy field). Resonance, one might say, is the frequency at which a thing naturally vibrates. Every organ and tissue in your body has a resonance, as do all the planets. Our brainwaves also resonate: beta waves, which resonate from 14 to 20 hertz (Hz), occur during our normal waking state; alpha waves (8–13 Hz) appear when we

daydream or meditate; theta waves (4–7 Hz) are seen in states of deep meditation and sleep; and delta waves (0.5–3 Hz) are produced during deep sleep or in very profound stages of meditation and healing. If we take a planet’s rotational period, reduce it to seconds and divide 1 by this number for the inverse proportion, the result will be off the audible scale. But as the lowest C on a piano is related to the highest and resonates with it, so we can double the number until it falls into an audible frequency. By this means, we discover that the Earth falls into an audible range that is musically the chord of G. This music of the spheres, as Pythagoras called it, was not just a metaphor—it is a physical reality, and Pythagoras himself even claimed he could hear the sounds of the planets as they vibrated in the heavens. As modern physicists have discovered, even electrons revolving around atoms are vibrating, and so resonating. They have also confirmed what Pythagoras claimed—that the planets not only generate different sounds, depending on their velocity, but are also harmonically related. Indeed, Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor, Jr received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for discovering binary pulsars—stars that send out electromagnetic waves in pulses. Sadly, much of Pythagoras’ esoteric teachings are lost. Perhaps the closest to

Hermes Trismegistus This mythical figure represents the embodiment of esoteric teachings from the Ancient Egyptians to the Greeks, and possibly after. The name means ‘Thrice-Greatest Hermes’—Hermes is the Greek equivalent to the Egyptian god Thoth, lord of wisdom and learning. Hermes Trismegistus, most probably a pseudonym under which many mystics of the time wrote, is credited with having written the Hermetica, 42 books of esoterica, or the Perennial Philosophy, dated to around the third century BC to the first century AD. In essence, they suggest that man is divine, but took on mortal form to communicate with nature. 18

it today is the Lambdoma system, or Pythagorean Table, developed by German scientist Hans Kayser in the 1920s. Like Pythagoras, Kayser found that the principles of harmonious structure in nature and the fundamentals of harmonics are essentially the same. He believed that harmony could be a bridge between matter and the soul—that it was a quality that could influence both. The ratios of musical harmonics correspond to the underpinnings of physics, astronomy, architecture, botany and other natural sciences, he postulated. As Kayser wrote in his book Akroasis (Plowshare, 1970): “If one projects all tones within the space of one octave with their angles sketched in a specific way, one obtains the prototype of leaf form, which means that the framing interval of the octave, being the very basis for any music making and sensation, contains within itself the form of the leaf.” This suggests that all of creation can be represented as tones. Sound and harmony are nothing less than the depiction of everything that exists. In theory, we could be God-like creators if only we had the knowledge of all harmony; as it is, our understanding only extends as far as changing and influencing things around us with the use of resonance. Musician Steven Halpern, who creates music and harmonies to enhance meditative states or relieve anxiety, says that sound is “a carrier wave of consciousness”. If you have the intention, your state can be transmitted by sound to a recipient who, in turn, will be affected by what is heard. In other words, the sound contains information. Musicologist Jonathan Goldman has devised the formula: Frequency 1 Intention = Healing. Once we know the frequency at which to transmit (and our brain waves give us a major clue) and add to that the conscious intention to heal, then the sounds we make (either vocally or through an instrument) can influence and alter the harmony in another. Disharmony can be equated to disease and, by changing the vibration or reso-

nance of a diseased organ or tissues to one that is back in harmony, so we can effect healing. By grasping all of this, we are perhaps a little closer to understanding why some ancient cultures banned the playing of esoteric music to the very young. Bryan Hubbard Lesson 5: More esoterica

Sound Therapy Lesson 4

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LIVING THE FIELD All of heaven in a single note In the previous lesson, we looked at the esoteric teachings of the ancient cul t u res and their use of sound and harmony. In this month’s lesson, we inves tigate how mathematics has explained the patterns of nature, and how they can be related to music.

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f we are to be able to heal or transform others and ourselves through sound or vibration, we must first establish the interconnection between all things that can make this process possible. In earlier lessons, we have seen how scientists have tried to demonstrate how all of life is an energy vibration (otherwise said to be a harmony). This understanding was grasped many centuries earlier by ancient civilizations that recognized the importance of sound as a transforming agent. Physicists and mystics have not been the only ones to demonstrate how the underlying laws of the universe are harmonic or vibrational; mathematicians have also tried to create symbols for the patterns that constantly appear throughout nature, and which form the common ground of all things. The Fibonacci system is perhaps the most celebrated example of this attempt. It was developed in 1202 by a mathematician called Leonardo of Pisa—who, through several torturous mistranslations, has become known as Fibonacci. He demonstrated his eponymous method by describing the way that breeding rabbits in one field would multiply their numbers, an interesting recreational mathematical puzzle that happened to describe how nature manifests itself in structures such as sunflowers, pineapples, shells, plants and the like, and also how music is often constructed. It can be used to calculate Phi, a ratio that also represents the economical way in which nature is created. To understand how these mathematical models have developed, we first must

Sound Therapy Lesson 5

return to our two rabbits—a male and a female—which have been placed in a field. Fibonacci asks us to accept a few ground rules before we can begin: that the rabbits never die; that the rabbits reach maturity after a month, at which point they can breed; and that, when they breed, they always produce another pair (male and female) of rabbits. With these rules in mind, the question Fibonacci set himself was: how many pairs of rabbits will there be in the field at the end of one year? At the end of the first month, the original rabbits mate, but there is still only one pair. By the end of the second month, the female produces a new pair, so now there are two pairs of rabbits. At the end of the third month, the original female rabbit produces a second pair, now making three pairs in the field. At the end of the fourth month, the original female produces yet another pair, but the female born two months ago produces her first pair, which results in five pairs of rabbits in the field. As a sequence of numbers, this reads: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and, if we continue the pattern, it would go on to read: 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 and 144, because to get to the next number in the sequence, you must add together the previous two. So Fibonacci finally gets to his answer—there will be 144 rabbits in the field by the end of 12 months. (The next number would be 233, the sum of adding 144 and 89.) This series of numbers is repeated throughout nature. In botany, for example, the lily and iris have three petals whereas buttercups, wild roses, larkspur and columbine have five petals; delphiniums have eight petals; ragwort, corn marigold and cineraria have 13 petals; aster, black-eyed susan and chicory have 21 petals; plantain and pyrethrum have 34 petals; and the daisy has 55 or 89 petals— all Fibonaccian numbers! The Fibonacci number sequence also calculates the golden ratio, or Golden Mean, of Phi by dividing a Fibonaccian number with the one before it. So, if we 21

Sound Therapy Lesson 5

LIVING THE FIELD divide 233 by 144, the two highest numbers in the sequence calculated here, we arrive at 1.6180555. But, as we go on still further, the ratio becomes more and more exact until we finally reach the golden ratio of 1.618034 (when 2584 is divided by 1597), or 0.618034 (when 1597 is divided by 2584). Phi can be used to explain the way nature is arranged—for example, leaves, seeds and petals are all placed at 0.618034 per 360-degree turn, which is 222.492 degrees. This ‘packing’ of leaves ensures that each leaf has the best possible area exposed to light while casting the least amount of shadow on the others. It also gives the leaf the best exposure to rain and allows the raindrop to fall towards the stem. So, there is a connection between the Fibonacci sequence and Phi which, between them, are representations of the way nature is organized. But what has Fibonacci got to do with music? On a piano keyboard, you’ll see that 13 notes, or keys (eight white and five black keys, split into groups of two and three), separate each octave. Of these, the first, third and fifth notes create the foundation of all chords in the diatonic scale.

Diatonic scales are eight tones, and pentatonic scales are five tones. Thirteen, 1, 3, 5, 8—all of these are Fibonaccian numbers. But it goes even further: all musical frequencies are based on Fibonacci ratios (see box below). Fibonaccian and Phi measurements are found throughout music. The climax of songs is often found at roughly the Phi point—at 61.8 per cent of the way through a melody—when the end might be thought to be the more logical place for it. So, in a 32-bar song, the climax occurs in the 20th bar. Similarly, the Golden Section, or Phi point, was often the moment of dramatic change in many of Mozart’s compositions, especially his sonatas. Likewise, Beethoven consciously or unconsciously repeated the famous opening bars of his Symphony No. 5 at exactly the Golden-Mean point—0.618 parts of the way through the work (bar 372). Similar examples can be found in the works of Bach and Debussy. But was this by accident or design? Is it possible that these composers consciously worked out the Fibonaccian intervals in every case? We know from contemporary diaries that Mozart took a

Musical frequencies and Fibonacci Fibonacci ratio

Fr e q u e n c y

Note

1/1 2/1 2/3 2/5

440 880 293.33 176

A A D F

3/2 3/5 3/8 5/2

660 264 165 1100

E C E C sharp

5/3 5/8 8/3 8/5

733.33 275 1173.33 704

F sharp C sharp D F

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keen interest in mathematics, and it’s true that Hungarian composer Bartok often used it by design. In his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, you can mark off the ‘Fibonacci moments’ that herald a change of key, instrumentation or tempo. It’s little wonder that music has sometimes been described as ‘audible mathematics’, but it is debatable whether or not it has been a conscious process in all cases. It is just as likely that the sequence describes a pattern of which we have an inherent understanding. This argument is supported by examples from other cultures. Some commentators have found similar patterns in Indonesian music, as one example, and especially that written for the gamelan, a percussion instrument. As one listener noted, each layer of the music consists of instruments of a certain pitch range, playing at a certain tempo. The highestpitched instruments play the fastest, the next-highest play half as fast (every other beat), the next layer half again as fast— all the way down to the low gongs that strike only once every 16 or 32 beats. This suggests that the sequence is, in fact, no more than a numerical representation of some natural order of which we are a part, and so we find a piece of music ‘beautiful’ because its harmonies observe this universal pattern that we are able to recognize because there is no division between the process of nature and ourselves.

It’s worth adding that the Fibonacci sequence has also been applied to art, poetry and architecture which, again, we can regard as beautiful without really knowing why we believe it to be so. As Dr Kevin Jones of Kingston University said in his essay Self-Similar Syncopations (Oxford University Press, 1999): “It is almost as if the brain is hardwired to match or harmonies with these patterns in nature, and that the mind’s aesthetic responses will naturally be pulled towards these attractive patterns.” The trick is to disassociate ourselves from the symbols as representations of reality and see beyond them to the secrets they reveal. Just as writers confuse the describing word for the thing in itself, so mathematicians identify with the symbols with which they work. Be they musical notes, numbers or mathematical ratios, they all point to the same underlying truth: everything is related, everything is connected. Now that we have established this connectedness, we can indeed use sound and harmony to influence a harmonious universe as well as ourselves and others. In the next lesson, we will begin exploring how we can harness this power for change. Bryan Hubbard Lesson Six: Starting sound therapy

Sound Therapy Lesson 5

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LIVING THE FIELD

LIVING THE FIELD Chanting your way to health

Sound Therapy Lesson 6

The first five lessons explored the sci ence, esoterica and mathematics of the association between sound, harmonics and healing. In this lesson, we take our first steps from the theoretical to the practical. Here ’s how to pre p a re to use harmony as a healing agent both for ourselves and for others.

Europe compared with that used in the United States, for instance. As healing with sound involves chanting, it is also important to understand the role of overtones. When we say that we hear a C when a string is vibrating at 256 Hz, we are saying that the principal or ‘fundamental’ note is C. In fact, many other notes are sounding at the same ou don’t need to know how to moment, though these are more in the play a musical instrument to use background. sound as a healing agent. Instead, These lesser vibrations are known as you can use your voice to sing and overtones, and they add to the color or chant—and you don’t even have to any timbre of the overall sound we hear. If we singing talent to do this. The first practi- were to hear only a C, it would be a very cal lesson, on breathwork, is featured in stark sound indeed. the box on the right. Overtones occur when a musical A grasp of the basics of sound and instrument is played and they can also notation should assist you. Sound is an be heard in the human voice. In fact, it is expression of vibrating energ y. It is the overtones that make our own voices measured in waves, which are broken sound unique and identifiable. down into individual units known as Overtones are mathematically related ‘hertz’ (Hz). Each hertz represents the to the fundamental note. Thus, the prinumber of cycles per second created by mary or fundamental note of C vibrates this energy, although we more commonly at 256 Hz, and its first overtone vibrates describe this as ‘frequency’ or ‘pitch’. at twice this speed (2:1), or 512 Hz, So, for example, a string that vibrates which in turn creates a note known as one hundred times a second creates a the interval of an octave of the fundamensound that can be described as 100 Hz. tal, which also happens to be C. The On a piano, the lowest note vibrates at second overtone vibrates at three times 27.5 Hz and the highest at 4186 Hz—so the fundamental speed (3:1), or 768 Hz, the faster the vibration, the higher the which is the note G. This pattern ripples pitch. out to infinity, at least theoretically. D i fferent frequencies make up the But as far as the human ear is connotes of the musical scale used in the cerned, the overtones we hear when we West today. A frequency of 256 Hz hit a C on a piano comprise 15 other creates a note with a pitch that we call notes. The 15th overtone, vibrating at 16 C—or ‘do’ in the Solfege system (do, re, times the speed of the fundamental mi, fa, so, la, ti, do). On a piano, the note (16:1), creates yet another C that is four called D vibrates at 293 Hz, E at 330 Hz, octaves above the C that was struck on F at 349 Hz, G at 392 Hz, A at 410 Hz, B the piano. at 494 Hz and the next C at 512 Hz (twice As we now know, all harmonics and that of the previous C). overtones are mathematically interrelated These are only approximations, how- (see Living The Field Lesson Five). The ever, and they vary from instrument to second and third overtones have a ratio of instrument. Tuning a violin allows for 3:2, which is musically known as a fifth. much wider variation of each note, with This science—or mathematics—of C falling within the range of 251–264 Hz. overtones has not been developed in the Even on a piano, the pitch can vary; the West to the extent it has been in India, concert pitch for the piano is different in where thousands of individual ragas, or

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Sound Therapy Lesson 6

LIVING THE FIELD scales, have been designed, each with a specific effect on the emotions. Overtone chanting is still practiced by many traditional peoples, including the Mongolians, the Australian Aborigines and the North American Indians. It has been most finely developed in the Tuvic area of Mongolia where solo overtone chanting is called ‘hoomi’ or throat singing. The chanters have developed a way to sing two pitches at the same time: one constant nasal pitch is the fundamental, while the other pitch, a whistle-like tone, forms a melody line between the fifth and 13th overtones. A skilled hoomi chanter can generate frequencies of up to 10,120 Hz, a sound that is nearly supersonic. Jonathan Goldman, a sound therapist, believes the Mongolians used these strange sounds for healing and that the

technique was developed from the shamans, or esoteric teachers, in the region.1 The Aborigines of Australia also use overtones in their sacred ceremonies, but instead of using the human voice, they use a didgeridoo, a hollowed-out tree trunk which, when blown, sounds similar to the One Voice Chord of the Tibetan monks. Although the didgeridoo is a simple enough instrument to play, the player has to develop the technique of circular breathing to maintain the sound. This involves breathing in through the nose while breathing out through the mouth at the same time, a very difficult skill that has also been perfected in Tibet. The story of the didgeridoo is associated with the Aborginal concept of the ‘dreamtime’, when the earth was inhabit-

Preparing for breath work All singing and chanting relies on proper breath work. Although we are breathing for every living moment, few of us do it properly. As it is the basic food of life, it seems sensible to fill the lungs with oxygen with every breath we take. But we don’t, of course; most of us take frequent, shallow and unsatisfying gulps of air, a form of breathing that will not allow us to perform healing sounds. For chanting, we need to be able to produce long notes that are controlled from the abdomen. This can’t be achieved if we are gasping for air halfway through. The key to good, deep breathing is the use of the diaphragm muscle that sits below the lungs, but this muscle works properly only when it is fully relaxed. So, before we begin deep breathing, we must learn how to consciously relax the muscles of the abdomen. James d’Angelo, a teacher of therapeutic sound techniques, suggests we place our hands across the abdomen to act as a monitor. Because relaxation doesn’t always come naturally, he suggests we can help the process by pushing out the belly so that it protrudes, but without straining. Then slowly, contract the abdominal muscles “as though you want the front wall of your belly to pass through your back”.1 This should be repeated once every 15 seconds or so, without undue exertion or strain. Do this exercise for around three minutes, and before you begin the actual breathwork. Another relaxation technique, this time for the throat, is to induce a yawn. Open the mouth very wide and make a breathy ‘AHHH’ sound. To add to the effect, you can also stretch out your arms as you sometimes might when you yawn as you wake up. Do this exercise vigorously for around two minutes. 1

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D’Angelo J. Healing With the Voice. London: Thorsons, 2000

ed by a race of supernatural beings called the Wandjina. The Wandjina left the Aborigines the didgeridoo as a gift. When it was sounded, they told the first Aborigines, it would create a sonic field, or interdimensional window, through which the Wandjina could travel to meet the Aborigines, and vice versa. The Aborigines also use the didgeridoo for healing. As the sick person lies in the floor, the shaman blows the didgeridoo over the diseased area. The healing power of overtones is known to the North American Indians, who sometimes use vowel sounds that are part of a tribal tradition, although they will extemporize if it seems appropriate in the moment. As Jonathan Goldman wrote after attending a medicine ceremony of the

Huitchol tribe: “From a physiological viewpoint, vocal harmonics create changes in the heartbeat, respiration, and brainwaves of the reciter, altering consciousness and allowing the shaman to be in a state where they are receptive to spirit journeys. Perhaps different portions of the brain are also resonated and activated by these sounds, releasing different hormones and neurochemicals that facilitate an altered state.”1 Bryan Hubbard Lesson Seven: the breathwork begins 1

Sound Therapy Lesson 6

Goldman J. Healing Sounds. Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 2002

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LIVING THE FIELD

LIVING THE FIELD In the beginning is the breath In the previous lesson, we learned that all singing and chanting begins with p roper breathing. But you have to be relaxed before you can breathe proper ly, and the lesson suggested a few sim ple relaxation techniques. Having applied these, we are now ready to begin breathwork pro p e r.

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ood breathwork begins with good posture. Before you begin chanting, you need to feel well balanced and have the sense that you are deeply rooted to the floor. Standing with your feet apart, the knees relaxed, and putting your hands on the abdomen can achieve this. Your eyes should be closed, and your head straight. Relax the throat, keeping the tongue lying at the bottom of the mouth. You may need to run through a relaxation exercise before starting. Extend your belly, as explained in the previous lesson, as fully as you can. You are now ready to take your first in-breath. Music therapist James D’Angelo describes this first breath in his book Healing with the Voice (Thorsons, 2000). “Imagine that you have a very large glass of air with a straw in it. This straw is very long and it extends from the glass, past your lips and all the way down into the protruded belly. Your lips will have a small aperture shaped to make the sound of OOO (as in FOOD). Now, begin gently sipping in the air with a continuous light suction action. “Visualize that you are first gradually filling up and expanding your belly with air, layer by layer, as though you are a kind of balloon. During this in-breath, the only muscles engaged are those needed to keep the belly expanded and those that allow the air to be sucked in. The limit to the in-breath is determined simply by the sense that you feel a fullness without engaging the muscles of the neck, chest or shoulders. If you begin to constrict in these areas, then that is a signal to stop the intake.”

Sound Therapy Lesson 7

The out-breath should be carried out with the same relaxed approach. Keep the mouth shape the same, as though sucking a straw, and slowly contract the abdominal muscles so that a steady stream of air is breathed out. Your hands on your abdomen should be able to feel the contraction, but should not push on the area. As you develop the technique, the flow of out-breath should last 20–30 seconds. If you’re keen to start chanting straightaway, you can make the sound of WHO (HUU in the Sufi tradition) on the slow out-breath, or add a TH to that by curling your tongue, and keeping it behind your upper teeth. Once you feel comfortable with this breathing technique—and it will take a few sessions before you do—you can begin a continuous cycle of in-/outbreaths without returning to normal breathing. The vowels Vowel sounds are universal and form the basis of many ancient sounds, chants and mantras. Many of these are so basic that they don’t need the tongue to make more complex sounds. As you begin chanting, you will discover the power of these sounds to effect change and help with the healing process. All of the following sounds are very easy to make, as you only need to change the shape of your mouth each time. AH: One of the basic sounds of the universe, according to most religions and myths. This sound is associated with the heart, and is part of the Hindu OM or ‘God’ in its Sanskrit form of AUM. It is also part of the Christian AH-MEN. AW: This sound, found in the word SOUGHT, is linked to the solar plexus and can help unlock blockages there. AY: This is the ending of HEY and SAY, and is associated with the throat area. EEE: This has the highest rate of vibration or frequency and is associated with the head; it’s the fast track to deep 29

Sound Therapy Lesson 7

LIVING THE FIELD alpha states. But be warned—use it only with an open and loving heart, or your intentions may have a rebound effect. EH: It’s the middle part of the word SAID, a sound felt in the throat. As the AH sound is associated with the heart, so the EH vowel is its counterbalance in the head. EYE: This mighty sound can stimulate the third eye or brow chakra. Again, only use this with care and an open heart. OH: Sounded with a round mouth and relaxed tongue, it’s a companion sound to the omnipotent AH. This is the sound of potential, and a celebration of all that you might, and can, be. OOO: The sound of the middle part of FOOD, this is the sound of sexuality and sensuality. To the Sufis, HOOO is one of the sacred names of God. The consonants C and K: To the Dervishes, the KUM sound is a spiritual ‘wake-up’ call. The Mayans also used the K sound in their chant K’IN, which acknowledged the one creator. H: As this sound is the closest to the sound of our breath, it is also the most

spiritually meaningful of the consonants. In Tantric Yoga, the H sound is connected to the throat. It can be used to recreate our sense of unity when we feel isolated or separated from the universe. L: To the Mayans, the word LIL, which was often reduced to L, meant ‘cosmic vibration’. They often put in front of it the sound O, which—as OL— represents ‘awakened consciousness in the form of vibration’, which neatly explains what we’re trying to achieve with these lessons. We are only now beginning to understand the significance that sound had to the Mayans—many of their temple sites were built to create the best acoustics. Tantric Yoga takes a similar view and uses the L vibration to stimulate the root chakra, which is linked to the Earth and is the point from where our fundamental energy emanates. Of course, the L sound is very significant to the Muslims as it forms the central part of their word ALLAH, or ‘God’. It is also important to the Christian faith, as can be seen from its use in ‘Alleluia’. R: The Hindus associate the R sound with what they call ‘Rajas’, which sets an act in motion. In Tantric Yoga, the RAM

The universe’s deepest note As you begin to use sound as a therapy, it’s good to be reminded once in a while of the harmonic nature of the universe. Far from being merely a theory put forward by the Ancients, it is a matter of scientific fact, as astronomers have recently confirmed. They have discovered that a black hole, located 250 million light-years away from earth in the Perseus cluster of galaxies, is emitting the lowest note so far detected in space. And, if you’re interested, it’s B-flat! The note is far too low to be heard, as it is being transmitted 57 octaves lower than middle C, at a frequency that is a million, billion times lower than the limits of human hearing. The astronomers realized that the black hole was making a sound because of the ripples that were passing through the hot gas clouds in the Perseus galaxy. These ripples were the result of sound waves, the astronomers discovered. From this, astronomers at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, England, now believe that sound waves may well cause the growth of galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe. If that is true, the B-flat pitch in the Perseus galaxy cluster will have remained constant for some 2.5 billion years. 30

sound is associated with the solar plexus. It’s associated with heat and activity (RA was the name of the Egyptian Sun God). M: If you’re happy, this is the consonant for you to hum. It’s linked to the feminine energy (hence ‘mama’ and ‘mother’). It’s also a sound found at the end of many sacred words, such as OM and Amen. Made with a closed mouth, it’s a sound that vibrates in the head and helps us develop our consciousness. S: This sound represents the life force. It can enliven, inspire, purify and nurture intuition. It’s linked to the mental plane and, in turn, the mind’s connection to the senses. It sounds like a snake, the figura-

tive image of the ‘kundalini’ or ‘energy force’. Y: This is a consonant associated with the heart region. It is about unity, a bringing together of seeming opposites. In the Chinese tradition, this is represented by the two Ys—the Yin and the Yang. V: This is another consonant that represents energy—often sexual energy. In Tantric Yoga, the sound VAM relates to the sacral chakra, the seat of sexual energy. Bryan Hubbard Lesson Eight: starting to tone and chant

Sound Therapy Lesson 7

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LIVING THE FIELD

LIVING THE FIELD Chanting the tonal prayer You’ve learned how to breathe and con trol the breath. In the previous lesson, we also looked at the significance of the different vowel sounds, and how they can be used to help achieve spiritual p ro g ress and to help the healing p rocess. Now, we are ready to explore toning and chanting.

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hanting is a form of meditation, and so should be approached in a similar way. This means finding a place in your home (or elsewhere) where you feel at ease and, if you are a self-conscious beginner, somewhere far enough away so that others cannot hear. Ideally the room or place you choose should be free of clutter so you can fill it with your own healthgiving sounds. It should also be a warm and quiet place. Wear comfortable clothing that is not tight or restricting; your diaphragm plays an important part so it’s important that it is free to expand. If you are already a regular mediator, your chanting should ideally be carried out at the same time and, indeed, can be incorporated into your current meditation. For some, this could be before breakfast, while others might prefer early evening and before eating. As you’ll be making some strange sounds, you might instead prefer to do it when the house is empty! Early morning is generally considered to be the optimal time as, then, the benefits of chanting and meditating can stay with you throughout your day. Finally, try to allow 25 minutes for each session. This includes around 10 minutes of silence, which is as enriching and important as the 15 minutes of chanting. Indeed, the chanting can be used as a mantra as part of the silence of the meditation. Unlike meditation, though, chanting should be done while standing. It’s important to feel ‘grounded’, so slightly bend the knees with your feet apart. Your arms should be relaxed and hang

Sound Therapy Lesson 8

loosely at your sides. If you have a physical problem with standing for any length of time, you can sit, but it’s important not to slouch—you have to keep your back straight. As always, when starting to chant, begin with some breath work. A s explained in Lesson Six, this involves relaxing the abdomen, and this can be achieved by pushing out the belly and slowly contracting the abdominal muscles. A relaxed abdomen will facilitate good, deep breathing. Yawning is another exercise you can use in preparation. Open the mouth wide and make a breathy AHH sound. These simple exercises should take up only five minutes at the most, but should leave you feeling relaxed, revived and ready to begin chanting. Chanting isn’t music so there is nothing written down that instructs you to tone on a particular note or notes. From your own point of view and enjoyment, it makes sense that you chant at your ‘fundamental tone’, as it is called. This is a note that is neither too high nor too low for you to sustain comfortably. Much has been made of establishing your fundamental tone, but it is a relatively simple matter of common sense, and your own tone can be soon found, and with the minimum of experimentation. However, purists reckon it can take around two weeks of subtle experimenting before your very own tone reveals itself. This should not stop you chanting, however. If you’ve never had singing or music lessons—and there happens to be a keyboard handy in the house—you can determine your vocal range. To begin, women should hit a white key near to middle C while men need to start at the C below middle C (the seventh white key to the left of middle C). Once you’ve found the note that is the closest to your own midrange, start matching the white and black keys in succession 33

Sound Therapy Lesson 8

LIVING THE FIELD above and below that. On average, your range will probably cover up to 12 of the white notes, although eight is suff icient for chanting. It’s a good idea to try to ‘audibly visualize’ the tones before you start chanting them; in other words, first ‘hear’ the tones in your head. As part of the exercise, visualize where in your body you would like the sounds to be located. It might be a place where there is pain or disease; it might just be an area, such as your stomach or head, which you are more conscious of. The sound you then decide to make is up to you. To better understand the e ffect you are trying to make, study the Sound column in Living the Field Lesson Seven, which presents a good overview of the vowels and consonants, and their significance. Whichever sound you choose; chant it with an emotional purpose and intent. Mean it. It’s like a tonal prayer, so the desire to harness the healing power of the sound is paramount. As Keats said of good poetry, the sound should be unforced, natural and easy. There’s no need to strain, but try to make the fullest sound you can—but remember to stay relaxed. Again, the length of the note is not as important as its intensity. It’s not a competition in holding the longest note, but the note you produce should nevertheless be as long as you can possibly make it without straining—and you s h o u l d n ’t be gasping for the next breath. How to be a laughing Buddha While the vowel and consonant sounds reviewed in Lesson Seven have a deep and meaningful resonance, you can also use more natural sounds, such as sighing and groaning, which can have a very therapeutic effect if you want to release pent-up emotion. But you can also celebrate your happiness, especially through the natural sounds of laughter. The therapeutic power of laughter has been well docu-

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mented, and some medical practitioners recognize the power of laughter to kickstart our dormant immune systems. The key sound of laughter begins with the letter H, which is the beginning of all laughter. As with any chanting exercise, begin with a ‘grounded’ posture—knees bent, feet apart—but instead of the usual breathing exercises, breath in deeply and make a rapid HUH-HUHHUH sound on the out-breath. You’ll notice that your abdominal muscles tighten with each HUH sound you make. Begin the exercise again until you begin to feel lightheaded, a sure sign to stop. You’re now ready to begin the laughing chant. There are five basic laughing sounds, each relating to a different area of your body. The HUH sound, used as part of the breathing exercise, relates to the groin and lumbar regions. The HO sound is a Santa Claus-like laugh and so, not surprisingly, relates to the belly. The HAH sound, the warmest of the laughing chants, resonates with the heart, while the HEH chant is associated with the throat. Finally, the HEEEH sound gives a sudden high-energy jolt, and is linked to the brain. With all of these sounds, keep the mouth wide open. And, like all good l a u g h t e r, you shouldn’t hold back. Sometimes your chanting may spark real laughter and giggling, a sure sign that it’s working. Unlike when chanting vowels, restrict your laughing chants to three minutes or so each time, and take at least a minute’s break between each exercise. While laughter may be the best ‘feel-good’ sound there is, there are other natural sounds we make that are just as significant, depending on our emotional state. You can, for example, emulate the groaning sound by making the AW chant, which is close to the way you would say ‘awe’. When making this

sound, bend your body forwards slightly while keeping your clenched fists over the abdomen. Hold the fists in place for 30 seconds after the sound has ended. The repetition of the sound depends on your own emotional state, but you should do no more than 10, at the end of which you should feel a great release. Finish with silent meditation to get the full impact of the extraordinary sounds you have just made. Then there is the wailing noise, represented by the EEE sound. Done with passion, this exercise can be cathartic and can help release sadness. But, paradoxically, it also offers a quick energ y fix, as it’s a sound with a high frequency. For added impact, you can put a K in front of the EEE, so making a sound close to the Irish word ‘keen’, which means ‘wail’. The wailing chant has a diff e r e n t set of rules. Instead of adopting the standard stance, place your right foot in front of your left, with the right foot pointing forward and the left foot pointing left, as if you were adopting a fencing stance. The hands and arms also play a more active role. To begin, lift your right arm upwards with the hand cupped, as though expecting a gift from above. The palm of your left hand should also be cupped upwards, but the arm should be bent and held close to the waist. As you start the wailing chant, slowly move your right arm back towards your body, slowly closing the hand into a fist. As it approaches the left hand, open it slowly so that, by the time the two hands meet, the right hand is again cupped. As the right hand

moves down, so ideally the hands should meet as your breath runs out, although you will probably have to do this exercise several times before the synchronicity between body and breath is achieved. Bryan Hubbard Lesson Eight: Group chanting and mantras

Sound Therapy Lesson 8

Further reading: D’Angelo J. Healing With the Voice. London: Thorsons, 2000

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LIVING THE FIELD

LIVING THE FIELD Singing along with the chakras The previous lesson looked at the power of the mantra. This lesson concentrates on the chakras, how to awaken them, and how to use toning and overtoning.

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he idea of the chakras comes to us mainly from the Hindu and Tibetan belief systems. T h e word ‘c h a k r a’ means ‘wheel’ i n Sanskrit. A chakra is supposed to be a vortex of whirling energ y, and usually refers to each of seven energy centers in our bodies situated in a line from the bottom of the spine to the crown of the head. Each is a receptor, mediator and distributor of subtle energy in our auric or b i o e n e rgetic field that, in turn, charg e s the atoms of our physical bodies—or so the theory goes. Even an avowed skeptic must concede that our bodies do appear to have an energy field that is not measurable with any standard equipment. Seers regularly witness auras around us, and there’s even an organization created by doctors, scientists and alternative practitioners who want to work with the b o d y ’s ‘subtle energy’. In 1939, Russian engineer Semyon Kirlian discovered that photographic plates exposed to high-frequency electrical fields could capture a strange light or aura around a finger or hand placed on the plate. More recently, Dr Hiroshi Motoyama, a Japanese scientist as well as yogi, philosopher and Shinto priest, has developed sensitive photoelectric equipment to measure the subtle body, including acupuncture points and chakras. The chakras are said to regulate our endocrine glands. And, as with the endocrine system, chakras can be put out of balance or become blocked due to stress, negative feelings, bad diet or poor lifestyle. Meditation and nutritional changes can energize chakras, it would seem, in

Sound Therapy Lesson 10

the same way that stress and poor diet can deplete them. But there is more we can do. In earlier lessons, we learned that sound is also an energy which, in turn, can influence our body’s subtleenergy field. If this is true, it would follow that the resonance of the chanting voice could change the vibrational rates of the different chakra ‘wheels’. This is supported by the experiences of chanters who have said that, after an e ffective session, they have felt the shifting of blockages in the chakras. There are several schools of thought about appropriate toning to achieve a shift in the chakras. Therapeutic sound practitioner James D’Angelo says there is no single definitive system of vocal toning for the chakras—“that is, no system of particular frequencies in combination with the consonant/vowel sounds that guarantees success”. But there’s more helpful advice on o ffer from Jonathan Goldman, an acknowledged expert in sound therapy. He has studied the chakras for many years. But rather than seeing the solutions as hit-or-miss, he was finding that everything was working. “I could not understand how different sounds and frequencies could seemingly have the same effect,” he says—and on diff e r e n t chakras, too, he might have added. The answer he discovered brings in another element of the Living The Field course—intention. The intention of the chanter, he found, was sufficient for the chakra to resonate to the tones. So, apparently, every chant worked because the chanter wanted it to. And the process appears to form a virtuous circle. Goldman found that, as chanting opened a chakra, the chanter became more conscious and ‘spiritually transformed’. Thus, the chanter’s intention became more focused and eff e ctive. This is because of the release of energy that Hindus call the ‘kundalini’, said to sleep in the Root or Base chakra. 37

Sound Therapy Lesson 10

LIVING THE FIELD As this energy is stimulated, it moves up the spine to the next chakra, and so on, until it reaches the crown, at which point the person is thought to be ‘fully awakened’ or ‘realized’. Even though any tone can work, provided the intention is there, Goldman has found that working with the vowel sounds is particularly eff e c t i v e . Perhaps this is as much a reflection of our different cultures, he says, as people in the West, for example, might have problems enunciating some of the Sanskrit or Tibetan mantras, or a devout Christian might feel uncomfortable chanting something of significance to another faith. But he believes there is a physical reason, too. From his experience, he has found that vowel sounds create a resonance in the body (as we have seen from previous lessons), and this is a concept more easily understood and accepted by those who may be too skeptical to recognize the existence of a s u b t l e - e n e rgy field within our bodies. E x e rcise: Reviving the chakras Using vowel sounds, Goldman has developed his own system of reviving the chakras and kundalini energ y. Throughout the exercise, it is important to focus your intention on the part of the body, or chakra, that you wish to work on. ◆ Before beginning, make yourself comfortable either on the floor or in a chair. Keep your back straight

◆

◆ ◆

◆

throughout. Cup your hands in your lap, or place them palms down on your knees or on the area of the body on which your intention is focused. This last position may help to make your vowel sounds resonate better. Use one complete breath for each vowel sound. The sound will resonate in your throat, but be aware of anywhere else it resonates. Then, focus your attention on the area in your body where the chakra is located. Begin at the Root or Base chakra with the vowel sound UH (as in the word ‘huh’), using the deepest sound you can make. Focus your attention on the base chakra, located at the very bottom of your spine. If you like to use visualization, imagine the color red. The sound need not be loud; it can be soft and gentle. Close your eyes while you make it. Work on each chakra for a minute or two—up to five minutes on each. Now turn your attention to the second chakra, the Sacral chakra, which lies a few inches below the navel. It responds to the OO sound (as in ‘you’), chanted on a slightly higher note than for the Root chakra. Visualize the color orange. Move up to the Navel or Solar Plexus chakra, located an inch or so above the navel. Employ the OH sound (as in the word ‘go’) at a

The seven major chakras Chakra

Position

Glands

Quality

Root Sacral Solar plexus Heart Throat Brow Crown

Anus Navel Sternum Heart Neck Eyes Head

Adrenals Gonads Pa n c r e a s Thymus Thyroid Pituitary Pineal

Security Sex, creativity Willpower Compassion Communication Insight, clarity Higher consciousness

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slightly higher pitch than that used for the Sacral. Visualize yellow to complement your chanting. ◆ The Heart chakra takes the sound AH (as in ‘father’), and again at a slightly higher pitch than the one before. Visualize the color green. ◆ For the next chakra, the T h r o a t chakra, use the sound EYE (as in ‘I’), again at a slightly higher pitch than previously. Imagine the color blue (sky blue or turquoise). ◆ The Brow chakra, or Third Eye, requires the AYE sound (as in ‘say’), visualizing the color indigo. ◆ Finally, the Crown chakra, requires a high-pitched EE sound (as in ‘me’). For men in particular, this may be difficult, but it should be achieved without strain. Sound it gently while imagining the color purple. The entire exercise should take between 15 and 20 minutes, at the end of which you may feel lightheaded. Goldman suggests that you enjoy this feeling, and continue meditating. This can be a potent exercise. You are, after all, pushing energy up your

body and into the top of your head. If you want to ground the energy firmly back into your body, intone the UH sound again with the deepest note you can reach. Goldman’s approach is well documented, and has been practiced for some 20 years or so. Ultimately, no approach is right or wrong; just try to find what feels comfortable for you. Whichever tones you chant, you may notice other sounds you are making at the same time. These are the harmonics, which we will investigate in our next lesson. Bryan Hubbard Lesson Eleven: Vocal harmonics and how to use them

Sound Therapy Lesson 10

Further re a d i n g Goldman J. Healing Sounds. Healing Arts Press, 1992 D’Angelo J. Healing With The Voice. Thorsons, 2000 McClellan R. The Healing Forces of Music. Amity House, 1988 Gardner K. Sounding The Inner Landscape. Caduceus, 1990

Chakra colors and sounds Chakra

Sound

Color

Root Sacral Solar plexus Heart Throat Brow Crown

UH OO OH AH EYE AYE EE

Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Purple 39

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LIVING THE FIELD Overtoning for healing Overtoning, or harmonics, lies at the center of the esoteric skill of using sound as a healing agent. In this lesson, we explain how to become an adept, and include some exercises you can fol low for healing.

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ou are now ready to start using overtones, or harmonics, consciously. If the voice is a natural healing instrument, then overtones are the ‘minerals and vitamins’ of its sounds, as music therapist James D’Angelo has so memorably put it. Stating it more prosaically, every organ, bone and tissue has its own vibrational frequency when healthy. overtoning allows you to correct a vibration that is of kilter, or diseased, as established by the pioneering work of the likes of therapist Dr Peter Guy Manners. Overtoning becomes turbocharged as a healing exercise if it is done with intention or conscious awareness (see Living The Field Lesson Ten). Overtoning, or harmonics, is when two or more tones are created at the same time. Practiced for hundreds of years by esoteric groups in Mongolia, Africa, Asia, Arabia and Mexico, as well as by the Kabbalistic traditions of Judaism and Christianity, harmonics are also an essential part of the daily rituals of the Tibetan Buddhists who, more than any other group, have done much to bring overtoning to the West. In the West, practitioners such as David Hykes, Jill Purce and Michael Vetter offer courses to promote and teach overtoning to students. Vetter has recorded a range of CDs that demonstrates overtoning and provides a good idea of how it works and how it should sound. Esoteric as this may seem, we overtone naturally whenever we sing or chant. As we’ve seen in earlier lessons, each tone comes with its own overtone or resonance to give it the richness of sound. Without these naturally occurring overtones, sound would be a sparse sine wave,

Sound Therapy Lesson 11

such as emitted by an electronic device. Turning first to vowels, AH has different harmonics compared with, say, OH. If you were to link together the different vowel sounds into one continuous flow in one breath (UH, OO, OH, AH, EYE, AYE and EE), you will start hearing the different harmonics naturally created by your voice. In musical terms, OO creates the overtones of the octave and the fifth note of that octave, while AH produces the overtone of the seventh note. These will vary slightly, depending on your pronunciation, but you will hear the harmonic shifts occur as each vowel sound moves higher up the scale. Before we begin, a few words of comfort from Michael Vetter, who learned overtoning from avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. “One need only sing slow, continuous tones for half an hour each day in the comfortable register of quiet speech, making all the vowel form movements of normal speaking. Everything else follows.” We begin overtoning as we would begin a session of chanting (see previous lessons). We need to relax, get the breathing right and do some simple vocal exercises before we start. It’s advisable to sit upright in a chair, with your hands on your knees or in your lap. Start on a note that is comfortable for you—for women, this tends to be middle C and, for men, the C an octave below that (low C). On this note, begin toning the vowels from UH to EE in one continuous breath. The secret of good overtoning is not to enunciate the vowel sound too precisely. Try instead to keep the vowel sound in the throat. As sound therapist Jonathan Goldman puts it, “It is as though you are shaping your mouth to form the vowels, but not actually pronouncing them. By changing the structure of the jaw, tongue and cheeks, you will be altering the way the sound comes out.” When you start out, you can more easily hear the harmonics you’re making by cupping a hand over one ear while plac41

Sound Therapy Lesson 11

LIVING THE FIELD ing the other hand a few inches away from your mouth. You will also soon discover that less is more when it comes to overtoning. Don’t push, and don’t try to do it loudly—in Central Asia, they call overtoning ‘throat singing’, and volume is established by using your cheeks and lips, not by the force you apply in trying to ‘push out’ the sound. Overtoning exercises After experimenting with various tones and with the different shapes you can make with your mouth, you will begin to start hearing other high-pitched noises, which may sound like whistling or buzzing, or like another note being created. They’ve always been there, as we’ve said, but you are now becoming more conscious of them as you begin these exercises. Now you have understood the importance that the mouth and lips play in overtoning, we can move on from the vowels to other basic sounds that can bring out the harmonics.

As Jonathan Goldman outlines, the best place to start is with the MM sound, again on a note that feels comfortable. Project the sound from your throat so that your lips vibrate. Using the sound as a base, start varying the sound slightly by introducing the different vowel sounds. So, from the initial MM sound, start sounding MMOO (as in ‘moo’), then MMOH (as in ‘go’), then MMAH (as in ‘ma’), MMEYE (as in ‘my’), MMAYE (as in ‘may’) and finally MMEE (as in ‘me’). As always, make the sound softly, but make sure that your lips vibrate before opening them just wide enough to make the vowel part of the MM sound audible. Again, you will be surprised by the harmonics that you start to produce naturally. As a different exercise, put your lips together as if you were about to whistle. With your lips still puckered, open your mouth and make a MMOORR sound, as if you were saying an elongated ‘more’. Use one complete, drawnout breath. You should now begin to appreciate the importance of the mouth and lips in

The siren technique Once you feel reasonably adept at overtoning, you can start on a healing exercise developed by Jonathan Goldman called the Siren technique. It’s an intuitive approach where we ‘feel’ the right sound for a particular part of the body. Overall, it is best to close your eyes and ‘get out of the way’—in other words, don’t let the logical brain interfere—and to do it with a partner, who stands in front of you and with whom you will ‘work’ aurally. Begin with deep breathing and with a prayer that your body may be a vehicle for sacred, healing sound. Start with the highest sound you can make, focusing on the healee’s head, and then drop the pitch of your sound as you go down to the feet. Then, reverse the process, starting with the lowest note while focusing on the healee’s feet, and raising your pitch as you move up to the head. This scanning of the body should draw you to a specific area but, if nothing happens, repeat the exercise until you begin to sense which area you need to concentrate on. Once this is established, just make the sound that seems appropriate. Similarly, the ‘spirit’ that moved you will also determine how long you carry out the procedure. Finally, finish by placing your hands on the healee’s shoulders, squeezing them firmly to help ‘ground’ him/her. 42

creating harmonics. The nasal cavity also has an important role to play, although it’s not what we normally use to help us pronounce words. The nasal passage is perhaps the most important feature in helping to resonate the sounds we make. This becomes more important as we go up the tonal range. To help you get used to the idea of ‘pushing’ sound up the nasal passages, make the sound NNEE (as in ‘knee’) while placing your fingers on either side of the nose, and see if you can make them vibrate. The good news is that the exercise may help to clear your sinuses, so keep a tissue handy! Another sound that gets the nasal passages vibrating is NNUURR (as in ‘her’). The tongue should be lightly touching the roof of the mouth for the final RR sound. Done properly, the tongue will vibrate on a layer of saliva, rather than on the surface of the roof of the mouth, almost like a reed. Finally, always remember to change the shape of the mouth to create different harmonics. There are plenty of other similar sounds you can play with to improve your harmonic skills, such as NNGONG,

WWOOWW, HHUURREE and OOEE. Goldman recommends allowing around 15 minutes a day to practice.

Sound Therapy Lesson 11

Group overtoning for healing Have a small group encircle someone chosen to receive healing, who is lying down on the floor. Begin with the OM sound, which will produce its own natural harmonics. Start humming the MM sound before opening your mouths to sound OO. Finally, close your mouth slowly so that you are again just humming the MM. As with the Siren technique (see box, page 42), group overtoning should allow the appropriate sound to emerge. You can ask the healee for his/her favorite color, or a word they would like transmitted at the time of overtoning. Sometimes the sound produced will be discordant, but sometimes the group miraculously acts as one, and begins harmonizing the sound. Visualization Another complementary exercise to overtoning is visualization. As you make the sounds, imagine there is a beam of energy coming from your heart, your throat and your third eye. Imagine these beams of energy meeting at the point of a triangle—this is the beam of sacred sound. From your heart comes divine love, from your throat comes divine sound and from the third eye comes divine wisdom. Bryan Hubbard Lesson Twelve: Music to heal by Further reading Goldman J. Healing Sounds. Healing Arts Press, 1992 D’Angelo J. Healing With The Voice. Thorsons, 2000 McClellan R. The Healing Forces of Music. Amity House, 1988 Gardner K. Sounding The Inner Landscape. Caduceus, 1990

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LIVING THE FIELD Good vibrations that heal

Sound Therapy Lesson 12

For this last lesson on sound and heal ing, we move from chanting and over toning as a healing agent to the use of music to heal ourselves.

Music as therapy His experiences are supported by a raft of studies confirming the benefit of music on a range of conditions and problems. It has reduced disruptive behavior among ound and music appear to be inher- aggressive adolescents with attentionent to the human condition, and deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)1 we respond so profoundly to both and helped elderly people with dementia that we could be described as ‘vibrational to function better.2 beings’. In fact, we are indeed vibrational But music has a role in helping with beings in a universe of vibrating energy— health conditions, too. In 15 patients with or, as biologist Rupert Sheldrake has put coronary heart disease, music significantit, we are an integral part of a nested hier- ly reduced their beta-endorphin levels; archy of vibrations. even after exercise.3 It’s a powerful painIt’s little wonder then that toning and reliever. Listening to music for 20 minchanting can be such powerful forces for utes a day proved to be a powerful aid healing and transformation. But, while we in reducing the pain of osteoarthritis.4 It’s can use music and sound actively to help can improve the quality of life for patients others, we can also do the same for our- with terminal cancer,5 and other cancer selves. patients taking antitumor drugs fared betWe all know this intuitively. We listen ter when exposed to music.6 Music has to calming, restful music at the end of a helped patients with post-traumatic difficult day, or perhaps we play some amnesia to regain their memory,7 and it high-energy music to kickstart a party or reduced pain during labour.8 ourselves. Impressive as these findings are, the Music as therapy is well established most positive effects of music therapy as a useful adjunct to medical care, hav- are as a calming agent and a stress-reducing been well researched and used since er. Listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D the late 1940s, when it was discovered major reduced anxiety, blood pressure that musicians who played in hospital and heart rate in healthy people and was wards helped patients recover more more beneficial than silence.9 Similar quickly. results were achieved with music by Holistic healer Dr John Diamond, Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart, suggesting that who uses music and musicmaking as a music therapy could help heart patients.10 vital part of his healing therapy, says: “I Music has calmed patients waiting have tested many thousands of recordings for stem-cell transplantation, a distressing recorded over a period of over 80 years, and invasive procedure11 and, in those and it has been found that, almost without going for a colonoscopy, those who lisexception, this music has been therapeu- tened to music needed fewer sedatives, tic, often highly so. In fact, it has been and had lower heart rate and blood presused for stress reduction, relaxation, gen- sure than those not listening to the eral tonification, analgesia, anesthesia, as music.12 part of modified acupuncture techniques, It’s also helped students under exam and as adjunctive therapy in drug with- pressure. Japanese students were exposed drawal programs. Music has also been to two types of music—described as used in programmes to overcome fears either high- or low-uplifting—then had and phobias, alleviate insomnia, and even their immune function, neuroendocrine for the ‘tranquilization’ of acutely dis- response and emotional state checked. turbed psychotic patients.” Low-uplifting music increased their sense of wellbeing, while high-uplifting music

S

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Sound Therapy Lesson 12

LIVING THE FIELD raised norepinephrine levels and liveliness, and reduced depression.13

and musician Frances Rauscher at the University of California, who studied the effects of the first 10 minutes of Mozart’s The Mozart effect Sonata for Two Pianos (K.448) on cogniThis is the best-known example of the tive ability. They found a temporary benefits of music, even if it is perhaps improvement of spatial–temporal reasonthe most disputed. The term was coined ing on an IQ test. by Alfred Tomatis, who noticed an effect But no one has since been able to of Mozart’s music on brain functioning in duplicate this finding, although others children under age three. The idea was have tried to explain how the phenomethen taken up by physicist Gordon Shaw non might have occurred, if it did at all.

Music to live your life by Music can change our moods. The right music can snap us out of anger, rid us of depression, and give us our get-up-and-go. But the secret is finding the right music to induce the right state. Often, we are guided to the right music intuitively, but musician and musical therapist Dr John Ortiz, who has made a study of this, has recommended specific pieces of music to thousands of patients—for example: Music to get out of a depressed mood Beethoven, 1st movement, Moonlight’ Sonata No. 14 Schubert, Marche Militaire Mendelssohn, May Breezes Wa g n e r, Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde Beatles, She’s Leaving Home Beach Boys, Good Vibrations Stimulating music Mozart, Symphony No. 35 in D (Haffner), Symphony No. 41 in C (Jupiter) Beethoven, 3rd movement, Symphony No. 7 in A major David Bowie, Let’s Dance Oasis, What’s The Story? Stevie Wo n d e r, Innervisions Inspirational music Schubert, overture, Rosamunde Shostakovich, 2nd movement, Symphony No. 5 Handel, Hallelujah chorus, The Messiah Music to deal with anger Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique Manuel de Falla, Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor Brujo The Beatles, Revolution The Jam, The Modern World John Lennon, Cold Turkey 46

A study at York University in Toronto tested a Mozart sonata against an Albinoni adagio, and concluded that the Mozart effect is no more than arousal and a mood change in response to the music. But even this finding suggests that something is going on, even if the music is not making us smarter. One study looked at the effect of Mozart on seizure rate in epileptic patients. Researchers from Illinois University tested pieces by Mozart, JC and JS Bach, and Chopin, but only Mozart and the two Bachs reduced seizures. It was concluded that the structure of the music by the Bachs and Mozart may be resonating in a similar way as the process of encoding within the cerebral cortex of the brain.14 Be your own musical therapist But Mozart or not, it is clear and indisputable that music can have a dramatically therapeutic effect. Healers such as Dr Diamond have studied different types of music to such an extent that there is a ‘menu’ of recommended recordings that can help improve different conditions, states and moods. Dr Diamond is unique among them, however, for pointing out the adverse effects of digital music, both that which is recorded onto compact discs or that which has been recorded digitally onto the old-style vinyl LPs. He has found that the listener will test weak in a kinesiology test if he has heard a piece of music on a CD after having tested strong after hearing the same music, but recorded in analogue mode. Like Dr Diamond, Dr John Ortiz, himself a composer, has prepared ‘menus of music’ that can relieve various negative states and encourage more positive ones (see box, page 46), as have musicians Kate and Richard Mucci. In classical music, Dr Diamond has found that the music of Beethoven and

Brahms can be especially life-enhancing, as is traditional jazz, and the songs of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Ain’t She Sweet. Traditional rock-’n-roll and the music of The Beatles have also passed Diamond’s muscle tests. Dr Ortiz takes a more eclectic view, and has found that many contemporary groups and songs have had a beneficial effect on his patients. From this lesson and the 11 that preceded it, we hope that music and sound will have a central place in your day-today life. Far from being just ‘a nice thing to have around’, music and harmony are an intimate expression of yourself, and can help you become who you already are. Bryan Hubbard 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

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J Music Ther, 2003; 40: 283–301, 302–23 Nurs Health Sci, 2004; 6: 11–8 Dtsch Med Wo c h e n s c h r, 2003; 128: 2712–6 J Adv Nurs, 2003; 44: 517–24 J Music Ther, 2003; 40: 113–37 Zhongguo Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Za Zhi, 2001; 21: 891–4 J Music Ther, 2001; 38: 170–92 Pain Manage Nurs, 2003; 4: 54–61 J Music Ther, 2001; 38: 254–72 Schweiz Rundsch Med Prax, 1999; 88: 951–2 Cancer, 2003; 98: 2723–9 Appl Nurs Res, 2002; 15: 126–36 J Music Ther, 2003; 40: 189–211 Clin Electroencephalogr, 2000; 31: 94–103

Further re a d i n g Ortiz J. The Tao of Music. Samuel Weiser, 1997 Mucci K, Mucci R. The Healing Sound of Music. Findhorn Press, 2000 Diamond J. The Life Energy in Music, vols 1–3. Diamond Center

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