ARCANA V

Enrique Gonzalez

The music has deep cosmological aspects backing to archaic times. The following study seeks to find answers to why relationships were formed in ancient music culture between cosmology and music. Cosmological contexts of ancient arts may seem atmost poetic for the modern man. The whole knowledge of cosmology and astrology got to the consciousness of human kind by intuitive channels, which was consolidated to practical knowledge by thinking and empiric cognition. Since the ancient works of arts were made in a different form of consciousness, their cosmological aspects cannot be interpretable in our paradigm. The important cosmic pillars that are important to man in his life are the celestial bodies that have been well observed since ancient times, the Moon, the Sun, the planets, the stars, and of course, the Earth from which we look. The basis of the ancient cosmological view is that one sees the celestial bodies as a cosmic manifestation of existence and life. In this celestial world, the Sun, as a source of all life, played a particularly important role, and this privileged status created cult. For man Sun was considered to be as Deity, but also the whole cosmos to be as a living entity. For man, the cosmos was a sacred being. He sensed the phenomena of the outside world, tied to the cosmic aspects. It is based on the consciousness of the spiritual and physical unity of the Universe and its own being. In the archaic times, man had fully experienced his unity with nature and was in close contact with the cosmos. The decisive presence of the Sun and its importance to man in the corresponding periods of the day, expressed in music. In Eastern classical music, this tradition remains. At certain times of the day, only certain pieces are played. Over time, not only music but cosmic relationships have become more and more complex in man's life. In fact, the musical, mood-adjusted adjustment to the times of the day means harmonious tuning of the emotional life of man to the cosmological aspects of the world. In the organic system of relationships, the celestial bodies are obviously connected with the whole being of man, with all the moments of earthly life, as the voice world is related to the human soul, there is also a connection between the cosmos and the sound world. The sound world is a projection of physical reality that directly affects the human soul. This is why perhaps the music is the most direct passage between man's inner spiritual world and the outside world, connecting the inner cosmos with the outer cosmos

MPhil Thesis at Canterbury Christchurch University. This thesis regards the ancient Pythagorean-Platonic idea of heavenly harmony as a philosophical paradox: stars are silent, music is not. The idea of ‘star music’ contains several potential opposites, including imagination and sense perception, the temporal and the eternal, transcendence and theophany, and others. The idea of ‘star music’ as a paradox can become a gateway to a different understanding of the universe, and a vehicle for a shift to a new – and yet very ancient – form of consciousness. The ancient Greeks had a holistic form of consciousness, which was continually intermingling with a transpersonal dimension. This ancient state of consciousness was related to a musical understanding of the world, the Pythagorean-Platonic experience of the universe as an ordered cosmos. My research is approached from two angles, namely from the history of ideas and from musicianship, exploring how music is reflected in the world of thought. By reflexive re-reading of the sources, new insights into the nature of musical consciousness are explored. The idea of ‘star music’ can be found throughout the history of music and thought in the West, including Plato’s works and that of other ancient philosophers, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Romantic era and the twentieth century up to contemporary New Age music. As a conclusion, the paradox of ‘star music’ is connected to an experience of a shared transcendent meaning of music, which can be present in the moment of a musical performance. ‘Star music’ is a living paradox.

Pythagoras and Plato established the basic ideas of the occidental theory of “cosmic music”: the relations between intervals of music and numbers, the character of the scales and their influence in nature and society, the harmony of the planetary spheres, etc. Occidental philosophy and theology went back to these concepts, up to their influence in Johannes Kepler’s famous work “Harmonice mundi”. Non-western cultures developed ideas of “cosmic music”, too. Ancient China e.g. created a very complex system of relations between the different tones of the scale, elements of the calendar and social phenomena. According to the concepts of other people the celestial bodies sound while moving around, or the creation itself happened by sound. Some kinds of music instruments were meant to embody these ideas, to show the connections between music and cosmos, and to enable man to manipulate these relations in an active manner. The article presents an overview about some correlations between cosmos-related ideas and music across ancient cultures.

ARCANA V ARCANA V MUSIC, MAGIC AND MYSTICISM EDITED BY JOHN ZORN HIPS ROAD 2010 DEC 1 5OT® HL Copyright ©2010 by John Zom/Hips Road All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without express written permission of the authors or publisher. CONTENTS Preface John Zom V Book design by Heung-Heung Chin. Chapter 1 De Harmonia Mundi Vo William Breeze Chapter 2 Ornithology for the Birds First published in 2010 Gavin Bryars 30 33 ISBN 978-0-9788337-9-4 Chapter 3 Regarding the Sonic Symbolism of When and Where ISBN 0-9788337-9-1 Printed on acid-free paper Steve Coleman Printed and bound in the United States of America Chapter 4 Hips Road 200 East 10th Street #126 When I Saw Kosugi Get Into a Large Duffel Bag with his Guitar Alvin Curran 9S 104 New York, NY 10003 Distributed to the trade by D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers Frank Denyer 155 Avenue of the Americas, Second Floor New York, NY 10013 Orders; (800) 338-2665 Tel: (212) 627-1999 Fax:(212)627-9484 Chapters The Musician Myth and the Failed Quest http://www.tradik.com Chapter 6 Walls & Ladders Jeremy Fogel 114 129 Chapter? On Dirt, Revelations, Contradictions, and Breathing Through Your Elbows Fred Frith Chapter 8 Yoga and Music Sharon Gannon 133 151 Chapter 9 Music, Mysticism and Spirituality Peter Garland Chapter 10 Music Extensions of Infinite Dimensions Milford Graves 171 187 Chapter 11 The Crazy Voice Larkin Grimm i 327 Chapter 25 Chapter 12 Music and Mysticism, Rhythm and Form A Blues Romance in 12 Parts Holy Ghost Tim Hodgkinson 191 227 Chapter 13 Sigils Jerry Hunt Chapter 14 Hyakintos and Pardeh Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Rang 334 239 Chapter 15 Adam Rudolph Chapter 26 A Silence that Speaks: The All-Embracing Unification of Space and Mind (With Sound Meditation in 3 Parts) David Chaim Smith 336 Musings on the Hermetic Lyre 344 Chapter 27 William J. Kiesel Harmonie Aphanes Phaneres Kreitton Chapter 16 Trey Spruance In the Name of God the Gracious the Merciful: Recognition of the Beloved Chapter 28 Yusef A. Lateef 248 254 Chapter 17 Notes (To Whoever is Listening) Frank London The Dread of the Knock: A Ceremony of Auditory Hallucinations for the Dead of Night David Toop 386 396 Chapter 29 Chapter 18 Horn O' Plenty The Sacred Power of Music Greg Wall Dary John Miz elle 260 265 Chapter 19 Chapter 30 The Soul's Messenger The Perspectival Lute Meredith Monk Peter Lambom Wilson 401 408 Chapter 31 Chapter 20 Metaphors, Mythos and Metaphonics Death: The Father of Creation z'ev Tisziji Muñoz 269 286 Chapter 21 About the Contributors 440 Trash Mark Nauseef Chapter 22 The Collective Intelligence of Improvisation Pauline Oliveros 292 297 Chapter 23 Thee Splinter Test Genesis Breyer P-Orridge Chapter 24 Music-Myth Terry Riley 314 ii iii PREFACE JOHN ZORN The creative act is a complex and elusive enigma. Shrouded in mystery, large ly misunderstood, many attempts have been made to describe, analyze, and define it in an effort to explain the inexplicable. The preceding four volumes of Arcana have presented the voices of 125 creative minds discussing the processes, thinking patterns, idiosyncratic techniques and breakthrough methods involved in the magical act of making music. Ranging from peda gogy and magic squares to extended techniques, chord voicings, advanced technologies, surrealist games, esoteric research, ethnomusicology, dream diaries, structural analysis, acoustics and more, the essays and manifestos included within those tomes help provide clues to how musicians think about their work, the world, and that which they love most—music. Despite articulate and passionate answers to probing questions, misunderstandings persist, abound and proliferate—and the divide between musicians and the rest of the world remains largely undiminished. The out side world continues to look upon artists and musicians with a strange and complex combination of admiration, jealousy, contempt, love, suspicion, awe, anger and hero worship. The contradiction is quite understandable— creation is an unknowable act. In addition to the the nuts and bolts involved in the craft of sculpting a piece of music, there is the divine spark of inspi ration that gives it birth, which often is just as much of a mystery to the artists who experience it as it is to the uninitiated who have not. This unfathomable element of the creative equation is rarely spo ken of by musicians, perhaps out of the belief (or fear) that to speak of it would cause it to vanish, never to return. But it is there, equally veiled as it is vital—at times overwhelming. Described alternately as being in the zone or the flow, channeling the muse, self hypnosis or the piece writing itself, the feeling is a universal yet ineffable one of being in touch with something outside or larger than oneself. The manifestations of this can include unusu- ZORN PREFACE ally intense concentration on one's work resulting in a lost sense of self, a merging of action and awareness to the extent that successes and failures become immediately apparent, a perfect balance between ability level and challenge, a powerful sense of personal control rendering the process effort tinguished modern practitioners and greatest occult thinkers, providing insights into the esoteric traditions and mysteries involved in the composi tion and performance of the most mystical of all arts. —John Zorn, NYC 2009 less, and often an altered or lost sense of time. Goals become so clear as to be almost absent—one exists inside the hot crucible of creativity itself, con nected with a spirit, energy or historical lineage that is overpowering, exhil arating, frightening. One is one's goal, and the creative act is existence— rewarding in and of itself. At these times freedom (so normally equated with artists) becomes obeisance. One does what one is compelled to do, inevitably resulting in something beyond your known capabilities. What is this place? Whose is this voice? From whence does it come? How does one make contact? Can it be called upon at will? How long will it stay? Will it ever return? In a recent discussion with a friend, we were both surprised and delighted to leam that we were not alone in our experiences— that we both had heard this voice, been visited by this angel. We also agreed how impossible it would be for the uninitiated to understand or even accept its existence. Is it indeed best to keep these voices private? Are they real or imagined? Who can truly understand how a song can appear complete in a fleeting moment, so quick that you rush to write it down before it disap pears, or that a composition can actually write itself. Unless you have actually experienced this remarkable phenomenon, it sounds suspiciously like romantic fantasy. But it is real. There are places beyond thought, beyond thinking; places where intuition merge with destiny—^places of transcendence—and in our newly formed, hi-speed, digitized world of the multitask, it may be that the only way to retain our innate inner-born humanity is in taking on and tapping in to the challenge of the unknowable stream of the eternal. Mysticism, magic and alchemy all come into play in the creative process. For many centuries composers have accessed things spiritual, embracing ritual, spell, incantation and prayer deeply into their life and work. From Sappho and Hildegard von Bingen to Biber, Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Scriabin, Messiaen, Rudhyar, Sorabji, Coltrane, Ayler, Ito, Pärt, Rautavaara and beyond, the connection of music to mysticism has been consistent, well documented and productive. Far from an historical overview or a musicologist's study, this Arcana Special Edition illuminates a fascinating and elusive subject via the eloquent voices of today's most dis vi vii ARCANA V CHAPTER 1 DE HARMONIA MUNDI WILLIAM BREEZE I 00. One is the Magus: twain His forces: four His weapons. These are the Seven Spirits of Unrighteousness; seven vultures of evil. Thus is the art and craft of the Magus but glamour. How shall He destroy Himself? 0. Yet the Magus hath power upon the Mother both directly and through Love. And the Magus is Love, and bindeth together That and This in His Conjuration. —Aleister Crowley, Liber B vel Magi sub figura /, The Holy Books ofThelema. Why is Love called a Magus? Because all the force of Magic consists in Love. The work of Magic is a certain drawing of one thing to another by natural similitude. The parts of this world, like members of one animal, depend all on one Love, and are connected together by natural commu nion.. .. From this community of relationship is born the communal Love: from which Love is born the common drawing together: and this is the true Magic. —MarsiUo Ficino, Commentarium in Convivium Platonis de amore., oratio VI, cap. io {Opera omnia, p. 1348), trans. Frances A. Yates, from Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964), p. 127. Microntonal tuning has a long-established connection with occultism and magick. The occult doctrine of correspondences has its roots in the protoscientific philosophies of mediaeval Europe, with deep roots in Arabic, Byzantine Greek and older confluent cultures. It had its greatest resurgence during the i 5 th century Renaissance Neoplatonic revival led by Marsilio Ficino, and its essentials were codified by Cornelius Agrippa in the 16th century. Epitomized by the "as above, so below" axiom of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, the doctrine posits a one-to-one correspon dence between the celestial and earthly realms, and to its initiates, between the inner and outer worlds. The elements, humors, planets and zodiacal 11 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI signs were understood to cross the macrocosm-microcosm boundary, with include a state of high vibration akin to electricity coursing through the counterparts in the human body and spirit. Rehgious theurgists such as body. The same phenomena are described in analogous terms in Hindu Ficino employed a variety of means, but especially music, to harness these yoga {kundalini), Taoism and other traditions. The ability to "tune" these magical correspondences in the quest for health, happiness and a deeper vibrations harmoniously, to "play" the energies internally as you would a understanding of God and nature. These correspondences have left linguis musical instrument, is one of the most important tools available to the tic traces in our languages that remain signifiers for aesthetic qualities and magus or yogin (as in mantrayoga) for enhancing and directing the trance. emotions. We can, in discussing music, speak of a fiery or earthy work, a The "subtle body" of the magus or yogin is a microcosm of the vibrational choleric or sanguine performance, a jovial or martial brass passage, or recog world of the macrocosm; it is tuned by the same principles as those found in nize music evocative of the seasons. These are not just linguistic fossils of microtonal music. extinct magical thinking preserved in language; these influences, and their underlying occult correspondences, still live in us and through us. with astronomical conceptions of planetary order and motion, theological In addition to Thrice-Greatest Hermes, the Hermetictheologi constructs like the angelic hierarchies of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite or spiritual fathers included Pythagoras, who had taught that vibration proved the primacy of ideal numbers. His initiates could demonstrate inte (the cherubim, seraphim, etc.), and then-recent borrowings from the Hebrew Qabalah, to shape the syncretic paradigm of the music of the ger ratios in the harmonic series using a monochord. These ratios and those spheres. Magical applications of this evolving occult philosophy involved elaborated by other theoreticians became the basis for ecclesiastical music in ceremonial practices and meditative thought-experiments that essentially mediaeval Europe. As further elaborated by the Renaissance Neopythagoreans, "tuned" into one or more corresponding qualities to achieve a precise magi Neoplatonists and Hermeticists, and epitomized in the influential De cal result, in the world with talismanic magic, in the person with healing Harmonia Mundi (1525) of Francesco Giorgi, these ratios were understood magic, or in one's own consciousness with religio-theurgic magic. Employed to reveal the mind of the creator and give the measure of heaven and earth. in music, they provided a magical means of invoking and directing discrete The worlds were understood to co-respond; the magical link between them divine energies on earth. A note sung in a Renaissance Orphic hymn, or was made through sympathy, the affinity of like for like. This sympathy was mediated by number, epitomized in the harmonic series. played on a monochord, lute or viol, could stand for a planet in the heavens, But the network of correspondences traced pathways with two ick of correspondences is thus analogous to sympathetic vibration, where directions. As number and vibration permeated all created things, including strings tuned to frequencies that bear whole number ratios to the frequency man, they provided a means of return up through the Hermetic hierarchies of creation to the direct experience of God. This was a divine right of return, of the vibrating air resonate, at a distance, in sympathy with the sound not a mediated salvation or redemption, and required initiation, i.e. experi implicit in the circuit created by the magical link; the influx of descending ence, not simply grace. Magick proved that God was listening through His influence after invocation reinforces the originating "signal"—a phenome created agencies, the ensouled angels and demons appropriate to the various departments of magical works. non that Crowley called the reverberating or reciprocating formula. The world presented to our senses teems with vibration, and our The goal of Hermetic magic was a trance in which the body of the magus was stilled with its senses closed, while the spirit was exalted to com There are laws of harmony which our brains are hard-wired to decode, per mune with the mens, or mind of God. This trance is an advanced form of what, since late 19th century Theosophy, has been called astral projection, forming what amounts to fast Fourier analysis to hear whole-number ratios as meaningful harmonic relationships. We have evolved to hear most of and was termed "rising on the planes" by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. Accounts of this trance almost always these harmonies as beautiful, and consciously or unconsciously, we respond to them emotionally and imbue them with meaning. 12 13 In the Renaissance, Neo-Pythagorean number theory combined imbuing the musician and listeners with its energies and qualities. The mag source. There is also something analogous to an audio feedback loop senses are specialized organs that interpret the vibrations to our brains. BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI In the decades leading up to the dawn of the Enlightenment there with the electric blues. The subtle harmonics present in all vibrating strings was renewed interest in Neoplatonism and the mathematics of music. In the were boosted by pickups, amplifiers and effects, bringing them into the early 17th century, when not singing with his monochord, Robert Fludd foreground and making tone and spectrum control a new element in the wrote about cosmological music theory, and argued it in print with contem tonal palette. poraries like Johannes Kepler, who like his predecessor Ptolemy, combined astronomy with an abiding interest in music. II The Baroque period developed a better understanding of sympa thetic vibration. One result was a newly-invented string instrument that flourished in the late 17th and i8th centuries, the viola d'amore, with an undercourse of strings that vibrate sympathetically with the bowed strings much like those of the Indian sarangi or sitar. Its sympathetic strings are expressively responsive but very subtle and ethereal—the amplitude of sympathetic vibrations drop off with interval distance in whole number ratios from the sounding string. A later conceptual breakthrough was the discovery that a vibrating string includes its full harmonic series in its sound envelope, however faintly, giving rise to an understanding of timbre. This was not known previously, even to the Greeks, though they had long known how to isolate the individual harmonics. In Europe, the evolution of instruments with sympathetic strings stopped with the ascension of equal temperament and the pianoforte, musi cal handmaidens of the Enlightenment. By the 19th century the piano had become a concert instrument, and singers, string and wind players had adapted to its equal temperament by modifying their techniques, most especially by introducing vibrato to mask tempered dissonances. With the industrial revolution the piano became ubiquitous as a home entertain ment center for the emerging middle class. Interest in nontempered tuning was generally limited to specialists, who were often non-musicians. Blues musicians have long had nontempered approaches to playing that are rooted in careful listening and pitch bending. Some players used open tunings to improve the response of the guitar and compensate for tem pered fretting. Resonator guitars and slide technique were developed. Slight adjustments of pitch were made because they sounded better, and conveyed more feeling. The musical form itself was conducive, as the 12-bar I-IV-V blues progression is the next best thing to a static drone for exploring sub tleties of scale. The physicist Hermann Helmholtz never heard the blues, but he knew why tonic-subdominant-dominant chords were the most har monically stable, even in equal temperament. All this came to the forefront 14 If even the universe is in sympathy with and harmonizes with itself, its parts must fit together agreeably, since these equal parts are of a single whole. It is surely worth consideration whether the charms and spells of magicians do not answer to such unity. Indeed just as the things in the world are mutually betokened by one another, so they are reciprocally affected. The true sage understands the parts of the world. Using voices, substances, and figures near at hand as tokens of things far away, he attracts one thing by means of another. —Synesius of Cyrene, De Insomniis (from Ficino, De Somniis, in Opera omnia,, p. 1969), translated in Gary Tomlinson, Music in Renaissance Magic; Toward a Historiography of Oilers (1993), pp. 129-130. And what is a diagram? A representation of a musical system. And we use a diagram so that, for students of the subject, matters which are hard to grasp with the hearing may appear before their eyes. —Bacchius (translated in John Curtis Franklin, Diatonic Music in Ancient Greece: A Reassessment of its Antiquity, Memnosyne, series 4, 56(1) (2002), pp. 669-702.) Music theorists and occult philosophers are alike in this: they have a very wide field of discourse, and theories that are frequently tangential or at cross-purposes. Both have had ascendant dogmas, blind alleys and periods of stagnation, as well as old and vigorous traditions that enjoy renewal and rediscovery, with occasional breakthroughs. In both, ancient truths are perennial. My frustration with western classical training began as a music stu dent in the 1970s, especially with the way music theory was taught. It led me to drop reading and notating music for improvisation, and to try to rethink theory from first principles. My parallel pursuit of practical and the oretical occult magick became interwoven with this. What follows was developed when studying North Indian music theory privately during 1975-1976 with the American, Indian-trained bin and sitar master Peter 15 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI Row, who used an algebraic notation of his own devising to describe Just/ Mercury is the god of communication, travel and commerce. Words Pythagorean intervals. I preferred geometry, finding that it shed Hght on interesting aspects of music theory and yielded good mnemonic aids for like "merchandise," "market," "mercenary" and "commercial" all share an ing color diagrams are the result. The clock model used as a starting point etymology with the god-name Mercurius. In the Crowleyan magical tradition. Mercury or Hermes is the Lord of Magick. These traditions are not necessarily contradictory; trade is after all the simplest means of trans had long precedent as a map of the chromatic and enharmonic keys in mod forming matter. His symbol is the caduceus (Figure 1), which has dual ulation. I now know that music psychologists, beginning with Bachem serpents around a winged central staff suggestive of a string or air column (1950), used a spiral helix pitch-space model first advanced by the German theorist M. W. Drobish in 1855, a model that has since gained nearly univer vibrating in harmonic ratios. Its facing serpents, suggestive of mirroring, are more than merely symbolic, and the mirror is explicit in some early forms sal acceptance in textbooks for music psychology and psychoacoustics of the symbol. Some images of meditating yogins (Figure 2) show the spinal (examples are given in Selected References). But although I found occasional column with intertwined energy channels suggestive of harmonics in a circular diagrams and spirals in the music theory literature, I did not turn up string. Eliphas Lévi's image of Baphomet (Figure 3), with one hand pointing anything precisely similar to the theoretical arrangements given in Figures to the heavens and the other to the earth, embodies the Hermetic "as above, so below" formula with its operative corollary "solvè et coagula." He has a theory and improvisation. The simple systems illustrated in the accompany 8-10. But geometrical clock-based music theory was one of those ideas whose time had come, and seems to have been elaborated independently in interesting ways in various places. Books making serious use of clocks caduceus for a phallus, hinting at the importance of vibration and vibration include one by a serialist, Peter Schat, De Toonclok (1984, EngHsh trans. tions" to the "shrill scream of orgasm." Employed externally, rather than The Tone Clock, 1993), and the innovative Guitar Grimoire training books internally in trance or vision, the forces indicated by these symbols relate to by "Adam Kadmon" published by Carl Fischer (whose title and pseudo nym suggest their author might be a practicing magician in private life). the siddhis of Yoga, and in magick and sorcery, the powers of fascination and glamor. control in sexual magick, from the slow frequencies of the "ophidian vibra Geometry is not an approach that will suit everyone. It may be that One of the mysteries of physics is how vibration in time doubles the so-called hemispheric "left brain/right brain" characteristics (e.g. verbal = left, spatial = right) correlate to different approaches to music. If one and redoubles to create the entire spectrum of vibration. When singing or accepts for discussion purposes that conventional notation and theory is linear and essentially verbal, then perhaps geometric music theory more same order again and again, from octave to octave. The simplest representa fully engages the other (supposedly more intuitive) hemisphere. playing up and down an instrument's range, we pass the same notes in the tion of this effect is a spiral, where each return to a particular radial point on the circle represents a doubling of frequency, or in the other direction, a halving. Given enough turns, the whole universe of vibration can be encom passed, from long slow cycles of galactic rotation to orbital planetary motion, through the long waves of earthquakes up to sound and visible light and on into the upper electromagnetic spectrum. The harmonic laws obeyed in each realm are the same. Engineers have learned to detune sus pension bridges so that they do not collapse in high winds; crystals are used to isolate radio frequencies; lasers are used to tune coherent light. This even holds true at the quantum mechanical level; it has just been learned that two widely separated pairs of atoms, when induced into quantum entanglement Figure 1. Figure 2. 16 Figure 3. by laser, vibrate sympathetically at a distance Qost et al., 2009). Quantum neurology is exploring how our brains process consciousness of the uni17 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI verse of matter-energy, and is beginning to find correlations at the deepest levels of neurology and physics. Vibration may yet prove to be the basis for our perception of an external world, and the means of its continual (re)creation. Religions of the manifesting word, from the Vedic vak to the Greek logos and the Hebrew berashith, suggest as much. 0 Figure 5. Figure 4. The musical range we hear, about ten octaves, is a tiny subset of this vast continuum of vibration. Taking the spiral, transposing all its octaves into one octave, and dividing the circle as a common 12-point clock (Figure 4), gives a simple but accurate representation of pitch and interval space. The main difference between this clock and a normal time-keeping clock is the use of 0 at the top. In modulo-12 arithmetic, 12 is the modulus of 0, just as 10 is Figure 6. Figure 7. the modulus of 0 in our usual counting system. With precedent from Drobish (1855) and Bachem (1950), the music psychologist R. N. Shepard (1982) pro Alexander J. Ellis established a convention for subdividing the jected this helical model on a cylinder (Figure 5). While comparativism absent octave into a logarithmic scale of 1200 "cents" in which the twelve equally a transmission context is speculative and usually at best merely suggestive, the helical model does resemble a Phoenician coin (Figure 6), whose designer sig tempered tones are subdivided by 100 in his extensive appendices to On the nalled his awareness of the serpent's spiral symbolism by the inclusion of a seashell. The vibrational spiral also has a symbolic affinity with the traditional representation of the Orphic world-egg (Figure 7). The doubling and redou Sensation of Tone (1875, 2nd ed. 1885), his translation of the 1875 4th edi tion of Hermann Helmholtz's Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen. This octave division into 1200 provides a practical scale for describing micro- bling by octaves to return to the same note is a simple observation that can be tones; humans can't normally hear differences of one cent or less. Cent values for natural integer ratios are rounded off in this paper; they are irra demonstrated by singing or whistling a glissade while tracing circles in the air. It would be more surprising were it not known in antiquity than otherwise. tional numbers. Oddly, considering the division into 1200, Ellis did not employ an overt clock analogy. That became a standard much later with 18 19 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI frequency meters calibrated in cents arranged around a circle. Ellis' conven circle. But its effects are nontrivial—they show the "mirroring" implicit in tion was practical, but it really comes to life in a clock representation. Mercury's caduceus. This mirroring points up philosophical and even theo The clock model collapses all the octaves into one simple represen tation of an abstract clock, making possible the study of notes in pitch space without the up/down duality of the octaves. Thanks to the sexagesimal logical questions. The horizontal correlation of intervals and their inver sions on the clock face shows how duality reasserts itself, often in unexpect system of the Sumerians and Babylonians, we all know how to do base-12 ed ways that are arguably integral to music theory. One of Crowley's most important esoteric doctrines—his initiated solution to the ancient arithmetic in our heads. Telling time requires that we mentally compute the nihilism/monism/dualism arguments and ultimately the problem of evil hours of the day forwards and backwards in modulo-12. Extending this by the itself—teaches that dualism is a characteristic of the world of manifestation. finer scale of 1200 cents is just a refinement, one that refrains from overdraw Hardly novel, but Crowley was not your garden variety antinomian gnos ing the analogy to employ minutes and seconds. The comparison between time clocks and music also breaks down because there is no real equivalent to tic. He went further, teaching that dualistic ideas can be transcended by a process analogous to Hegelian dialectics—what he termed the "0 = 2 the 24 hour day in music beyond the comparison to two octaves. If we could Formula," i.e. +1 + -1 = 0, where 0 forms the new positive or negative term hear a range of fourteen octaves one niight make a trivial analogy to the week. of a new equation. As the star-goddess Nuit says in The Book of the Law: While musical frequencies expressed in cycles per second increase geometrically with each octave up in pitch (A = 110,220,440,880, etc.), on a "For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union." {Liber AL 1:29). modulo-12 clock or 1200 cent logarithmic scale the note values increase {Liber AL 1:45). This dialectical synthesis continues until one transcends arithmetically by 12 or 1200 for each octave, respectively. The arithmetic both human rationality and manifestation, crossing an Abyss beyond which scale makes mental computation and transposition practical, so that it is is an ideal world transcending duality in which any true thought contains its possible to compose using modulo-12 numbers. Many composers have opposite. One can catch glimpses of this process at work in particle physics done so, and although some theorists object to intervals having the same names as notes, the method has its advantages. as well as music theory. Coming on the heels of the renewed interest in Neoplatonism and The clock has interesting and useful properties in number theory. esoteric music theory, the young Descartes studied the works of his prede One is shown by imagining a vertical line from 0 to 6 as a "mirror" that cessors and near-contemporaries, especially music theory. No stranger to reflects notes from one side of the clock to the other, horizontally. Thus, the questions of duality, he used interval-divisions of the circle to illustrate his Vth is horizontally opposite the IVth if you draw a line across the clock to connect the mirrored 7 and 5. Now add the two numbers on any horizontal first complete work, the Compendium musicae (written 1618, published row; they always equal 12, i.e. 11 + 1 = 12,10 + 2 = 12 and my favorite 9 + 3 the fourth as the "shadow" of the fifth; it seems reasonably clear that he was = 12, etc. Just as the values opposite one another on a clock face add to 12, fully aware of the symmetry of the intervals and their inversions, and his when thinking of musical intervals, any given value down in pitch corre diagrams show that he understood how they could be mapped on a circle. sponds to its horizontally-opposite number up in pitch, and vice versa. He also introduced the notion that the higher ratios were included in the Thus one semitone up yields the same note as eleven semitones down fundamental from which they derived, prefiguring the later discovery that a vibrating string includes its subtle harmonics in its sound envelope, the (though in another octave), and so on for the rest of the horizontal pairs. This is what is meant by "non-dual" intervals: they can be thought about without respect to direction in pitch by this method. "The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!" 1650, English trans. 1653). In a famously confusing passage, he discussed same harmonics that the Pythagorean monochord was used to isolate. Mapping the western major scale onto a clock with C at the top will make the fourth mirror the fifth of the major scale, but will not fully explain It might appear trivial that the distance clockwise from the top of the clock to a given point, when added to the clockwise distance from the top to the point horizontally opposite, should give the circumference of the interval symmetry. To do this we must return to the ancient Greek Phrygian mode, equivalent to the mediaeval ecclesiastical and modern Dorian mode. 20 21 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI An approximation in equal temperament is the scale from D to D on the note name (D through C), and by the I-VII note convention, where 0 = D white keys of a keyboard. This was probably the first full scale described in = I. As explained earlier, intervals are not understood to be "up" a certain Western music theory, in the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, dating from around 700. Later mediaeval church theorists considered it the first of the ecclesiastical modes, and the last great mediaeval theorist, Bartolomeo number of tones or "down" a certain number of tones, but instead are "non-dual," understood as simultaneously "up" one number and "down" the corresponding inverse number, or vice versa. Ramos de Pareia, attributed the Dorian mode to the Sun. Kepler and Newton, in describing their correlations of scale intervals to colors, also chose this scale. All must have been aware of its natural symmetry. Circle of Fifths Days 0) ttie Weei< Figure 8. To illustrate the interval symmetry of this scale it helps to give the non-dual intervals as colored lines connecting the notes, as in Figures 8 and 9. Each non-dual interval is given a unique color, keyed to the legend given in Figure 8. The scale is mapped onto a clock with the D at the top position. (Note that both figures also show the C Major scale, but D is placed at the top to exploit the natural correlation of the clock to the D mode's internal interval symmetry.) The notes are identified by modulo-12 number (0-11), 22 Diatonic Scaie Qabalistic Sephiroth Ptoiemaic Order of Ihe Pianets Modes of fiamos Atomic Weights of frétais Figure 9. Visualizing the intervals in Figure 8 as colored lines connecting points on the clock permits a mathematically accurate geometrical understanding of the spatial relationships of the tones in an "idealized" single octave that disregards inversions. This diagram can help one to form an intuitive understanding of how interval inversion works in musical space (the octaves) without losing 23 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI An approximation in equal temperament is the scale from D to D on the note name (D through C), and by the I-VII note convention, where 0 = D white keys of a keyboard. This was probably the first full scale described in = I. As explained earlier, intervals are not understood to be "up" a certain Western music theory, in the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, dating from number of tones or "down" a certain number of tones, but instead are around 700. Later mediaeval church theorists considered it the first of the "non-dual," understood as simultaneously "up" one number and "down" ecclesiastical modes, and the last great mediaeval theorist, Bartolomeo the corresponding inverse number, or vice versa. Ramos de Pareia, attributed the Dorian mode to the Sun. Kepler and Newton, in describing their correlations of scale intervals to colors, also chose this scale. All must have been aware of its natural symmetry. D I Circle ol Fifths Days ol the Week Figure 8. To illustrate the interval symmetry of this scale it helps to give the non-dual intervals as colored lines connecting the notes, as in Figures 8 and 9. Each non-dual interval is given a unique color, keyed to the legend given in Figure 8. The scale is mapped onto a clock with the D at the top position. (Note that both figures also show the C Major scale, but D is placed at the top to exploit the natural correlation of the clock to the D mode's internal interval symmetry.) The notes are identified by modulo-12 number (0-11), 22 Diatonic Scale Qabalistic Sephiroth Ptolennaic Order of the Plahets Modes of Ramos Atomic Weights ot Metals Figure 9. Visualizing the intervals in Figure 8 as colored lines connecting points on the clock permits a mathematically accurate geometrical understanding of the spatial relationships of the tones in an "idealized" single octave that disregards inversions. This diagram can help one to form an intuitive understanding of how interval inversion works in musical space (the octaves) without losing 23 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI sight of the simplicity of the underlying "abstract" (non-dual) intervals. It gets the planets, and the atomic weights of the metals. Also included are the medi around the complexities of chord inversions—clearly an oversimplification, aeval modes, as attributed to the planets by the founder of Just intonation, since the same note behaves very differently depending on its pitch placement Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareia, from his Musica Practica (1482). These are all in a chord or melody, but a useful simplification. These sorts of clocks may traditional attribution systems, most of which have been correlated before in be used to analyze many musical problems such as chord triads without the complexities introduced by inversion, voicing and arrangement. alchemical and magical literature, though this is probably the first diagram to The scale's interval counts and properties are highlighted by anoth have tried to directly absorb the outer planets Uranus and Neptune, and harmonize all of the systems represented. Some modern magical theorists er phenomenon in number theory—one inherent in the diatonic system sometimes Pluto, into a comprehensive system of attributions. I agree with with or without a clock model, though the non-dual graphic representation Crowley's position that the septenary should be preserved, as explained in of a clock makes it readily apparent. The diatonic scale has one tritone his General Principles of Astrology (2002). He treated the then recently (which, like all non-dual intervals, is understood as including its inversion, discovered outer planets as "superior governors" that modified the seven also a tritone), two Major Vllths (with their inverse minor Ilnds), three classical "personal" planets, considering their energies to be essentially minor Vlths (with their inverse Major Illrds), four Major Vlths (with their transpersonal. inverse minor Illrds), five minor Vllths (with their inverse Major Ilnds) In equal temperament, twelve fifths or fourths either up or down in and six Vths (with their inverse IVths). This accounts for all of the "nondual" intervals in the scale. Expressed in modulo-12, they are: one of 6/6, with nontempered fifths and fourths, there is no circle. The circle never two of 11/1, three of 8/4, four of 9/3, five of 10/2 and six of 7/5. The nondual interval counts, when summed, give 1-1-2 + 3 + 4-1-5 + 6, or 21-6 = 36, the magical number of the Sun. Such "magical numbers" are considered sig nificant in the Crowleyan Qabalah; see Sepher Sephiroth (1912), §36. Aside from any possible Qabalistic significance, the full interval system is undeni ably elegant in the symmetry of its interval distribution. pitch form a circle that will bring you back to the note you started from. But closes; a discrepancy of just less than two cents (an irrational number, 1.955...) accumulates with each interval jump, so you never return to the starting note. Figure 10 is an expansion of Figure 8 to show Just/Pythagorean microtuning. Unlike Figures 8 and 9, the connecting lines in Figure 10 show only untempered non-dual perfect IV/V intervals, with each of three inde Figure 9 is a simplification of Figure 8 that distributes the seven notes around a clock of seven equidistant points on a modulo-7 clock, where the octave is expressed in diatonic notation (I-VII). We all know how to do sim pendent cycles of perfect IV/V intervals given in a different color. The ple modulo-7 arithmetic, again thanks to the Sumerians and Babylonians, in notes. It helps one appreciate at a glance how three independent and sym this instance because of their seven-day week. The intervals are in equal tem metrical cycles make up Just/Pythagorean tuning, which is not obvious perament as before. Its disadvantage is that the accurate spatial relationships from a table of pitches and ratios. between the equally tempered tones are lost. There are three ways of doing this sort of diagram of seven points, e.g. with the fifths moving clockwise to every point, every other point, or every third point. Each yields a different arrangement for the same attributions. There are also several ways of distrib uting the attributions with a chosen arrangement; I prefer the version given in the diagram as it derives from the previous figure, and keeps the scale a simple purpose of this diagram is to show the symmetry of the multiple cycles of fifths or fourths in the context of a circular map of the Just/Pythagorean Figure 10 also illustrates how the Pythagorean pitches, derived from the third harmonic (the Vth, ratio 3:2, and IVth, ratio 4:3), all fall into a single connected series that proceeds in both "directions"—up and down in pitch by fifths and fourths simultaneously (and symmetrically) from 0 at the top. This is represented in the clock diagram by the pattern of interval lines clockwise circle. Added to this figure are correspondences for seven of the ten running from the top and splitting to trace the two mirrored branches of this series, ending in the tritones. These fifths/fourths are all shown by lines sephiroth of the Qabalistic Tree of Life, their associated planetary attributions in Ptolemaic order, the associated days of the week, the metals associated to of the same color (purple). Just pitches were introduced because the Pythagorean Illrds and Vlths were judged too harsh. They all derive from 24 25 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI the fifth harmonic (the Just Major Ilird, ratio 5:4, and Just minor Vlth, ratio 8:5), and form two independent but mirrored cycles of fifths, given as green The resulting diatonic Just/Pythagorean scale thus has four versions of the and red lines in the diagram. One Just cycle starts with the Just Acute IV Major), rather than the usual two (minor and Major) familiar from equal temperament. and the other with its mirror, the Just Grave V. (They can also be thought of as starting on the Just Major Ilird (ratio 5:4) and Just minor Vlth (ratio 8:5), and proceeding up and down in fifths simultaneously until reaching their endpoints.) Both cycles end in the tritones, just a very small ratio (the skhisma, 1.953 cents) distant from the endpoints of the Pythagorean cycle. (The II, III, VI and VII (Pythagorean minor. Just minor. Just Major, Pythagorean It is often said that the tonic-subdominant-dominant are the most harmonically stable diatonic tones. Even when understood as being cen tered on the D mode, this diagram shows why, and underscores the simplic skhisma is defined by its discoverer, Ellis, as one Just Major Ilird plus eight ity of the I-IV-V 12-bar blues progression and its stability in natural tuning. Even when equally tempered, the I-IV-V series falls sufficiently within fifths up in pitch, transposed into the same octave.) The notes of the two the limits of human pitch discrimination to approximate microtonal Just/ independent, mirrored Just cycles thus have harmonic relationships to the Pythagorean tuning. Making a copy of the diagram as a transparency and pitches in the Pythagorean cycle that are primarily based on Just Major Illrds (4:5) and Just minor Vlths (5:8). rotating the copy over the printed diagram to the fourth or fifth shows why: the I, IV and V all have their own harmonic series, and these interlock. Ill Amazing work is being done today by microtonal composers and perform ers of all persuasions, but most of this music requires an extremely high degree of training to play properly. Indian music has long shown that one can play great microtonal music one microtone at a time. I believe that the blues show this as well. It is not necessarily more difficult than tem Pytti m VI 16:9 pered music. The magician-in-training is urged to observe the four powers of the Sphinx: to know, will, dare and keep silent. The present paper is primarily concerned with the first power, to know. The maps to the territory offered here are intended to help players gain a working knowledge of music theory without being overwhelmed by its particulars, which can inhibit creativity. The second power, to will, relates to intention: knowing a system and using it with intent communicates that intentionality in the resulting Just m VI 8:5 music. Even when the execution is imperfect, it counts for a great deal. 814 Pyth m V! 128:81 As for the third power, to dare, free-pitch playing in microtones is 792 Just-Pytti IV Just Acute IV ^=3 27:20 520 "ISS inherently risky. But many musicians do it very properly all the time, often without really thinking about it. It may be, with will, more reliable in the last analysis than knowing. As for keeping silent, this is normally prudent. Magick is an inher ently private matter, and it is so easy to be misunderstood that it is usually wise to say as little as possible or nothing at all. Tacit understanding has Figure 10. always been part of the etiquette among magicians. There is little shop talk, 26 27 BREEZE DE HARMONIA MUNDI the fifth harmonic (the Just Major Ilird, ratio 5:4, and Just minor Vlth, ratio The resulting diatonic Just/Pythagorean scale thus has four versions of the 8:5), and form two independent but mirrored cycles of fifths, given as green and the other with its mirror, the Just Grave V. (They can also be thought of II, III, VI and VII (Pythagorean minor. Just minor, Just Major, Pythagorean Major), rather than the usual two (minor and Major) familiar from equal temperament. as starting on the Just Major Ilird (ratio 5:4) and Just minor Vlth (ratio 8:5), It is often said that the tonic-subdominant-dominant are the most and proceeding up and down in fifths simultaneously until reaching their endpoints.) Both cycles end in the tritones, just a very small ratio (the skhis harmonically stable diatonic tones. Even when understood as being cen and red lines in the diagram. One Just cycle starts with the Just Acute IV tered on the D mode, this diagram shows why, and underscores the simplic ma, 1.953 cents) distant from the endpoints of the Pythagorean cycle. (The skhisma is defined by its discoverer, Ellis, as one Just Major Ilird plus eight ity of the I-IV-V 12-bar blues progression and its stability in natural tuning. fifths up in pitch, transposed into the same octave.) The notes of the two the limits of human pitch discrimination to approximate microtonal Just/ independent, mirrored Just cycles thus have harmonic relationships to the Pythagorean tuning. Making a copy of the diagram as a transparency and pitches in the Pythagorean cycle that are primarily based on Just Major Illrds (4:5) and Just minor Vlths (5:8). rotating the copy over the printed diagram to the fourth or fifth shows why: Fundamental I Even when equally tempered, the I-IV-V series falls sufficiently within the I, IV and V all have their own harmonic series, and these interlock. Ill Amazing work is being done today by microtonal composers and perform ers of all persuasions, but most of this music requires an extremely high degree of training to play properly. Indian music has long shown that one can play great microtonal music one microtone at a time. I believe that the blues show this as well. It is not necessarily more difficult than tem pered music. The magician-in-training is urged to observe the four powers of the Sphinx: to know, will, dare and keep silent. The present paper is primarily concerned with the first power, to know. The maps to the territory offered here are intended to help players gain a working knowledge of music theory without being overwhelmed by its particulars, which can inhibit creativity. The second power, to will, relates to intention: knowing a system and using it with intent communicates that intentionality in the resulting music. Even when the execution is imperfect, it counts for a great deal. As for the third power, to dare, free-pitch playing in microtones is inherently risky. But many musicians do it very properly all the time, often without really thinking about it. It may be, with will, more.reliable in the last analysis than knowing. Just Tritone 64:45 610 Just Tritone 45:32 590 As for keeping silent, this is normally prudent. Magick is an inher ently private matter, and it is so easy to be misunderstood that it is usually wise to say as httle as possible or nothing at all. Tacit understanding has Figure 10. always been part of the etiquette among magicians. There is little shop talk, 26 27 DE HARMONIA MUNDI BREEZE and often subtle hints of shared experience suffice to establish a mutually Deutsch, Diana. The Psychology of Music, isted.. New York; Academic Press, 1 9 8 2 . respectful camaraderie. Also, by talking too much one runs the risk of being Ficino, Marsilio. Opera Omnia. Basel, 1 5 7 6 . Rpt, 2 vols., ed. M. Sancipriano, a bore—like dreams, drug-trips and genealogy, personal magical narratives are generally only of interest to their subjects. Finally, those who profess magick have always courted ridicule and marginalization; these days, it usu ally comes from rationalists who will never have the experiences that distin guish magicians from noninitiates. The worst offenders used to be Protestant theologians; nowadays they are more likely to be poststructuralists. But it is a New Aeon; so perhaps for musicial magicians the formula is to know, to will, to dare, and to play loud.Recent history suggests as much. This paper is dedicated to Joscelyn Godwin, whose untiring work in explicating the Perennial Tradition has benefitted so many—at least those Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1959. Franklin, John Curtis. Diatonic Music in Ancient Greece: A Reassessment of its Antiquity, Memnosyne, series 4 , 5 6 (i) ( 2 0 0 2 ) , pp. 669-702. Giorgi, Francesco. De Harmonia Mundi. Venice, 1525. Reprint with introduction by Cesare Vasoli, Lavis: Editrice La Finestra, 2008. Godwin, Joscelyn. The Harmony of the Spheres: A Sourcebook of the Pythagorean Tradition in Music. Rochester, Vermont.: Inner Traditions, 1 9 9 3 . . Music, Mysticism and Magic: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. . Robert Fludd, Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds. London: Thames and Hudson, 1 9 7 9 ; rpt. Grand Rapids, Phanes Press, 1991. with eyes to see and ears to hear. Hargreaves, John David. The Developmental Psychology of Music. Cambridge: Selected References Helmholtz, Hermann. On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Cambridge University Press, 1986. Bachem, A. Tone Height and Tone Chroma as Two Different Pitch Qualities. Acta Psychologica 7 , 19 5o, pp. 80-88. Campbell, Murray and Created, Clive. The Musician's Guide to Acoustics. London: Dent, 1 9 8 7 . Christensen, Thomas, ed. The Cambridge History of 'Western Music Theory. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2 0 0 2 . Crowley, Aleister. The General Principles of Astrology. York Beach, Maine: Redwheel Weiser, 2002. The Holy Books ofThelema, ed. Hymenaeus Alpha and Hymenaeus Beta. New York: Weiser, 1983. . The Law is for All: The Authorized Popular Commentary to The Book of the Law, ed. Louis Wilkinson and Hymenaeus Beta. Scottsdale, Arizona: New Falcon, 1 9 9 6 . Liber AL vel Legis sub figura CCXX, The Book of the Law. Centennial ed., Boston, Massachusetts: Redwheel Weiser, 2 0 0 4 . . with Mary Desti and Leila Waddell. Magick (Book 4, Parts I-IV), ed. Hymenaeus Beta. Rev. 2nd ed., York Beach, Maine: Weiser, 1 9 9 7 . . with Allan Bennett et al. Sepher Sephiroth sub figura D. The Equinox 1(8) (i 912), special supplement, and in 7 7 7 and Other QabalisticWritings. 7 7 7 and 1977, Other Qabalistic Writings, ed. Israel Regardie. New York: Weiser, rpt; York Beach, Maine: Weiser, 1 9 9 3 . Descartes, René. Renatus Des-Cartes Excellent Compendium of Musick: with Necessary and Judicious Animadversions thereupon by a Person of Honour. r^eoryo/AÎ«5îc, trans. AlexanderJ. ElHs. 1 8 8 5; rpt. New York: Dover, 1 9 5 4 . Jost, J. D. et al. Entangled Mechanical Oscillators. Nature 459(7247), June 4 , 2009, pp. 6 8 3 - 6 8 6 . Patel, Aniruddh D. Music, Language, and the Brain. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2 0 0 8 . Ramos de Pareia, Bartolomeo. Musica Practica. Bologna, 1 4 8 2 . English translation with commentary by Clement A. Miller, Neuhausen: American Institute of Musicology; Stuttgart: Haussier-Verlag, 1993. Révész, Géza. Introduction to the Psychology of Music. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954; rpt. New York: Dover, 2000. Schat, Peter. De Toonclok. Amsterdam: Meuhlenhoff, 1 9 8 4 . English translation, The Tone Clock. London: Taylor and Francis, 1993. Shepard, R. N. Geometrical Approximations to the Structure of Musical Pitch. In Deutsch, pp. 343-390. Tomlinson, Gary. Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella. London: Warburg Institute, 1958; rpt. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2 0 0 0 . . Studies in Musical Science in the Late Renaissance. London: Warburg Institute, 1 9 7 8 . Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 6 4 . London, 1653. 28 29 CHAPTER 2 ORNITHOLOGY FOR THE BIRDS different ways, there is considerable mystery in the process of musical invention, and though the term "invention" might seem a little mechani ORNITHOLOGY FOR THE BIRDS GAVIN BRYARS cal, it was one used by Bach about his own music, and by Schoenberg speaking of John Cage. In the case of improvisation, there is little time for reflection on one's mental state, rather it is a question of being in the right condition before embarking on the activity, though having some degree of consistency with previous work. With composition, on the other hand, that consistency L here is a degree of fear in trying to look at the inner workings of one's own creative mind—a fear that this self-reflection will inhibit and ultimately can come about through a set of beliefs or procedures, whether conscious or not. prevent the flow of ideas—^the oft-stated reason for the resistance of non- In the worst cases this can result in predictabihty, in the case of improvisation, or formulaic routines in the case of composition—and we reading musicians to studying notation, for example, and thereby accessing can all point to individual cases in both areas. For composers there can be written scores is an aspect of the same fear. In my own case a refusal to use, external and seemingly irrelevant elements, almost like a kind of lucky by now, relatively straightforward computer software for musical compo charm or fetish. In my own case I have used the same kind of pencil for sition is related to that same anxiety (though I can happily justify my anti quated practice with reasons that make sense to me). twenty-seven years (I work with pencil and paper), called an Aztec Scoremaster 101, only available at Associated Music on West 55 Street in The most poetic expression of this situation comes from the painter Barnett Newman who, in Emile de Antonio's wonderful film New York. When that shop closed down a few years ago the pencils disap peared and I am now down to my last half box. In a similar way, there is Painters Painting, says "aesthetics for an artist is like ornithology for the the establishment of routines. birds"—and he is right. If a bird were to start to focus on why and how But these are the mechanics of composition, not its essence. Ultimately what one sets down on paper, as a composer, can come about in the wings work, and the sequence of events that produce elegant flight, it would either fall from the sky, or never get off the ground. It is partly, many mysterious ways. For myself I let the form compose itself, like a however, a question of speed of thought in relation to action that would Renaissance composer, without any sense of formal planning or preconcep cause the malfunction but not the thought itself, or the acquisition of self-awareness. itself be led by text in the case of vocal music. A phrase which an old friend When I stopped working as an improvising musician in the mid1960s, after an intense period of work with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley, it was in order to work in a more reflective way—without the intensity being in the midst of fast, decisive music making. I even developed for a tion, only being led by the consequence of each musical gesture—^which can Albert Pountney, a traditional sculptor and the head of the fine art depart ment in which I taught for a number of years, used to use to describe the moment in the studio when facing the work in hand, was being "confronted by one's own creativity." I found it a somewhat quaint expression at the time an almost pathological aversion to improvised music, which I view time but subsequently realized that it describes perfectly that moment of in retrospect as a somewhat adolescent reaction where I pointed the finger at the music rather than at myself—a bit like the old Zen adage of confusing the moon and the finger in the act of pointing. I did find the sitting at a desk in front of a blank piece of manuscript, when the idea of letting the music compose itself, moving from one gesture to another, is the only way possible. two musical activities, composing and improvising, to be fundamentally different. I neither found one to be a slowed down version of the other, The university philosophy department in which I was a student specialized in what was called "ordinary language" philosophy. When nor the other to be an accelerated version of the first. In each case, and in ideas are complex the last thing one needs is confused language. Ultimately, 30 31 CHAPTER 3 BRYARS if something could be expressed through language then we wouldn't use music, where the blending of apparently incompatible elements can pro duce a new and unforeseen reality that would be inconceivable to the ornithologist. REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WEHERE STEVE COLEMAN The purpose of this article is to discuss and demonstrate how musical symbol ism can be used to generate a feeling, sensation or idea that is of a meta physical nature. The focus will be on concepts of dynamic equilibrium that exist in Nature which can be reflected through musical languages. Examples will demonstrate how symbolic thought in one field of study is apphcable to another. The basic approach is that creative artists can use everything at their disposal, including—but not hmited to—music, myth, science and various exoteric and esoteric approaches. Exoteric means capable of being understood by most people, while esoteric is that which is difficult to understand, or that which is intended for or understood by only an initiated few. There are quite a few esoteric references in this article, and admittedly, this is not everyone's cup of tea. Nature "Our philosophy is celestial, not worldly, in order that we may faithfully behold, by means of a direct intuition of the mind through faith and knowledge, that principle which we call God.... " We will start with a discussion of what I perceive ^ as the approach of Nature towards creating, a ° concept I refer to as windows or orbs. There are . . I l l ' many definitions of the word orb, but in astrol. . . - - . ogy an orb is the number or degrees that an aspect J • r 1 / 1 1 deviates irom an exact angle (between two plan~ ets or dynamic points in space) that symbolizes —^Trithemius^ l. George Ripley and the Abbot Tmhemms (Noel L. jorann, Amhix, vol. 26, no. 3), pp. 212-220,1979.JohannesTrithemius authored a major work on cryptography ^nd steganography, disguised as a book niagic. H e w a s a l s o t h e teacher o f Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. T h i s quote is f r o mJohannes Trithemius' commentaries on the Tabuia Smaragdina ( T h eE m e r a l dT a b l e t ) ,i nal e t t e rt oG e r m a n u s deGanay written on August 24,1505. an astrological effect. This concept, which appears everywhere in Nature, is based on windows of time and space, occurring on every scale from the microscopic to the macroscopic. 32 33 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE The tendency of the human species is to quantize, as the mind tive wetness and dryness. Most of us have in our minds an ideal of what we divides its analysis of nature into discrete increments. Nature seems not to would call wet or dry, but there are also conditions where there would be a work in this manner, as most phenomena are part of a continuum, in which lot of disagreement. The same is true of color, pitch, heat and many other phe the quahty of phenomena change gradually over time. Even the human body works this way, as humans are but a product of Nature. nomena. So what humans do, either by agreement or by force, is to specify an ideal which defines a particular phenomena, and what that ideal should be Human activity that develops along natural lines tends to operate named (for example a definition of what exact pitch is to be called A). Groups according to the same principles. If one could walk from Paris to Berlin, one of people then estabhsh symbols (words, numbers, shapes, etc.) that represent would not encounter an artificial national boundary where the spoken lan these ideals. For instance, modern scientists define the exact moment of guage would suddenly change from French to German. What occurs is a sunrise or moonrise, and use the language and symbols of mathematics to gradual transition from one language to another, and inevitably there would describe this agreement. But these agreements change over time and vary in different cultures. be a region where the spoken language would contain elements of French and German proper. In fact, what is called English is an ideal. The actual This is not reality, it is based on what is established by convention, spoken dialects that classify as English resemble the ideal in various degrees, cultural usage or other means. The Universe is a continuum, and the human but contain a large amount of slang, in addition to loan words and expres faculty that seems best able to directly come to terms with the relative quali sions that originate from other languages. In many cases, different languages ty of the continuum is intuition, which is best represented in transcription by stem from a common ancestry that is itself a combination of several more some form of symbolism. As an example, musical performers for the most ancient languages. The boundary between languages are mutating orbs, part do not rely on scientific definitions to tell them which pitch is A or A^; moving windows where there is a gradual blend between Hnguistic ideals. this is done using the part of the mind that interprets data from the ear, using This is what I call the merging principle. Over time, this blending of lan memory to compare the experienced pitch to images held in the mind of guages may develop a character of its own, distinct enough to be itself called a dialect or even a distinct language. recently heard pitches, or remembered pitches from past experience. This is What is really happening with the merging principle is modulation. Cleonides states that "[...] it is necessary for every modulation to contain some common note, interval, or scale".^ And all musicians know that good (i.e., smooth) mod2. Stmnk's Source Readings in . . 11 • I r ulation usually involves some sort of common elements between the structures involved in the M mie History (edited by Oliver Strunk, 1950, revision edited by Leo Treitler, 1966), p. 45. a relative operation that to a large degree is internalized. These mental images are symbols that represent the physical world. When the symbols represent figures that can be seen by the eye, they typical ly take a form that is close to the physical object that they represent. Similarly, when the symbols represent objects identified by one of the other senses (sound, smell, touch, taste, extra-sensory perception or any imagined experi ence), then the mind uses association to identify symbols with the physical movement, along with elements of the structures being within a certain sensation, and much of this imagery is acquired through cultural exposure. proximity to each other to facilitate smooth motion between transitions. For example, high and low pitches are today represented by symbols that are This is generally what happens in Nature, for example with the transition from one identifiable state of the weather to another. Using this concept we can imagine not only modulation of harmony, but also modulation of physically higher and lower in terms of two-dimensional height, especially if as a beginner a musician simultaneously learned how to read and play music. However, according to surviving written evidence, the ancient Greeks repre melody, of modes, of rhythms, of rhythmic cycles, of tempo, of instrumen tation, of forms (rhythmic, melodic or compositional), of color, of symbol ism, of ethos, genera, species, etc. sented high and low pitches as tense and relaxed respectively. In the music of the ancient Greeks, these pitches may have been associated with the action Other examples from Nature follow this same principle. There is no sharp demarcation between wet and dry, there is only a gradual scale of rela would represent higher pitches, and slack strings represented lower pitches. This idea was continually extended, where humankind developed 34 35 and means that produced them, where tense vocal chords or tense strings COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE the abihty to represent a symbol or group of symbols using another sym Symbohsm: I include numbers in this category, but also geometric bol, and then to repeat this process—creating an abstraction whereby the shapes, color, and any other idea that is representative of some final symbol is several levels removed from the original physical sensation. thing, including writing and notation. I caU this the mental aspect, Symbols were then transcribed into physical form and came to represent as it aids in the transcription of rhythm, a way of holding the rhyth ideas of a more abstract and esoteric nature. In many cases, the symbols mic forms in your mind. could still be traced back to the original association. The ancient Egyptians were masters of the transcription of mental images into symbolic form, and their hieroglyphic writing system was a particularly advanced demonstra tion of this. These ancients seemed to have a multidimensional conception of time, and our current systems of navigating time have their roots in Egyptian temporal concepts. The Egyptian civilization developed various calendars and methods of negotiating time that are still in use today, such as dividing the day into twenty-four hours and the sky into thirty-six 10° seg ments (i.e., 360°). If we take their developments together with the neigh boring Mesopotamian culture (Sumerian, Babylonian, etc.) we arrive at a combined technology that was very advanced in the ways that it dealt with time and space, in both its exoteric and esoteric forms. I would say that the first two are innate to the object in the outer physical world, and the third is the province of the mind, the inner world. However, they can all be systematized and converted to symbols. Regarding the first, we are made (by Nature) to be able to create utterances, as are animals, plants and other animate objects of the natural world. How these utterances are interpreted is another matter. Language is a subset of these utterances, and formal language is just the part that has been agreed upon. One example would be the rhythmic utterances of crowds, which I find fascinating. At a sporting event, the rhythms and reactions of the people in the crowd feel like the sounds of a single organism, as the members of the crowd become entrained to each other's pulse. I frequently find myself rewinding a recording of a boxing match or basketball game to listen and check out the rhythm of the spectators' responses. When humans Rhythm get together like that in large groups, they really remind me of animals that "Any regularly recurring pattern of activity such as the cycle of the seasons, gather in large herds and create collective utterances, birds, cows, horses, night and day, the repeated functions of the body—or the characteristic whatever. But this kind of thing is very difficult to systematize and notate, pattern of a particular activity."^ and therefore difficult to symbolize. 3. Encarta World English Dictionary, Rhythm falls in the category of when, and is Microsoft Corporation. related to timing and speed (fast and slow), i.e., location and movement through time. Something that has really helped me in the area of rhythm is the metaphysical connection. I work a lot with astronomy/astrology, seen in ancient times as Nature's rhythmic system (i.e., natural rhythms), and I've been applying what I have learned to music, tonally and rhythmically. One way of thinking of this is an approach of dealing with rhythm which could be broken down into three categories: Utterances: I include language in this category, as well as the calls of animals. Movement: Not only dance, but all movement, the movement of animals, plants, melodic substances (tones, intervals, pitch struc tures, etc.) and any other objects, such as planets and stars. 36 Movement is present all around us and in us; everything moves. Dance is a form of systematized movement by humans, and it can some times have symbolic significance. Movement can also be a form of and an aid to language, for example the use of gesture to assist in conveying mean ing. As with utterances, many movements are habitual and seemingly mean ingless. But utterances and movement are innate to us; even as babies we make utterances and we move, even if it is just a reflex, and most of these movements have meaning even if we are not conscious of it. The same follows for animals, plants and even objects like planets. The principles underlying utterances and movements have been studied and, through the process of correlative thought, symbols have been developed to express and transmit the fundamental concepts. This is one of the unique abilities of the human species, to be able to develop symbols using intuition, emotion, logic and analogy, and then to use these symbols as tools to extend the understanding of a principle. Many of these symbols 37 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE already exist in nature, including types of movement, geometric shapes, col mie figures, etc. This is similar to how pitch is organized in music, where ors, sound, Ught, the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms, qualities such as evenly or unevenly spaced pitches (i.e., tuning systems) are then further sys heat, cold, moisture and dryness, the natural elements such as fire, air, earth, water, and the Sun, Moon, planets and stars and their stellar motions. Long tematized as tetrachords, modes, scales, ragas, other melodic figures, etc. So we have three elements here: rhythm, the thing that is being ago, humans made associations that both extended the idea of these objects rhythmed, and the template we use to identify and measure the rhythm. The to facilitate correspondences with other concepts, and made further abstrac tions to connect to new ideas. Symbolism, particularly geometric shapes, colors and numbers, is first two exist in the natural world, the third is a creation of our imagination to help us discern the dynamic order.^ Rhythm is probably the most dynamic 5. A rephrasing from Rowell, p. 67. one of the most used and flexible of the abstract forms. Symbol is impor element in music. According to Lewis Rowell, the ancient Greek philoso tant for meditation on the higher principles and for developing a conscious pher Aristides Quintihanus "called melody the passive, feminine aspect of connection to Nature. But we should never forget that these symbols are music, rhythm the active, masculine principle that imposes form upon the just tools to help us connect with ourselves and to communicate with oth melodic tones. This agent/patient principle was the cornerstone of the ers—an aid in the organization and transmission of ideas. We are the source of the symbols, and the symbols are meaningless without us. Peripatetic theory of perception."^ ^ ^ Numbers are symbols that can represent quantity and/or quality. It The function of musical rhythm depends upon the dynamic relationships between rhythmic substances with each is a great tool for representing displacement, the perception that the position other as they move through time in space concurrent with the relationship of something has changed with regards to location and time (temporal per to ideahzed forms in the intellect and memory. If we can discern rhythmic ception). In other words, we are dealing with the concept of change and function, analogous to the functions of pitch in melody and harmony, then how this can be symbolized, and change is universal, everything changes it should be possible to apply further esoteric symbolism to rhythms and and everything moves. If there is a change in the location of something, and if we are able to systematically organize the space where the change took rhythmic structures (two different phenomena). In the words of Henry Macran, referring to the 4th century bce place, then number is a great tool for representing that change. As a result, Greek writer Aristoxenus, "[...] they (the Pythagoreans) missed the true number is also one of the primary symbols used to aid in the organization and expression of music. formal notion of music, which is ever present to Aristoxenus, that of a sys In the musical perception of rhythm—indeed in all perception of rhythm—we. have certain primary elements, the rhythm, and that which is being rhythmicized. This is comparable to motion and that which is being does, and in which a sound cannot become a member because merely there tem or organic whole of sounds, each member of which is essentially that it is room for it, but only if there is a function which it can discharge."^ Later, we will return to the idea of using - , 1 1 « • • 1 T ' l • • H a r m o n i c s o f A r i s t o x e n u s (Henry moved. Rhythm is a dynamic principle that deals with the order and struc ture of motion, or dynamic displacement, of a moving thing."* With rhythm, we are also dealing with the form of the template we create, against a. rephrasing from AHstoxenus rhythm as symbolism to transmit ideas. Ihis is Macran, 1902), pp. 88-89. not a new concept, as this kind of work was devel oped to a high level in the great riverine societies of the Nile Valley Which we discern and measure the movement, and this template can itself change or move. initiated in these great civilizations developed the basic principles of nego 1 • 1 J. t . on Rhythm{X.QvÁs'9<owé[yJoumalof Musical Theory, vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 1979) p. ¿8. Complex, Mesopotamia, and Sarwaswati Indus Valley Civilizations. The Musicians use the template to describe the rhythm, the order and structure tiating time and space that we still use in our modern societies thousands of years later. They also developed the basic symbolic approach for how to of the dynamic displacement. In music, this template takes many forms, the most common being evenly (or unevenly) spaced pulses that are then grouped communicate these ideas. These ancients appear to have taken an exoteric and esoteric approach in dealing with symbols. It was important not only into various units: measures, rhythmic modes, meter, talas, clave, other rhyth- to know the quantity of something but also its quality and meaning. 38 39 coleman regarding the sonic symbolism of when and where Esoteric significance was given to figures, using colors, shapes and numbers. Using this information, various divinatory practices developed. The first forms of astrology arose from systematic observations of the night sky, the earliest type probably being some form of lunar astrolo In different areas on Earth people developed a variety of approaches to divination, largely based on cultural needs and environmental necessities. gy, based on the phases and movements of the Moon. It appears that a form This lead to distinct forms of divination being developed in particular loca stars) was developed, where the ancients noticed which stars and planets tions. The word mancy means divination by means of, with the specific kind were rising, culminating or on the meridian simultaneously.' This tech of divination being specified by attached prefixes, for example geomancy, nique was certainly well developed in ancient Egypt sciomancy, chiromancy or necromancy. Although many people do not and Babylon, and the ancient Greeks learned of believe in divination, most of the world s major religions have some aspect of it from these earlier civilizations. This was a sys divination as a part of their history, foretelling events that will come to pass. tem based on the horizon and meridian, and of In ancient societies there was an exoteric and esoteric part to almost of what the ancient Greeks c-3}i[eàparanatella (meaning with or alongside the course it was geocentric in concept. 9. Great significance was given to moments when stars or planets were either on the local horizon (i.e., rising or setting) or on the meridian (the great circle which passes through the north-south axis and the zenith). Therefore, when ancient observers noticed that a star or planet was either rising, setting or on the meridian—at the same moment when another star or planet was rising, setting or on the meridian— then these bodies were said to be in paran, and where considered to be symbolically connected in some way. every subject, and frequently divination was a part of the esoteric applica The heliacal rising (literally, rising with the tion. In his 1962 book The Tarot, Mouni Sadhu, while discussing the ancient initiatory centers' transmission of the highest ideas through symbols, Sun) of a star is when a planet or a star is first seen suggests that "the symbohsm of colors" is "a feature of the initiation of the by the Sun's rays. This occurs just before sunrise. The heliacal rising of the star Sirius was extremely important in ancient Black races," "the symbohsm of geometrical figures and cards" is a feature of the initiation of the "the Red-Skinned races," and "the symbohsm of numbers" is a feature of the initiation of "the White races."^ Although his summary is simphstic and not backed up with . any examples, and wmle his choice of words 8. The Tarot (Mouni Sadhu), p. 33. to rise after it has been hidden for a period of time Egypt, but this concept was also used with other stars, constellations and planets in a complex system of astronomy, the workings of which are begin ning to be revealed by recent discoveries.'®' 10. For more information see The Naos of the Decades: Underwater Archaeology in the Canopic Region in Egypt (AnneSophie von Bomhard). would probably not be politically correct today, I understand the basic prin ciple underlying what Sadhu is expressing. In studying music, I have noticed 11. The Lion Path: You Can Take it With You (Musaios, aka Dr. Charles Muses, 5th edition 1996). that various cultures in different places on the planet have for the most part concentrated on and contributed different elements to the world's music. This is particularly true if we concentrate on the so-called Old World cultures on the continents of Africa, and Eurasia. Astrology I will devote more space to this subject here as well as in the section on music, Figure. 1. Im^e from the Second Shrine of Tut-ankh-amun.^^ as these disciphnes are complex and related. Also, it has been my experience that it is this subject that relates most to music, both from an exoteric and eso teric perspective. It is also a subject that many people are unfamihar with. 12. Musaios, back cover. The image in Figure I is one of many that support the claim that astrology existed in ancient Egypt. In Serpent in the Sky, p. 91, John Anthony West writes "But however puz zling the text and the reliefs, the astrologi cal significance of this drawing cannot be misunderstood. Rays of force or energy connect the consciousness of the human individual and the stars; there is no other possible interpretation of this figure." Some evidence of the existence of astrology has been found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. (See Figure 1.) Astrologer Bernadette Brady beheves While I do not pretend to be a professional astronomer or astrologer, the study of the movement and symbohsm of celestial bodies has been a pro that the ancient Egyptians considered the last star to rise heliacally before found influence on my music, particularly in recent years. To emphasize this connection, I will occasionally mention the relationship between astrology and music, both in this section and in the section on music below. This was the star that you were bom under, and it symbolized the gifts that were bequeathed to you 40 your birth to be the main star ruling your life.'^ . 1 1 i 41 l * i h . B r a d y ' s B o o k o fF i x e d S t a r s ( ^ t m d Á e t í t Brady), pp. 43,334,345,339,381. R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D WHERE COLEMAN by your ancestors (such as genetics)—in short, this star symbolized the theme of your life. For example, at the location of Ulm, Germany (Albert Einstein's place of birth), the last star that rose heliacally before the time of Einstein's birth (March 14, 1879 NS) was Deneb Algedi (meaning Tail of the Goat) in the constellation of Capricorn. This star symbolized the Andent Law Giver. The approximate time of Deneb Algedi's apparent (visual) Heliacal Rising was March 5,1879 at 7:08:17 AM. Also, when Einstein was born on March 14, Deneb Algedi rose at the same time as the planet Jupiter was rising. Clearly, the symbolism that this star represents would have been considered very important for Einstein. Astrologer Bernadette Brady gives the following astrological interpretation:'"' T-v 1*1 !• TTf It»** Deneb Algedi—Heliacal Rising Star 14. Starlight Software: The Heart of Visual ^Isfro/opy, Brady and Branswood, Ltd. ^ Interpretation; Seeking the legal, physical or metaphysical laws that govern the world. Trying in some way to use wisdom and knowl edge to protect and help people. The Babylonians made considerable contributions in the area of lunar studies, in particular eclipse patterns which deal specifically with the relationship between the orbits of the Sun, Earth and Moon. Because of the dramatic visual, emotional and psychic effect of a Solar or Lunar eclipse, these phenomena became strong symbols in the minds of the ancients, and great effort was expended to determine their patterns. Through long obser vation, It was learned that these eclipses occurred in various cycles. The most well known cycle is called a Saros Cycle, a harmonization of several Earth-Sun-Moon periodicities: the synodic month, the draconic month, and the anomalistic month. Eclipses that are related by the rhythm of a Saros Cycle share a near identical Sun-Earth-Moon geometry. Each Eclipse in a particular Saros Series is separated by approximately eighteen years, ten to eleven days, 7.5 hours, (always around 6,5851/3 days) and there are typi cally about seventy-one or seventy-two eclipses in a particular Saros Series. The Solar Eclipse of July 22, 2009, 02:35 GMT is part of Saros Series 136. This family of eclipses is also called Saros Series llS (11 South using Bernadette Brady's ahernate numbering system) because the eclipse Deneb Algedi was rising as Jupiter was rising (orb 01 mins 34 sees) takes place near the South Node of the Moon. The January 5, 1685 NS (NS — Gfegonan calendar), Hybrid Eclipse is also a part of Saros Series 136, and at the time of Albert Einstein's birth. Interpretation: The reformer or expert who paves the way for others. this is the eclipse whose influence would have been felt at the time of the births of both J.S. Bach (March 31, 1685 NS) and George Frideric Handel (February 23,1685 NS). Saros Series 136 was bom (i.e., when the first eclipse in this series occurred) on June 14,1360 OS, 05:47 UT (OS = Julian Calendar). Bernadette Brady believes that the positions of the planets at the moment a Saros Series is born symbolically colors the energy of each eclipse in that particular series. Therefore, to obtain additional information about the symbolic character of an individual solar eclipse, one would need to look at the symbolism of the first eclipse in that Saros Series, and then com bine the Saros Series symbolism with the position and symbolism of the individual solar eclipse.'^ Brady interprets this eclipse from a geocentric point of view, with a . . 1 • 1 T T U Mars/Pluto conjunction and with Uranus at the midpoint of Mercury and Venus.'^ A midpoint is The Eagle and The Lark A Textbook o/ Predictive Astrology {Bernadette Brady), pp. 223-228,307. 17. Ibid., p. the middle position, in ecliptic longitude, between Figure 2. Co-Rising of Jupiter and Deneb Algedi at the time of Albert Einstein's birth. 15. Ibid. Deneb Algedi is the star in Capricornus closest to Jupiter in Figure 2. 42 two celestial objects along the shortest arc. The true positions of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars) in relation to the Sun 43 324—Brady's interpretation "tò'Lke''sudden°reforms. need r^ul^í tTl'Ì tlTe new ways of handling the issues." COLEMAN R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D W H E R E by your ancestors (such as genetics)—^in short, this star symbolized the theme of your life. The Babylonians made considerable contributions in the area of lunar studies, in particular eclipse patterns which deal specifically with the For example, at the location of Ulm, Germany (Albert Einstein's place of birth), the last star that rose heliacally before the time of Einstein's dramatic visual, emotional and psychic effect of a Solar or Lunar eclipse, birth (March 14,1879 NS) was Deneb Algedi (meaning Tail of the Goat) in these phenomena became strong symbols in the minds of the ancients, and relationship between the orbits of the Sun, Earth and Moon. Because of the the constellation of Capricorn. This star symbolized the Ancient Law great effort was expended to determine their patterns. Through long obser Giver. The approximate time of Deneb Algedi's apparent (visual) HeHacal Rising was March 5,1879 at 7:08:17 AM. Also, when Einstein was born on vation, it was learned that these eclipses occurred in various cycles. The March 14, Deneb Algedi rose at the same time as the planet Jupiter was rising. Clearly, the symbolism that this star represents would have been Earth-Sun-Moon periodicities: the synodic month, the draconic month, considered very important for Einstein. Astrologer Bernadette Brady gives the following astrological interpretation:''* Saros Cycle share a near identical Sun-Earth-Moon geometry. Each Eclipse Deneb Algedi —Heliacal Rising Star 14. Starlight Software: The Heart of Visual Astrology, Brady and Branswood, Ltd. most well known cycle is called a Saros Cycle, a harmonization of several and the anomahstic month. Eclipses that are related by the rhythm of a in a particular Saros Series is separated by approximately eighteen years, ten to eleven days, 7.5 hours, (always around 6,585Î4 days) and there are typi cally about seventy-one or seventy-two eclipses in a particular Saros Series. Interpretation: Seeking the legal, physical or metaphysical laws that The Solar Eclipse of July 22, 2009, 02:35 GMT is part of Saros govern the world. Trying in some way to use wisdom and knowl edge to protect and help people. Series 136. This family of eclipses is also called Saros Series IIS (11 South Deneb Algedi was rising as Jupiter was rising (orb 01 mins 34 sees) at the time of Albert Einstein's birth. Interpretation: The reformer or expert who paves the way for others. using Bernadette Brady's alternate numbering system) because the eclipse takes place near the South Node of the Moon. The January 5,1685 NS (NS = Gregorian calendar), Hybrid Eclipse is also a part of Saros Series 136, and this is the eclipse whose influence would have been felt at the time of the births of both J.S. Bach (March 31, 1685 NS) and George Frideric Handel (February 23,1685 NS). Saros Series 136 was horn (i.e., when the first eclipse in this series occurred) on June 14,1360 OS, 05:47 UT (OS = Julian Calendar). Bernadette Brady believes that the positions of the planets at the moment a Saros Series is born symbolically colors the energy of each eclipse in that particular series. Therefore, to obtain additional information about the symbolic character of an individual solar eclipse, one would need to look at the symbolism of the first eclipse in that Saros Series, and then com bine the Saros Series symbolism with the position and symbolism of the individual solar eclipse." Brady interprets this eclipse from a geocentric point of view, with a Mars/Pluto conjunction and with Uranus at the midpoint of Mercury and Venus.'^ A midpoint is i •' the middle position, in ecliptic longitude, between Figure 2. Co-Rising of Jupiter and Deneb Algedi at the time of Albert Einstein's birth.'® 15. Ibid. Deneb Algedi is the star in Capricornus closest to Jupiter in Figure 2. 42 ^ X o two celestial objects along the shortest arc. The true positions of the inner planets . (Mercury, Venus, Mars) m relation to the Sun 43 The Eagle and The Urk: „ j. A Textbook 17. Ibid., p. 324—Brady s interpretation for Saros Senes 136: "Eclipses concerned ÇQ make sudden reiorms. Old ideas or methods will fail and new systems are required to deal with the events brought by the eclipse. As a consequence the person will need to think of new ways of handling the issues."* COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE are distorted using the geocentric perspective. When using hehocentric goes back at least 4,000 years to the Babylonian mundane astrological omen tablets called Enuma A n u Enhil (early second millennium B C E ) . coordinates Mars is not conjunct with Pluto, and Uranus is a Httle bit further away from the MercuryA^enus midpoint. This tradition lasted for 2,000 years in Mesopotamia and was also trans The Sun is at the center of our solar system; it is the Hfe-giving force, the entity that is the cause of the existence of the solar system, and demonstrates various techniques for calculating the positions of various the main force through which the solar system functions. The ancient stellar phenomena, including the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses and Egyptians understood the importance of the Sun and based their entire the positions of the planets, as well as omens. The Mul.Apin texts suppos edly influenced the ancient Greeks. mitted to India. Another group of texts complied later, called Mul.Apin, culture around this principle. Therefore, I use esoteric interpretations which are based on the heliocentric point of view. The major difference between the symbolism today and these The planets that orbit the Sun (actually the Center of Mass of the solar system, which is always very close to or inside the Sun) appear to have some effect on the magnetic field of the Sun, solar flare activity, sunspot cycles, etc. With the development of horoscope or nativity astrology, a means of sym The resulting solar winds that are created in turn affect all of the planets as bolism was developed that pertained to prognostications relating to indi they move through the solar system. It has been suggested that these effects viduals. Horoscope is derived from the Greek word horoskopos or hour watching {hora = hour, skopos = watching). This referred to the hour and ancient texts is that the ancient Babylonian astrology was, at least in its early stages, concerned with the country as a whole, and with the King. could account for much of what astrologers have traditionally attributed to more esoteric phenomena. Today s mysteries are tomorrow's science. location of a person's birth, which is represented by the ascendant (location Looking at the first solar eclipse of Saros Series 136 from a helio centric perspective,Jupiter is square Saturn (i.e., at a 90° angle) and Neptune of the eastern horizon at the time of birth). This innovation made it possi ble to link the positions of celestial phenomena with an individual person. is opposite Saturn. This places Jupiter at a heliocentric longitude that is very In geocentric astrology, the ascendant functions as a kind of tonic close to the midpoint of the longitudes of Saturn and Neptune. Here are that grounds the symbolism as it relates to an individual. The ascendant rep some brief interpretations from the book of astrologer Ruth Brummund resents a person's outward identity, how they appear to others. The Sun, (from The BTUTnmund Rulebook), composed of individual keywords that suggest the symbolism of the individual planets involved:'* JU=SA/NE (Jupiter at the midpoint 1 XT ... \ • r r Brummund Rulehook OI baturn and Neptune) cautious free of Brummund, English translation limitations or restraints—empathie—highly Pinky), Aureas Software, however, symbolizes the generator, the true inner identity. In modern imaginative pragmatic—nonphysical—spiritually mature—skeptical— needs self-discipline (along with a range of other keywords.) Another interesting configuration is the Uranus and Mercury longitude midpoint music, the tonic of a key serves a similar function to the ascendant, that of (Ruth by L. grounding a group of pitches from a sensorial (outward) point of view, bringing them into a sonic relationship relative to the tonic pitch. However, the true inner relationship of the pitches is governed by the generator. Astrologers who use midpoints sometimes use a 90° dial to facilitate calculations of 4th harmonic aspects (i.e., 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°). Here are the appearing exactly opposite the longitude midpoint between the planets Neptune and Earth. We could write this as UR/ME=EA/NE. positions (rounding to the nearest degree) of Uranus, Mercury, Earth and Neptune during the Solar Eclipse of June 1360, shown first as they would appear on a 360° dial, then followed by their positions on a 90° dial: These interpretations are formed from what are called Phznetary Pictures, which are geometric formations of the planets in space. This is a fur 360° Dial ther development of the work of astrologer/astronomer Johannes Kepler, whose work in harmonics was extended by the astrologer Alfred Witte and his followers. Ruth Brummund is a part of this lineage. This keyword technique stems from a divinatory tradition that 44 Mar = 169° Nep = 338° Ear = 27° Ura = 79° 45 AND WHERE REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN COLEMAN Here we can see that on the 360° dial, the midpoint of Uranus/ Mercury (the position of the pointer at 124° or 4° of Leo) is opposite the midpoint of Earth/Neptune (304° or 4° Aquarius), because 304° - 124° = 180°, which is an opposition. Next we look at the position of these planets on a 90° dial, where each of the four 90° quadrants on the 360° circle are mapped onto a 90° circle. In other words, if a planet is not already at a position between 0° and 90 , then we keep subtracting 90° from its position until its new position is between 0° and 90°. Using this method, the new 90° positions for these four planets are: 90° Dial Mer = 79° (169° - 90°) Nep = 68° (338° - 90° - 90° - 90°) Ear = 1° (271° - 90° - 90° - 90°) Ura = 79° Figure 4. 90° Dial. Using the 90° dial, Uranus/Mercury appear to be conjunct at 79° and Earth/Neptune now have a midpoint of 34.5°, which is a position opposite 79° on the 90° dial, because 79° - 34° = 45°. Therefore, the 90° dial allows an astrologer to see quadrature angles more easily. Whereas Uranus and Mercury were in a 90° relationship when plotted on the 360 dial (169° - 79° = 90°), they are now seen as being conjunct when plotted on the 90° dial, so their quadrature relationship is very easy to see at a glance: Soiar Partial Eclipse Natal Chart June 14, 1960. Sun 5:47 am GMT +0:00 Greenwich Musically, the same principle is used in the simplification of function in the matrix of tones. Taking the chromatic gamut of tones as 360° te Figure 5. Gamut of tones as 360°. and dividing the tones into four 90° segments 51»N29'000°WOO' Heliocentric C Tropical 0° Aries True Node = 0° Ö = 30° O O E 1^ 11 D El- = 90° = 120° O o II G N> 11 00 oo F 1 = 150° F» = 240° Figure 3. 360° Dial. 46 A = 270° B'' = 300° B = 330° 47 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE Here we can see that on the 360° dial, the midpoint of Uranus/ Mercury (the position of the pointer at 124° or 4° of Leo) is opposite the midpoint of Earth/Neptune (304° or 4° Aquarius), because 304° - 124° = 180°, which is an opposition. Next we look at the position of these planets on a 90° dial, where each of the four 90° quadrants on the 360° circle are mapped onto a 90° circle. In Solar Partial Eclipse Natal Chart June 14,1960. Sun 5:47 am GMT +0:00 Greenwich 51°N29'000°WOO' Heliocentric Tropical 0° Aries True Node other words, if a planet is not already at a position between 0° and 90°, then we keep subtracting 90° from its position until its new position is between 0° and 90°. Using this method, the new 90° positions for these four planets are: 90° Dial Mer = 79° (169° - 90°) Nep = 68° (338° - 90° - 90° - 90°) Ear = 1° (271° - 90° - 90° - 90°) Ura = 79° Figure 4. 90° Dial. Using the 90° dial, Uranus/Mercury appear to be conjunct at 79° and Earth/Neptune now have a midpoint of 34.5°, which is a position opposite 79° on the 90° dial, because 79° - 34° = 45°. Therefore, the 90° dial Musically, the same principle is used in the simplification of function in the matrix of tones. Taking the chromatic gamut of tones as 360° allows an astrologer to see quadrature angles more easily. Whereas Uranus and Mercury were in a 90° relationship when plotted on the 360° dial (169° - 79° = 90°), they are now seen as being conjunct when plotted on the 90° dial, so their quadrature relationship is very easy to see at a glance: ru WJ J Figure 5. Gamut of tones as 360®. and dividing the tones into four 90° segments C = 0° C» = 30° It O0 E'- O o 0\ il 1 D E = 120° F F» = 150° G = 210° = 180° = 240° A = 270° = 300° Figure 3. 360° Dial. 46 B = 330° 47 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE we can fold the tones over each other so that each of the 90° segment is the surface of the Sun (1.05 solar radii), and the 360° heliocentric positions superimposed on the others, to form one 90° segment, which we then treat as the entire circle (i.e., the 90° dial). For example, all the tones at 0°, 90°, 180° of CM, the jovian planets Qup, Sat, Ura, Nep), and the Earth were as follows: and 270° would be equivalent in function, the same with the other tones. II II F A'' C^ o ÛSO D Oo ßU. = 0° c ci E G Earth 299.3 CM 309.9 Jup 319.8 Nep 324.8 Ura 353.9 Sat 172.9 So at the time of the solar eclipse, CM was at the longitude mid é 0° 30° "''i point of Earth and Jupiter. In the diagram below, the circle with the cross 60° inside of it represents the Earth-Moon system, which is in syzygy with the Sun, i.e., lined up as Sun-Moon-Earth. Figure 6. Gamut of tones as 90°. In this way, we arrive at three relationships: tonic, dominant and subdominant. Any one of the tones that are in a quadrature relationship is equivalent in function. If we assign a particular function (tonic, dominant or subdominant) to the four pitches at one position (either 0°, 30° or 60°), the remaming two positions would then be the two remaining functions. For example, if the tones C e'' gI" were taken to be the tonic function, then C' E G b'' would take on a dominant function, and the subdominant function would be assigned to the tones D F ck There does exist a subharmonic world where all functions are inverted and all the movements are in the opposite direction, but this subject is an entire essay in itself. Suffice it to say that the principles remain the same as what I describe here. I call these series of functional relationships (including the harmonic and subharmonic realms) the musical matrix. I will make more references to the subharmonic world later in this article. At the time of the July 22, 2009 solar eclipse, Jupiter and Neptune were close to being conjunct in longitude (heliocentric perspective) and on the same side of the Sun that the Earth was on, but around 20° further along the zodiac. Uranus was an additional 30° from Neptune. The collective gravitational pull of Jupiter and Neptune, aided by Uranus, exerted a considerable influence on the location of the solar system Center of Mass (CM). During the July 22, 2009 solar eclipse CM was near 48 Figure 7. Position of planets during the total solar eclipse of July 22, 2009. There are many such cycles in Nature. The rhythms get more com plex when we look at the multiple interacting cycles. For example, there is an orbital resonance involving Neptune and Pluto, that results in a 3:2 rela tionship. Yet this simple relationship is complicated by the movement of the other jovian planets, resulting in a dynamic interconnected network. In many ways, the relationship of musical rhythms and tones functions in a similar fashion, with the movement and resulting dynamic functional posi49 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF VviHEN A N D WHERE tions constantly shifting in relationship to each other. Another example of resonance is the 5:8 Venus cycle ratio, which at 12 o'clock, and Earth is at 9 o'clock. So, in terms of this representation of the zodiac, where traditionally planets are seen as moving counter-clock- was tracked by the Maya Civilization of Mesoamerica (approximately from wise along a circle," Earth would be 90° further along the zodiac than central Mexico south to Nicaragua). The Maya placed great importance Jupiter, and moving further away. This is what is called a waxing square.^® on the Venus cycles, which actually reflect the relationship between the Now imagine breaking the circle at the orbits of Earth and Venus. Later in this article, we will show how this position of Jupiter, and straightening it out into a line. Let the entire length of this line, between important relationship may have a profound effect on Earth and the rest of the solar system. From our perspective on Earth, in a single 584-day cycle of EarthVenus conjunctions Venus goes from being an Evening Star (visible just f T • 1 • 1 • • • nodes A and B (both of these nodes correspond ^ ^ to the position of Jupiter), represent a string on ^ a musical instrument whose vibration sounds after sunset) to a Morning Star (visible just before sunrise). There are five of the pitch C. In order to raise the pitch of this these 584-day cycles of Earth-Venus conjunctions in 8 Earth years (584 days X 5 = 2,920 days, and 8 years = 2,922 days) and 13 Venus years. 5:8 is string by an interval or a fourth, sounding the also the ratio of the minor 6th, when this musical interval is expressed in string lengths, as the ancients would have expressed it. Johannes Kepler recognized the sesquiquadrate (135°) as being the astrological aspect that is the equivalent to the 5:8 minor 6th. - , _ I . . . 1• < 1 . . pitch F, the musician presses the string at position Al (creating a new node, corresponding to 19. That is, moving counter-clockwise ^hen when the solar system is viewed from the perspective perspective of bemg above the north pole of the Sun. j the position of Earth), effectively shortening the string by one-quarter. The vibrating portion of the string (the effective length) would then be three-quarters of the length of the entire string, between nodes Al and B. A square (or quadrate) is an aspect of 90° (the 360° circle divided by 4). Sesqui is a Latin prefix meaning more hy half (i.e., one and a half times 1/4 IS also 3/4 A more). So 90 -l- 45 (half of 90) is 135°, hence the name sesquiquadrate, which A called the sesquisquare. And why would Kepler recognize this aspect as corresponding to the string length ratio for the 5:8 minor 6th? Because he was following the method of the ancient Greek philosopher Claudius Ptolemy, who believed that the significance of the aspects could be deter mined by analogy with the ratios of musical intervals. Ptolemy arrived at five astrological aspects and related them to musical intervals: A if- Al B \ © Figure 8. Musical-Astronomical String—nodes A and B. If we formed the string back into a circle, we can then see Ptolemy's analogy. The original nodes A/B would now be one point on the circle Aspect Interval Ratio Conjunction (0°) = Unison 1:1 Opposition (180°) = Octave 1:2 Square (90°) = Fourth 3:4 Trine (120°) = Fifth 2:3 Sextile (60°) = Minor Third 5:6 representing the position of Jupiter, and new node Al would represent the position of Earth. Jupiter and Earth form the astrological aspect of a wax ing square. Therefore, the vibrating portion of the string is analogous to an angle of 270°, thus the ratio 270:360 = 3:4. Lets take as an example the 90° aspect called a waxing square. Ptolemy used, as a musical ratio, the left-over part of the circle (i.e., 360° - 90° = 270°) in relation to the entire 360° circle, i.e., 270:360, or 3:4. To make an analogy to music, suppose that Jupiter is at the top of the circle 50 51 , 2(J. Kegardmg waxing and wamng phases: ^'^en considenng aspects between two planets, the faster moving planet (i.e., the «ne with the higher velocity and smaller orbit) always determines the phase. The aspect is waxing when the faster planet is ahead of the slower planet, and moving towards opposition. The aspect is waning when the faster planet is behind the slower planet, and moving towards conjunction, COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE V Aspect Interval Ratio Quintile (72°) = Major 3rd 4:5 Biquintile (114°) = Major 6th 3:5 Sesquiquadrate (135°) = Minor éth 5:8 Again, sesquiquadrate and sesquisquare are synonymous terms. So we can see that the subject of harmonics in astrology (divisions of the cir cle) and harmonics in music (the science of musical sounds) are related. The sounds that we call musical are in large part due to their cyclical nature. It is the consistent cyclical aspect of certain sounds and their movement that contributes to how we relate to these sounds as music. This is true with the basic elements of pitch and rhythm as well as the macro elements involved in composition, both spontaneous and preconceived. When these concepts are examined closely, it is amazing to see that these simple principles can be combined in seemingly infinite ways. As in nature, these complex dances play out on every level, from Figure 9. Musical-Astronomical Circle—nodes A and B. the microscopic to the macroscopic, so the knowledge of one particular kind of cycle, be it musical or astronomical, is only the beginning. It is the I have not read where Ptolemy or Kepler discuss this, but it would seem to rhythm of all of the cycles in nature and in the universe, as they form me that using this analogy, there should be a difference in astrological dynamic relationships, that produces their exoteric and esoteric influences and musical quality of the waxing (increasing) versus waning (decreasing) upon us. Taken as a whole, the resulting complex of cycles interact to form squares. But this would be a subject for another time. Suffice it to say that, a mass of oscillations that initially appear to be chaotic, but in fact are real in this example, it is the positions of Jupiter and Earth in waxing square rela tionship that represent the interval of a fourth. ly a continuous cosmic composition that is being created by Nature. It may Kepler followed this same method of calculating musical intervals from aspects. For example, a sesquiquadrate is 135°, which leaves 225° left order in the apparent chaos, thereby predicting the results of the interac over from the circle, and 225:360 = 5:8, an interval of a minor 6th. Kepler is The scientist, astrologer and climatologist Theodor Landscheidt credited with introducing this aspect to astrology, along with two other new published research that suggests that there is a scientific basis for astrology.^^ aspects: the 72 quintile and the 144° biquintile. Using their knowledge of Landscheidt was essentially a modern-day Johannes harmonics, both Ptolemy and Kepler were able to recognize these corre spondences. So, in introducing these new aspects to astrology, Kepler used Kepler (himseli a modern Claudius rtolemy, and so on...) and his work is within that tradition. musical thinking. He wanted to include aspects that would represent the rest of the imperfect consonances, i.e., 4:5, 3:5 and 5:8. And it is because of Landscheidt suggested that the solar system is in many ways a conscious Kepler that these aspects have now become standard in modern astrology, although most astrologers do not realize the musical origin of these angles: appear spontaneous but, when studied closely, the initiated can discern tions and their effects on the Earth and life on Earth. T7- 1 /I • ir 1 1• Ti 1 1 21. Sun-Earth-Man: a Mesh (Theodor Landscheidt), self-regulating organism, and that there is a reciprocal relationship where by the planets in the solar system have some effect on activity within the Sun, by exerting gravitational influence on the center of mass of the solar system (CM, also called the solar system barycenter). He also believed that some planets have a tidal effect on the Sun, which in turn affects the 52 53 COLEMAN R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D W H E R E amount and. intensity of solar flares, sunspots and other phenomena. thest away from the Sun around April 9, 1804, and here we see that the Landscheidt believed that the combined gravitational and tidal influences jovian planets are all on the same side of the Sun and fairly close together in of the planets in turn affect the timing, direction and intensity of the mas sive solar ejections of ionized particles called solar winds, which bombard cosmic tug-of-war. the same longitude quadrant. This is analogous to a giant balancing act or the rest of the solar system (including Earth) and cause various effects.^^The imagery of solar winds is interesting; the four ^ their influence on the position of the center of mass of the solar system. It winds were thought by the ancient Egyptians is not only important when the outer planets conjunct, but also when they to move the stars, and the winds were also associated with divination. The Sun and the rest of the planets orbit around (or, in the case of make other angles of heliocentric longitude (and, to a lesser extent, latitude). We can particularly notice 3rd harmonic aspects (i.e., 0°, 120° and 240°) and the sun, oscillate about) CM. But by using the Sun as our reference point, 4th harmonic aspects (i.e., 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°), although others are we can say that CM is changing position in relation to the Sun. Sometimes important as well. What is involved here is a continuum, with the discreet CM is above the surface of the Sun, sometimes below, depending on the points only serving as markers. These aspects function as tools that can be configuration of the planets in the solar system. Landscheidt proposed that used to help determine the position of CM, and characterize the meaning of when CM is near the surface of the Sun, there appear to be significant dis turbances in the Sun's corona and photosphere. It is possible that the rhythm the planetary configurations. Although the heteromorphous oscillations of CM—along with the of these disturbances can be predicted by calculating the positions of CM.^^ This can be done by paying special attention to fluctuations that occur in the structure of the Sun—may at first appear random, the research of Theodor Landscheidt and others points to a high the positions of the giant jovian planets (Jupiter, er intelligence at work, a consciousness that is far beyond the limits of human awareness. In his book entitled Sun-Earth-Man: A Mesh of Cosmic Oscillations, Landscheidt goes on to present data that supports his more Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), which exert the greatest influence on CM, partic ularly Jupiter, the most massive planet in the solar system. In fact, except for So we can see that outer planet configurations are important for the Sun, Jupiter alone is almost 2.5 times as massive as the combined mass of all other objects of the solar system. As the most massive planet, Jupiter has the largest influence on the position of CM: Ibid. esoteric claims.^^ This information provides a _ _ _ ^ solid basis for why the ancients would have noticed some of the effects that have been traditionally delineated through the art of astrology, based on thousands of years of observation. Though Relative Mass of Jovian Planets Jupiter Saturn Neptune Uranus = 317.8 Earths = 95.152 Earths = 17.147 Earths = 14.536 Earths there are many interacting cycles involved, the results sum to a gestalt that can be identified and is somewhat measurable. These same principles are noticeable in other areas: color, the weather, language and also music. We must never forget that music is really just a reflection of what it is to be human. Music is also composed of many interrelated cycles and elements, which we respond to as the total sound of When Jupiter is on one side of the Sun, and Uranus, Neptune and Saturn are on the other side of the Sun, then CM is beneath the Sun's sur the music. The more complex the music, the more we hear it as a whole. I see astrology as a mancy of geometrical shapes in motion, the face, near the center of the Sun (but closer to the side of the Sun that Jupiter symbolism of which is interpreted through numerical representation. Being that this art was developed through observation of Nature, all ancient civi is on). When Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn are on the same side of the Sun then CM is above the Sun's surface, and at its farthest from the center of the Sun. Between 1801 A D through 2600 A D inclusive, CM was the far 54 lizations had some form of astrology. Most present-day versions of astrology are primarily based on the idea of a zodiac which consists of twelve 30° segments. These segments are 55 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE based on the motion of the Earth s yearly passage around the Sun, which together with the tilt of the Earth on its axis relative to the Sun, is the cause So it is the intervals of time and space between these defined points, how they related to each other, and the Earth's movement through them of the seasons. Humans have always identified the seasons using certain that gives us our sensation of quality during the cycle of the year. But this positions of the Earth in its path around the Sun. These points, called equinoxes and solstices, were recognized many thousands of years ago by is a complex relationship as the Sun itself goes through structural changes various ancient cultures based on observations of the changes in the lengths Composition is analogous to all the various cyclic relationships that play of day and night. An equinox (meaning equal night) is a time in the year where day and night are the same length, and a solstice (meaning Sun stands out in our solar system. These include the complex Sun-Earth-Moon pat still, the point at which the Sun seems to stand still or stop) is a point in the ing the other planets (the five 8-year Earth-Venus cycles, various outer that have an effect on Earth, as well as on the rest of the solar system. terns (lunation cycle, Saros cycles, etc.) as well as the various cycles involv year where the apparent motion of the Sun seems to stop moving in either planet cycles, solar system barycenter movements, 11-year sunspot cycles, its northerly or southerly direction and reverses itself. There are two equinoxes and two solstices in a year. etc.) as they all relate to each other. Through observation, the ancients noticed the apparent motion of the Sun, and the difference in the structure of each of the four cardinal melodic cycles and rhythmic cycles. For example, there is a resonance Many of these cycles are similar to musical interval relationships, between two revolutions of Saturn and five revolutions of Jupiter in a 59- points (equinoxes and solstices) was documented, along with the intervals year period. This 2:5 relationship is an octave of the 4:5 relationship that is of time that each cardinal point initiated. Symbols were then developed to the string length ratio that sounds a major 3rd interval. There are many such represent these four cardinal points and their relationship to the seasons. relationships among the planetary cycles, such as the 2:3 resonance of the orbital periods of Pluto and Neptune within a 494-year period. There are This was very important, as humankind s survival depended on being able to predict these natural rhythms. basically two resonance groups of planets, the inner planets (Mercury, These four positions of the Earth relative to the Sun are called vernal equinox (VE), summer solstice (SS), autumnal equinox (AE), and Venus, Earth, Mars), and the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, winter solstice (WS). In the western astronomical/astrological system, Most of the inner planets (Earth, Venus, Mercury), together with Jupiter, each of these four seasons are further divided into three equal segments creating further divisions of the temporal intervals between the equinoxes and solstices. appear to have an effect on solar tidal forcing,^'' Pluto). There seems to be no strong resonance between Mars and Jupiter. while the outer planets seem to have more of an influence on the position of CM in relation to Beginning with VE, spring is divided into Aries, Taurus and Gemini. Starting with SS, summer is divided into Cancer, Leo and Virgo. From AE, 1 Q 28 tne OUn. autumn is divided into Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius. Finally from WS, winter is divided into Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.^^ of the inner planets of the solar system, in order of their influence on solar tidal forcing, we find sev- From an exoteric point of view, the seasons are simply divisions of the year charac* terized by changes in weather, while in esoteric studies these four seasons are interpreted as twelve astrological signs repre senting twelve metaphysical archetypes. Although most people associate these astrological signs with the stars, they are actually related to the seasons, which are a result of the Earth's yearly passage around the Sun, combined with the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of the ecliptic. 56 ^ and Solar Cycles ^ 27. Apparent Relations Between Solar Activity and SoUr Tides Caused hy the Looking at the relationships of the orbits eral resonances with musical implications:^' perspective of the northern hemisphere. 26. Orhiul Resonance JtlSC Landscheidt „ . 29. Semi, pp. 2, 7-8, 15-20. Earth-Venus: possibly the most important factor for influencing solar tidal forcing. These planets have a 13:8 resonance, that is, five conjunctions in 13 Venus years or 8 Earth years. Mercury-Venus: not a very strong resonance, but appears to have some impact on solar tidal forcing. There is a weak 23:9 resonance, fourteen conjunctions in 23 Mercury years or 9 Venus years. 57 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE Mercury-Earth: not a very strong resonance. There is a weak 29:7 junctions in 20 Saturn years or 7 Uranus years. resonance, twenty-two conjunctions in 29 Mercury years or 7 Earth years. Uranus-Neptune: the sixth most important factor for influencing Mercury-Mars: There is a weak 39:5 resonance, thirty-four con junctions in 39 Mercury years or 5 Mars years. conjunctions in 51 Uranus years or 26 Neptune years. Venus-Mars: Mars does not appear to have a significant effect on solar tidal forcing. These planets have a 3:1 resonance, two con junctions in 3 Venus years or 1 Mars year. conjunction in 3 Neptune years or 2 Pluto years. the position of CM, a resonance of 51:26 (close to 2:1) with thirteen Neptune-Pluto: These planets have a resonance of 3:2, with one As explained earlier, none of these proportions in Nature are ever exact, the real relationships are within a certain orb of the precise ratio. Earth-Mars: this resonance is also not very strong. These planets These proportions could be seen as musical intervals and, as is customary have a weak 15:8 resonance, thirty-seven conjunctions in 79 Earth years or 42 Mars years (79:42 is 5.5 cents larger than 15:8). for musicians, all of the ratios can be octave reduced for ready identification: While there is no apparent resonance between Mars and Jupiter, Earth and Jupiter have a 5:2 resonance, with eleven conjunctions in 12 Earth Inner Planet Resonances Mer:Ven = 23:9, 424 cents (major 3rd + 38 cents) years or 1 Jupiter year. A slightly more complicated relationship between Venus, Earth and Jupiter is discussed below. Mer:Ear = 29:7, 61 cents (less than a semitone) Mer;Mar = 39:5,1,156 cents (44 cents less than an octave) Looking at the relationships of the orbits of the major outer plan ets of the solar system, in order of their influence on CM, we find several resonances with musical implications:^®' Ven:Ear = 13:8, 840.5 cents, natural minor 6th Ven:Mar = 3:1, 702 cents, perfect 5th Ear:Mar = 15:8,1,088 cents (actually its 79:42 which is 1,094 cents) 30. Ibid., Jupiter-Saturn: this is the most important factor for influencing the position pp. 9-14, 20-21. of CM. These planets have a 5:2 resonance, three conjunctions in 5 Jupiter years or 2 Saturn years. Jupiter-Neptune: the second most important factor for influencing the position of CM, with a resonance of 14:1, thirteen conjunctions in 14 Jupiter years or 1 Neptune year. Jupiter-Uranus: the third most important factor for influencing the position of CM, with a resonance of 7:1, six conjunctions in 7 Jupiter years or 1 Uranus year. Saturn-Neptune: the fourth most important factor for influencing the position of CM, with a resonance of 28:5, thirty-two conjunc tions in 28 Saturn years or 5 Neptune years. Saturn-Uranus: the fifth most important factor for influencing the position of CM, with a resonance of 20:7 (close to 3:1) thirteen con58 Outer Planet Resonances 31 Landscheidt, Jup:Sat Jup:Ura & Jup:Nep = 5:2, just major 3rd, 386 cents = 7:1 & 14:1, septimal minor 7th, 969 cents Sat:Nep = 28:5, small septimal tritone, 583 cents Sat:Ura = 20:7, large septimal tritone, 617 cents Ura:Nep = 51:26,1,166 cents (one octave = 1,200 cents) Nep:Plu = 3:2, perfect 5 th, 702 cents All of these cycles interact in very mysterious ways, but there are clear harmonic relationships among the various orbital periods. The aforementioned Earth-Venus connection appears to be par ticularly profound. The opposition of Earth and Venus places the EarthVenus Center of Mass (EVCM) near the Sun (where it is nearly stationary for approximately a two-week period). In fact, during these oppositions EVCM is closer to the Sun than Mercury. The rhythm of the quadrature angular relationships (0°, 90°, 180° and 270°) between EVCM and Jupiter 59 COLEMAN R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D W H E R E (which is the same as the angle between Earth and Jupiter, since EVCM relationships to each other can have a quality and effect similar to what is always on the Earth side of the Sun) appears to approximately match occurs during the relationships of planetary cycles. The esoterically inclined the rhythm of sunspot cycles (sunspot = 11.4 years, EVCM-Jupiter could study the effects of such combinations and apply the appropriate quadrature cycles = 11.19 years). The EVCM-Jupiter relationship seems symbolism, in the same manner as this is done in other esoteric studies. In to have an effect on the intensity and frequency of p-modes, extremely this way, it is possible to refine the idea, quality, meaning and possible low-frequency sound waves (i.e., pressure waves) traveling inside the Sun.^2 Mercury-Jupiter quadrature relation effects of rhythms, melodies or harmonic progressions. ships, at the times of Earth-Venus oppositions, well as the relationship between pitches and their movement (space and may also play a role in these phenomena.^^ These Earth-Venus, Mercury and Jupiter cycles, together with the absolute positions of these planets relative to the Sun, may have some effect on both sunspot cycles and solar flare intensity.^'*' Also significant is the Jupiter-Saturn pair, the two most massive planets in the solar 32. Semi, pp. i, 57-61. The frequency of some of these p-mode waves are more than I milhhertz (i mHz = i,000th of a hertz). These are very low sound frequen cies, the most powerful measuring around I cycle every five minutes, or 1/300 cycles per second (3.33 mHz). By comparison the human ear can only hear as low as approximately 20 Hz (maybe 14 Hz max), so a sound wave that is five minutes long is about 6,000 times lower than the lower limit of human hearmg. These extremely low frequency pressure waves ring the entire Sun like a bell. 33. Ibid., pp. 53-54. system which together have a very significant 34. Ibid. influence on the location of CM (solar system 35. Hung, p. I. center of mass).^^- 36. Landscheidt These two planets have a 854-year resonance cycle (forty-three conjunc tions in 72 Jupiter years and 29 Saturn years) which possibly influences the entire solar system angular momentum cycle.^® And there are much keys and modes could be analogous to the various configurations of plan ets in our solar system which astrologers call planetary pictures. One example of using music with astrology was the work of the 17th century mystic Athanasius Kircher, who developed a method of com position using the symbolism of planets related to specific voice-leading. In a major work entitled Musurgia Universalis (Universal Music) Kircher The Mancy of Colors 29-32. 43, 61. II, 43, 61. 39. Personal communication with astrologer Simon France. larger harmonic cycles, such as the twentyone-conjunction Uranus and Neptune cycle that plays out over a 3,602year period, after which both planets conjunct in virtually the same area of the zodiac.^' All of these relationships in turn affect the intensity of the solar winds emanating from the Sun, and affects all of the planets in the solar system. So there is a reciprocal relationship, a back-and-forth influence between the planets and the Sun. The Venus:Mars (3:1) and Neptune:Pluto (3:2) resonances are sim ilar to each other, both being close to 3:2. The 12:1 Earth-Jupiter orbital relationship is also an octave this same 3:2 ratio. Astrologically, there are similarities in the relationships of all of these planetary pairs. There have always been attempts to use astronomy/astrology and music as one discipline. Different rhythms that move in cycles with specific 60 time relationships), that are partly responsible for giving the sensation of quality and color. The systemization of the pitch relationships into various described parts of his system, which definitely had an astrological basis."*® 37. Semi, pp. 9-11, 38. Ibid., pp. I, In our musical system, it is the intervals and their combinations, as "Perhaps the highest language that comes to man, through Nature, is through geometric sym bol and color." —L.W. de Laurence.''^ 40. The Harmony of the Spheres: A Sourcebook of the Pythagorean Tradition in Music Qoscelyn Godwin), pp. 273-275. 41. The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and Indian Occultism (L. W. de Laurence, 1939), p. 571. Similar to the symbolism of geometry in motion that we call astrology, there was developed a symbolism of colors that appears to be drawn from Nature. Esotericist Thomas Goodwin constantly refers to an ancient Kemetic system called the Mancy of Colors and it was Tom that first introduced me to this subject.« > mcations). The human species greatest gift is the ability to create and manipulate symbols. Symbolism can also be used to generate a feeling, sensation or idea of a metaphysical nature. This is done through colors, figures, numbers, etc., and their motion. Earlier, I referred to the merging principle as being equivalent to the concept of modulation, the idea of change from one form or condition into another. One reason color is an ideal esoteric language is because it repre sents the merging principle more accurately. There is typically no absolute boundary between different shades and colors, and it is partly because of 61 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE this that color is for the most part interpreted by the use of intuition. In contrast to color, number may primarily be seen from a logical perspective, and figures may be approached from an intuitive-logic point of view as well. This does not mean that color cannot be organized and approached from both an intuitive and logical perspective simultaneously. Never theless, color symbolism appears to have been developed in part using more intuitive approaches. The use of color symbolism for divination purposes is exceedingly rare. Psychics who use their third eye to see auras around people are said to be able to see colors in the different auras."*^ Much of this color symbolism is based on the 1 -NT T-' 11 •"^tnan response to iN ature, ir'or example, the .^oo^^;.,^."« Í »L 1 ^A/r •! • association of the planet Mars with aggression, war and death may originate in part because of The Human Aura: Astral Colors and T'¿OKg¿t/br»ís (Swami Panchadasi, 1912), e-bookversìon, p. 2. (Panchadasiisapseudonym of esoteric writer William Walker Atkinson.) humility, love of truth, contemplation (indigo). http://en.wikipedia.0rg/wiki/Biue# Mysticism accessed September 9, 2009. Yellow "represents the intellectual phase 49. de Laurence, pp. 569-570. of mentality. That is to say, it stands for that part of the mental activities which are concerned with reasoning, analysis, judg ment, logical processes, induction, deduction, synthesis, etc. In its various hues, tints and shades, it is manifested by the various forms of intellectual activity, high and low [.. .1"^ Keywords: selfish 50. Panchadasi, p. 8. intellect (dull yellow), higher unselfish Intellect (brilliant golden or luminous lemon or primrose yellow), pride, ambition, irritability (orange), analysis, logic, reasoning, deduction, great intellectual teachers (gold).®^' 51. Ibid. p. 10. White "stands for what occultists 52. Leadbeater, p. 83. know as Pure Spirit, which is a very different thing from the religious emotion of 'spirituali its reddish color (which is based on the large amount of iron oxide on its ty,' and which really is the essence of the All that really is. Pure Spirit is the surface). Quite early in history. Mars was associated with iron, the metal for weapons. positive pole of Being."^^ Here is a sampling of the symbolism of color: Red "represents the physical phase of mentality. That is to say, it stands for that part of the mental activities which are concerned with physical life. It is manifested by the vitality of the body, and in other hues, tints and shades, is manifested by passions, anger, physical cravings, etc."'*'' Other keywords include: blood, aggression, energy, life-force, vigor, spiritual love Panchadasi,p.8. (crimson brilliant rose-color tinged with lilac), selfish love (crimson tinged with brown), selfless love (crimson rose-red), fire, devils, physical, masculine, summer, hell, passion, lust, sexuality or sensuality (lurid, sanguinary red), courage, anger (usually deep red or tinged with brown selfish anger), stop, hatred, pain, honor, leadership, sports.'*^Blue "represents the religious or spiri tual phase of mentality. That is to say, it stands visible and invisible (c.w. r 1 r 1 t . . . . tor that part oi the mental activities which are J «1 1 • 1 •J 1 1 . t . COncerneQ Wltll nigh ideals, altruism, devotion. reverence, veneration, etc. It is manifested, in its various hues, tints and shades, by all forms of religious feeling and emotion, high and low [.. Leadbeater, 1909), p. 81. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red# Symbolism accessed September 9, 2009. 47. Panchadasi, p. 8. Black "stands for the negative pole of 53. Panchadasi, p. 8. Being—the very negation of Pure Spirit, and 54. Ibid. opposing it in every way."^ Keywords: hatred, 55. Leadbeater, p. 8i. malice, passionate anger.^^ 56. Ibid., pp. 81-82. Brown-, autumn, earth, wood, greed (dull almost rust brown), industry, materialism, accumulation of wealth, selfishness. Greenish-brown denotes jealousy.^ Green: nature, life, love, erotic, envy and jealousy (greenishbrown), trickery/deceit (grey-green), health, charity, altruism, sickness, healthcare, physician, nurse, spring, growth, environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice, sympathy/compassion (pale luminous blue-green), charity, adaptability/versatility/ingenuity (bright emerald-green), tolerance of other viewpoints, diplomacy.®^' 57. Ibid., p. 84. Grey: deep depression, gloomy, sadden 58. Panchadasi, p. 11. ing, fear (livid grey).'° 59. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green When we look at some of the associations accessed September 9, 2009. of color with zodiac signs, we can see the sym 60. Leadbeater, p. 82. bolism of each merged into a single system: Keywords: water, ice, cold, sadness, winter, boys, religion (dark clear blue), morality, spirituality, 62 63 COLEMAN R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D W H E R E From Westcott" Aries white Taurus white and vellow Gemini red Cancer green and brown Leo black and blue Libra black or crimson yellow or green Capricorn black or brown Aquarius Pisces Aries orange^^ Mercury yellow^^ 65. de Laurence, p. 566. blue^^ Mars red'' 66. Ibid. Jupiter violet^' 67. Ibid., p. 569. Saturn green, brown and grey^° 68. Ibid., p. 565. blue-green^' 69. Ibid., p. 571. indigo^^ black73,74 70. Ibid., pp. 568, 571. Neptune Pluto 71. Based on actual color of the planet due to its methane gas, and the colors of Aquarius, which Uranus rules. Historically, at the time that most of this 62. de Laurence, p. 571. white and rose-pink symbolism was developed there was a belief that red, yellow and blue were the primary colors - J . 1 1 \ • 1 1 (based on pigments and dye) with the secondary colors being violet, orange, green. In modern color red and lemon-yellow red, blue and white Cancer green and russet-brown red and green 64. Planets, Colors and Metals (Patrice Guinard), ht^://cura.free.fr/22plcome.htinl accessed September 9, 2009. Venus Uranus white Gemini Leo white, silver or grey^^' ^ Sun blue From de Laurence'^ Taurus Moon brown Sagittarius 63. The Arkana Dictionary of Astrology^ (Fred Gettings, 1985), pp. 378-379. Planet-Color Correspondences red and green Virgo Scorpio 61. Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtues (W. Wynn Westcott, 1890), pp. 103-104. 72. de Laurence, p. 571. 73. Gettings, pp. 378-379. Guinard, http://cura.free.fr/22pIcome. html accessed September 9,2009. theory, since the prism experiments of Isaac Newton, the main colors are recognized to be red, green, blue (additive primaries) and cyan, magenta, gold-yellow and dark-blur yellow (subtractive primaries). If the ancients had started with the modern crimson and blue theories then maybe the symbolism of yellow and green would be a little golden-brown and indigo different, similar to the way astrologers have adjusted their symbolism after Sagittarius gold, red and green the discovery of Uranus (1781), Neptune (1846), Pluto (1930) and a host of Capricorn dark-brown or grey other planet-like bodies in our solar system: Aquarius blue, pink and green Virgo Libra Scorpio Pisces white-pink, emerald-green or indigo Historical Primary Color and Complements red green The above appears to be a mixing of the symbolism of brown and yellow. yellow violet Based on these symbolic descriptions, a more logical association using the Elements may be: blue orange Modern Primary Colors and Complements Fire reddish red Earth brownish green Air yellowish blue Water cyan magenta yellow greenish and bluish What has been done here with colors is the same as what has been attempted with planets, signs, midpoint interpretations, eclipse symbolism, etc., in astrology. The approach is to determine some basic characteristics of 64 65 COLEMAN R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D W H E R E the main quantized points in the continuum. Then, when the various combi The Mancy of Sound is related with the ancient nations of the cycles or vibrations manifest, the esoteric artist then intuitively merges the meanings of each point to regain the feeling of the continuum. concept of musica universalis^^ "an ancient philo It is also possible to relate colors more directly to music, as movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, opposed to simply using color as an analogy. The most obvious example and planets—as a form of musica (Medieval Latin would be the correspondence of color to pitch, chords or keys, similar to for music)."^^ Although musica universalis is not hterally audible music, the sophical concept that regards proportions in the 76. Literally universal music, or music of the spheres. 77. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_ universalis accessed September 9, 2009. the work of the great esoteric composer Alexander Scriabin. A less obvi approach of creating music using the philosophy and symbolism of musica ous example would be the association of color with movement, specifically universalis has been practiced for thousands of years, analogous to a rhythmic, melodic and harmonic movement. This is partly because it is dynamic sacred geometry projected through sound. through the movement of musical passages that musicians typically refer to the concept of musical color. Sometimes chords are related to color, but We have looked at the symbolism or characteristics that were even in these cases this usually involves the movement of the chords in applied to celestial phenomena in the form of planetary pictures (geometri cal formations) and at symbolism applied to color. Since ancient times, progressions. Of course there is no such thing as melody and rhythm without movement. musicians have also applied symbolism to rhythms and groups of pitches. As in everyday experiences, color is seen to be something of a modifier, an extension to more concrete forms. This is also true in in the form of the Doctrine of Ethos and even as late as the time of J.S. Bach music, where color can modify the elements of rhythm, melody, and Doctrine of Affections. Not so obvious is the role music plays in divination. harmony. However, color can also have its own internal logic, for The most obvious forms of the foretelling of events using sound is example as presented in color theory, which is based on ideas of color mixing and combinations. China (Han dynasty). In ancient Rome, augury was used to interpret the Plato and other ancient Greek philosophers discussed this in their writings musicians still related to symbohsm through rhetorical devices and the the example of divination by bird cries and bird song in ancient Rome and Our perception of color is based on specific light receptors in our eyes, therefore color is a phenomena of light. Light is a rather ethereal will of the gods by studying the flight directions and patterns of birds phenomena, more easily grasped through the faculty of intuition. There are the musical sounds created by humans, which is the subject matter of our vast areas of music that are readily understood using intuition, and in this discussion of the mancy of sounds. sense the marriage of color and music is very important. In particular, color can aid in the projection of the emotions as this is the mode through which Previously I mentioned colors, geometrical figures (shapes) and numbers in motion. It has been said that the study of music is the study of many people experience the power of color and music. Though a complex subject, this is certainly a matter well worth investigating. number in motion, similar to astronomy being the study of geometry in motion. There is a progression to these areas of study; all are related and The Mancy of Sound (Musica Universalis) interact with each other, forming one body of knowledge: "Is it not true that all things flow from one thing, from the goodness of the One, and that whatever is joined to Unity cannot be diverse, but rather fructifies by means of the simplicity and adaptability of the One?" What is born from Unity? Is it not the ternary? Take note: Unity is unmixed, the binary is compounded, and the ternary is reduced to the simplicity of Unity. I, Trithemius, am not of three minds, but persist in a single integrated mind taking pleasure in the ternary, which gives birth ^ to a marvelous offspring." -Trithemius^^ 66 together with the sounds that they made. However, this does not involve • Study of number (arithmetic) • Study of shapes (geometry) • Study of light (e.g., color, etc.) • Study of number in motion (music) • Study of geometry in motion (astronomy) These are the exoteric fields of study. But in ancient times there was always an exoteric counterpart to any exoteric subject: 67 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN • Study of geometric symbolism (geomancy) ity of those moments in which it was created, for many reasons. So why not the reverse, where music projects not only the quality of • Study of the symbolism of light (mancy of colors, color symbolism) the time in which the creator of the music lives, but also qualities of periods • Study of the symbolism of number in motion (mancy of sound, of time in the future? Much of what we call the future is directly related both • Study of number symbolism (numerology) to the activities of the present and to the human imagination, which has a musica universalis) • Study of the symbolism of shapes in motion (astrology) vibratory projection of its own that is very powerful. It may very well be that the human imagination is structurally a part of some phenomena that we have The power of musica universalis is that, being holistic in nature, it contains and gives voice to all of these arts. This is the esoteric form of music and many master musicians produced some of their greatest works using little understanding of today If a musician possesses enough knowledge about the structure of time, then this idea should not be too far fetched. And the more specific the study and information that the musician possesses, the this approach. I need to pause here to explain my understanding of divination. more specific the musical description will be of the particular period of time Although in earlier times divination was definitely used for the purpose of describes the moment of birth of a person that is not yet born, if the musician predicting future events, I believe divination has more to do with timing, with determining the most favorable and harmonious moment to initiate or that is being sounded. Therefore, it should be possible to create music that knows enough about when that moment will be, the characteristics of the person in terms of their parents, culture, etc., and the characteristics of the carry out a particular activity. This is somewhat similar to the principles upon which the discipline known as Feng Shui are built. On an esoteric time that is leading to the moment of birth (a kind of temporal voice-leading). If this IS possible in Nature then it should be attainable for humans, level, this has to do with resonance. In my opinion, all of these things are who are but a part of Nature. Returning to the quote from L. W. de Laurence, we do our highest work when we recognize our unity with Nature.'» related. Again, today's mysteries are tomorrow's science; much or what we call esoteric or mysterious is just something that is partially understood. Since the nature of the universe will always be partially understood by humans, then there will always be mysteries. Humankind is a product of Nature, and throughout our existence the initiated have attempted in Laurence, p. 571. Therefore, my idea of a mancy of sound has less to do with using their creations to emulate Nature as much as possible. I believe that there exists only the present, which has different qual music or sound to predict the future, and more to do with timing, using ities. What we call the past lives in our memories, even if inaccurate or selec music to project or create the quality and character of a moment (even a tive. What we call the future lives in our imaginations and expectations, even moment in the future) as well as the reverse, being able to interpret some if unreaUzed or unrecognized. If we can use the remembered quality of the thing of the quality and character of a moment by listening to the music. This, as well as using music to express ideas and intent is the essence of the previously mentioned Doctrine of Ethos and Doctrine of Affections. past to interpret the quality of our sensation of the present, then we can use a combination of memory and present sensorial experience to tell us some thing about the quality of the future. Furthermore, our imagination pos Generally speaking, you can definitely hear the character of a time that music was created in. While some may say that this is based solely on the sesses its own vibratory power, which helps to realize that which is actual, memory of that time, I would disagree. Even music that is from a time when while our expectation shapes the quality of what has been realized. But, as mentioned, the future only lives in our imaginations and expectations, we I was not actually living carries for me some core essence of that time period. For sure this music would carry more specific meaning for persons who actu ally lived during that time and experienced the vibrations. Nevertheless, we never truly experience the future except in our psyche. Technically, humans have always used motion to negotiate time. are all related as a species, and there is some information that carries forth sage of time, so the ancients learned to systematize and symbolically tran scribe these natural rhythms. These same principles of motion were used as from generation to generation. The music from previous times, in particular if preserved by recordings, carries much of the vibratory essence and qual 68 The rhythm of celestial objects was the obvious choice to describe the pas 69 COLEMAN R E G A R D I N G T H E S O N I C SYMBOLISM O F W H E N A N D W H E R E a basis for the rhythmic concepts of much of the world's music, and this is years and 8 Earth years (note the Fibonacci relationship of 5:8:13). We have still true today. Our modern ways of keeping time, clocks and calendars, also noted that the hehocentric opposition of Earth and Venus places the although not as complex in terms of negotiating time as interlocking cycles, Earth-Venus Center of Mass (EVCM) near the Sun, closer to the Sun than are the by-product of the ancient methods of negotiating time. However, in the planet Mercury. The heliocentric conjunction of Earth and Venus places ancient times these temporal symbols did not only designate the quantity of EVCM at its furthest distance from the Sun, between Earth and Venus, but time; they also represented the quality of time. This could be accomplished because their dynamic clocks were the natural movements of objects in the closer to Earth. The distance traveled by EVCM between each alternating heavens in relation to Earth. The sheer multitude and complexity of these the heliocentric zodiac. It is important to note that the zodiac location of cycles and how they related to each other provided an ideal symbolism EVCM during each Earth-Venus opposition and conjunction is always in which was used to represent the complexities of human existence. From the same longitude location as Earth, as any syzygy relationship of Earth the ancient point of view, first there is the symbolism of the individual and Venus places EVCM on the Earth side of the Sun. 79. Musaios, p. 96—Musaios refers to "certain patterns of sound frequencies at certain times". Here I reference natural rhythms to mean an integrated astrological/ musical approach using spontaneous and pre-conceived composition. The philoso pher's approach to this area of music almost always involves working with tonality through manipulating the structures of tuning systems. In contrast, the musician's approach, for the most part, is to manipu late the accepted musical tunings of the then current era, through actual movements (i.e., rhythms) of melodic and harmonic structures. Therefore, the ideas behind placement, duration and combinations of pitches, as well as what they symbolize, are important to the musician for the pur poses of the practical expression of musical metaphor. In this respect, the form that the sonic symbols take are various kinds of musical motion. 80. "The origins of the tones and music go far back into antiquity. They are produced from the measurements of length and weight; their root is in the Supreme One. The Supreme One produced the Two Exemplars (heaven and earth). Two Exemplars produced yin and yang. Tmand yang change and transform—one ascends, the other descends—and coalescing, they take on shapes. Mixing and blending, they separate out, only to coalesce again. They coalesce only to separate out again. This is called the regularity of heaven...." "Any form or body occupies a position; all of them make a sound. Sounds are produced from harmony. Harmony comes out of what is fitting. It was by this model of har mony and what is fining that the early kings composed music; it developed from this." —Timing and Rulership in Master Lii's Spring and Autumn Annals—LUshi chunqiu Qames D. Sellmann, 2002), pp. 95-96 (quote from Lüshi chunqiu com plied by LÜ Pu-wei's,c. 2 3 9 BCE) orbits of the five classical planets, the Moon and configuration of opposition and conjunction is approximately 288° through The times when Earth and Venus are not in syzygy relationship the apparent path of the Sun. Then there were the reveal an interesting pattern. If we were to trace the movements of EVCM various relationships between the planetary cycles over time. and create a mandala of the shape formed by these movements, it would Today, knowing the true heliocentric structure of the solar system—along with more recent technology—^we can construct symbols form a five pedal flower. The following diagrams were created by the program Ephemerides Viewer.»' These zodiac 81. Epheme^s VttwiT(Petr&miSemerad) charts follow the color symbolism of Elements http://semi.gurroa.cz/EphView/ accessed September 9,2009. mentioned above: Fire = reddish. Earth = brown that impress upon our minds the various geomet ish, Air = yellowish, Water = blue-greenish. ric shapes that represent these complex relation Six of the snapshots trace the movements of EVCM during the ships. Similar to the way a beautiful image can inspire great artistic works, these complex sonic moments of syzygy between Earth and Venus, over a 4-year period (i.e., impressions can, when used in conjunction with half of the 8-year Earth-Venus cycle), beginning with Figure 10 on July 8, 1904, when Earth is approximately at 16° of the sign of Capricorn (just vis specific natural rhythm principles, function as a ible over the glyph for Capricorn) and in opposition to Venus in Cancer. kind of acoustic acupressure to remove blockages Mercury can also be seen in Cancer, on the Venus side of the Sun. Although Jupiter is not shown at this scale, it is at 16° of Aries, in a 90° relationship to in the psyche that prevent access to the thought patterns that lead to higher consciousness." These blockages are produced by imbalances in the mind, body and spirit. In ancient China, the systems of thought in the Qin and Han Dynasties were based on balance and appropriate timing; even the origins of music itself were described in terms of descending from Nature, through timing and balance.»® We have already seen that the orbits of Earth and Venus are in a 13:8 resonance, where Earth-Venus syzygy line.»^ Figure 15 shows the Earth-Venus con- junction 4 years later on July 6, 1908, when both planets are in Capricorn (Earth is again just visible over the glyph for Capricorn). In both Figure 10 and Figure 15 EVCM is at the same degree of Capricorn as the Earth, however EVCM is closer to Earth in Figure 15, during the conjunction of Earth and Venus. Figure 16 shows the position of these planets 8 years later on July 6, 1912, when Earth and Venus are again at the same locations as in Figure 10 on July 8, 1904. the two planets conjunct five times in 13 Venus 70 82. Here the solar system is viewed from the north pole of the Sim, so the planets move counterclockwise in their orbits. 71 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE 9.6 months later. Earth and Venus are again in opposition, and the trace of the trajectory of EVCM again leads in between the two planets, but closer to the Sun: 07/00/JS04 (ÜTCi Figure 10. 7/8/1904. Approximately 9.6 months later, Earth and Venus are in conjunc tion, and the trace of the trajectory of EVCM can be seen to lead directly in between these two planets: 02/lS/190fi (VTC) Figure 12. 2/15/1906. This process continues for the remainder of the 4-year period, and the shape of the mandala develops: .\ 1J, V V V ^ /• « n A o 04/27/190S (OTC) Figure 11.4/27/1905. u / o i / i M t itrrci Figure 13. 12/1/1906. 72 73 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE 1». 07/06/1912 19)04:3« klZPlZ (VTC) Figure 14. 9/15/1907. Figure 16. 7/6/1912. As can be expected of Nature, this five-pedal flower pattern is not static, but rotates through the zodiac throughout time, giving a kaleido scopic expression of colors against the movements of the other planets. This movement progresses in 72° segments that slowly rotate throughout the zodiac. The relationship of Jupiter against this Earth-Venus cycle adds another layer to the rhythm. If these cycles remind you somewhat of music, then you are not alone. Many people have noticed and explored the Harmony of the Spheres, and in fact I believe this is the historical name used to reference the mancy of sound. Musically, it is possible to symbolize the geometrical configura tions of the planets. For example, we could look at the angular relationship of Earth-Venus oppositions to the planet Jupiter. There are multiple per spectives from which we can look at this, each point of view yielding dif ferent insights. If we make an analogy to the solar system, taking the Sun as Figure 15. 7/6/1908. the center and Jupiter as the main counterweight, then symbolically the interval of a perfect fifth would best represent these two bodies, the most Skipping ahead, here is what the complete EVCM pattern would massive objects in the solar system. By association, the function of the gen look like approximately eight years after our starting opposition. The peri od of time is 7/8/1904 to 7/6/1912: erator is represented by the Sun, and Jupiter is symbolized by the dominant. I use the term generator in the same sense as it is used by composer and theorist Ernst Levy, as the tone that generates , , the tonal system.^^ Levy's concept is astrological in 74 75 83. /I Theory of Harmony (Ernst Levy, 1985), p. ij. COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE that it is based on laws of tonal gravity that function very similar to univer Levy calls this point of view absolute conception—as opposed to sal or absolute gravity, in the solar system and elsewhere in the Universe, in telluric adaptation, the terrestrial perspective that most musicians have addition to containing qualitative symbolism. This is a concept of gravity where objects with mass are being attracted to one another from all sides, as learned.*'* But there is more involved here Ibid. functionally that also simulates astronomical opposed to the terrestrial perspective of gravity viewed as being generated gravity. These two triads are not only symmetrical, but both triads gravita- from the ground. I will explain using a bit of the musical logic: tionally attract each other. The absolute point of view of tonal gravity must In terms of function, we start with a melodic realization of this concept, where we have three tones in a tonic (C), dominant (C') and subdominant (B) relationship (the genesis of the functions in our musical matrix) be studied to fully understand this.*' The C Ibid., entire text. major triad functions as the dominant to the F minor triad, which is really a negative C major triad. Likewise, the F minor triad functions as negative dominant to the C major triad. The result is a pendulum effect around the generator C. Both triads of course have the C /\ B same structure, but are generated in two different directions, positive (harmonic) and negative (subharmonic). Throughout the history of music, a composers—spontaneous and otherwise—have long had knowledge of Figure 17. Tonic-Subdominant-Dominant. this approach. Obviously, in terms of structure this is a symmetrical point of view, which can then be extended harmonically using the interval of the 5 th, the foundation of tonality: but this concept is symmetrical in function as well, and it is extendable to the entire tonal system. First we can extend to positive (harmonic series generated upwards) and negative (subharmonic series generated downwards) dominant 7th chords, approximating partials 1, 5, 3 and 7: Figure 18. Tonic-Subdominam-Dominant. Here, the G functionally replaces the as the dominant, and the F, as subdominant, replaces the B. The result is the tone C generating an Figure 20. Dominant 7th chords extended. upward and downward fifth. We could say that the G and F are orbiting the generator C. Following the ancient example, we then place positive and which now gives us two other functions, the major third and the natural or negative harmonic means between the generator and the two 5ths to arrive dominant seventh (natural not in terms of accidental, but in terms of its at two major triads of differing polarity. If we think of the pitch C as the approximate 7:4 frequency relationship to C. In this example we have two Sun, then the triads are generated outward from the C as follows: dominant seventh chords generated upward and downward from C. The result is C7 on the top and negative C7, more commonly called Fmin6, on the bottom (the root of the bottom chord is F, not D). Previously, I stated that Ptolemy and Kepler associated the opposi tion aspect (180°) with the octave. Although this may be in some ways geometrically accurate, and geometry was the strength of Ptolemy and Figure 19. Tonic Triads extended. Kepler, intuitively and in terms of musical function I find this correspon- 76 77 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN dence troubling. Functionally, the octave does not exhibit the same qualities D=Gemini, etc. This is what I call the physiological (physical or outer) as the opposition. The feeling I get from the octave is virtually identical to direction. In this direction, the cycle of dominants progresses as descendmg the unison. However, with the interval of a tritone there is some feeling of 5ths (same as descending semitones): opposition, yet still a strong relationship in terms of function. This third and seventh are of course in a tritone relationship, mak Sun = C and Jupiter = G ing them ideal to symbolize our opposition of Earth and Venus, relative to D:A1' (Ear-Ven) = waxing square of Ear and Jup. This is based on the Sun (generator) and Jupiter (counterbalance or dominant). Astrologically, BhD:Al' being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=Bk it is the planet Jupiter*' that most represents the energy of the aspect called a trine (120° angle), E^:B (Ear-Ven) = opposition of Ear and Jup. This is based on C':E^:B 0/ r \ o astrologers also say Venus represents the energy or the trine. which according to Ptolemy is equal to the musical interval of a perfect fifth (see the above section on astrology): 0 Figure 21. Dominant 7th chord tritones extended. It will take a little imagination to visualize this entire dynamic gamut from a 3-dimensional perspective, with the Sun-Jupiter combination as the main stabilizing force in our musical solar system, while seeing the various configurations of pitches as orbiting in relation to the Sun. But with the aid of various configurations of pitches representing the quadrature angles, entire constellations of dynamic pitch relationships—in the form of pitch collections, triads, tetrachords modes, scales, extended chords, etc.— can orbit around any one particular generator (keep in mind that the Sun and Jupiter are also in motion around an invisible solar system barycenter). Continuing with our analogy, imagine that the Sun-Jupiter line represents the tonic tonality C:G that we are progressing to. And the faster moving planets, in this case Earth and Venus when in opposition to each other, symbolize the tritones of the dominants that are progressing to this tonic tonality (with Earth functioning as the 3rd, Venus functioning as the 7th and the generator of the dominant chord functioning as the Earth- Venus Center of Mass, or EVCM). From the perspective of observing from above the Sun's north pole, the planets are moving counterclockwise through the zodiac, and the pitch es are moving upward through the zodiac, with C=Aries, C^Taurus, 78 being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=C^. Gto (Ear-Ven) = waning square of Ear and Jup. This is based on E:Gto being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=E. B:F (Ear-Ven) = conjunction of Ear and Jup. This is based on G:B:F being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=G. When the dominant chord is G7 (progressing to C:G), the associa tions are EVCM=G, Ear=B, Ven=F. So the conjunction is between the gen erator EVCM and Jupiter. When the dominant is C*7 (progressing to C:G) then EVCM=C*, Ear=F, Ven=B, so Jup=G is in opposition to EVCM=C*. EVCM^bI» is ahead of Jup=G in the zodiac (waxing square, approaching opposition), and EVCM=E is behind Jup=G in the zodiac (waning square—approaching conjunction). Of course the Sun and Jupiter can be in any of the twelve positions in the zodiac, and EVCM:Ear:Ven will have the same functions with the same relative relationships. Since there is no up and down in space, we could look at this entire configuration from the point of view of a different polarity, from the per spective of observing from beneath the south pole of the Sun. We don t have to maintain a northern hemisphere bias in space, we are thinking from the absolute position.*^ From this perspective, the planets move clockwise through the zodiac, and the pitches are moving downward through the zodiac, with C=Aries, B=Taurus, BÍ'=Gemim, etc. This is what I call the psychological (psyche or inner) direction. In this direction, the cycle of dominants progresses as ascending 5ths (same as ascending semitones): Sun = G and Jupiter = C a I ':D (Ear-Ven) = conjunction of Ear and Jup. This is based on 79 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE CrA^D being the dominant and G:C being the tonic, EVCM=C. seventh chords, by viewing tempered approximations of partials 1, 5, 3, 7, F:B (Ear-Ven) = waxing square of Ear and Jup. This is based on 9, 11,13 and 15 (i.e., reordered harmonic series—odd partials) A:F:B being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=A. D:Gf (Ear-Ven) = opposition of Ear and Jup. This is based on F^:D:G# being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=F*. Ckp (Ear-Ven) = waning square of Ear and Jup. This is based on Ekckp being the dominant and C:G being the tonic, EVCM=Ek The phase of the aspect, waxing or waning, is always expressed in Figure 22. Harmonic Series in ßrds (odd partials). terms of the relationship of EVCM to Jupiter. Remember EVCM is always on the Earth side of the Sun when Earth and Venus are in syzygy. I do not mean to imply that these are the only configurations that exert great influence over our musical solar system, they are by far not all of and the negative dominant chords (reordered tempered subharmonic series —odd partials) the effective configurations. The majority of Earth-Venus oppositions are not in quadrature relationship with Jupiter. There can be anywhere from three to six Earth-Venus oppositions which are not in quadrature relation ship with Jupiter, between every occurrence of Earth-Venus oppositions which are square or conjunct Jupiter. A musician must also diligently study these situations, as this is where the merging principle comes into play, and various non-standard configurations occur which, though unidentified, still represent powerful functions. Figure 23. Subharmonic Series in 3rds (odd partials). This is all based on the heliocentric model of the solar system.** With this concept, Jupiter is always in a and finally the entire constellation of pitches together: 5th relationship to the Sun, and in this system the Id""'' ^ Sun has no sign. It is the Earth that is in a sign. When Jupiter is in Aries and conjunct Earth, then the Earth is also in Aries. The geocentric point of view is an illusion, as it represents the situation as seen from Earth. Likewise, it could be said that our geocentric (i.e., telluric adapta tion) musical point of view is an illusion. The absolute conception in music is the equivalent of the heliocentric reality in astronomy. As with most astrologers, who are still caught up in the geocentric perspective and refuse to change, so too have many musicians (but not all) been unable to recog nize the absolute conception, the musical equivalent of the heliocentric viewpoint. Going further, we can view an extended version of the dominant 80 \> ^0^ Figure 24. Harmonic and Subharmonic Series in 3rds (odd partials). Partials 9,11,13 and 15 are what the composer Hindemith referred to as the Holy Region. These partials are themselves dominant constella tions of an opposite polarity to the primary dominant, represented by partials 1, 5, 3 and 7. Olivier Messiaen called these partials resonances, and 81 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN referred to the general subject as natural harmony, analogous to natural can more smoothly slide in different directions. A musician therefore rhythms, which was also explored by Messiaen. He learned these and other could study both the general structure of the pathways, possible paths harmonic techniques from three of his teachers, Jean Gallon, Noel Gallon that can be taken, and the objects that are responsible for forming the and Marcel Dupré. Most of the great creative musicians have created their own terminology for this area of music, as developing your own point of pathways. For example, dominant and subdominant trajectories function as the view is one of the by-products of creativity and self-examination. possible calculated pathways that can be traveled, with rhythmic cycles The pitches are colored red and blue to complete the symbolism, as fulfilling a similar function. What is less obvious is that the melodies and red represents the physiological and physical and blue the psychological rhythms could correlate to the actual choices made during travel, negotiating and spiritual, as we saw in the previous section on the mancy of colors. between the objects whose mass is responsible for the creation of the path Symbolism for characteristics and attributes could be developed for tonal ways. As mentioned, the Lagrange points are balanced areas of equilibrium, configurations in much the same way as has traditionally been done in nodes where changes in direction can be made with minimum energy. astrology. I will speak more on this later in this section. Therefore, what is required as our musical analog is that there is balance Another musical model could be based on gravity forces in the between whatever two objects we assign as corresponding to pairs of bodies in solar system. For example, one of the main instruments for measuring the space, and then define possible equilibrium positions relative to these bodies. pressure waves that move inside the sun (p-modes) is SOHO (SOlar and The two pairs of tritone nodes could also represent these Lagrange Heliospheric Observatory), which is a spacecraft located near the L-1 points. In this case, the tritones are not bodies such as planets; these tritones Lagrange point, a point of balance about L5 million kilometers towards the symbolize points orbiting in balanced sync with the planets. As we are Sun from Earth, where a small body could theoretically remain stationary concerned with negotiating pathways, our focus is on rhythm and melody. relative to the Sun and Earth. There are five of these points relative to any The Lagrange points are not completely stable, as they are acted on two large bodies orbiting bodies, so in effect there are many of these loca by centripetal and centrifugal forces. There are many ways to formulate tions throughout the solar system. musical correspondences to the ITN: One possible analogy to the musical matrix is the Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN), which is "a collection of gravitationally deter mined pathways through the solar system that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations where trajectories through space can be redirected using little or no energy. These points have the peculiar property of allowing objects to orbit around them, despite the absence of any material object therein."*' The nodes of the musical matrix function simliar to Lu^TUTlg^n pOltltSy 11 . . in that these are pre. cisely the points where the change of direction 89. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network accessed September 9,2009. \. The tonic of the main dominant corresponds to the centripetal force, the other tonic a tritone away being symbolic of the cen trifugal force. 2. The positive dominants represent the centripetal force while the negative dominants symbolize the centrifugal force. 3. The positive and negative dominants correspond to the cen tripetal force. The positive and negative subdominants symbol ize the centrifugal force. Different logics may serve different symbolic purposes. Like Nature, is more easily accomplished. An analogy could be made to the ITN, where there need not be one static approach. The concept that has most perplexed by a player could engage in musical travel (melodic or rhythmic) from one modern man's attempt to understand the approach of the ancients was the location to another using very little energy (i.e., less tension). In musical circular thinking, the multiplicity of approaches that were used in perfect terms I call these Invisible Paths, through which one can easily slip from one tonal location to another. The tonal locations functioning as loci of harmony with each other. The Lagrange points could represent the positive and negative balanced energy are the nodes, through which melodies and harmonies harmonic means between the tones C:G:C ascending (E-ßl*) and G:C:G 82 83 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN descending (EI'-A) respectively. This idea is based on the musical gravity of the two objects C and G. Depending on how they are functioning, their respective gravitation attraction are not equal. In this concept, the Lagrangian points are the equilibrium points Bmaj7 D7 Gmaj7 hh El'maj7 This is basically composed of ahernating static and dynamic struc tures, respectively. Functionally, if we remove the quadrature angles, this pro gression is the same as a descending cycle of 5ths (or descending semitones) within the constellation of dominants. They are the points where a musician could either pivot within a path (using a minimal amount of energy), or Bmaj7 B7 Emaj7 E7 Amaj7 continue on and be pulled in the direction of a particular musical mass. Bmaj7 B7 Bl'maj7 BÌ'7 Amaj7 Using musical correspondence number 3 above, a pull in the dominant where the A/D^ and D/G^ tritones (2nd and 4th chords) have the function of direction means being attracted by the gravitation pull of tonics (centripetal the Lagrange points, and act as pivot points for the changes in direction. motion). Escape velocity is required to move in the centrifugal direction, However, in the same locations, C/I^ and F/B—^which are at quadrature angles and this requires more energy, and musical cunning. to the previous tritones—^would have functioned in essentially the same way. The results of these movements are similar to the result achieved by Nature, a kaleidoscopic assortment of energy, color, and polarity that Bmaj7 Amin6 Emaj7 influences the movement of the passions of the soul. This arrangement of Bmaj7 E^'minó Bl'maj7 Dmin6 Amaj7 Dmin6 Amaj7 colors and moods is reflected in music, from simple to more complex pro There are many variations. For example, we could extend the num gressions, all determined by the needs and purposes of the musician. Here ber of Lagrange points while still serving the same functions, but traveling is a very simple extemporization based on the last four measures of the song along very different paths (e.g., colors) that lead to the same destination. Cherokee, where the descending tritone pairs E-B^ and E^'-A are presented in alternate opposition containments: Bmaj7 Amin6 Gmin6 Bmin6 El'maj7 AWnó Cmin6 Emin6 Bmin6 El'maj7 And this is just assuming that we keep the harmonic rhythm the same, and of course the timing can be changed as well. Here we can use the analogy of weaving to symbolize this process. Weaving, in ancient Egyptian Figure 25. Cherokee last four measures. culture, was symbolic of the act of creation. The Egyptian neter Neit sym bolizes, among other things, the creative function of weaving, e.g., the I will present a few more complex examples below. I would like to drawing together the spiritual essence and instinctual functions (while the state that, though this example is simple and may be familiar to many in the Memphite neter Khnum, the divine potter, apportions and allocates form of another concept, what I am discussing here is not about playing on instincts to physical forms of life). The weaving deity Neit also symbolizes top of a particular chord. Although there is clearly some overlap between the idea of weft and warp, the invisible Matrix of the world (analogous to these approaches, the concept discussed here is about the pathway that will the musical matrix). Even the name Neit means to weave or to knit. There lead gravitationally to the desired destination. is also symbolism relating to the weaving of the cocoon, which symbolizes What makes the above example simple is that it does not take full rebirth, regeneration and spiritual transformation. In many West African advantage of the quadrature relationships. Coltrane's composition Giant cultures weaving was symbolic of the act of creation; this was true among Steps is a perfect example of these kind of pathways, only because in its orig the Dogon, for example. There have been many connections made between inal form it already contains alternate dominant-tonic pathways. The orig the ancient Egyptian and Dogon cultures, both in terms of symbolism and inal opening progression is as follows: in terms of the speculated migration routes of the people of ancient Egypt after that culture's dissolution. 84 85 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN Moving on to the temporal realm, for many years I have been work ing with musical expressions of what can be called natural rhythms, where I not only imagine dynamic rhythmic structures that in many ways imitate the motion of our solar system, but also attempt to emulate the symbolic ener gies associated with these structures. Here is a graphic representation, recre ated by computer programmer/musician Takahiko Suzuki, of a composition of mine called Wheel of Nature."^ The graphic represents the rhythms and rhythmic time span relationships in my composition, which are symbolized as objects orbiting counterclock 90. Suzuki's work was inspired by a graphic created by Benoit Black and programmed by François Reme, which in turn was also inspired by and represents the composi tion Wheel of Nature. wise around a shared barycenter. The graphics below are frozen shots of the animation that Takahiko programmed. Each Figure 29. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 10. Figure 28. Wheel of N<i£«re—Rotation 2. graphic represents the moment in the cycle where the bass is returning to its original position, called a return in astrology. The red objects on the red inner circle represent the movement of the bass, the green orbit and objects represent the clave, while the blue and white orbits represent the path of the bass drum and snare drum hits respectively. The resulting charts of sixteen rotations are symmetrically related in pairs. Each one of these configurations is a static symbol, each an orb in a dynamic process, representing the movements just before and after the frozen moment represented by each symbol. Even though there is a lot of time between each rotation, these symbols represent what all symbols of movement represent, discrete increments that represent states within a continuum: Figure 31. Wheelof Nature—Kaution 11. Figure 30. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 3. Figure 27. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 9. Figure 26. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 1. Figure 33. Wheel of Nature—Kaution 12. Figure 32. Wheel of Nature—Kounon 4. 86 87 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN 1^^ Figure 34. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 5. Figure 35. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 13. Figure 40. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 8. Figure 41. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 16. while it is possible to analyze the rhythmic sentences in a manner similar to that developed by Ghanaian scholar Willie Anku,'^ it is also possible to interpret the symbolic form of these figures in a similar approach as is utilized with astrology, geomancy, numerology and other divinatory practices.'^ This could be done through the use of correlative thought, by corresponding the configuration of the musical structures with philosophical principles, and associating the musical geometry with the laws of nature. The art of corresponding moving geome Figure 36. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 6. Figure 37. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 14. try with philosophical ideas is well established within the discipline of astrology. Those who 91. Structural Set Analysis of African M usic: i-Adowa, i-Bawa. (Willie Anku-Legon Ghana). 92. These figures have somewhat of a geomantic appearance. Geomancy is a divinatory system that uses markings on the ground of patterns of soil, rocks, sand, lines or figures. Both Ifa (West Africa) and the I Ching (China) are forms of geoman cy. Numerology is an esoteric system based on the occultstudy of numbers, their mean ings and their influence on human affairs; it is frequently used in divination. The general principle is that symbolized in the numerical value of a thing's name can be found an idea related to that name's essence or essential force. study these arcane matters describe in symbolism the character of geometric angles, based upon the division of the circle. In general terms, the circle divided by 2, 4 or 8, produces angles of 45 , 90 , 135°, 180°, 225°, 270° and 315°, representing a kind of stress or tension. The division of the circle by 3 or 6 produces angles of 60°, 120°, 240° and 300° (not including the 180° opposition), symbolizing more of an equilibrium that implies a flow of energy with a minimum of resistance. Though we identify cyclic relationships of planets using the aspects formed during their orbital periods, the truth is that most of the time these relationships are in a state of becoming, a Figure 38. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 7. Figure 39. Wheel of Nature—Rotation 15. 88 constant state of applying and separating.'^ The 89 93. When the distance between two plan ets in aspect is narrowing towards an exact aspect, the aspect is said to be an applying aspect. When the distance between two planets in aspect is widening away from the exact, it is said to be a separating aspect. htlp://www.djay.com/astrol/ap_ 12.html accessed September 9, 2009. COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE harmonic state is mostly an ideal in our minds, II: 94. This is related to the concept of seeking, the idea that Nature is constantly seeking conditions of equilibrium. However, this is a fluid principle, as once a state of equi librium has been reached it is immediately counterbalanced by other conditions, caus ing the seeking to begin anew. This is a constant process which can be observed everywhere in nature, including in the motions of the planets in the solar system. This was also a concept used in music where, theoretically, imperfect intervals and rhythms were thought to seek perfect intervals and rhythms. In practice, I believe that the music of J.S. Bach, John Coltrane and others in part attempted to reflect Nature, in thesense that the seeking process is continually renewed, therefore producing what appears to be varying degrees of ten sion referencing moments equilibrium. and in any case the exact harmonic state is the briefest of moments. If music is to be a reflection of the methods used by Nature, it should spend the vast majority of its time in this dynamic state of becoming, in various degrees of what could be called tension, with only brief references to is?^ Still, it is through quantizing that the human mind most quickly comes to terms with Nature. So, it may be instructive to start with fixed posi tions and angles as yardsticks or landmarks, in order to keep one's bearings. Most modern notation is based on a 95. The bass cycle is shorter than the clave, so I think of the two bass repetidons as being one cycle. In other words, the bass and clave together are one rhythm, the length of which is equal to the length of the clave. linear concept; this is the approach of the dom inant cultures today. Therefore, it is much easier for people trained from this perspective to grasp 96. The keywords listed after rhythmic patterns A through H, are paraphrased from Full-Phase Book (Michael Erlewine), e-book, pp. 40-^0. the circular diagrams above if they are notated in a linear fashion. Since the harmonic relation ship of the clave and the bass is 1:2 (clave = 1, bass = 2), I will only describe the relationship of the clave to the drums. The clave of Wheel of Nature could be notated as follows:'^ II:* X X X X of die cycle, every symbol written is one tick on the time scale, including "a"): X _ x X x x _ X X _ _ X _ _ : I I If we combine the cycles of the clave and the drums, then we get the following patterns, when notated usmg the linear approach: II'* * * II- a X x x _ X X * x _ : l l = clave X _ x X aXxx_X X_:ll = drums D (waxing sesquiquadrate—135°—adjustment) II; X X x x _ X X X :ll = drums E (opposition—180°—full experience) l l : a X x x _ X X _ x X x x : l l = drumsF (waning sesquiquadrate—225°—facilitate, adapting) II: _ X • X X a : X x x _ X ;ll = d r u m s G (waning square—270°—objectivity, beyond manifestation, metaphysical) II: X _ x X x x _ X X_:ll = drumsH (waning semisquare—315°—preparation for closure) W: _ X ^ X X X _ X X _ X :ll = drums A (conjunction—0°—seed impulse or new start) ;ll = drums A (conjunction, same as top, but with the second beat sounding) When considering rhythmic cycles, the shorter cycle always deter mines the phase of the angle. The angle is waxing when the shorter cycle is ahead of the longer cycle, and moving towards opposition. The angle is waning when the shorter cycle is behind the longer cycle, and moving towards conjunction. Because of the rhythms involved, it is difficult to tell when one cycle is ahead of another, so it is best to think of waxing as grow ing and moving towards opposition. Then waning means shrinking and moving towards conjunction.'^ x_:ll The drums would then be notated (X = bass drum, x = snare, "a" = start l l : 2 ^ X x x _ X X In Wheel of Nature it is the clave, in rela 97. See note 20. tion to the drums, that determines the nature of the angle. One way of know ing that you are coming to the opposition is that the two short hits of the clave (the hits separated only by one tick) hit together with the bass drum then the snare drum (just before you come into opposition). This point is a kind of resolution, a point where balance is temporarily achieved through rhythmic voice-leading. Similar to tonal harmony, rhythmic harmony occurs around the points of simplest proportions, e.g., 1:1, 2:1, etc. In this case, the moments near the conjunction and opposition are the most har monious, with the square angles being the next harmonious relationships. Other than conjunction and opposition, the angles listed above l l : _ X x x _ X X X & X x x : l l = drums B (waxing semisquare—45°—overcome resistance) II: - X_ X _ x X x x _ X (waxing square—90°—initial manifestation) 90 (square, semisquare, sesquiquadrate) are called 8th harmonic aspects (the circle divided by 8), and these angles represent a series of rhythmic mid :ll = drums C points. The opposition is the midpoint between two conjunctions; the square is a midpoint between the conjunction and the opposition; the semi91 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE square is a midpoint between the conjunction and the square; and the by looking at the configurations of clouds, feeUng the wind and humidity, sesquiquadrate is a midpoint between the square and the opposition. It is all and in ancient times watching the reactions of animals. We know that a about balance, a principle that is innate to Nature. The 8th harmonic aspects storm is coming because of the many times an actual storm followed simi symboHze some kind of challenge, tension and action, while the 6th har lar combinations of conditions. This intuition is based on the memory of the experience. monic aspects (sextiles and trines) symbolize physical growth, harmonious flow of energy and rest. For centuries, humans have paid homage to Nature by creating in If you stare at Figures 26 through 41 long enough, using them in Nature's image and according to what is perceived to be the laws of Nature. the way one would use yantras, you will see patterns emerge, symmetries Many use the ancient maxim "as above, so below" to illustrate the connect that can be used to balance and focus the mental faculties (thought, memo edness between principles governing the cosmic world and the natural ry, perception, imagination, consciousness, intuition, emotion, etc.). world (on Earth), otherwise known as the macrocosm and microcosm, Rhythms that cycle at different time spans have a quality that is similar to respectively. However, care must be taken with these analogies, for even what occurs during the relationships of planetary cycles. It is even possible though the same universal principles may be at work, a different attitude to construct a rhythm that has the illusion of moving faster at certain points is required to approach the various realms. Therefore, in the spirit of Sokar, of its cycle, similar to the eccentric orbit of Pluto. The esoterically inclined we need to adjust our orientation when making correspondences between could study the effects of such combinations and apply symboHsm much in the laws of Nature and the laws of humans." the way that astrologers have done. The main difference between the musi This is the meaning behind the second part of cal realization and the astrological perspective is the temporal spans the maxim "as above, so below, yet after another involved. With astrology, these aspects have an effect over time period of manner."'^ hours, days, months and even years; with rhythms, however, the effect is Musicians can use this same approach measured in minutes and hours. This is similar to the difference in the vibra to transcribe the quality and characteristic of time tions of pitches over periods of time measured in seconds versus rhythmic cycles measured in minutes. into music. This is not something that you just create out of thin air, it is also based on experi 98. According to Peter Tompkins and Livio Stecchini, in Old Kingdom Egypt, Sokar v/zs the god of orientatioi^ see Secrets of the Great Pyramid (Peter Tompkinswith appendix by Livio Stecchini), pp. i8i, 297. 99. The Astrology of Local Space (Michael Erlewine), e-book, pp. 71-73. Also, in a personal communication Erlewine stressed to me the importance of the second half of this phrase "yet after another manner," in his description of the different perspec tives that were necessary in consideration of the various astrological coordinate sys tems, or as he referred to them; wheels within wheels. In the development of the art of astrology, the practice of associat ences, the memory of the events and effects ing effects with geometric configurations was developed from centuries of that occurred during particular arrangements of experience and observation, primarily based on the memory of which dynamic pitch and rhythm configurations. This events occurred during particular celestial formations. This knowledge was knowledge is also recorded and passed down to future generations, who recorded and passed down to future generations, who then added their own then add their own observations based on their experiences. Like Kepler, empirical observations. Even if the actual physical cause of characteristics— we may not always know the reasons why some configurations and move correlated with a certain celestial formation—^was not known, it was accept ments have the effect that they do, but lack of specific knowledge should ed that there was a connection, and usually the actual cause was attributed not prevent us from using the information, although we should always to the intervention of a supernatural being or god. Humans still do this in current times. strive to learn more about the mechanics of our craft. Everyday we use For example, Johannes Kepler, in disagreement with his contempo In the section on astrology there was a description of a tonal rary Galileo, knew from observations that there was a connection between system that has some analogies to the solar system. Also discussed was the the phases of the Moon and the tides on Earth, even though the explanation importance of syzygy and quadrature relationship« among the planets, machines whose mechanics we have Httle knowledge of. of the cause had to wait until the theories of Isaac Newton. We even do this which lead to a demonstration of the 90° dial and its relationship to the intuitively; we learn the feeling of when there is about to be a bad storm just musical matrix. Earlier in the present section we discussed the musical and 92 93 REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE COLEMAN symbolic significance of quadrature relationships in regards to melody, har It is mostly a matter of the musician being able to shift perspective to imag mony and rhythm, giving some examples as well.'°° It is clear that these ine these points of views (the Sokar principle): angles appear to hold some cosmic significance (effects on the Sun, and the resultant influence on the solar system and on human affairs), and they also appear to affect humans psychically and emotionally. This may be because natural princi ples of dynamic symmetry may produce very strong effects on organic and inorganic matter, as well as on a variety of non-physical phenomena, 100. Among the topics discussed were Earth-Venus oppositions and conjunc tions in quadrature relationships with Jupiter (their effect on solar tidal forcing and also some analogies to music), the Interplanetary Transport Network^ Coltrane's Giant StepSy and the composition Wheel of Nature. 101. These non-physical phenomena include as yet undiscovered types of energy, feel ings, thoughts, behavior, metaphysical phenomena» etc. about which we know very litde.'°' Regarding the musical transcription of temporal characteristics, similar dynamic symmetry techniques could be utilized to derive melodic, Figure 43. Musical Psychic Effect 2. harmonic and rhythmic formations that, by analogy, could function in com parable ways. These tonal configurations tend to function in ways that not Again, it is not necessary to experience this in physical form, no only color music, but also produce psychic effects and changes in perspec more than we have direct experience of Jupiter orbiting the Sun. It was tive that can be disorienting: through deduction that humans arrived at the hehocentric point of view of our solar system, confirmed by subsequent experiments. We can do the same with music; the melodic expression can be some combination of the exact balancing of the melodic tones (i.e., exact melodic symmetry) and an approximate balancing of tones (e.g., following Nature s method of using elliptical orbits). Here we show this technique using rhythm changes in as our template: Figure 42. Musical Psychic Effect I. The Moon orbits the Earth while other moons orbit other planets, as these planets orbit the Sun. So it is with melody, where we can have tones orbit other tones, which then can be seen to orbit in groups around pivotal pitch collections. The balance of melodies (melodic symmetry, contrary and obUque motion, etc.) has been practiced for centuries in music, and was dis cussed in ancient times. It is basically theory derived from the proximity of tones to others, the movement of tones, and how pitches are perceived to attract and repel each other in a local environment, that is, local in pitch space and local in time. In this sense, melodies can also be seen from the per Figure 44. Effect 3 on Rhythm Changes. spective of absolute tonal gravity, analogous to how the solar system works. 94 95 COLEMAN REGARDING THE SONIC SYMBOLISM OF WHEN AND WHERE The accidentals are intentional, giving a clue for those interested to music as a symbolic language to communicate ideas of a metaphysical decode the Invisible Paths. The astronomical concept that we could use as nature, particularly by the use of analogy to the laws of Nature. However, an analogy is that of the ITN (Interplanetary Transport Network). With there is more to this than the symboUc representation of qualities of space spontaneous composition, there is a certain amount of calculation done and time, through the use of sound, shapes, color and their movements. A beforehand, and a certain amount that is spontaneous. We need to internal musician can slowly develop another kind of sensibility that allows for see ize fundamental functions if we want to increase the percentage of sponta ing things from different perspectives. Better yet, when a musician can alone neous creations. The development of our memory of shapes, sounds and (without the aid of a band) physically express the harmonic relationships of touch is extremely helpful towards accomphshing this. tones and movement (rhythm) that were previously beyond reach, there is Memory is important for musicians. The major types of memory a certain kind of joy in the way the internal passions move as a result of the are visual (relating to the sense of sight), audile (relating to the sense of changing relationships. I believe that when you learn something new, a sound), motile (mental imagery relating to moving and motion)—along reordering goes on inside the psyche, new neurons are generated and new with the lesser used gustatory (relating to the sense of taste), olfactory (relat- neural pathways are constructed within the mind in unfamiliar configura ing to the sense of smell) and tactile (related to the sense of touch). To these tions that somehow reflect the relationships being internahzed. The result is physical senses I would add the memory of emotional and spiritual impres that, slowly, you become a different person. And it is possible that listeners sions. Developing and refining the senses and memory aids a spontaneous who are psychically, intellectually, emotionally or spiritually in proximity composer in expressing a particular quality of a moment. to the same vibrations may also have something of a revelatory experience. I have experienced this time and again, and I know others who have as well. Conclusion In fact, it was listening to the music of past masters that led me in this direc Much of human activity has been devoted to the concept of balance. The tion in the first place. ancient Egyptians saw the neter Ma'at as representing the principle of bal In ancient Greece there were three styles of rhythmic composition, ance, which they equated with truth, order, law, morality and justice. Their and three styles of melodic composition that balanced each other: contract entire civiHzation was based on the principles of timing, placement and ing {"through which we move the painful passions"), expanding (^through being in balance with Nature. The concept of balance was also of vital which we awaken the spirit") and soothing {"through which we bring importance for the civilization of the ancient Chinese, who saw the universe the soul round to quietude").The use of as consisting of forces of dynamic equilibrium called yin and yang, comple mentary opposites that exist inside of a larger whole. For example, the prin 102. Strunk, Treitler, p. 65 (Aristides) and p. 45 (Cleonides). 103. Strunk, Treitler, p. 65 (Aristides). ciples behind acupuncture are designed to bnng the body's energy into a thesc styles gave the composition in qucstion , . Its characteristic ethos.This was the basic 1 1 • 1 • • • approach used in many other ancient societies. This reminds me of a conversation that I had state of balance between yin and yang. Balance, placement and timing are also very important for music, with saxophonist Sonny Rollins. He told me that there are only two types being fundamental to the temporal and tuning systems of world cultures. of music, that which expands consciousness and that which contracts it. Rhythmic, melodic and harmonic concepts are born out of these ideas, Sonny also said that much of what a person hears everyday acts to contract, examples being the development of the rhythmic and melodic modes, coun but that he wants to be a part of that tradition that performs music that terpoint and the concept of the triad. For example, dual and triple qualities act as counterpoise to each other in music, and this is also reflected in expands consciousness.^'^ This statement elo104. Sonny Rollins (personal communications, C.2001). 1 1 • quently sums up the entire paper. ancient myths, religions and philosophies. Various symbolic languages have been created to express these forces of dynamic equilibrium. In this article, I have given examples of various approaches to using 96 Many thanks to Patricia Magalhaes for the invaluable help in proofreading and editing this essay. However unclear my presentation appears, it would have been a lot worse without Patricia's help! 97 CHAPTER 4 WHEN I SAW KOSUGI GET INTO A LARGE DUFFLE-BAG WITH HIS GUITAR when does ecstasy kick in? When do we leave for Ain Sof? Christian Wolff had already intuited it: take some sticks, take some WHEN I SAW KOSUGI GET INTO A LARGE DUFFLE'BAG WITH HIS GUITAR stones; just as the Aborigines have done for millennia, incorporate these ALVIN CURRAN to cue another player to imitate, ignore, follow, or simply play nothing, humble instruments into your life, your soul, divine your "song-lines" with them, chant with them, move, dance, step into time, step out of time, nod maybe a long tone; hold your breath, hyperventilate, walk through walls, disappear. My first memory of Stones was a '60s performance by Cornelius Cardew and friends at the old Roundhouse in London; exquisite simplicity get into a large duffle-bag with his guitar, have himself focused on these utterly ubiquitous humble rocks found on any unexploit- zipped up and start his rolling across the floor of John Phetteplace's living ed surface of our planet. Volcanic vomit, geodes, crystals, compressed room, overlooking Hadrian s magnificent Pantheon in the heart of old- sea-life, prehistoric animal behavior, lithophones, bang, scratch, tap, slug, WhenlsawKosugi Rome, I thought, who is this meschuganah Houdini, this Zen Dadaist, this rub smash pound stones. Rzewski's glass plate (in the shape of a piano), Fluxus Troubadour. In truth, I really don't remember what I thought contact-amplified, screeched with plastic scratchers, buzzed with a sex- because in the late 1960s all this avantguard behavior of going-nowhere in vibrator, drummed with the fingers like a dumbeg, struck with soft mallets, snail-like pathological concentration, was not only new to me, but as comes from the same Instrumentarium. Annea Lockwood heaved old TV attractive and beguiling as it was distressing. Is this the new music-theater? monitors in the midst of her divine glass installation in London's Middle The future weather of music composition? Who needs it? What am I get Earth, later she took whole rivers and re-tuned them, renamed them in ting into? Will he come out alive? Today, I ask only: how close can you sound. Robert Ashley came from Dust, got up and howled like a wolf with get to the sound you make, how intimately fused? In performance, how shades on; Joan Jonas took a mirror and viewed every part of her naked invisible can your body and instrument become? And how long can you body in silence as she moved adagio in quasi dance stasis in a Borromini fly like this, unseen? Chapel; Meredith Monk enchanted us with nina-nanas sung over the edge Kosugi rolled a tempo d'avanguardia slowly, unevenly and inex of her tuned brandy-glass. Lucier sat in a room (wall to wall carpeted) and orably for some thirty esoteric minutes until the 21' path between the captured its resonant breath; Maryanne Amacher magically moved the spectators ended. All we heard was a muffled succession of shwooshes, sound of the room around your head, making you look behind you to find vroomps, thumps, plinks, crunches and rhetorical chance-induced silences, the hidden speakers—there weren't any. Joan La Barbara sang in seemless made by his small body in contact with the guitar casing, strings and his looped circles while breathing in as well as out. Teitelbaum went straight body bag of ritual performance-art. The floor, the clothes, the bag, the body, into the brain without surgery to extract its tricky Alpha waves; Pauline O the guitar, the air, the space, the audience, all suffocatingly enclosed, all went into caves or resonant abandoned wells and got people to sing the rolling in the dark, all sounding. Kosugi kidnapped us, zipped us all in there space, play the space, become the space. Chiari, when tired of standing still with him, blind, cramped, aleatorie, meschugah, claustrophobic, sounding. before a piano keyboard, let gravity determine when he would fall on it. Who dared stand apart objectively, and simply watch wait and listen unruffled? Cage went straight to the hothouse and made the amplified cactus plant his We were not only a transfigured part of the artist's mimetic act, but our orchestra. Diamanda, wielding steak knives, spit menstrual blood into the selves bag-people, turning over in the preposterous fetal action with him. public's face through two mics. MEV attempted to liberate whole audiences Where he went, we went, what he unintentionally plucked, we plucked... by inviting them into the music—de facto making them the music; police Admittedly, nothing new in Absurdity; but where does the theatrical ritual. and fire departments were often called in. Art's big ego, and all the mumbo-jumbo end and the transcendence begin? 98 These were no mean times, those cambrian '70s, they were experi99 CURRAN WHEN I SAW KOSUGI GET INTO A LARGE DUFFLE-BAG WITH HIS GUITAR mental. Nothing was downloadable, it was already there—^you just had to human activity which provides (without any guarantee) that by becoming find it. So everyone was searching for every imaginable audible vibration, sound we can and do momentarily disappear into an un-nameable space of every concept and sounding object; everyone it seemed was poised for a dis ecstatic potential. covery, nay, a reconfirmation, that any sounding experience can be a simple Is it after all a big leap if we sail from Hildegard von Bingen's fiery means of transport out of our commonly shared reality. Any musician monophonies to Beethoven's late string quartets and piano sonatas, Scriabin, worth their chord-changes knows this anyway. This is essentially what all Busoni, Sorabji, Sousa to Webern, Ellington, Billie Holiday, Pranath, music is, a universal system of transport, which in special conditions enables Thelonius, Coltrane, Cecil, La Monte Young, Branca, Braxton, Riley, Partch, both the players and the listeners to momentarily disappear—step out of Palestine, Evan Parker, Messaien, Zorn, Carter, Um Kalsum, Xenakis, Ligeti, quantifiable time and space, simply by becoming the sound they are mak the Dagar Brothers, Gubaidulina, Amacher, the Mevlevi, Jonathan Harvey, ing and hearing, sharing. Ustvolskaia, Karlheinz, Scelsi, Nono, and Feldman?... what links them but Once during a student occupation of the National Theater Academy for their singular concentration of sonic energy and their means to construct, m Rome, I asked 150 students to lie on the floor, and start to quietly gurgle focus and release it. And while they may appear here as just a few names their vocal cords on the lowest possible frequencies. This ended ninety min dropped out of my own hat, they've all given me repeated free rides out utes later with all of them wailing, howhng, singing a spontaneous Living space and time. But the mystical experience is not just limited to these Theatre Oratorio no one could have foreseen; the whole room seemed to well known artists and their inimitable diverse musics—many of whom levitate in an amalgam of renaissance architecture, walls of sound, ceilings consciously, willfully inhabit these "altered states" obsessed with artistic of robed muses, floor dirt, unclassified mold, human breath, saliva and carefree student sweat. fervor, spiritual imaginings and verifiable magnetism. It can happen just These sonic fireballs walking down the street, driving a car, having an orgasm, dreaming. were common in MEV music where the There is no question in my mind that as professional musicians, we primitive means of amphfication and the raw ground beef of oscillator gas, fill a societal role not unlike that of dedicated spiritual and religious leaders. screaming reed mash, thwanging bedspring booms rocking the pavements While the latter—using only the spoken or sung word—may guide their in the lowest Hz cellars, made the art of spontaneous collective music-mak- hsteners to predictably desired places, the musicians guide their listeners ing, the art of becoming music itself. True, the symphonists, as the Tibetan through pure sound of any making, aimed at reaching remarkable but monks, and the Inuit throat-singers and Uighur Shamans and the Coltranes, unpredictable states of extreme well being, and they do this clearly without do this too, but they are a coordinated body agreeing expectedly to play a any sermons, hype or guarantees of any kind. This is the real musical gift known and more or less repeatable "score." Free improv, through wÜlful and gift of music and the only area where the adjective "free" applies—the mutual trust, hyper-attentive listening and an informal belief in street- trip is always free. magic, is the collective creation and realization of a "score" in real time— Music inspired by the order or disorder of the cosmos or other nat a fusion of multiple minds and bodies into something no one, yet, has ural phenomena is evident in anthropological studies... mimesis of this kind adequately been able to describe. In the early MEV times, states were arrived at that can not be found on any maps. can be found particularly in the music of western composers such as Hoist, Scriabin, Hovahness, Rudhyar, Messaien, Stockhausen, Scelsi, Oliveros, It is no wonder, that after food and water, music can be the most Evangelisti; but the real mysticism in our music lies much less in these par important Hfe sustaining substance, intangible as it is. And if I understand allels of structural simulacra or in awesome events than in the ordinary mysticism and its universal potential for social unity and material transcen experience of human musical perception, where inexplicable sequences and dence (primarily through sound, I'd say), all of these tales contain some combination of tones, densities, timbres and durations can simply and thing of the mystic, the inexplicable, numinous, unknowable. Music—some momentarily melt away the physical sense of being and leave us for a kind of socially purposeful resonating of objects and people, is the one moment egoless in ecstatic nakedness. 100 101 CURRAN WHEN I SAW KOSUGI GET INTO A LARGE DUFFLE-BAG WITH HIS GUITAR Since 1945, as in all post cataclysmic times, we have been living— contemporary species of the mid-'60s, it felt at home in all the musically speaking—an extended period of mourning and extraordinary Meteorological quadrants N/S/E/W of our planet and in all time-zones reconstruction. The world then, as we westerners knew it, was broken.. .the especially those unmeasurable by science. Mine was a generation of landscape one of endless death, destruction and rubble. Young musicians overnight-Utopian-practitioners who imagined they could re-invent the like Varèse, Cage, Babbitt, Beno, Boulez, Maderna, Nono, Goevaerts, wheels on their VW buses. SpirituaHty—with a capital S, was in; gurus Xenakis, Ligeti, Stockhausen, Carter, Nancarrow, Partch—ali honorable were in every store-front. Everything was "natural, " and from Granóla to anti-fascists, set themselves the immense task of cleaning up and putting gamelans, didgeridoos to the Doors, yoghurt to yurts, all alleged to be free some artistic order and meaning back into the horror-filled streets. Their tickets to an ecstatic experience. music assumed the massive psychophysical task of renewal; it let go of My own work, whether simple monophonies, or wailing-walls of Beethoven the father, and grasped on to the revolutionary hands of contrapuntal voices, or solo piano works knitted in sequence for six hours, Schoenberg and Webern. But even in its muscular determination, expressed or even harbors full of hocketing ship horns, never consciously sohcits the often in violent fits of clustered fragmentation and hurled canisters of aton mystical, but knows intuitively it's out there, and that in certain "atmos al madness, the music of these new young lions always let rays of transcen pheric" conditions anything audible may combine to produce the disori dent lyricism break through the intentional disorder—exuding warmth, enting but pleasurable sensations of not having a body or a mind that security and humanity; but these musics with their fresh 12-tone warran responds to you and your name, and without an identity—no papers—you tees, imagined themselves momentarily to be like pure science, beyond the momentarily step out of time into another space; If this is not mystical, it is fuzziness of human emotion, intuition and spiritual longing. Their basic indeed very mysterious phenomena. message remained largely free of religion and sentimentality and humor; it While I personally have no key or even license to produce these focused relentlessly on the "never again" mantra, and through years of states at will, such occurrences are understandably among my most trea inspired musical destabilization led to a persuasive musical order—a new sured artistic memories; they might even explain why human beings, who common practice and universal second language. by definition are musical animals, may appear in forms of flesh and blood My generation, born in America, was in fact musically schooled in and pure sound simultaneously. this Gesang der Jünglinge Gulag and Second Viennese Concentration camp (i.e. forced retrograded inverted permutation marches). Here we made rational music from second-hand bails of barbed wire and buckets of shards that got dumped willy-nilly on the graves of Bach and Beethoven— without really knowing anything about where this all came from. We were in fact all pretending to be mathematicians posing as composers dropping names like Boole, Bernoulli and Fibonacci to give us street-creds. But by the end of the 1960s many of us turned in our 12-tone Union Cards for plates of comforting C major sushi-downtown-style. The minimaHst bombshell together with the improv s maximal-liberation theology opened an unan nounced breach into the already volatile contemporary music world, chal lenging the entire Eurocentric construct. My own music was born speaking all of the above languages at once from Dixie to Xenakis, Braxton to Terry and La Monte, the Shted to the Kitchen. Like a plant with multiple grafts on one stalk—a common 102 103 CHAPTER 5 THE MUSICIAN MYTH AND THE FAILED QUEST an inviolable inner sanctuary of ascetic purity from a celebration of the abundant cornucopia of the natural world. In this arena all are continually THE MUSICIAN MYTH AND THE FAILED QUEST forming and dissolving. Nothing is fixed. It is a place of constant metamor FRANK DENYER tug of war between gods and demons in an ocean of milk. The hidden phoses where anything can in a moment become its opposite, a sea of limitless potential. In the Mahabharata, this primal state is shown as an epic conflict beneath the ocean's surface is the power that churns the milk and produces the nectar of immortality, and ultimately all the blessings of civil isation including language and music. Saraswati, the specific goddess of imagining new emotional/aesthetic territoriesfor music and attempting to bring them into existence makes the musician susceptible to very particular, occa sionally life threatening occupational hazards. It is these that I will attempt to explore in what follows. music and self- knowledge, is a river, whose inherent nature is similarly fluid, and like music, an endlessly flowing source of fertiUty and growth. Not surprisingly, therefore, the most frequently found symbols associated with music are intermediaries between this "other" fluid state It is obvious that music can provide a door to imaginative and and our dry one, creatures that are at home in two or more different phys emotional spheres to which there are no more direct routes. At the simplest ical environments. Water birds for example, like ducks, geese, or herons, level, music can be a special stimulus for the recovery of distant personal have strong musical associations in many cultures and it is therefore natur memories and can thereby bring the dead back to a sort of ephemeral life, al that swans should embody the Greek Muses, as well as being depicted in as we can see from even a casual glance at the part music plays in the lives India at the feet of Saraswati. Amphibian reptiles like snakes, with their of individuals, or as it appears in poetry and literature. And yet its efficacy ease of transit through both earth and water, are similarly ubiquitous. We is not limited to memories of a personal past, for it seems equally effective might cite the carved snakes that are usually crawling all over Bahnese and at conjuring up collective pasts as well. We can all testify to music's uncan Javanese gamelans, or the European serpent, or the nagas of India, the latter ny ability to articulate the essence of a specific time and place, providing an imagined as giant serpents beneath the sea guarding a secret treasure and insight that is different from any gleaned through the written word or known for their special musical skills. visual representations. Furthermore, music can face the other way too, and All such creatures can be seen as helpful guides through whom like Mephistopheles bring us potent intimations of futures towards which musicians gain their knowledge of other realms. As musical instruments we are attracted or repelled by our deepest unformulated instincts—worlds yet to come. they become their means of transport. One amphibious reptile, the turtle, From here it is but one small step to those stranger inner worlds of Egyptian/Greek story. The Indonesian kaçapi may be a zither but its name through death and resurrection, became the original lyre according to the poetry and die imagination that present limidess horizons where aesthetic and form proclaim it to be a crocodile. True amphibians like frogs and and moral imperatives are part of an always fluid potential, and where salamanders, marine mammals like dolphins, fabulous creatures like the qualities such as insight, dedication, enlightenment, grace, conscience, com dragon (e.g. Japanese koto) and the phoenix (e.g. Chinese shêng, Japanese mitment and sacrifice may be intimated, even demanded, but where they shô) easily fulfill similar symbolic roles. Demi-gods who are not too dis nevertheless remain permeable. For here there are no inherent divisions tant from our world can also appear as intermediaries, and therefore they separating past or remote worlds from our most personal and present too are known to be the supreme musicians. Yakshas, gandharvas, the desires; nothing that divides our immediate and pressing social concerns muses, the choirs of angels around god's throne, angels with harps, angels from more abstract constructs; or the vaguest intimations of poetry from with trumpets, even certain bodhisattvas fall into this category, each reveal the practical real world; or control from chaos; or even the need to protect ing another facet of the essential but hidden nature of music itself. 104 105 DENYER THE MUSICIAN MYTH AND THE FAILED QUEST The human musician becomes the fulcrum for such journeys, a can be cultivated. mediator who by definition must be on the brink, poised precariously "in The Japanese folk story of Hoichi, a blind Heike biwa player, out between. The critical fault line may be caused by the passing of time, cre lines this situation with absolute precision. It was collected at the end of the ating Its ever changing definitions of past and present, the living and the 19th century by Lafcadio Hearn and published by him in 1904.* The story dead; or it may be between gods and humankind. Both are subsumed by the was memorably filmed by Masaki Kobayashi as most important of all, which is the continuous renegotiation of the bound ary between the known and the unknown. All such boundaries are points of exquisite instability and psychic danger, essentially not quite here and not r 1 • 4 rty A c Tjr ' 1 p3,rt 01 niS 1964 portmânteâU reâture, K/WUldclTl^ I ' l l J J J L 1 r which has the added bonus or an astonishing L Hearn, Lafcadio; Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things^lokyOjÇhsjXGS E.Tuttle Company, 1904,9th edition 1971. r ^ ^7 ;r/ sound track by Torn Takemitsu.^ quite there, in the margins, on the strand, at the door, immanent. Like all Heike biwa players, Hoichi In folklore travellers at such junctures require special protection, recites the history of the conflict between the Heike and Taira clans but is perhaps a sacred image like the crucifix placed at crossroads in Catholic particularly famed for his re-telling of the battle of Dan-no-ura which took parts of Europe. Those that would be mediators between worlds, like place in 1185. One hot summer night, while practising his biwa on the priests or musicians, often find it necessary to wear special clothes or vest porch of the remote Buddhist temple where he lives, Hoichi is approached ments, effective in separating their activities from the mundane world by the awesome figure of a samurai. (The story does not suggest that trapped by time and place; or they wear a magic ring, carry a lucky talis Hoichi's playing is responsible for summoning the samurai but in light of man, or perform within a clearly demarcated and dedicated precinct, not later events we might well suspect it.) The samurai orders the bHnd musi quite in the real world. Despite such precautions musicians are still often cian to follow him into the night in order to give a performance for certain destroyed by the very place they seek to inhabit, the place that is the key to their efficacy. aristocratic nobles who are visiting the area. Being blind he is unable to Therefore, Orpheus was sometimes portrayed as a crucified Christ an élite gathering, and on a formal platform he recites his tale. However, like figure unifying the powers of the cosmos by the power of harmony, but what he believes to be a group of courtiers are in reality the ghosts of the he was also a figure ultimately torn apart by the forces he had himself unleashed (the Furies). historical figures from the musical epic he is presenting, and he is not seat The popular romantic portrayal of the musician as a glamorous understand where he is being taken but eventually he finds himself before ed at court but amongst their tombstones in a deserted cemetery.^ The per formance continues on the subsequent night. , maverick lurking on the fringes of society but always curiously transient, peripatetic, the perennial rebel, reflects some of the elements outUned so far. However, it is only a partial image, surviving numerous reteUings as it T> J 11 • • 1 *1 The Buddhist priest who presides over I I I T T • 1 • 1• 1 1 1 the temple where Hoichi lives gradually comes 1 r 1 * 1 1 r 1 is adapted and updated to fit contemporary lives. Artists sometimes col to know ol these nightly performances and realises the Immanent danger for the musician. lude in this but the inherent glamour of such stories masks the reality. He says to Hoichi: 3. Compare with the Chinese Story given by van Gulik p. 157 (see footnote 6): "Another evening w h e n H s i K'ang w a s playing his lute, there suddenly appeared a m a n m o r e t h a n t e n feet tall, clad i n black doik w Wt-wta H.i ^ 8°''''" " Anxiety, loneliness, disease or even mental instability and premature death are frequent concomitants that can hardly be said to represent a fun lifestyle choice. At the fault lines between categories," it is easy to confuse past and present, the living and the remembered, the concrete and the immaterial. This is an activity that requires an expanded arena and cannot readily flour ish within too narrow a view of human sentience. In the rational world precise definitions are necessary to keep things apart so that discrimination Your wonderful skill in music has indeed brought you into strange trou ble ... All that you have been imagining was illusion—except the calling of the dead. By once obeying them, you have placed yourself in their power. If you obey again, after what has occurred, they will tear you in pieces. But they would have destroyed you, sooner or later, in any event. As a magic protection the priest instructs that Hoichi's whole body be covered with the text of the Heart Sutra {Pragna-Pâramitâ-HrdayaSûtra) which will make him invisible to the dead. Tragically his ears, that 106 107 DENYER THE MUSICIAN MYTH AND THE FAILED QUEST most significant part of any musician's body, are completely overlooked, so ly covered with all kinds of fish. Amongst them was a mermaid. This gave when the ghostly samurai next appears, all he can see of the musician are poor Maurice more than he had bargained for. The mermaid, by whisper these two unprotected ears and his biwa. He rips off Hoichi's ears to take ing gently into his ear, enticed him and the fish to follow her back beneath with him in order to show to his lord that he has dutifully fulfilled his task the waves and he was never heard of again.^ as far as he was able. In conclusion the narrator informs us Hoichi survived this tale and it made him famous. In the Bhagavata Purana we read of Krishna, a musician god, subduing the demon in Obviously the desire to act as a mediatnx demands knowledge. 7. Croker, Thomas Croften;fa!r5'iegen¿5 and Traditions of the South of Ireland, London,;. Murray, 1838. the Yamuna river known to be destroying the From a carefully chosen position or demarcated precinct the musician land's fertility and killing the fish. The story says that Krishna first peered focuses on that other world into whose dark waters his hook has already into the depths, then plunged in, and an epic underwater fight commenced. been deliberately dropped. Fishing provides a useful musical metaphor, and Eventually he re-appeared above the surface performing a fantastic dance of not surprisingly in folklore and mythology the two are strangely interHnked. victory on the serpent's head while the music was provided by the waves Not merely fishing and music, but fishing (or influencing water creatures) against the shore keeping pace with the beat. Under this relentless pound through music. Both require unusual degrees of patience and perseverance, ing the demon Kaliya was overcome. Maybe his divine status allowed him precise knowledge, expertise with those devices that can facilitate the transi to succeed where so many human musicians seem to fail. Drowned, made tion between the two worlds. Both can easily become myopic occupations. mad, lost in a labyrinth, overcome by forgetfulness, such fates are usually Here are a few more or less random examples: ubiquitous for musicians. The Indian musician Sagga finds himself on a sea voyage as part of Saraswati was not the only musical deity to be a river. Orpheus too his quest to find Queen Sussondi, and being a musician, the sailors insist that had water in his veins through being the son of the river god Oigos and the he entertain them. Sagga warns that his music may disturb the sea but they muse Calliope.® It is said that he could divert don t beHeve this to be more than an excuse. Reluctantly he plays his viña 8. Pindan fragment 126.9. the coursc of a rivcr by his music as well as and indeed, it causes the sea to become turbulent and a great sea monster to being able to charm fish. His image as the rise up, destroying the ship in which he is travelling and all those on board." archetypal musician, important as it is, is almost rivalled by his portrayal as Arion, another lyre playing musician, some say a student of Oipheus himself, also Orpheus the Fisher. In the temples that were dedicated to his worship L"' there were tanks of sacred fish tended by the priests (sometimes flute has problems with the crew while travelling on board a ship. The sailors intend to rob and kill him but he is saved from drowning orig. 5. Herodotus: w. playing priests).' Creativity in art is often nothing less than a lifetime's endeavour. It is a quest whose goals are LnS.¿ Wa'tLfSr?. ís' by his music, which attracts a helpful dolphin on whose back he rides to the shore.® seldom fully achieved. In this context the motif of failure plays a significant Shêng Hsün, a 12th century Chinese master of the ch'in, built Connor, his tragic end verifies the unimpeachable authenticity of his art, himself a playing pavilion over a stream. One day while performing there, distinguishing it from feebler simulacra. In other cases the acceptance of a storm arose and in the middle of the downpour his ch'in changed into a possible failure is one of the pre-conditions for entering new realms. The huge red carp. Riding it, Shêng Hsün disappeared into the sky and was final disillusionment that comes from knowing that despite every effort, never seen again.^ 6. Gulik, Roben van; Lore of the Chinese ¿aie, Tokyo, Sophia University and Charles E.TuttleCompany Inc., 1940, revised 1969, pp. 157-158. rpi important goals remain unconquered is also very real. In the latter sense I t • i Ine irishman Mauricc Connor was a r L1- J - role and will repay a little more scrutiny. In a case like that of Maurice T T I . am reminded of Michaelangelo's words at the end of his life expressing his lamous blmd piper. He merely played his pipes on regret at having spent too much time pursuing the chimera of art, or the seashore and soon every inch was miraculous Graham's Greene's remark that for a writer, success is only delayed failure. 108 109 DENYER T H E M U S I C I A N M Y T H A N D T H E FAILED Q U E S T Significant quests or searches that have ended in failure include these perennial cultural cycles are infused by the colour of whatever the search for the flower of immortality, or the comparable hunt for the MacGuffin collectively grips the consciousness of the time. dragon s pearl, the search for the fountain of everlasting youth, for Atlantis, One of the basic articles of faith driving the arts today that has Shangri-la, Camelot and other lost cities, the experiments to discover the arisen mainly in western societies during the last two centuries, is the belief philosophers stone or indeed the whole history of alchemy insofar as gold that art is in and of itself significant, the bearer of unique truths about life, was never actually produced even after many centuries of earnest endeav however difficult these might be to describe. This idea, we might note, took our. To these we might add the mediaeval quest for the Holy Grail with its hold during the exact period when formaHsed rehgions were beginning to promise of renewal and redemption, conducted by the knights of the round lose theirs. It has been a powerful motivation for artists and those interest table in a strange world where the real and the fantastical were often impos ed in the arts. As Morton Feldman remarked: "The truth is, we can do very sible to disentangle. Such failure is precisely the subject of Robert Bresson's 1974 film, Lancelot du LacP well without art; what we can't live without is the myth about art".'^ , , The film starts with the final return of . , . the kmghts to King Arthur's court. Meeting at Robert; Umelot du Uc, film 1974 DVD 2CX38 Artificial Eye. A MacGuffin is something to which we aspire. It is coveted, desired and valued for its . 1 • 1 r i\ 1 mystenous power (however that is denned) and 12. Feldman, Morton; Conversations Without Stravinsky in Morton Feldman Essaysy Cologne, Beginner Press, 198 5, p. 61. the end of their adventures they realise many have died in the pursuit of must to be won, stolen, possessed or by some the Grail, but none have actually succeeded in bringing it back. Deeply means acquired. The Golden Fleece is a good example. It was the overt goal disillusioned, spiritual malaise engulfs the whole of Arthur's court, further of Jason and the Argonauts in the most famous mythological quest of all. exacerbated by the effects of Lancelot and Guinevere's illicit affair. Petty One of Jason's band of intrepid robber-adventurers was none other than squabbles break out and the knights plot against each other. The king Orpheus again (remember Hermes/Mercury was the god of both musicians seems lost in indecision and can only advise prayer. But the knights' quest and thieves), and at one crucial point it is his musical skills that save both is over, their vision spent, nothing can save them. They cling on to their him and his companions from the Sirens singing. past beliefs, but eventually all are killed by the ruthless emissaries of a But let us stay with the musician. The story that makes Orpheus more modern world that is unconcerned with their archaic visionary aspi one of the most significant figures in Greek mythology describes how he rations. The final image shows the knights' dead bodies, still encased in their armour and piled up like some monstrous gains access to the realm of the dead, to Hades itself, and does so through his music that softens the hearts of Pluto and Persephone. They grant his heap of scrap metal. This story is bleak indeed 11. Truffaut, François; a^id oirers no alleviating balm. edition, 1983, p. 138. Perhaps the grail was never much more than what Hitchcock caUed "a MacGuffin,' Alfr«l Hiicheock; -Moh of Kipling's sto- ¡SarirSJl'íJítíí something that the protagonists believe to be of Âf;h::is::' btde! M^/rSerwe': Perhaps, like Hoichi in the Japanese tale and stories of countless crucial importance but whose actual role is merely to motivate the plot without havine an l^^ÄrtftotJaiThT.erZnt ^ fortress. The theft of secret docu- other musicians since, Orpheus too, ultimately confused the imprinted J <*r 11 • • t t O intrinsic meaning itself." Is this just too cynical - _ .. . a view ? One thing is clear, sooner or later all r ^ cr 1• • , . MacLiUrnns, even rehgious ones, lose their „rr A • • 1 III eincacy. A reincarnation is demanded that can hookthesensibilltiesofancwage.Theproducts and Noughts characterising each revolution of 110 Hitchcocky New York, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, rev. nients was the original MacGuffin. So the 'MacGuffin' is the term we use to cover all that sort of thing: to steal plans or documems, or discover a secret, it doesn't matwhat it is. And the logicians are wrong 'Ting to figure out the truth of a MacGuffin, since it is beside the point. The only thing that really matters is that plea that Eurydice, his dead wife, be allowed to follow him back to earth. However, despite this seeming success and despite some very specific instructions, his quest too ends in failure when at the last moment he turns back and looks directly at Eurydice. memory brought alive through his artistry with the mundane reality of the material world. For him the shade of the dead was real when viewed through all the complex reflecting devices, all the mirrors and echoes of art, but the shade of Eurydice inevitably dissolved back into the darkness when looked at directly in the cold light of day. This is not a new thought, because as long ago as the 4th century BC, Plato recorded the opinion of Phaedrus that Eurydice on her return from Hades was indeed only an 111 DENYER 13. Plato: Symposium, 179,1 THE MUSICIAN MYTH AND THE FAILED QUEST apparition.» This failure of Orpheus and his later fate at the hands of the Furies (which certainly underlined his wider failure), nonetheless led to his separated but still singing head floating out to sea, and its recovery by the women of Lesbos, so that It could finally become an oracular source of knowledge. In this way Orpheus did indeed transcend the world of time, space and death but in a way he himself never imagined. Orpheus s confusion is comparable to that which leads sculptors to fall in love with their own statues. It reveals a chronic inability to distinguish art from life, or to separate the proclaimed goal, the MacGuffin, from the deeper ongoing processes of art, which despite their fluid and impossibly elusive character, remain the real issue at hand. I say "proclaimed goal", because artists do know the true quarry they stalk (unless they have forgot ten), one that must remain secret and unspoken. The work demands that failure or the possibiHty of failure is embraced in order to proceed, because failure is the Hberating door to the unknown for which they yearn. ("For art to succeed, its creator must fail," in Monon'Md^ &L>r'cofogn" Begmner Press, 1985, p. 91. coming intermittently over his car radio (in the play through an Ouija board), it is every artist's hope to pick up some such resonance. In Greek mythology Echo was a nymph who had profound musical skills, for she had been taught by the Muses. As a supremely gifted musi cian, she too suffered the typical musician's fate and was finally torn apart. In her case it was at the hands of Pan, who was driven by frustration because her beauty was so unattainable. The many parts of her body were scattered across the whole earth, but by the intervention of the Muses each part, like all great art, still continues to sing, imitating whoever calls. She had fallen in love with Narcissus and could have divinely inspired him except that Narcissus, gazing into the pool, never noticed any mystery in its depths, so mesmerised was he by his own reflection on the surface. He escaped the dangers of the artist's pre-occupations for as the seer Teiresias foretold, he would live to a ripe old age just as long as he never knew himself. Narcissus didn't so much spurn Echo's love as just fail to notice it, hearing her voice merely as a pale reflection of his own. Unhke Narcissus, the aspiring musician, guided always by carefully said Feldman.") These are entrances to interior honed instincts that go further than conscious knowledge allows, must look places for which there is scant vocabulary and can inevitably make the traveller prone to all manner past his or her own image, their personal concerns, if they are to gather of self-delusion. Complete dedication to such an art will in the long run mould a very particular sensibility. It may also lead to an acute and unsustainable vulnerability, a quite fearful fragiHty. Arrogance and egocentricity occasion ally provide a useful carapace and even if such armour results in ludicrous self-aggrandisement, it can partially deflect some of the arrows and anxieties that might otherwise hinder the work. Paradoxically however, it also traps the individual in a tight self-referential space, seemingly impregnable, but Hke the armour of the clanking knights in Bresson's film, it gradually degrades the person. Nonetheless, the knights themselves appear to be echoes from a more extensive past and from other hidden worlds that lie beneath. These in turn mask others still farther back, each level clamouring for a voice. A certain faith is necessary for Echo has no voice of her own but merely reflects ever darker and more distant resonances from this greater mystery. She is the mirror that offers secret apertures through which we might step like Alice or Orphée, into that other mirror world but through which "the other" may likewise step into ours. No wonder artists often confuse the two. It is perhaps surprising that the artist's quest, like Princess Turandot, remains alluring even when the dangers are known. unaware that this protective shell has caused their gradual metamorphoses into dehumanised metal automatons. If the artist survives the journey, the work itself requires a constant gaze into the depths of the pool until a line can be cast and the faint echoes of an unknown presence makes itself felt. T .ikp Cocteau's Orphée,'^ listening obsessively to the w mysterious and incomprehensible messages 112 113 CHAPTER 6 WALLS & LADDERS WALLS & LADDERS JEREMY FOGEL cious Italian porn broadcast in abundance elsewhere & by the delicate hypnotic voices of the Vatican channel telling the teachings of Jesus in meditative tones, gracefully accompanied by gentle close ups of Medieval devotional art, I did not see all of it but I did, by the grace of God, see Elvis ^Qiáorm American Trilogy in 1973 & immediately understood why Elvis is that he is. What we're dealing with here are images shot in the Coca-Cola reality of an oasis of plastic coins, a seeming dungeon for the spirit, where dressed in white, a golden Phoenix symbolizing rebirth, resurrection & the The Parable of the Barriers tells of a merciful & magnanimous King who in his gaining anew of paradise lost on his back, jewels all over him, a white scarf generosity & grace invites all who yearn his presence to join him in his inner round his neck which like Tibetan Buddhist holy men he takes off his court. Many come and climb a first wall & find behmd it great treasures; mythological shoulders to sanctify audiences with, the legendary red white sapphires, jewels of silver, cups of gold—attracted by these, many travelers stallion, a bull of a man, the fat Elvis, the shaman, who had become the choose to stay, but some do climb over the second wall, and behind it find silver back of the American tribe, its very own Son of Man, raises, through even greater riches; diamonds, gold, stock options—^which again many pil the enumerations of his Gospel singing, his & the audience's awareness to grims succumb to—only one of them climbs the last wall & enters the the blessed realization that the realm divine permeates our lower realms King s inner court. Looking back from within the truly royal realm, this through & through. Yes, I told myself, yes, this is a religious moment—this traveling soul realizes all the walls it had climbed, those behind which is the healer leading the participating audience into a trance—^This is the treasures had been found, were an illusion. The Baal Shem Tov—amazing, Tzadik raising his followers to realms supreme by the force of his devo beloved Jewish mystic of 17th century Eastern European poverty, smiling tion—^Why are these ladies crying, suddenly, on this mysterious eve in their m virgm woods & enthusing about absolute unity with God, blazing paths middle age fulfilled by the American dream, why? Not anymore because of for each and every poor innkeeper, each and every wandering bum, to walk the sudden burst of sexual liberation gained by partaking in Elvis' young & unto realizations divine, an absolutely devoted soul—told this story at the innocently sensual swashbuckling movements, as Holy as those were, these climax of every Jewish new year, when the ram's horn is about to blow & aren't the teenage years of hysteric outbursts to repressed puritan lust— symbolically create the world. He would tell this parable at this crucial these are tears of Gospel, of the all encompassing reality of a moment of moment, I ve let myself be told, to teach his followers that there are no grace, tears cried in the presence of the divine—a spiritual orgasm too walls, no barriers, between this world, our world, and the world divine. The intense for eyes to remain dry—tears cried because Elvis draws his audience world of light, of mercy, of compassion, of love, the realms supreme can with him into the inner court and they become engulfed in the ensuing be realized by us all in the very very here, in the very very now—yes—the overbearingly powerful sense of beatitude—"O I wish I was in the land of vision conveyed by the parable of the barriers holds that when one's aware cotton"—not the cursed ground that generates empires on the broken backs ness is raised to the realm divine, it becomes apparent that all is it and that nothing, therefore, is empty of Divine presence. of slaves—the sweet golden clime where the traveler's journey is done—the The King fervently enough & doing so with the right kind of band—Elvis takes his ultimate Graceland—where the law is Hallelujah & the fact is His work is marching on, no matter what & who—By praying for that land of cotton I never understood who Elvis Presley was until I saw, late one night, towards the end of a long shift as a night watchman in a small hotel in Rome, an Italian documentary about the king. Being distracted by the lus audience with him to the inner court & by giving a performance so clearly within the inner court of the King on high, the king shows that chamber can exist even in a Las Vegas concert hall & hence also anywhere else. This is, therefore, a prophetic performance and Elvis here performs 114 115 FOGEL WALLS & LADDERS as an ecstatic mythological dragon symbolizing the nation before God—a are served at this banquet with great generosity—Music would not be as walking car industry a breathing Empire State Building—the prophet of readily available to us otherwise. American obesity in all its senses—Its dearest son crying all the pain of the civil war & a brutal midlife crisis at the same time—the perfect U.S. Pope in the Vatican of capitalism beatitude now taking a stand in this world for holiness now, for in this world! Yes, one finds sometimes in music, in magic, in alchemy, in words, men taking a stand, becoming a human lighthouse in this dark world where poverty wipes out masses silenced by the entertain ment of the rich, where releasing all sentient beings from suffering is infinitely less important than creating a positive business climate—YesElvis here is a knight of faith, performing his visionary voice and standing up—standing up, amid the catastrophe, in the heart of the flood, amid drugs & solitude, and the incessant yearning to join mama in her lonely death of barbiturates, in this crazy crazy world, and raises his voice to raise our spir itual essence Elvis, the American David dethroned by the nation he gave birth to, human all too human in his lonely Cadillac pantheon, prays, like in the Jewish Kaddish, for reality to keep unfolding through the cosmic will expressed by the work of God—Glory Glory Hallelujah—His work is marching on His work is marching on—this is a religious moment—^The morning after I witnessed these things I took a train at the Termini train station with a Japanese friend who had worked that same night at another hostel & we rolled our tired selves to Assisi & as we walked on a winding path to the quiet town I sang with Elvis, Glory Glory Hallelujah & Takuyo sang the Buddhist chants of his mother & I fell asleep on a hill in the drizzling rain overlooking Assisi & then we walked into & fell asleep in many of the churches of the wintry town of the kind and humble saint ly man that was Saint Francis & finally came into the grotto where he lays. Saint Francis, and circled his tomb three times & felt him welcoming us strangers in his grotto where we fell asleep in the heat of the torches sur rounding the grave & woke up together at exactly the same moment, leaving Assisi with the true flowers of Saint Francis in our peaceful hearts. Elevation through music is a fact—one you can experience—like suddenly hearing the Muslim call for prayers at four in the morning when your own religiosity is bringing you back to your rented room wired to electricity and in the distance the muezzin draws with his singing the faithful to the mosque—Mystical experiences are magic plants in the jungle of reality— they can be plucked, they can even be cultivated—they're abounding and 116 Wo Once I was living in a cabin in the Zen garden of a charming old lady in Paris & I was new in town & it was a dark winter's eve & a Finnish philoso pher I had drunk with the night before had lent me a long distance wave radio. Sitting on a comfortable chair, there also was a mattress and a table, I was listening to the programming of the BBC world service, hearing England, missing the time I too was living in the High Holy British Isle, receiving her voices through short waves making it across a cold sea & becoming all moved at that beautiful elocution, wondering whether it's the weather forecast or poetry I was hearing. They had on, that night, a show about the bodily, poetic & mystical bonds of women & the moon & later, an audio documentary about a place at the border of China and Russia. "There is nothing here" the reporter said "but some junkies and shacks where prostitutes live and are visited by the incoming soviet truck drivers". She sounded, that exhilarated & brave woman, as if standing at the end of the world. I remember she interviewed a Chinese heroin addict. "WO" he said, the Chinese word for I, a long tortuous Wo, one lost in the flow of the opiate, the poor man's epiphany, "Woooo" he said & yes, I thought, Wooooo, but what kind of Wooo are you, O Chinese junky at the world's end, who & what are you, my fellow prophet, my fellow human—^There was so much pain in this open and wounded I, a desolate cold, a vast empti ness, but so much truth too—^yes, a truthful I it was, because it had been annihilated—^wholly dedicated to the presence of the drug—^it was no more an I, it was an addiction, it was pain, it was something else—a Wò trans formed beyond the boundaries we usually impose on it—^yes, my friends, so much truth I heard in this poor man's opened, wounded & deconstruct ed I—because, though in a sickly way, the illusory I, walled in strict bound aries of solitary confinement had been destroyed—^What is it we are? What are we? What is I? Too often something we get stuck on, a prison cell, another wall, another barrier. I need, I want, I feel, I, I, I—^that crazy char acter encouraged by advertisement—^you need to bleach your asshole. Yes I need to bleach my asshole, you need to pay 15,000 dollars for this proce dure, yes I need to pay 15,000 dollars for this procedure, you need to own an oil guzzling dangerous 6c destructive machine when living in a city, yes 117 FOGEL WALLS & LADDERS I need to own a big jeep in an urban environment, you need to look like an raises your own poor being to realms blessedly beyond the illusory bound eighteen year old even though you're sixty-five, yes, I want to etc., etc., aries, of your illusory self—it could be in church, it could be at a karaoke etc.—this I monster created by demonic forces of the Moloch of greed & bar right before you puke the whiskey you shouldn't have drunk after all Ignorance—IS that who we are? What about, to state the obvious, the Wo of that wine—^Anyone who has drifted away even if just a few minutes into Coltrane, or better still the collective Wö of that legendary quartet, rising music, singing a tune in the shower, digging Mozart's requiem for the very together to a Love Supreme in miraculous New Jersey ascend? Is the Wo first time & endlessly again, becoming engulfed in the mystical smoke here involved still within the bounds of narrow I hood? Of course not—like blowing from every syllable of Um Kulthum's Enta Omri, playing your the junky back at the Chinese border with Russia, Trane's Wö is a decon first four chords & recreating a Beatles moment in your early teenage structed one but, ecstatically this time—a Wo that ceases to be so that hometown room—knows that for a few moments of blessedness, you climb finally it too might be God—the exalted eternal & endless Wo—the Wö in a ladder of notes to a realm beyond confinement, beyond trickery, beyond the inner courtyard Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, the degenerate I the entertainment industry wants you to live in. You don't time—all related... all made from one... all made in have to be one of the genial saints of music for that to happen—music is a one. Coltrane wrote in his ecstatic psalm—Like with heroin, in music you communicative & communal energy & you can be drawn to the realm by find release in becoming something else, in realizing the mystery of participating with your mind in the magic created by such saints—& even Rimbaud s Je suis un autre—I am someone else—you cease to be you & as a visitor to the realm of music, even if like my own wee self, you play but hence undergo the annihilation of the conventional I hood, a process which don't master music or its instruments, even then, at your own pace, with tends to precede deep mystical experiences—yes—Coltrane is elevation your own few notes—elevation awaits. This is why Socrates, though not a fears and emotions through music—becoming something else through music—something musician, expressed, in his last hours, regret for not having played more— divine & all encompassing—this has been known for ever & has had impli This is why they say that even if you sing out of tune, you've got to partic cations in the lives of millions, of whole nations, that preceded our presence ipate in the ritualistic singing accompanying the Hebrew Pesach—this is a here now on earth celebration no one is excluded from. Like early bluesmen turning their pain into music & leading their selves to a powerful & magnanimous realm wherein, even if just for a moment, the weight of their existential sorrows is lifted by hauntingly beautiful songs transcendence—like Andalucian miners who through their song made difficult fates more bearabl^how powerful such magic check out, if so inclined, the youtube holiness of Camarón De La Isla & Tomatito performing a Minera in Malaga 1990 & become exposed to one of these Miner songs—I feel the sun on my face, he howls—the sun beyond the cave the sun of liberation—^The sun miners sing to when rais ing their awareness through song to kinder realms—Look at Cameron & Tomatito raising their own to a unified energy—Yes, Cameron here blazes with his voice through the realms & elevates like a proletarian angel, like a martial arts master & does so through all the genes of his gypsy soul—yet this voodoo of elevation is not exclusively in the hands of the musical elite of this world it belongs of course to all their listeners—even further, any one who has joined others in music knows what it's like to lose yourself in music, how the music being greater than any individual participant in it. 118 Love Abounding When I was sixteen a friend gave me, while we were traveling in Poland & witnessing abandoned death factories, the Songs of Leonard Cohen—it was a Messianic moment & I soon realized I had found, through this truthful voice, the poetic vision I wanted to develop & ceremonially sang these pearl like songs like prayers hoping to immigrate into these landscapes & set out to learn the language that had given me a horizon & became a student in the Holy British Isle—^which is how I found myself a few years later, awake deep into a gentle English summer night doing my very best to try and understand an essay about Immanuel Kant—^for hours I had tried to focus on the paper, but its intricacies were still eluding me & I was becoming tired & restless. I put on Dylan's Nashville Skyline and let his liberated smiling peaceful silken voice soothe my tired brain—If music is energy then Nashville Skyline carries in its sound the energy of love in all its barely graspable simplicity—After a while I sat back at the desk, thinking I'd give that 119 FOGEL WALLS & LADDERS mandala of logic another go—bending over the book again I focused over ed to elevate the soul—but I have had the wisdom to, in my own little way, its dense sentences, but Dylan s blissful voice suddenly engulfed my con lean on music in my struggle to widen my awareness and climb up them sciousness like snow sometimes engulfs the busiest cities and makes even rungs & have been blessed with encounters with great mystics who, a thou them quiet "love is all there is" he sings with an absolute ease "it makes sand rungs above me, follow the sound they listen to & create, to realms we the world go round"—I tilted my head back "love and only love, it can't be should all be lucky enough to visit—^these men are giants, but what they denied"—the poetic genius whose mystical verse & prophetic heart had assume we shall assume as every atom belonging to them might as well have fascinated me through intensely passionate & spiritual expeditions into the belonged to us—their angle, their poetic vision, is one we too can adopt— riddles & symbols of the horizons of the cosmic mind, here, in a language They ascend a path we too can follow to the irmer chamber where the lower as plain as running water, sung in a voice of milk & honey from which love & higher realms unite at last—I'd like to, in a few lines, introduce a few such for life emanates endlessly, touched something in me which must be like a teachers & some of what they taught me about the path of love abounding. light switch of sorts Yes—at that moment, leaning away from the desk, Having become firmly addicted to moments of grace, and seeking these words so sweetly sung fell unto me Hke drops of light that cleared my a life wherein the creation of a home for beatitude is a primordial priority, I mind of all doubt and raised me to realms where one learns that which soon realized more practical measures needed to be taken. As a teenager I words, logic & even thought can never teach. It was a beautiful time in wò's had encountered the music of Yair Dalai whose meditations on the oud & life, wandering the fields of the nation of Blake, invited by true poets at the quiet mystical songs drove a close friend in high school & myself mad— banquets of the soul where Sufi pints are served in abundance, singing the neither of us ever recovered. Years later, in Paris, a city kind to the poor, I blues like a dog with friends & red wine, realizing, with the gates of mercy came to think I could reach the infinitely profound & tranquil mystical open, how Billy & Nina's Jazz makes even used condoms look irresistibly ecstasy emanating from the music of all masters of the oud by playing, even romantic, symbohzing themselves near smoked up cigarettes in dying ash if infinitely less delicately, their instrument myself. I bought an oud and trays, experiencing divinity in the early morning rain—In short, wö, in this went to study with a teacher who made his instrument roar like a lion & period colored & widened by the horizons of the prophets of the heart, with Hussein, an Egyptian musician who, having failed to obtain an official realized the illusionary nature of his doubts concerning the reality of the license (no money for baksheesh) was playing in the Metro near the actual mystical. You know, some academicians, some writers, some clergy and a trains (as opposed to the quieter subway hallways where the official Metro wide variety of intellectual perverts will keep moments of clear mystical musicians play), harassed only by police in his sad & meditative music that insight behind the fog of their lectures, in the cages of history, confined to accompanied busy Parisians coming & going in the eternal underground the experience of others. BuUshit. Every human blessed with the opportu rush hour. I was taught some Farid El Atrash tunes and some Arabic scales, nity to develop her awareness, I'm dead certain of this, has, if she thusly though I chose to focus for my own little meditative moments on Hijaz in directs her consciousness, full & free access to moment of grace wherein one Re—Re Mi-bémol Fa-dièse Sol La Si-bémol Do Re. As my ambitions were is raised to realms supreme, and which eventually lead to a life lived in these more mystical, playing to reach the meditative state I could sense in oud realms; or m other words, by widening the realm of awareness, one allows music, I chose to focus fully on just one scale & then try to climb it up it to be flooded by the divine. Awareness, of course, that old holy whore, loves to be opened. the rungs. And indeed, lost in the fragrance of hash & in my little cabin, You know, I ain't no ecstatic saint with the key to eternal well being the privilege of playing that instrument, the privilege of being alive—Later, up his ass-Human all too human, the Fogel, human all too human; in this Parisian realm, I got hooked to ecstatic klezmer music, and sought to masturbatory Wednesdays, the occasional lie, vanity, existential hair loss or reach the state of awareness of them old Jews clarinet joy, which seemed to WÖ floated through the realms with long slow sounds & realized, through penis dimension quandaries, moments of intense cowardice, horrible dance well within the inner chamber. I left Paris for Israel, where a friend gave thoughts sometimes—you know—The human lot—much more work need- me a clarinet and the phone number of a true master; Peter Wertheimer—a 120 121 FOGEL WALLS & LADDERS gentle giant hailing from Romania wherein during communist era, being raising all thoughts through sound onto realms divine. forced to study only classical music, late at night, hidden in his student Through a circle of friends with whom I had been sitting in grape room under a thick blanket clutching a Soviet radio, he listened with friends fruit orchards wherein we played together till the early morning, I came to the ecstasy of jazz on free American airwaves & heard his calling across a holy man by the name of Ravid Zigdon, or as I have come to call warmly welcomed me to his home & invited me to sit on a chair fit for a him, Ravidian Hashaman Hashmanman. The first time I met him was at a king m his little room filled with instruments, offering a thick strong coffee, jam in a studio with loud guitars and drums, he was playing a variety of chil and talking about music as an old lover, complete with passion, anger, dis dren's instruments. I went to him and quoted Lorca, not for a moment have appointments and unrelenting love-took it upon himself, this man who is I ceased to see your beard filled with butterflies—^Yes—immediately, I had probably one of the busiest musicians in the holy land, to teach a clown, been struck by the Whitman like sanctity of this fellow. Ravid, a Hebrew already twenty-five by then, not exactly some kind of child genius to whose son of a carpenter, a Zion Buddha Lion, had, when coming back from India, historic development you'd like to contribut^to get a clean sound out of where he had adopted a strict Bramachari existence (small meals of rice and the clarinet. At lesson's end, I ask the master how much this session costs. vegetables, comprehensive and relentless meditation, yoga, etc.), spent three "No, no" he says "The first lesson is free". Next Friday, I come again at ten years in his parents' attic studying marimba and composition. A few weeks in the morning & again he lets me into his warmth, a thick coffee, a throne, later, another friend suggested we meet and play with him up there in the tales of Louis Armstrong and Hasidic recording sessions, of L'Olympia attic, so up we went. That first meeting, I came with Serge & Allen Ginsberg and following a father's musician trade, and a first scale or two for wo, to inspire Ravid with, Ravid came with music by Dekoboko Hajime to barely managing to get the notes out. Two delicate hours pass "How much inspire me with. Ravid, it turned out, does that often—he asks you whether do I owe you?" "You can't pay now" he laughed & in his beautiful accent you'd like to listen to inspirational music and, if you're wise enough to continued, "I don't know yet how serious you are. Learn the scales, come agree, he very ceremonially says, "we will listen to..." (using the less com back next week—then we'll see about how much I'll charge you". At the mon "Maazin", which has elements in it of "paying attention")—and puts end of the next session, when I asked again for fees due, he told me I had to on something from his library of more than ten thousand hours worth of work harder if I wanted to pay. I did my best to come prepared to the music of all kinds with heavily ethnic and experimental presences—It is lesson after that, and when I insisted I should really start paying, Peter almost inevitable that what Ravid chooses to play will in some ways open feigned anger "What's wrong with you! Did you come here to argue your mind—he will inevitably tempt you towards his more enlightened over money?" I never paid a shekel for Peter's lessons. Once, during our kind of awareness. At the end of our first session we decided we would do encounter, Peter played me a Romanian Doina but that experience, friends, my words cannot describe. great things, us three proud poor single men with serious sentimental afflic Later, when I moved to southern Tel Aviv, I decided to refocus running hungry in the streets as the third decade of our human lives drew my efforts on one scale, as my lifestyle made a more wholesome approach to a close in the suburbs of the Holy Land. Whenever we'd play, we always difficult, hoping I would still be able to pursue the mystical intention of my started with long Hijaz in Re or Ahava Raba moments where we sought practice of music. So off I went, looking for a scale (or "Sulam" as they say common ecstasy. The first time we did our song Jesus Christ the Nazarene in Hebrew, wherein "musical scale" and "ladder" are denoted by the same Runs in the Streets of Tel Aviv Shouting Allah Hu Wakhbar, wherein that word) that would suit the purpose & found a Sulam named Ahava Raba— mantra is repeated again and again, Ravid's electric organ caught fire. Love Abounding—essential in klezmer music. Ahava Raba, it turned out, Suddenly, during the invocation, we saw smoke appearing from the instru consisted of exactly the same sounds as the Hijaz in Re I had been climbing ment. It never worked again. Once, in India, Ravid was riding a bicycle he with back in Paris-D, E^, H G, A, 1^, C, D. Enthused by this discovery, had rented, reaching after several days a distant temple wherein he shared whenever I felt I needed to pray, I played the scale focusing my mind on the holy Charas with several Babas or Holy men. The Babas were impressed 122 123 tions, only very rarely getting laid & either still living with our parents or FOGEL WALLS & LADDERS Ravid was still seated with a back, straight & head towards the sky after many long hours of ceremonial smoking and soon realized this extraordi nary person had been blessed with the realization of the deep mysteries of me with all her grace—^when suddenly, the reed curtain opened and in walked, silently, with a deeply peaceful smile through all the long lines of her face, a dark naked damsel who quietly slipped in the spring. She kept on the union of Shiva & Shakti & of the human & Divine presences—the pierc smiling and with eyes all sparkling she asked me my name. "I'm Jeremy" I ing of the veil. They invited him to join them, offering him a Baba bus mumbled. "Are you" she laughed "I am Natanyah". As we talked, as she ticket (free eternal wandering) and robe. Ravid didn't join them because he spoke, I became entranced by her crystal like voice, her dove like eyes, her had to return the bicycle to its rightful owner. If not for the bike, I think scarlet lips and her smile comely, innocent and pure. What on earth is this, he'd have stayed. More friends joined our efforts & eventually we sent our I thought, what miraculous event am I being invited into? What kind of demos to Tzadik in New York—Several weeks later, we were hosting at our angel is hosting me behind the veil & in the vineyard whose splendor no one flat, a beat mystic living in Amsterdam by the name of Gabriel, who claimed can even speak of? I soon realized I had been taken by a spirit & force to be a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov. He had traveled to Israel with 150 greater than I and as Natanyah's presence dawned over me, as she delicate dollars, a saxophone with acid on its reeds, and in a deeply Hasidic way, no ly drew me into the song of songs of womanhood, I let go of myself & worries about the tomorrow dealt by the same hand that dealt your birth— drowned in the ocean this moment had suddenly become. I am writing this he found us and we sheltered the spirit of the Tzadik. During that time, we because while completely conquered by the sweetness of her dark breasts, received word our work had been appreciated & were offered to record our her voluptuous thighs, her mystic belly, the scent of her skin, the delicacy, album for Tzadik. These too are, I realized, the ways of the world. fervor and devotion of her movements & the soft prayers of her inner A few months later in this life our band had a gig immediately after skin—she was singing her desire to my ear. Every movement, every which we all made our way to the Dead Sea in a rented minivan our drum moment of passion, she expressed with a melodic moaning deep into my mer was driving on a dry and hot Friday night. Once at this eerily quiet spot, ear, which to me was the most beautiful music I had ever heard—her voice the lowest on earth, and its pond of salt, we camped on the pristine South lifted itself freely in this world—as if her soul were a bird—as if her soul Western part, far from the Hotels and nearer to an actual desert silence—the were a fully fledged swan that while flying entrances the ears of men and holy desert silence—In the morning we woke up, had our breakfast tea and gods with the music of its song—yes—^The melodic moaning of this delicate wondered of into this crater of mystical surrealism, floating on the oily sea Yemenite daughter of Jerusalem deep in my grateful ear was a whirlwind of and seeking out the pristine springs of fresh water scattered in the area, beauty, a voice with a light immensely poetic in scope & power raised aloft all inundated with healing mud which we all covered ourselves with, sud by her trembling breath—a sensual song that when slow drew the tender denly becoming aliens—Later my friends went for a trip on the desert ness of troubadour romance, when fast the trance vision of the space age mountains, but I was still too wired from yesterday's pre gig intense Yogic Zion temple of the heart, and in its climax the swiftness of the fawns breathing exercises & ensuing ecstasy & so chose to stay near the sea, and swirling in gardens where once a lover sacredly loved a woman and laid for find more springs of fresh water to linger in. I walked through lunar land her sanctified roses on a pillow of words. When wo was, for a few moments scapes interspersed with sudden forests of high green reeds, and found signs in this life, living through the light of Natanyah's love & her music sublime, of a lovely freak encampment—coffee paraphernalia, a book by when I let my own voice join her in this prayer, I felt tangibly I was fulfilling Knshnamurti, an old guitar—I walked on for a while and heard the sound of flowing water I followed that sound & behind another forest of high reeds I found hidden in that sudden oasis of green, a circular spring of sprinkling fresh water. All satisfied, I sat m mother nature's prime bathtub and engulfed by the Holy Land reeds I looked at the clear sky above me and thought it doesn't get any better than that—The Shabat queen had blessed 124 the Baal Shem Tov's advice to climb to realms exalted through the sound of every note, be it the notes of music, song or of every single spoken word, of every moan—rise with it to the realms supreme—^yes—the crystal like pres ence of her splendor & her voice weaved itself like an orchard of pome granates ripe & pleasant round me & blessedly, effortlessly raised wö through the rungs & gave wö a taste of the wine you seldom taste— 125 FOGEL WALLS & LADDERS Considering the source of this magic, this should be no surprise. Natanyah angle—seeing in it all that is supreme—Sometimes I look at a flower and it turned out, when finally I followed her out of the spring, was a woman barely see it, but when wo takes the time to embrace its existence well & firmly planted in both this world & the highest one. She was staying at that sing to myself the soft tunes of Natanyah's ecstasy while doing so, I see all encampment with a couple of other friends and their kids, all of which were the miracles of creation—the memory of her angelic voice, like all exhila naked too when I met them. Natanyah's more permanent habitation was rated melodies of this earth, are an age old alchemy, one that turns every small desert town where she studied Persian music with a recluse master, thing it touches into beatitude. worked at the local kindergarten & lived in a rented caravan. I told her I It would be foolish & imprudent for me to try & reveal much more had to go back to my friends, that we were going back to the city soon. of whatever conclusion I may have come up with, as the little I may have She kissed my lips & sang a Shabbat tune—Shalom aleichem, malachei understood is quite certainly overshadowed by all that which far eludes my Hasharet—Peace be upon you, ministering Angels—a tune I had been own musical & spiritual awareness. Moreover, music, like all mysticism, playing in Ahava Raba on both clarinet & oud—her voice revealing with must be experienced—great music, like all mystical experiences, cannot be indescribable grace the miraculous scale of Love Abounding in all its splen put into words, except, maybe, sometimes, in the words of God or of his dor. When I came back to my friends I was there with them in the minivan inner guard. But let there be no doubt; Great music comes to you from but I was also in the realm divine, where Natanyah's voice shows that love the inner chamber & draws you there & it teaches you the realms from is all there is, and as I looked through the window at the scenery of this land which this life can be experienced & therefore teaches you how to see & filled with pain, I could see also the merciful weight of a love abounding & how to be & yes. Like Peter, Ravid, Natanyah and countless other great supreme and realized Natanyah's trembling voice had given me, even if for souls, there are in this world people who climb their holy music to realms a moment, a key to the inner chamber. that are tangibly exalted. Yes friends, this is where music leads to—this is the beatitude voices, truthful voices, take you to—this is the poetic vision they bless you with—^Yes—In a world where Mickey Mouse's pungent plastic vomit is splashed on everything that was once true & airwaves broadcast mainly continual propaganda in form of decadent mass produced delirious pop whose half hidden purpose is to turn every living soul into a stupid, selfish hungry ghost damned to eternally consume that which he will never need so that another sentient bemg may have his second indoor swimming pool finally equipped with an underwater sound system—there are voices that draw you up—there are ways to listen your way to a wider awareness—this is of the most critical importance—^we've got to lean on all the light we can muster to find a path—to create our own system, lest, as Blake warned, we be enslaved by another man's—^to learn how to experience things, how to sense them—to create a poetic vision—^When truly exalted music, voices, sounds, all of which are abounding in spite of the state of this world, merge into our awareness, they take us to the King's inner court & through this widened awareness raise our perspective to new levels—^This is why when looking back from the King's inner court, the wandering soul realizes all is Divine—her awareness has become able to look at this world from the right 126 Where Were Wef On this earth, in this realm, involved with existence, alive alive alive, but soon, decomposing bodies whose very memory has turned into butterflies & us, reborn into the great mystery at last—there's a way to walk this path, to direct it towards salvation. These are facts of old—the genial voices of humanity have not been lying about this. There are ways with more light & less suffering. There's an awareness that is undisturbed by treasures of gold, and diligently climbs to an inner chamber of bliss. Music often can take you there. Yes it can. But caveat emptor, my friends, let the buyer beware— Music is ineffable & so what I am writing does not contain the essence it tries to convey—it only tries to encourage whoever is reading this to be guided by music on this mystical path of a life. To let music do what it can do. To pick up the instrument you always wanted to play. To listen with the proper care to the music you love, to give it a place of honor in your life— To work on the development of your appreciation of music. To beware of the demon of unbridled consumption, it's on your ass even in this realm. To be aware of & not doubt the mystical dimension of daily life and the mystical powers of music—for you are where your thoughts are & when 127 CHAPTER 7 FOGEL your thoughts are with music they are in the irmer chamber & so are you— These are things I believe in & try to live by—^Yet, the moral of this story only appears when while listening you suddenly find yourself being raised— & Yes—^it only appears when, while playing, you suddenly realize you're being played & thusly rejoin your rightful rank on the side of creation. ON DIRT, REVELATIONS, CONTRADICTIONS, AND BREATHING THROUGH YOUR ELBOWS FRED FRITH Starting when I was 19,1 spent a lot of college vacation time working in a men tal hospital. The patients of this hospital were severely disabled, mentally and very often physically as well. I mostly worked with kids, kids with Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy or other conditions deemed untreatable, lumped together indiscriminately, left there by families unable to cope. The job consisted of administering enormous quantities of drugs, feeding and cleaning up after patients, watching out for epileptic seizures, and trying to help the kids to live as much to their potential as possible. In this depress ing atmosphere music was a force that created an excitement and well being that was almost shocking. We soon noticed that these kids, with little to look forward to beyond a regimented life in a rundown institution, would beam with joy and shiver with excitement when they heard music, especially music with a strong pulse to it. That was all the encouragement we needed, and we were soon having music sessions every day. What I experienced during those ecstatic minutes is hard to put into words. Essentially it was an understanding of music as a pure force, a healing power, a joy of being. It brought us together, touched our souls, and gave us hope. It was also a humbling experience. In these naive initiatives we volunteers were supported by a couple of the most dedicated and extraor dinary human beings I have ever met, professionals who had chosen to work in this career dead end because of a combination of gentle selflessness and deep compassion. Along with the children of all ages in their charge, Paddy O'Rourke and Robert Keyes—singers and dreamers—helped me to reconstruct my world from the bottom up, to redefine what it meant to be alive, to be human. My neuroscientist brother Chris tells me that our brains learn by seeking out what they don't know. When I play I feel as if I'm caught between wanting to know, and not wanting to know. So many times you 128 129 FRITH ON DIRT, REVELATIONS, CONTRADICTIONS, AND BREATHING THROUGH... discover something not by the act of looking for it, but by accident, at the an apartment building in the lower east side of Manhattan. This basically very moment when you'd forgotten all about it. As a performer, I know meant giving up a few days a week for about a year carrying sheetrock up that in order to arrive at that mysterious place I'm always trying to reach, I six flights of stairs, laying floors, digging drains, and generally carrying out have to be in a unique state in which control and lack of control have equal any other tasks that were assigned to me. Walking over there from my own weight. I know what I'm doing, but I don't know what I'm doing. This is a apartment ten blocks away took me through an area where several buildings beautiful contradiction. You learn how to improvise not by being full of had recently been demolished, leaving a wasteland of detritus—not just ideas, but by emptying yourself of them. As Robert Rauschenberg said, the rubble, but details of personal histories, lives lived. Torn photos, dolls' trick is not to "run out of curiosity." Technique is simply a matter of being torsos, fragments of cups and plates, cassette tapes, broken chairs, fridges, able to do what you want to do at the moment when you need to do it. syringes, wheels. In this landscape, in which absence and presence were Everything you do or have done prepares you for that moment. When it on an equal footing, I would walk slowly, examining each square inch of comes, you are probably thinking about something else. ground. This dirt seemed more beautiful to me than anything I'd ever seen The first time I picked up a guitar it felt like a miracle. I could just play it, or more precisely, it seemed to play itself. Since then, that feeling has in a gallery or museum. It was a metaphor for everything I wanted to do in music. It still feels that way. never been far away. Part of me wants to (re)discover or even reinvent the Music is an act of transformation—air moves, waves travel, mem instrument every time I get my hands on it. When I lose touch with that branes vibrate, bodies are altered. When I use objects to produce sounds basic "curiosity," the guitar is all too familiar. I know exactly what is going from a guitar, I'm also transforming them. The paintbrush, the clothes to come out of it, and nothing seems to make the slightest difference to the brush, the doweling rod, the alligator clip, the ball of string, the bag of rice, predictable reiteration of any moment except this one. the chains, the tin can, these may all be familiar objects. When I use them as There are moments that happen when you improvise—^it may be mediators, though, they can no longer be defined by their intended func with a playing partner of many years, it may be with someone you never tion. Instead they become magical objects with mysterious powers, and worked with before—^where you experience an uncanny synchronicity: although at first you may laugh at the idea of someone playing the guitar identical pitches out of the blue, simultaneous timbre shifts, abrupt and with a paintbrush, eventually you won't notice it any more. The brush has shared changes of dynamics, unforeseen steps up in intensity. There may become, not invisible exactly, but altered beyond recognition. even be sustained periods when the music becomes a seamless, breathing Why is it that apparently dry and mathematical procedures often entity that appears to have a life of its own beyond the intentions of its lead to the most profound and moving results? An experiment with some makers, a shared journey to an unknown and magical destination. Such numerical series or other, applied to form or harmony out of idle curiosity, moments often lead to talk of channeling a higher force, of acting as a con proves astonishingly emotional and touching. It reminds me of how much duit for spiritual and healing power. This usually strikes me as a kind of false I hate it when players or composers demonstrate how full of "feeling" they humility. In the end music making is rooted in practice. The more you work are. It's like bad acting. Music that resonates with me doesn't have anything away at it, the more options you have, and the more likely you are to make to prove, it simply is. As a composer I sometimes find myself saying to inspired choices. Performers of composed music attain such visionary performers: "Let the music be what it is, you don't need to add anything to force by years of practice, which eventually allows the music to flow as if it, just stay out of the way and let it speak for itself." improvised by the composer in front of you. You have to practice for years Recording music is a revelatory process, like sculpture. The act of before you're free enough for accident and intention to resonate equally. It's patiently stripping away results in what was concealed being revealed. not that there aren't mysteries making their presence felt in what you do. It's Further, the inevitability of the result suggests that it required that very just that you're more likely to illuminate them when you've worked on it. process in order to be revealed. Or the process may not be stripping away In 1986 I put in a few hundred hours doing construction work on at all, but accumulating, patiently waiting to discover what "images" will 130 131 CHAPTER 8 FRITH signify when there are enough of them there. In both cases, you shouldn't interfere beyond what is absolutely necessary. Defining something before it has revealed itself wÜl permanently limit it to the foreseen, but the unfore seen is an important part of every process. It's down to looking (or listening) for what you don't know, again (and again). Between the ages of nine and twelve I spent a lot of time fishing. As YOGA AND MUSIC SHARON GANNON time went by, the actual fishing part became less important, and it became more about time alone, observing the minutiae of life and listening to what was going on around me. Through listening I became fascinated with birds, and was soon a passionate if strictly part-time birdwatcher, which I still "Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery am to this day. I love to get up at 5 on a Sunday morning and make the two- of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe." —Hazrat Inayat Khan hour drive to Limantour Beach at Point Reyes, to walk by the ocean for an hour with only the wind and the birds for company. Most of the time in the modern industrialized urban landscape The world is sound. All that is manifest proceeds from sound and continues to pulsate as sound vibration. we're surrounded by music that's imposed on us—in elevators and lobbies, Many years ago a reporter from a major New York newspaper cafes and restaurants, supermarkets and other people's cars—a more or less came to our Yoga School to do an interview, and she graciously accepted permanent addition to the usual chaos of vital signs. When I lived in New our invitation to take a class first. At the beginning of the session, accom York I spent a lot of time trying to "compose" this whole racket into coher panied by the harmonium, I led the class in a Sanskrit chant to the guru and ent forms in my head, breaking it up into layers, seeing how much detail explained a bit of what the chant meant. During the chanting, the reporter I could uncover. I'm still fascinated enough with that sound world to keep was fidgety, which happens to many people in their first yoga class when on trying to situate my work within it, to record West Oakland from the they are asked to sing or listen to spiritual teachings. But soon enough we window of Myles Boisen's studio, for example, and juxtapose it with a were off and running... jumping back, twisting, bending forward, bending sax quartet. backward, standing on our hands, our heads and even our elbows, all to a The mysteries of music and life that resonate most deeply within playlist which included music by The Beatles. After the class was over, the me lie somewhere between Limantour Beach and the Lower East Side, reporter excitedly just about ran ahead of me on my way to my office, between being alone in the world and being part of a teeming anthill, over where our interview was to take place, asking, "Did you hear that? Wasn't coming the Imiitations of words and reaching for the extravagant impossi it amazing? Did you know they were going to sing that?" As we sat down, ble, turning base metal to gold. Looking, listening, touching, smelling, in I asked, "What do you mean? Sing what?" "The chanting!" "Oh I'm glad awe, aware and unaware, present and absent, breathing through your feet you liked it. Was that your first time?" "No, no, not me...The Beatles— and your elbows, falling up, falling down, picking yourself up and dusting they were chanting the same thing that you had us chant at the beginning of yourself off, screwing up and giving it another shot, curious, persistent, class, didn't you hear it?" "Oh you mean jaya gurudeva in Across the questioning, optmustic, in it together whether we like it or not. But in it. Universe and guru Brahma guru Vishnu... in My Sweet Lord}" "What?! Did you know that those chants were already in those songs? I didn't! I never ever heard it before and I must have listened to those songs thousands of times! This is amazing!" Producer, composer and bassist Bill Laswell once told me that he liked composing music that he knew would be played in a yoga class because he knew it would really get listened to: "People are 132 133 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC more relaxed and receptive when they practice yoga, so they are able to hear all, which, according to the yoga scriptures, is the nadam—the supreme the music better." That's what happened to the reporter. She had actually sound of God. Close your eyes and open your ears and feel, as my teacher heard music for the first time that she had been listening to for years but had Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati would describe, "the current of electricity, the never heard before. current of prana, the pulsation of life, all around and within you—the sound How can you tell if you are making progress in your hatha yoga of God." practice? When you can touch your toes? Stand on your head? Control In the vast spiritual literature of India, two types of sound, or nadam, your breathing? Control your thoughts? Be able to relax in a stressful situ are spoken of: anahata nadam and ahata nadam. Anahata nadam means ation? Well all of those accomplishments could be seen as signs of progress, "unstruck" sound—it is not heard by just the physical ears, and no one can but according to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the book penned in the 13th make this sound. It is the primal essential nature of the universe; it is the century that is widely accepted as the official authority on hatha yoga, the sound of God. Yogis hear/feel this sound during deep enUghtened states of way that you can tell if you are making progress in the practice is by the meditation. Ahata nadam means "struck" sound—it is music that we can sound of your own voice. According to verse 11.78, your voice will become hear with our physical senses; it refers to sound that is made by striking two clear, melodious and resonant; you will be able to control its volume and its things together, like when a musician strums an instrument or blows through pitch; but even more than that—^people will listen to you when you speak. a horn or hits a drum, or when a singer sings—air strikes against the vocal Your words will become totally captivating. You will be able to say what folds, and sound is produced. Ahata nadam in the form of music can lead you mean and to mean what you say. This is a natural outcome when all one to an experience of anahata nadam—transcendental awareness—if the aspects of one's being come together and are no longer fragmented. Your listener as well as the musician playing has that intention in mind. thoughts, your words and your actions will be aligned. You will feel in tune. It was through music that the ancient teachings of yoga entered the The Hatha Yoga Pradipika declares that samadhi (enlightenment) American psyche. I think if it weren't for The Beatles, the current popular is achieved when the anahata nadam, the "unstruck sound," can be heard. ity of yoga in America, and the world, for that matter, would not have come The aim of hatha yoga practice is to realize sound as the source of creation. about. We have George Harrison to thank in particular. But how did This realization is the outcome of being in tune with the source of creation, George Harrison come to be interested in India, its music, yoga and all which naturally occurs when the yogi achieves harmony with the earth and things magical and mysterious? I suppose we will never know the complete all things manifest. Yoga asanas (postures) are commonly thought of only answer to that, because how can we begin to fathom the depths of true as physical poses that yogis practice in order to prepare themselves for more genius? But we do know that he had a most excellent teacher in the form of spiritual practices like meditation—as if the physical were something less the great Indian sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar. But how did Ravi than the spiritual. The physical and spiritual realms are one and the same; Shankar, a man from one of the oldest cities in the world, Varanasi, come to they are both expressions of sound at different rates of motion. Matter is teach classical Indian music to one of the most famous Western pop stars? sound slowed down so that the eyes can see it. The subtle realms of spirit God works in mysterious ways. As with all meaningful innovations in vibrate at a faster rate of motion. The Sanskrit word asana means "seat," or culture, certain things catch on simply because they are contagious. For connection to the earth." Earth is all of manifest creation. This definition something to be contagious there already have to be receptors, predisposi of earth includes the air, water, soil and all species of plants and animals, as tions inherent in a person or in a group, that enable them to "pick up" the well as subtle beings like the elemental, deva, fairy and angelic forms. The innovation and hold on to it long enough for it to "catch on." perfection of yoga asana is realized by aligning oneself with nature for the During the '60s many young people were craving change and benefit of all—^it is the perfection of one's relationship with all beings and willing to experiment in various ways to shift consciousness and explore things. A harmony can be achieved that emanates from the yogi as sublime identity. The time was ripe for Eastern spirituality to be embraced by the music, touches everyone and reminds and uplifts them toward the source of West. Indian spirituality not only appeared exotic and colorful, but it 134 135 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC seemed accessible to young people due to its welcoming concepts like "all every cell as we return daily to the attack, unlocking and liberating capaci is one" or "God is love." The Indian gods were hip and cool, and they all ties otherwise condemned to frustration and death. Each unfulfilled area of seemed to be able to dance, sing and play instruments in their cosmic band: tissue and nerve, of brain or lung, is a challenge to our will and integrity, or an attractive teenage boy who seductively plays the flute and makes love to otherwise a source of frustration and death." thousands of women whom he arranges to meet clandestinely in a magical During that first trip to India, Menuhin heard Ravi Shankar play in forest or by the banks of a mystical river (Krishna), a beautiful young woman an informal performance at the home of the director of All-India Radio. He whose dexterous hands can finger a fretless viña without even glancing at was so profoundly affected by the music that he resolved to find a way to her mstrument (Sarasvati), a chubby boy with an elephant head who plays share it with the world. An opportunity came in 1955 when he was able to the tabla and loves to eat sweets (Ganesh), and a wild pot-smoking-long- invite Ravi Shankar to come to America to perform and record an album of hair-dread-locked dancer whose choreography is known to have set the classical Indian music for release in America. Shankar was unable to accept world in motion (Shiva). In the Judeo-Christian atmosphere of the West, due to other commitments, but he recommended that his friend Ali Akbar God was not someone you had fun with. Nor was God someone who lived Khan go instead. (AH Akbar Khan and Shankar were both students of in harmony with animals and nature and was comfortable with His or Her Khan's father, the great music teacher Allaudin Khan.) So with the help of (or Its) own body. Not even art or music was viewed as a means to reach Menuhin, who provided a spoken word introduction, Ali Akbar Khan God; rather, they were perceived merely as entertainment—one more com released the album Music of India on the classical music label Angel modity in the established capitalistic system. Records. This was the first major time that Indian raga was presented to the During this time of cultural change, the West was even hungry to American public. Prior to this, in 1910, Sufi teacher and master musician embrace Eastern dress. The Indian musicians didn't perform in Brooks Hazrat Inayat KLhan had come to America and performed on the viña at Brothers suits and ties; they wore loose, comfortable, colorful clothing Columbia University in New York City. He also became an accompamst made of natural fabrics, sometimes embeUished with embroidery and beads, for Ruth St. Denis and her dance company. The wider success of Ali Akbar and they had long hair and went barefoot! During the sixties and into the Khan, however, was probably due to the fact that his performance was cap seventies, the influence of India on Western fashion was huge. tured on a record which could be distributed widely, though perhaps more But the seeds were planted for George Harrison to embrace Indian importantly, he had the support of a renowned musician in Yehudi music even before the sixties. In 1951 while he was on tour, the violin mae Menuhin. Ravi Shankar played his first concerts in Europe and the United stro Yehudi Menuhin picked up a book on yoga asanas in a doctor's office States in 1956. and started practicing yoga on his own in hotel rooms. The following year, In 1965, The Beatles met David Crosby and Roger McQuinn from he was invited by Prime Minister Nehru to play some fund-raismg concerts the band The Byrds at a party. The Byrds were very enamored with Indian in India, and during this trip, he met the great yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar music and jazz, especially the music of Ravi Shankar and John Coltrane. and Ravi Shankar, two people who would become important gurus to him The prior year, David Crosby had attended a recording session in Los and who through him would go on to have a decisive influence on the Angeles where Ravi Shankar was working on an album, and at the party, he spread of Indian spirituality in the West. He studied yoga with Iyengar for enthusiastically described the music to George and John, while Roger many years and in 1966 wrote the foreword to Iyengar's ground-breaking McGuinn demonstrated on his guitar, trying to imitate some of the book Light on Yoga. In it, Menuhin describes yoga in musical terms, and he string bending techniques of the sitar. A year later, in 1966, it was Patricia reveals his profound commitment to both disciplines: "The practice of yoga Angadi, wife of the founder of the Asian Music Circle of London (whose induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own president happened to be Yehudi Menuhin), who actually personally intro body, our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum duced George to Ravi Shankar. George asked Ravi if he would accept him resonance and harmony. With unflagging patience we refine and animate as a student. Ravi Shankar went on to directly influence the pop music 136 137 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC world through his association with George Harrison who was his student, classes were always practiced to music and still are. The musical compo the jazz world through John Coltrane who also studied with him, as well as nent is a major part of Jivamukti Yoga—^forming one of the five tenets of the classical music world through his student, friend and collaborator, Yehudi Menuhin. the method. The sitar began to appear in Western pop music in the mid-1960s, These days, it would be difficult to find a yoga class in America or but with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Europe that did not practice to a recorded soundtrack. The music would Beatles in 1967, it gained wide recognition. That album turned pop music most Hkely include Indian ragas, Indian musicians or at least (or at best) upside down and inside out, particularly George Harrison's track Within Western musicians playing Indian instruments or singing to Indian gods. You Without You, which not only used all Indian instruments, but also But in my experience of yoga this was not always the case. When I started introduced into mainstream pop music the yogic teachings of "emptiness" to practice yoga in America in the 1970s, there was no music played in yoga (reality is not absolute; it is a projection of the mind): "Try to realize it is all classes. When I went to India in the 1980s to practice yoga, there was no within yourself..." The whole world knew that The Beatles had gone to music played in yoga classes. But when I practiced by myself, home alone India to study yoga, and at that time, whatever The Beatles did people in my apartment, I always practiced to recorded music on my cassette tape emulated or at the very least noticed. During the sixties young people in recorder. What I was listening to at that time was mostly Indian classical particular were looking for ways to "deprogram" themselves from what music: Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, M.S. Subbulakshmi, some John they saw as the hypnotic pull of the established culture, and since con Coltrane but lots of Alice Coltrane, George Harrison and The Beatles, and sciousness is chemical, what better way to expand one's consciousness than a tape from the Hare Krishna Temple in London called Chant and Be with psychedeUc chemicals? The Eastern spiritual teachings provided a Happy, which had been produced by George Harrison. But mostly what I foundation for the novice mind explorers to stand upon. And since in kept replaying over and over again while I saluted the sun or stood on my Indian culture it is hard to separate spirituality from art, Indian music was head were a few tapes that I had been given by a producer friend, Tom easily accepted by the counterculture emerging in the West. It provided a Lopez. These tapes contained spoken word talks by Ram Dass, as well as perfect background for a trip—a journey into one's own mind or psyche. spiritual songs, some in English but mostly in Sanskrit. The label on the Even in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, a two-thousand-year-old yoga scripture, cassettes read Serve, Love, Give, Remember, featuring "The Amazing you can find validation for taking drugs as a means to expand conscious Grace Band." There were no credits listing who was singing which song or ness. If the reader is interested, check out the first verse of chapter four, in playing which instruments. Eventually I learned that the mystery musicians which Patanjali states that the experience of samadhi can be attained by the on the cassette were Bhagavan Das, Jai Uttal, Krishna Das and Diana use of drugs. The Sanskrit word used is aushadhi, which translates as Rodgers, all devotees of Neem Karoli Baba, an enlightened guru from India. "chemical means." He also states in that same sutra that it can happen I also listened to a tape that my producer friend had made from the LP titled through the practice of mantra or through the power of discipline and that Ah, with a picture on the cover of Bhagavan Das on a beach, ektar in hand, you can also be born enlightened—^your cosmic awareness can come from eyes lifted heavenward, appearing to be singing. These brilliant, dedicated the work you did in past lives. and deeply spiritual musicians have become well-known and tremendously Most young people in the sixties were in a hurry, so the use of popular, as has Bill Laswell. In the true sense of the word yoga, which means chemical means was an attractive option. Thus a whole society of turned on to join," Bill has been a pioneer in uniting various musicians and genres of young people spent a huge part of their time listening to very disciplined music, integrating Indian classical ragas and chanting, electrónica, jazz and music that was composed and performed for the express purpose of leading funk into sonic mood shifters that have the ability to rewire the listener at a one towards God. Music and the use of drugs or alcohol has always been a molecular level. When I started to teach yoga in the East Village in New tradition in America among blues, jazz and rock and roll musicians, but it York City, it seemed natural for me to bring my soundtracks along, so the was never part of the Indian musical tradition. The training required to 138 139 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC master Indian music demands intense discipline over a long period of time, and aim to move the practitioner to become more in tune with the natural in large part because of its fundamental connection to spirituality. As Ravi world and through that harmony move one's consciousness closer to the Shankar explains, "Our tradition teaches that sound is God—^Nada Brahma. divine source of all manifestation. Yoga postures (asanas) are the vibrational That is, musical sound and the musical experience are steps to the realiza forms of fish, birds, animals, mountains, etc. tion of the Self. "We view music as a kind of spiritual discipline that raises The yogi forms him- or herself into the shape or posture of a par one's inner being to divine peacefulness and bhss." In fact, Ravi Shankar ticular animal. This is done by means of breathing: "singing" the shape into agreed to write the foreword to the book that David Life and I wrote, The form, which causes a vibrational shift of consciousness radiating into every Art of Yoga, only after we ran into each other at a party some months after cell and tissue of the yogi's body. As consciousness {kundalini in Sanskrit) we first approached him about the project, and he and I conversed for a long ascends, it is likened to a cobra, entranced by the sound of the flute. As time about how neither of us take drugs, preferring instead to engage in kundalini rises, she pierces through the chakras (energy centers in the creative arts and yoga as a means to feeling good. At the end of the conver body), and in each chakra, a distinct sound will be heard. These sounds are sation, he agreed to write the foreword because, he said, he now knew that described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika as the sounds of certain musical I had an understanding of the discipline involved in yoga practice, which is instruments, like drums, trumpets, bells, clanging cymbals, high pitched the same as in music—both being fundamentally spiritual disciplines. flutes and stringed instruments (like sitar, violin, viña and harp); the sounds In the West, on the other hand, our arts have not always been of animals, like the chirping of crickets and the buzzing of bees; and the studied or performed in order to become enlightened or to glorify God. Of elemental sounds, like the rumbling of thunderclouds or the blowing of the course there are exceptions, and many of those are great exceptions: Bach, wind. Even the notes of the Indian scale—Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa (the Beethoven, Mozart and Liszt, for instance. But in our pop music culture, precursor to our Western scale: Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do)—^were drawn artists tend to seek the glorification of their own egos more than of God. from listening to and emulating the sounds of certain animals: Sa=peacock, Many want to express themselves through the music, not express God Re=cow, Ga=goat, Ma=heron, Pa=cuckoo, Dha=horse, Ni=elephant. through the music. Most accomplished Indian musicians, however, seek to Indian Music is based in voice; even when instruments are being played, become instruments for God's expression. In order to accomplish that, one they are singing. must work hard to master his or her instrument, which begins, like most The popularity of yoga is growing in the West. Yoga Journal mag musical study, with learning how to tune one's instrument. This is the same azine estimates that 15 million people are practicing yoga in America. Most process involved in the practice of yoga. The ultimate aim is the same: for of these practitioners would say that they practice a form of yoga known as the "doer" to disappear and only God to remain, and according to the hathayoga. They might describe hatha yoga as "physical," or as "stretching teachings, God is sound—the primordial nadam. exercises to increase flexibility and strength and to improve health." Very There are so many similarities between the practice of yoga and few practitioners would be able to tell you how hatha yoga relates to one's music. Both are very physically demanding. The aim of both is to arrive at musical abilities. But, as noted at the start of this essay, the fact is that the an essential level of existence—beyond the limits of space and time. Yoga is goal of the hatha yoga practices is to develop a sound body and sound mind concerned with moving from the gross (the physical body) to the more in order to become more musical—to be able to hear the nadam. The nadam subtle (consciousness); Music takes the subtle consciousness from gross is the vibrational underlying stream that connects all of life; it is the eternal physical sound to the more etheric moods, colors or feelings {bhav in pulse of the universe, known as the "inner humming"—the sacred sound of Sanskrit). Both practices transform the practitioner, not only outwardly but OM. All manifested things, including language, emanate from this primal inwardly as well. As musical notes are played, they resonate, causing a source. In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali refers to the sound of OM ^.spranava, vibrational shift in the body of the musician. Both practices involve listen- which means "eternally new," and he declares that "God is OM" (verse ing to the sounds of nature. Both practices draw their language from nature 1.27). So when one is tuned to that which is eternally new, he or she becomes 140 141 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC renewed, the body and mind becoming sound, or whole. The hatha yoga The process of organizing individual movements into dance, or techniques help clear the subtle channels of the body known as nadis so that individual notes into music, is very similar to the process of "composing" the sound current, the nadam, which connects all of reality from subtle to asana sequences, or vinyasas. Most people who practice hatha yoga think of gross, will be able to flow without obstruction. When this happens, an indi vinyasa as "flow yoga," where a sequence of asanas (various postures) flow vidual becomes tuned to the universal and is able to feel in harmony with all together linked with the breath. But the term vinyasa actually means to of existence. Yoga is a spiritual practice and a very physical one. In order for consciously place in an ordered sequence by means of breathing with a very the physical to exist, the spiritual must be present. The nature of the physi specific intention—the intention being chitta vritti nirodha: the cessation of cal is spirit, and spirit is sound. the fluctuations of the mind. In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali declares that the Sound moves all things; without movement, things have no exis state of enlightenment is achieved when this cessation occurs (verse 1.2), and tence, no life. For anything to exist, it has to be in motion. Motion is made as mentioned above, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes the state of of vibration; vibration creates frequency, pulsation and sound. All of life is enlightenment as the state in which the mind is absorbed in the nadam alive, vibrating and pulsating. The whole world is sound. God created this (see verse 4.100). When asanas are properly composed into vinyasas, their world, so God also is sound. The Sanskrit phrase Nada Brahma means practice can lead to the quieting of the mind and the opening of the nadis— "God is Sound." According to the yoga tradition, the cause of all existence the subtle energy channels—^which enables the practitioner to experience is known by the term spanda, which refers to the divine throbbing, quiver the nadam in a state of enlightenment. ing, humming, primal, transcendental cause of all vibration—^what sets life into motion. Let's explore some specific yoga practices that employ sound and/or music to foster a connection with the Divine. If something appears to exist, you can bet that it is vibrating and The practice of "nada yoga" mostly focuses on contemplating and that some will be able to hear the thing, as well as see it. Everything, includ Ustening for the nadam—the syllable OM. In verse 9.17 of the Bhagavad ing so-called inanimate physical objects, are constantly producing tones— Gita, Krishna, the Supreme Lord, says, "I am the object of all knowledge; they sound. Reality is indeed resounding continuously. Does this mean that I am the sacred syllable OM," and in verse 10.25, he repeats: "Of all words music is everywhere? Are sound and music the same, or is music something I am the syllable OM," the idea being that through deep listening, one can different from sound? In his book The Yoga of Sound, Russili Paul says, come to know God. Nada yoga encompasses a variety of listening prac "Sound is the emanation of any tone, frequency, or vibration. Music, on the tices designed to refine the yogi's ability to hear the pranava, the OM other hand, is the organization of specific tones or frequencies, located at sound. The practices entail directing the yogi's consciousness toward the specific distances—or musical intervals—from each other." So sound is not nadam—to engage in deep listening. The first step in developing listening necessarily music, but all music is sound. For music to emerge from sound, skills is to stop talking—become still and quiet in order to allow an inner it must be organized. As a young woman I studied ballet with a great tranquility to permeate the senses. A crucial prerequisite to these practices teacher, Ruthanna Boris, who was a member of George Balanchine s New is being in a receptive mood. Receptivity is very important to the yogi, York City Ballet. Miss Boris would often admonish her dance students by because enlightenment is not something you can capture or take; it is repeatedly emphasizing that all movement is not dance. "A dance," she something that is received. would say, "is specific movement, organized according to music—^it s not I have been privileged to be in the presence of musicians who were just a lot of flapping around with your arms and legs." In a similar way, all very skilled in the practice of nada yoga, and through the practice of listen sound is not music. It takes a musician to recognize patterns inherent in the ing to sound, were able to pull music out of the air. The late great trumpeter vast array of sounds around them. It takes a gifted musician to then be able Don Cherry was a phenomenal musician. I had the honor of playing music to organize those patterns into specific melodies and rhythms and to hear with him when he was a member of our band Audio Letter in the 1980s. He the overlay of harmonies. This is what musical composition entails. is credited with coining the phrase "world music," because he felt that to 142 143 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC call what many musicians were doing by incorporating Indian, Brazilian able to hear, you first have to listen. I suppose there are musicians who play and African instruments, as well as other musical styles, into Western gen music to express themselves, but people Hke Asha and Don listen in order res "jazz-fusion," "Afro-BraziHan" or "Indian fusion" was limiting. He to hear the patterns that are floating in the sonic atmosphere and then bring liked the term "world music" perhaps because it felt more expansive, more those patterns forth. The formula for nada yoga could be stated simply as: inclusive. Once I was walking with Don down Avenue B in the Lower East Hsten-hear-know-become-be. Side of New York City after a rehearsal session, and he was talking about Shabda is another Sanskrit term meaning sound—not sound in music and how it was going on continuously. I asked, "you mean in your general, but sound as word. In the yogic tradition, the spiritual power of the own head?" "No, not just there—everywhere, can't you hear it?" We word is a science and an art. Yogis chant mantras and magical incantations, stopped on the sidewalk next to Tompkins Square Park. Don put his finger which can shift ones perception of reality—or even alter reality itself (there to his lips as if to say, "be quiet for a moment and listen." He stood there may not be a difference). Ancient scriptures across traditions recognize the for a few moments, eyes closed, then he started to nod his head to an invis central role of sound as word. For example, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad ible (at least to me) rhythm. In a moment or two his mouth started moving states: "Through Divine utterance the universe has come into being" (verse as he was humming a tune. "You hear that? It's right here! It's in the sound 1.2.4), and the Gospel of St. John in the Christian Bible declares: "In the of these trees and pigeons and the motors of the cars passing by—it's here, beginning was the word." (John 1:1) right here. All around us is music...go on now, sing it with me!" So there we were, singing the melody he had pulled out of the air. Hazrat Inayat Khan taught: "the voice is the barometer for the soul. Its transparency reveals the soul's every condition."Joy, sorrow, anger A similar experience happened several years later when I was sitting and pain—each has its own voice that comes through, despite the most skill in a restaurant with Bombay-born, Indian vocalist Asha Puthli. I had ful deception. By affecting our voice, we can affect our soul, instilling in it always been in awe of Asha since hearing her mind-blowing vocals on two the qualities we desire. Purity of speech is an important concept, as well as tracks from Omette Coleman's brilliant 1972 album. Science Fiction. She a practice, in the yoga tradition. Liberation is the goal of all forms of yoga. had been a major influence on me. I couldn't figure out how she was able To be Hberated means to be Hberated from separateness. The liberated know to sing the distinct melodies like she did on that album, with the free jazz themselves as one with all that is—^whole... holy. According to all of the that Omette was doing, which often sounded dissonant and noise-like. yoga traditions, this Hberation comes by means of sound—in one form or "Oh," she laughed, "it's easy for me because of my training in nada yoga. another. As Bob Marley often sang, "One who hears it knows it." Do you want me to show you how to do it?" I nodded. "Ok, sit still and The chanting of mantra, Hke the saying of prayers in many reli listen—listen very closely, but don't try to figure anything out, just relax." gions, can also lead one to God. Mantra is a Sanskrit word composed of two "What, right here?" I asked. "Yes, music is everywhere, now just listen," she sounds: man, which means "mind," and tra, which means "to cross over" responded. We were sitting at a table by a window in a midtown Manhattan or "to protect." The literal meaning of the word mantra pertains to that restaurant, waiters buzzing around, dishes, glasses and silverware clinking which can help one to cross over and thus be set free from the habitual, and clattering, conversations going on, air conditioning humming, record unconscious patterns of the mind. Mantras can work Hke magic. Magic ed music playing, traffic on the street outside—a cacophony of sounds. All means a shift in perception. To be able to work magic, it is necessary to learn the while Asha, her eyes closed, appeared enraptured as she started to sing how to spell. Spelling refers not only to "casting spells," but also to simply a melody, expressed as notes from the Indian scale sung with "ahs." After a being able to say words correctly—not only with the right letters and pro few minutes she created a little tune. "That's amazing, how did you do nunciation, but also with the right intention. You can read about the power that? I asked. I didn t do anything, I just listened—the song was already there," Asha maintained casually. of prayer and mantra to bring about a particular change in reality, but if you To be able to play music or to sing, you first have to hear, but to be 144 haven't had first hand experience, it all remains as superstitious or as a speculative religious or spiritual concept. 145 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC At the opening of the 1969 Woodstock Festival of Peace, Love & Mantra can also create form. About twenty years after "the wolver Music, Swami Satchidananda told the crowd that "music is the celestial ine incident," I was sitting in a room with my friend Shyamdas, a Krishna sound, and it is sound that controls the entire universe. Sound energy, sound devotee, bhakti yoga teacher and kirtan singer. We were chanting the Sanskrit power, is much, much greater than any other power in the world. One thing mantra shri Krishnah sharanam mama, which means, "I take refuge in the I want you all to remember—^with sound we can make, and at the same time beautiful, all-attractive Lord of love." We were using japa malas made of break. We can break with sound, and if we care, we can also make with tulsi wood, like rosaries, one bead after the other keeping track of each rep sound. So let all of our actions and all our arts express Yoga." I think I know etition of the mantra. I had my eyes closed, and after chanting for some what Swami Satchidananda may have been trying to teach us, as I have time, maybe half an hour, I began to see a vision taking form behind my experienced the power of mantra to alter reality in a visually perceptible eyelids the way a digital picture comes together on a computer screen, one way, both destructive and constructive. While in Seattle in the early 1970s I pixel at a time. I became quite entranced with what was happening, but as lived for a couple of months as a novice member of a Christian cult known the picture began to take a recognizable form, I opened my eyes. The pixe- as the "Love Family." Early one morning close to day-break, I woke up in lated form continued to come together in the middle of the room with each my bed filled with paralyzing fear. I felt, for want of a better word, a syllable of the mantra. I closed my eyes and continued to see the vision demonic presence in my room. Before opening my eyes I heard the sound coming together. I opened my eyes to see individual dots of light create an of someone or something snarling and growling on the floor near the foot animated 3-D vision of Krishna and his beloved gopi, Radha, sitting togeth of my bed. When I managed to open my eyes, I saw what looked to me like er in a swing. It was as if I had stumbled upon them while taking a walk in • a wolverine-type of animal pacing back and forth close to the bed. My a magical forest. As we continued to chant the mantra, the form remained, whole body was quivering with dread and apprehension. Never before had vibrating and alive. Overwhelmed, I looked over toward Shyamdas sway I come face to face with such a terrorizing form. All of my fears were con ing with the rhythm of the mantra—his eyes closed. I became exhilarated, centrated in this form. All fears are actually variations of the fear of death— knowing that something special was happening, and with that excitement, I felt, without a doubt, that this being was here to kill me, and at any the mood shifted and I fell out of the experience. I closed my eyes, but moment would savagely pounce upon me. There was no time to reflect could not regain the focus or the vision that had been created by the sound upon whether or not I was dreaming, or if this was a hallucinatory phantom of the mantra. I couldn't even continue chanting, as my reasoning intellect from my imagination. Instead I had to decide what to do and do it imme began to overpower my experience, and with that the celestial form was diately. Without a hesitating moment, I began to utter the name: Jesus lost. We stopped chanting and sat for a few moments before I told Shyamdas Christ. At first I wasn't able to speak—my vocal chords seemed frozen—so what had happened or at least what I thought had happened. Even though I could only mouth the words, which I did, but this gave way very quickly I was not able to maintain the vision, I had learned through a first hand to whispering. The more I chanted the words, keeping my focus on the experience the power of word, of mantra, to affect or create a vision of real demon, the stronger my ability to chant became, until I was speaking ity. It is said in the yoga tradition that nama precedes rupa, which means strongly, rhythmically and loudly. The words started to affect the physical that from the sound of the name {nama), the form {rupa) appears. form of the creature. It was as if the actual sound of the words was causing Repeating sacred words or mantras can be done in private to one the body of the creature to break down into pixelations of form. The more self. The practice purifies one's mind and moves it toward inner contempla I chanted, the more the demon form dissolved like pieces of a puzzle disen- tion on the divine source. Many practitioners of bhakti yoga, which is the gaging from a picture and evaporating into thin air. The visible form seemed yoga of devotion—the yoga that purifies the emotions and opens the heart to be decomposing back into the subtle element of air or ether. So sound can to love—^use mala beads to practice the recitation of mantra. You simply break hold the mala or string of beads in your hand, and as you recite each repe break down a tangible form into nothing—nothing with visible substance, that is. Mantra can be used to destroy form. 146 tition of the mantra, you hold a bead with your fingers. As you continue to 147 GANNON YOGA AND MUSIC recite, you travel to the next bead until you make your way all around the was born, but he was responsible for making it totally accessible and, we mala. Then you turn it around and start over. This is called japa practice, could say, hot, hip and definitely holy! He got people up on the dance floor! which means "recitation," and it is one of the oldest practices of yoga. The He was a mover and shaker! The ecstatic experience that arises from singing recitation takes three forms: silent, soft murmuring or out loud. Mala beads God's name and dancing in delightful abandon is not only soul-freeing but aren t only used by yogis, but also by Muslims as prayer beads and by frees one on many levels, physical and intellectual too. You don't have to be Christians in the form of a rosary. Private contemplative practices using a learned scholar and be able to memorize long involved scripture, you sound as mantra and prayer are ancient practices and have been effective don't have to argue the existence of God, you don't have to be able to sit forms of yoga for thousands of years. alone and meditate in a cave for years, you don't have to be able to control While the chanting of mantras is often done privately, it can also be your breath and stop your heart and you don't have to be able to bend your done in a group setting. Perhaps due to estrangement from God, the natural body into contortions to practice bhakti yoga. You don't even have to be a world, each other and ourselves, many of us have become socially inhibited trained musician or dancer. All you have to do is to be willing to loosen up and uncomfortable with our bodies and our feelings, resulting, among other and start singing God's holy names—the magic of the sound will take care things, in tremendous fear when it comes to speaking or singing in public. I of the rest. Attend a Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, or Shyamdas concert to see how believe that the yogic practice of kirtan developed to help remedy this dilemma of modern life. ecstatic, therapeutic and contagious the kirtan experience can be. In the worldwide, East-West yoga community, the practice of kirtan (pronounced "keer-ton") has become the most popular method to awaken one to the power of sound, word and music. The word kirtan means to speak of, to mention." Kirtan is call and response singing of "Music has the potential other arts don't have, which is to utterly change you within three minutes. Your whole body chemistry can change, your mood, your perspective..." —^Nick Cave, noted musician and leader of the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. mantras, the names of God or of God's glories. Usually kirtan is done in a In our culture, disconnection between what one thinks, what one group where there is a lead singer known as a kirtan-wallah, who recites or feels, what one says and what one does is normal. Through the practice of sings a line, and then the group responds by singing that same line. Good kirtan, a person can actually "pull himself or herself together" by allowing kirtan-wallahs are able to move the group into deeper/higher levels of ecsta their suppressed emotions to well up and be purified in the divine mood or sy, where the rational mind melts into the heart, often culminating in height bhav where all emotions are allowed. Kirtan is an opportunity to release the ened ecstatic trance and rapturous tears of joy. One possessed by this heart and all of the pent up feelings that go with mundane repressed life. euphoria forgets their mundane problems and is transported into a height There is an old alchemical precept that states: through repetition the magic ened state of awareness where love is the only law. Since the name of God is forced to rise. I think this is what happens in kirtan. You chant over and IS considered the same as God, singing God's name is to invoke the presence over again these phrases or mantras set to simple melodies, and the feeling of God and so come into intimate contact with God—^which is after all the builds until you are exploding with uninhibited intoxication, smiling, aim of yoga: to yoke or unite with God. The soul's yearning for God urges laughing, and even sometimes dancing. Once you have such an experience, one onward to explore deeper and deeper states of feeling, because under- your perception of what is possible in the realm of emotional experience is lying even the most melancholy of love songs is a sweet longing to reunite with the source. shifted, and that can be considered magic. In the bhakti realm, knowing how to perform elaborate rituals, or to debate philosophical concepts, or to The great 15 th century Bengali bhakti saint, Chaitanya, is consid perform contorted asanas, means nothing. WThen the soul is in the presence ered the father of modern kirtan, as he is credited for giving rise to the of God, only love reigns supreme. Kirtan sets the heart free to love and popularity of kirtan as a spiritual practice. Kirtan existed before Chaitanya, unite with the supreme beloved. When we sing God's name, our very being and certainly the recitation of mantra was going on for centuries before he becomes transformed through the power of mantra, enabling us to cross over the thinking mind into that state of wholeness—holiness. 148 149 CHAPTER 9 GANNON Of all the various types of yoga practice that a person can do at this time in the history of the planet, chanting the names of God is the most effective and direct means to attaining liberation from the wheel oí samsara, the world of repeated suffering. The yoga scriptures tell us that for each MUSIC, MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY yuga, which means "age, era or time span," a specific form of spiritual prac PETER GARLAND tice is appropriate. During the Satya era, which was millions of years ago, before recorded history, the best yoga method was meditation. In the Treta era, ritual sacrifice brought about realization. In the Dvapara era, one attained realization through worship of deities. But in the Kali yuga, our present era, the most direct means to attain liberation, or God realization, is Peter Garland (student, c. 1971): How does one compose music that is through chanting the holy names of God. This seems appropriate due to the deep and authentic, and not just..."sounds?" urgency we all feel to some extent at this time, due to the global crisis that James Tenney (teacher): It is a question of feeling things more deeply. threatens the continuation of life on earth. Human ignorance has propelled us to think, speak and act as if what we thought, said and did didn't have an effect on physical existence. Through the power of music, we might be able I have never been much of a religious practitioner, but my personal and musical to save ourselves and the world from total annihilation. It is sound which life have frequently brought me into contact with religious beliefs, practices brings form into existence, after all. If the divine presence of God is to reign and people from a variety of cultures. To me the idea of mysticism implies on earth, then that presence will be brought forth through means of music. a religious outlook, a "mystery," though I suppose one could feel some thing like that simply by gazing at the night sky or the sea. I am not much of a scientific materiahst either Although I connect mysticism with reli gion, I don't necessarily view spirituality in that way, though of course it can be. I see spirituality as manifesting itself in personal belief and ethical conduct (with ethics not being confused with religious proscriptions). My appreciation of rehgion(s) is as much, or more, cultural—as a cultural product, like the arts and other expressive forms of human activity—as it is philosophical. In that way, cultural work (in my case, composing music) can be a form of spiritual belief and a way of life—the Navajo concept of "Beauty" provides such a model. As I've grown older and more solitary (the latter not necessarily by choice), my relationship with the direct making of music—as a performer or an improviser would experience it— has become more distant. Though I somewhat regret and miss that, there is a kind of alchemy in the composing process: namely a sense of surprise and wonder when one hears one's own (or others') music. This does not occur all the time, and sometimes that experience is more profound than at other moments. It is precisely the transformative aspect of creativity, of going beyond oneself: "How did I do that?" "I have no idea..." Of course, part of that mystery lies in years of training, discipline and a deepening relationship with one's basic materials: both sound itself and the movement 150 151 GARLAND MUSIC, MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY and physical relationships of sound, and that psychic and emotional chem duce a very similar state to that created by sleep deprivation, where the istry corresponding to the Zen-like koan posed to me by Tenney so many rational brain gives way to a deeper "metaphorical/receptive" mode. The years ago: of "feeling things more deeply." fundamental "mystery" of mysticism is as much located in the mystery of our own minds and physical organism, as it is manifested in exterior, artis tic phenomena. In such "altered" states, the dividing line between percep tion and reception can become blurred, or even, perhaps, unified. If I am going to write about music and mysticism here, it will mainly be about my experiences in this regard as a witness, rather than a participant or practitioner (though in most public rituals, spectators/listeners are an inte gral part of the context). I identify three basic factors, all essentially extramusical, that are integral, in varying degrees, to this experience of sound as a mystical phenomenon. Hence one idea that is very important to empha size is the concept of synaesthesia: there are almost always multiple stimuli involved, not just aural. There is only one instance where a work of my own was described as mystical." Reviewing the 1985 performance of my shad ow puppet theater and dance drama. The Conquest of Mexico, John Voland wrote in the LÄ Times'. Yet the two-hour long work's elegaic tone was deep and mystical... (this contrasts with the vindictive slam I received in the magazine. High (sic) PerformanceV). Obviously, the music was only one contributing element in this mix. The first factor is the religious or ritual aspect. The musical activi ties take place, both in regards to creation and reception, in a framework of specific beliefs, about both the philosophical underpinnings and practical (or functional) efficacy of the musical activity. The second factor is the larger context. Anyone who has been to ceremonial dances out at the Hopi Mesas will understand what I mean by that. Context could also refer to a different culture or religion; any situation that takes one out of a familiar frame of reference mto one that is exotic or unfamiliar, be it an Islamic mosque, a Buddhist temple, or a Mexican Indian village deep in the mountains. In this sense, the musical and mystical experi ence reaffirms a sense of place that can be cultural, historical or geographical. The third factor is subjective, one's own receptivity and state of awareness. This obviously can be conditioned by the first two factors; and It can also be influenced by physiological and psychological factors too. Sleep deprivation is a recurring condition one has to deal with in ceremonies or performances that last all night, whether they are Kachma dances or Javanese Wayang Kulit. Drugs or other mind-altering substances can pro152 Another crucial point to emphasize is that—apart, perhaps, from a few sublime moments in the performance of Indian (India) classical music, a musical system that has its own set of deep philosophical underpinnings— I have never experienced a mystical experience with music in any concert presentation. Music as "product" or as a commodified activity does not lend itself to this, in my opinion. All of these deep experiences have taken place in the context of community—be it religious or social—and the musical expressions have been vaUdated by their place in a fabric of inter connected beliefs and activities. I have seen some events that were indeed performances as much or more than they were rituals, but what trans formed them were the shared beHefs that created a certain "gravitas" of the moment, taking it beyond mere spectacle. Needless to say too, the absence of a large "outsider" audience contributes also to this feeling. It was quite a shock and distraction the first and only time I went to the all-night Shalako dances at Zuni Pueblo, to see the multiple tour buses arriving—at mid night!—from Santa Fe and disgorging all their passengers! No wonder the Zunis have become ambivalent and antagonistic towards non-Indian out siders at their dances! In these situations, respect and proper behavior are demanded as much from spectators as they are from participants (though I must confess to an occasional lapse in this regard—"youthful indiscre tions," I am quick to add!). One other thing I must mention is the fact that I have never had a "mystical" or "spiritual" experience with electronic technology. I think the principal reason is that these kinds of experiences are ultimately transmitted and received via our physical, human organisms—both body and mind (and spirit). These are the basic vehicles: that the divine can only be experienced in terms of what poet Charles Olson referred to as this "human universe." That the divine is fundamentally human, and vice versa. One concert I attended in Santa Fe in the 1990s illustrated this point in a rather unexpect ed way. It was a performance by the Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir, a group whose tour was being partially underwritten by the Grateful Dead. In 153 MUSIC, MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY GARLAND addition, the Dead had supphed an ampUfication system—this event was in chant, with a very forceful inhale-exhale push. Whether it was trance or an outdoor amphitheater, normally used for rock concerts. It was strange not, the effect on me was that way. Equally moving was the silence of the enough seeing each of the monks wearing state-of-the-art microphone whirling dancers, in contrast to this. The center of the dance floor became a headsets. What was truly disconcerting was that the chanting—the sound— sea of calm and meditative grace, with waves of chant crashing on all sides. was no longer coming from the monks (from where I was sitting I could This would not be the only time when the most powerful and mystical not discern anything directly from them), but rather from banks of speak ers on each side. And however good these speaker systems might have element of a some experience would be the silence. The Wayang Kulit of Java, which I have stayed up all night to watch been, these sounds were no longer human, but rather electronically trans and listen to more than a dozen times, both in the U.S. and Java, was another mitted signals. So instead of Tantric Buddhist chanting, what we were sort of sacred experience altogether. Besides the rich music of the gamelan essentially treated to was a live-electronic music concert! It was strange, to (the last performance I saw in Yogyakarta I sat in the midst of the musicians, say the least! This brings up another issue, one which I will not go further right behind the puppeteer), the magic for me was the immersion in the with here: the role of architectural space, both interior and exterior, in the mythic past of the Mahabharata, of a timeless time when gods and demons projection and amplification of sacred sound. One is familiar with that in spoke and fought, all this cloaked in the darkness of night, away from the regards to cathedral and temple acoustics. In Mexico I discovered a similar glare of daytime and everyday (so-called) reality. There is a musical struc- function in the role of echo and amplification amidst the large pyramids mre to the Wayang—the three patets, or modes, and their corresponding and other edifices in the magnificent urban ceremonial compounds of the moods—that works to reinforce this sense of sacred time/space. After the pre-Columbian world. climax of the batde scene the music settles into the final mode, patet manyura, and one is enveloped in a sense of dramatic resolution and peace if* îf" îf" ful unfolding untU the end of the play, often as the morning sky is just beginning to lighten. One has overcome one's own struggle with fatigue and sleeplessness (the toughest point is around three in the mormng—time for Of the more performance (as opposed to ritual) type events that have a coffee or a cigarette to help stay awake; beyond that it is clear sailing). And moved me deeply I think of the all-night Javanese shadow puppet plays there is nothing like seeing the dawn after such a night in the presence of the (Wayang Kulit) and the music and dancing of the Sufi Whirling Dervishes in Istanbul, Turkey. Two of the three times I attended the latter, they were gods. No film has ever moved me in the same way. The same can be said of the Night Dances at Zuni Pueblo equally ritual and performance. They were performed by and for the mem comings and goings of the Mudheads and the countless Kachinas. The bers of the Sufi community; and although spectators were welcome, it was incredibly intricate and rhythmic music of the Zunis, the weighty serious not really a pubHc (or advertised) event. So there was a far greater intimacy ness of the dancing and the massed sound of the dancers rattles. The and intensity (the second time was on a very auspicious and "powerful" woodsmoke smell of the Pueblos. The feeling of ancientness: that these night at the end of Ramadan, where by chance I ended up sitting with the ceremonies belong, again, to a mythic past and are the oldest still surviving spiritual leader of the group and the instrumentalists and solo singers in the on this North American continent. And that for this night or day at least, inner sanctum). Both these performances took place in the evening at the this village, out in the remote New Mexico (or in the case of the Hopi, group's meeting hall; as opposed to the "concert" presentation which had ^the been advertised with posters and handbills and which took place in the Arizona) desert, is the center of the world. Just the drive out to the Hopi Mesas itself, through die Four daytime and in a museum (and with younger dancers who were obviously Corners area and Navajo country, is enough to put you into another time students). The first time, the most startling thing was when the men, assem frame and mental state. One of the most remarkable experiences I had out bled around the dance floor (the musicians and lead singers were in a smaller, there was at a ceremony the morning after the late summer Niman Kachina open adjoining room), and among whom I was sitting, suddenly began to 154 155 GARLAND MUSIC, MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY dances. For Hopi and Zuni, I relied on certain poet and visual artist friends pletely make out visually what I was hearing. There were prayers and chant for tips and information—most of my musician peers seemed to know or ing, of course; and at some point what sounded like the rubbing together of care little for any of this. Several of us had camped out on the Mesa, and prayer beads—but inexplicably louder than what I would have expected. with them I got up before sunrise to make it back to the village where a Then came some amazing moments when the monks seemed to run around dawn ceremony would take place around one of the kivas. A priest and the room, making a very dramatic sound with their wooden clog sandals several Kachinas came out of that underground chamber, and performed a (the floor of the temple being a natural resonating box). The musical inten ritual that I had no understanding of whatsoever, other than admiring its sity was building simultaneously with my own feeling increasingly chilled. formality and solemnity. The small crowd watching (we were the only I had come back into Nara from visiting various outlying temples, and had white folks) were quiet and reverent. You could hear the tiniest sounds— not had a chance to change into warmer clothes before heading over to and the silence was profound. The sun was rising in the east, as the full Todai-ji, so I was not prepared for the cold—not to mention the fact that moon was setting directly opposite in the west. Again, at this moment, here, one had to remove one's shoes before entering the temple. I was starting it felt like we were at the center, the heart, of the world. to shiver and reach a breaking point, when it happened: all of a sudden there All these factors—ancient ritual, a feeling of being in the center of was an eerie heterophony of conch shell horns! It was one of the most the world, the dislocation of night-time, a foreign culture and religion— jaw-dropping musical moments of my life. I was stunned: here I was, wit came together once for me in Japan. The fact that this "center of the world" nessing a ceremony that extended back 1,200 years, and oddly what those idea keeps recurring perhaps points to the concept of mandaL—how ener conch shell horns made me think of was: Edgard Varèse! "Ancient to the gy is concentrated in and then radiated out from a specific spiritual center. future"—indeed! The temple grounds and downtown Nara were com The sand and painted marídalas are a visual representation of a very real pletely empty as I scurried back to my comfortable room at the ryokan. As energy phenomenon that I've only had glimpses of in these rare moments usual the silence of the night served to amplify the resonance in my mind of of sensory alteration, psychic receptiveness, and musical-ritual articulation. what I had just witnessed and heard. The event was the annual Omizutori ceremony at the Todai-ji Buddhist temple in Nara in early March. On the final night the eleven or so monks who are performing the purification rituals (which go on for over two weeks) enact a dramatic spectacle where they run with huge pine bundle torches onto the front balcony of the temple (an old, wooden temple, mind In the mid-'90s in New Mexico, I also had a pair of musical/sonic encoun you!) and wave them, showering sparks on the crowds of onlookers who ters with the "Great Mystery" itself: Death. Both occurred during Easter have gathered below. This is certainly as dramatic as anything I've ever week and involved the Penitentes, a Catholic lay brotherhood active in the seen—but it is very much a public spectacle and it is packed with people. Hispanic communities of New Mexico. On a Palm Sunday in 1997, at the I was fortunate enough to be close to the front, and apparently among a morning Mass at the Santuario of Chimayó (Esperanza and I had walked special invited group (where I think I was not really supposed to be; but I there, a few miles from nearby Nambe; ours being a small precursor of the ended up there due to a combination of determination, gaijin naivete, and big annual pilgrimage that would climax there on Good Friday—^people Japanese courtesy in not kicking me out!). Anyway I was invited by people walked from as far away as Albuquerque) the priest had armounced that the in the group to come with them afterwards to the back of the temple, to local Penitentes would be singing alabados at a special service to be cele witness the rest of the ceremony that would go on all night. It was very brated that afternoon, at a church outside Española, and that the pubHc was dark the ritual area lit only by candle or oil lamp light—and I was in the welcome. So we decided to go. The Penitente brothers looked like a cross- rear of two viewing chambers, the one for just the general pubHc. So I was section of the Hispanic community—^professional people, working class viewing things through two wooden lattice screens, and could not com guys, some of them pretty big dudes. They all seemed to have their note books (I didn't get to see them close up), which had the lyrics and/or 156 157 garland music, mysticism and spirituality melodies of these alabados, or praise songs (from the Spanish verb alabar, both infinite and inevitable. I "understood" in some deep part of me—and to give praise). The service turned out to be a massive Confession (to puri then the service was over. fy people for Easter Week), and there were long stretches of time given The second time took place at the end of that week on the night of over to the Hermanos (Brothers) to sing. It was a modern style church Good Friday in a village in northern New Mexico. Some of Esperanza's (as opposed to some of the adobe architectural gems from the Hispanic friends belonged to Penitente families, and they invited her (and me, being colonial era, such as the Santuario in Chimayó), so you could say it was her husband) to come up and attend the service for the traditional "Tinieblas" somewhat lacking in "atmosphere." Confession not being my thing, I (Spanish: darkness or confusion), which represented the moment of Jesus' decided therefore to visually focus and meditate on the Cristo on the death when darkness came over the land, the earth shook and boulders spUt Cross high above the altar, while I hstened to these chants. (Normally such open, etc. We drove north and, following directions we were given, found a figure would be covered over for Lent; somehow I recall it as not being the morada, or local Penitente meeting house, where the people of the com shrouded, perhaps because of it being so high up and inaccessible.) As I did munity were already gathering. We were given a very warm and courteous so, something very moving and unexpected happened to me. These won welcome (not too many Anglos get invited to these things, and I was the derful, melancholy tunes, seemingly a bit high in the tenor range for these only one there), and we went inside with everyone for a long service, which men, were suffused with a dark, almost Arabic, sadness—a kind of wail was essentially various recitations of the Rosary ("Hail Mary...") and other that went back centuries to the Iberian peninsula where once Christians, prayers. Several of the images associated with Holy Week and Easter were Moslems and Jews had lived together, until the Reconquista (the re- there in the chapel, including a statue of the Virgen Dolorosa (the Grieving conquest of Spain by the CathoHc monarchs), which had resulted in the Virgin Mother), a santo-like statue of Jesus lying in an almost life-size diasporic exile of this cultural legacy, many people ending up in the New coffin, and also a wooden "Death Cart," a skeleton riding in a cart, which World whose lands Columbus had discovered at almost the same time. I'd only seen before in books and museums. At a certain point all the peo There is a certain darkness to Spanish Cathohcism, more than any other ple in the service were asked to move up front, and a floor to ceiling curtain European form of it; I guess that reflects centuries of Inquisition and (or blankets, I don't recall) was set up, blocking off the rear of the morada penance (interestingly enough, the Aztecs and other pre-Columbian peo (where the door was). There were a dozen or so candles Ht, which were our ples too were masters of penance and sacrifice, which perhaps helped this only light in the darkness. As we prayed, one by one they were slowly religion take such deep root in the Hispanic Americas). One sees this most extinguished, and the room grew darker, until there was only a single can eerily in the Procession of Silence, which takes place in many parts of Latin dle lit. When that was extinguished, there was suddenly a loud exclamation America, when men in shrouds and pointed hoods carry the dead Christ from the man leading the prayers, and then...oh through the streets on the night of Good Friday. been so scared—terrified!—by a sonic event, and my heart practically my god!!! I have never Esperanza commented that she was struck by the emotional inten popped out of my mouth, and I nearly levitated out of my seat as I tried to sity of the music—that this kind of baring one s soul (and heart), the deep h o l d o n t o Esperanza f o r d e a r life. I ' m n o t s u r e h o w l o n g this total b l a s t pain and humility of it, was something that she thought of women doing and like this, but not men! This aspect was particularly moving to her. Listening entire minute? It's like judging how long an earthquake shakes—it seems to to these songs and staring intently at the Cristo, I felt overwhelmed by the go on forever, even if it's only brief. Evidently (I never found out or asked weight and sorrow of it all. Finally I suddenly realized: these men were not any of the details) a number of Penitente brothers had silently sneaked into just singing about the mystery of the death of a venerated religious figure the curtained-off area behind us (and I mean silently, because the service in shrouded in the historical memory of two thousand years ago. No, they were singing about the mystery of Death itself, all our deaths, embodied in this one Christ figure: their deaths, my death too, with a sadness that was 158 wall of sound went on from behind the curtain—thirty seconds, an the morada was very quiet except for our prayers) and had brought an arsenal of noise-making things (metal, whatever—I have no idea what made that sound); and then at the signal they had 159 cut loose! We had garland music, mysticism and spirituality been told that this was going to happen three times, so with our eyes wide siders are welcome with the understanding that this be respected. For that open in shock, trying to recover our breath, and me trying to stuff my heart reason I have hardly ever written about my experiences in New Mexico. In back down my throat into my chest where it belonged, we went through doing so now, I have been deliberately vague as to detail, and have been the exact same ritual with the prayers and candles. We thought/hoped we careful to write only about things that others have already written about were prepared, but the second time it was (I have to use and which are readily available in print. I am grateful for the opportunity to bold capital letters! It's the only way to express what it felt like.) Though even worse! have experienced these moments, and have tried not to violate this respect. mercifully the third time wasn't quite so bad, or we had finally gotten used —Winnegance, Maine, Winter 2009 to it (another aspect was the complete darkness in the morada—you could n't even see your hand in front of your face). Afterwards, milling about o u t s id e w i t h o u r friends a n d folks i n t h e c o m m u n i t y , people w e r e smiling and chuckling as we said our thank-yous and goodbyes. They'd been through this before!—though some of our friends had declined to go into Remembering Luisito Lujan the morada, saying, "We've done it before, but we're not going through Occasionally in life one has the luck to encounter truly remarkable people again!" The Hermanos would spend the rest of the night in the by chance, without consciously looking for them as one does with a teacher. morada in prayer—^until dawn, when they would emerge, out of the With a teacher, one usually has an idea of what one wants to learn, regard Darkness (Las Tinieblas), and into the Light (of day). Amazed by the beau less of whether there are surprises along the way; and more often than not, ty and power of what we'd just witnessed, Esperanza and I drove home in near silence. these teachers become (lifelong) friends. But what of friends whom one that meets casually; who, without any intention to be so, become important teachers? Whose friendship becomes an important encounter along the path of one's life? Who teach one things one didn't know one wanted—or needed—to learn? Well, I think I have presented enough anecdotal recollections of experiences that I have had with mysticism and music and sound—and silence. And I haven't even mentioned anything about my years of research in Mexico! That would easily fill another essay, and I have written about that elsewhere. As a composer, I don't aspire to anything like this intensity of mysticism in my own music. I am prevented from that by the very diffuse nature of my own eclectic and personal religious outlook. These were experiences that deeply affected me and my view of life and the world, and they are some of my most cherished sonic memories. As for spirituality, that is an ongoing devotion (to music—and knowledge), discipline and struggle. I can only hope that I "get there"—^wherever that is. It's the journey itself that counts. I want to talk about one such person, whom I will refer to from here on as my friend. Because there was never anything more than that, and Luis would have laughed or felt embarrassed by any such "teacher" idea. There was never anything like that between us, and we were never anything more than casual, but good friends. I was neither one of his best friends, though I think my wife Esperanza was. It was through Esperanza Esquivel that I had the good fortune of meeting Luis Lujan. Professionally, he was known as Luisito Lujan, the diminutive being used—in an affectionate way—as a reflection of his physical condi tion. Luis suffered a disease or genetic condition whereby his legs never grew, even though the rest of him developed normally. So he spent his life in a wheel-chair. He was thus a small person—though in no sense a dwarf— but in his inner self he was a giant of a man. Physically, I recall his big bar Postscript rel of a chest, symptomatic of a person who has to get around using their In both the Native American and Hispanic communities, the rituals I have hands and arms, plus wheeUng himself about in his wheelchair The other mentioned are considered very sacred and very private. And therefore out very noticeable thing about Luis were his hands—with his large agile fingers 160 161 garland music, mysticism and spirituality (usually clutching a cigarette). He had the sensitive hands of a woodcarver, affairs that quickly turned into courtship. Luis Lujan was Esperanza's land or of a jeweler like he had once been. Musicians tend to have similar hands, lord, but between them it had become a much closer friendship than that. because it is with our hands and fingers that we work. Not the hard, heavy They lived in two houses right next to each other, in the same family com work of farmers or mechanics, whose hands have to handle heavy tools and pound under a giant spreading oak tree at the junction of two dirt roads in loads and tend to be rougher, thicker, more calloused—Luis's hands reflect rural Nambe, a half hour drive north of Santa Fe. Though Nambe was, and ed the precision and delicacy of his work. By the time I met him in 1995, still is, going through "gentrification" (sic)—i.e. the older Hispanic homes Luisito was a renowned santero. In the Hispanic culture of New Mexico, and properties are being bought up by wealthy Anglo money—Luis's house that means a carver of saints. Like most santeros, Luisito could also carve was in the heart of old Nambe. The Httle "casita" Esperanza lived in—the and paint retablos—flat, painting-hke works carved in reUef on wood and rural equivalent of an "efficiency" apartment, one big room with separate painted (or just simply painted sometimes). He also made delicate straw kitchen and bath—had once been a neighborhood liquor store (I laughed at inlay work—like the two small crosses he made for Esperanza's and my that—it was poetic justice that I ended up there) that Luis's father had wedding. Carved and painted in black and red, with the tiny straw inlay as owned. In fact, there was still an earthen "cellar" underneath, where beer decoration (that he appHed piece by piece with tweezers). At the junction of could be stored and kept cool. Her house was at the far end of the small the crosses, he had placed a strong red circle with a star inside of it (for yard. Alongside it, forming an inverted L, was Luis's larger house: a classic mine). For Esperanza's he placed a red heart. Hispanic house of adobe with a tin roof, with a comfortable roofed-over Luisito was his professional name—but only his closest friends and shady porch that ran the length of the house. Hispanic houses in the old family (and perhaps clients and collectors) called him that. From day one I days tended to grow horizontally, by accretion. As one had more children, always called him Luis. That was obvious to me: besides being older than one added more rooms, and the house got longer. Luis's family home was me, Luis was a person who commanded respect, despite his totally relaxed, modestly large, divided in three main sections, reflecting a medium-sized easygoing nature. I am no expert at all on northern New Mexico wood- family of modest means. Luis's older sister. Pita (Guadalupe, hence carving, but I think (and most people agreed) that Luis's saints were special. Guadalupita), widowed before I knew the family, came out on weekends, There was a warmth, an almost human quality to his figures that were and cleaned up and generally took care of the house and her brother. Luis remarkable. These are, after all, only statues, pieces of wood that have been lived in the first section of the house. His bedroom was attached to the big carved and painted. But Luis's pieces seemed almost alive, as if each one had kitchen, from which there was a screen door out onto the porch. In the a heart. I think that reflected the love and skill Luis put into each piece. middle room was Luis's table of saints—about eight to ten pieces at any given Unlike some carvers, Luis did not carve for money; though of course he time. These were his own pieces, and the table was special. It was neither a didn't scorn it either. He received a regular government disability check, display nor an altar, though it was a little of both. Seeing this grouping of and lived in the house in Nambe where he had been born. A bachelor, he Luis's saints always elicited comments of wonder and admiration from had a tight, supportive and loving extended family—not to mention his visitors. A photo of that table with its saints appears in one of the books on neighbors and the community as a whole. Most people would have been glad to do anything for Luis. New Mexican santeros. I never tired of going into that room and contem What were also amazing about Luis's saints were that they were plating Luis's saints. As in most such compounds, there was a lot of intimacy and per expressions, more than anything else, of his deep faith and spirituality. That haps a bit less privacy than a new Anglo boyfriend might have wished for. is probably the most profound lesson he taught me, and which is why his From the start, Luis was friendly and warm with me, and very easygoing. pieces not only had heart, but soul also. It was this encounter with Luis's I was not the first suitor to visit Esperanza there, and though Luis and faith, along with my wife Esperanza's, that had the deepest impact on me. Esperanza had become close, close friends—I would almost venture to say I began dating Esperanza Esquivel in the summer of 1995, a state of 162 like brother and sister—Luis was very relaxed and detached. His sense of 163 garland music, mysticism and spirituality humor was special—he watched our comings and goings with his famous from our Hispanic neighbors. smile and laugh, and a lively twinkle in his eyes. Never over-protective of Esperanza and I were an unUkely match: she a practicing Catholic; her, he knew that things would work out or not, as they were supposed to. me, the ultimate skeptic (I had been brought up and educated in church Later on, Esperanza would sometimes be mad at me, so I would go over to schools enough to reject it most of my adult life). Esperanza had lived for Luis's house and "escape" from her. Luis would laugh in brotherly cama years in the Pojoaque Valley; first in Cuyamungue, later in Nambe, and had raderie at our (pre)marital spats—because Esperanza never got angry with worked and worshipped likewise for years with the community. Even him. He kept her rent amazingly low—^the same for seven years, until we though from Mexico, she had become a part of the "Valley." Although I insisted on raising it. And he was always there for her, in emotional or finan didn't agree on all details, the basic honesty of her Catholic faith and that of cial hard times. her (later our) neighbors impressed me. Knowing Luis only reinforced that. As it happened, Esperanza and I dated through the rest of 1995 and I had studied Buddhism and Taoism and even been to monasteries in Japan, 1996. I started spending weekends out there in late 1995, and more and but it seemed odd and inappropriate to be seeking spiritual sources so far more frequently during 1996.1 moved in with her at the end of 1996, and in outside one's culture. I never considered myself a New Mexican Catholic, July 1997 we were married. We continued to live in Luis's compound until but I started to do something very simple with Esperanza: I went to Sunday October of that year, when we moved to Mexico. The last and only time we church with her. In Nambe, this introduced me further to the community. saw Luis after that was in March 1998, when we came back briefly to Santa Living at Luis's deepened that cormection. It's no big secret that there are Fe to take back more of our things to Mexico. It was a mark of our close socio-economic and cultural tensions between the Anglo and Hispanic ness and friendship that with several places available to stay, we chose to communities in New Mexico—^in eleven previous years living in Santa Fe I spend that week in Nambe, out at Luis's (Esperanza's casita by that point had surprisingly little contact with Hispanic people. So I had a lot to learn. was rented to someone else). We called him on the phone every three to four And not everyone accepted me right away, being Esperanza's Anglo months from Mexico (one of only two to three friends we called regularly), boyfriend. With Luis, there was never that problem. I could also talk to him and Esperanza wrote occasionally. We were both quite lonely and homesick about my ups and downs, and occasional mistakes, in dealing with people our first years in Mexico—Esperanza had left all her friendships behind to and situations in Nambe. He would always listen patiently, chucUing at come with me (I, who am perhaps more used to "leaving"). Some nights, times, with that smile and sparkle in his eyes behind those thick glasses. I after a few glasses of wine, I'd smile and say, "Let's call Luis!" And we think he respected and enjoyed my attempt to belong. From years of Uving would—his gruff, husky, cigarette smoky voice answering us far away in in Mexico, I had learned to slow down somewhat, and to show patience and New Mexico, chuckling as always. I would say hello and talk briefly, and respect where it was due; so hanging out with Luis became one of the great then he and Esperanza would chat for a half hour. And I would see how joys of hving in Nambe. He liked it right off that I called him Luis rather renewed and smiling she would be. Talking to Luis always had that effect, for both of us. than Luisito; and though he was rarely, almost never, critical of others, I think he sympathized with some of my own criticisms of rich, Anglo, snob My friendship with Luis, and relationship with Esperanza, also bish Santa Fe. We discovered that we both had an antipathy towards the gave me another profound lesson: a real insight into the Hispanic culture of man who had been director of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society. Even northern New Mexico. Its spirituality, its humor, its sense of family and though an artist in an "arts town," I had had most of my initial encounters community, and the importance of humility and respect. Not easy lessons with the wealthy Anglo community (the art "patrons") as a worker in the for an angry, full-of-himself, Anglo "rebel." They also showed me the barely-above-minimum-wage working class. So I saw how differently they beauty of New Mexican Cathohcism, and its deep faith, a faith profound treated workers and "artistes" (in a town where 80% of the art was pure ly rooted in the land—lessons that we more money-and-prestige-driven, crap)—^which naturally pissed me off—this director of the Spanish Colonial individualistic (in sometimes selfish ways) Anglos would be wise to learn Arts Society in particular. Luis didn't like him either—and more specifically 164 165 garland music, mysticism and spirituality the fact that rich Anglos in Santa Fe dictated to Hispanic artists and crafts pie knew Luis—and he knew them—and how well-informed he was about men what they "could" and "could not" do. His quiet way of protesting goings on in the community. that was his non-participation in the annual summer Spanish Market. His Another factor that bonded Luis's and my friendship was that we lack of interest also reflected that for him his carving was an act of faith, not shared a similar sense of humor. Esperanza, on the other hand, was very commerce. There was also perhaps a shyness about pubUc appearances, due sensitive—you couldn't tease her. Whereas Luis and I were joking and to his physical condition, and the sheer difficulty of being transported from laughing all the time. He would especially save any good CathoUc joke for place to place. Luis was never intransigent—^he would always graciously me—his whole body shaking with laughter in his wheelchair at his own accept invitations every summer to attend the Market anyway as a special jokes. A guy like me would never dare tell a Catholic joke to anybody else guest and demonstrator. He would quietly carve amidst all the crowds, and in the Pojoaque Valley! And perhaps I was one of the few people he could greet old friends and strangers alike with the same easy smile and warmth. tell these jokes to. Luis Hstened with sympathy and interest to my encoun One time Esperanza was standing around with Luis and someone ters and growing respect for the faith of the people of northern New exclaimed that the female saints and Virgins had her face! Luis just grinned, Mexico: our weekly trips to Mass in the different churches around the shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. area—^Nambe Pueblo, Chimayó, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso Pueblo. The At the house, Luis would work on his porch outside in good beautiful Easter Sunday Mass in 1997 at the tiny old church in Las Trampas, weather. He would always be there to greet us in our comings and goings. where the people had been so welcoming to us; and where the beauty of the Or he'd be indoors watching a baseball game on the big TV his family had church, the place, the people had brought tears to my eyes after a week given him. His favorite team was the Chicago White Sox—I never figured spent in Manhattan fighting with most of my so-called "peers." The two out why someone from New Mexico would be a big fan of them. Luis again times Esperanza and I made the walking pilgrimage to Chimayó—the last would just chuckle and say he didn't know either. That gave us something time on a beautiful, suimy Palm Sunday morning, all the people in the pass further in common, because my favorite team was the Boston Red Sox— ing cars honking and waving to us. Though I assured Luis—again, joking— and both teams are chronic losers. "Heck, Luis," I'd say, "I guess we're both that we'd taken the "short route," the "easy" one! And we both laughed. suckers for punishment!" More laughter. At night, he would be joined by Or the time I told how beautiful it was and how moved I had been hearing his two close buddies, Mariano and George. Mariano was from Nambe, the sad, ponderous lamentations of the Penitentes the time they sang their probably around Luis's age, a very tall, big man—in that way he and Luis alabados in a church halfway between Española and Chimayó, the after formed a truly odd couple. The biggest guy in Nambe was the best friend noon of Palm Sunday (the priest had announced it at morning Mass in of the smallest guy. George was a dapper Mexican man, originally from Chimayó). And how impressed I had been the time Esperanza and I had Ciudad Juarez. Both Mariano and George were devoted to Luis, and came been invited to a Penitente morada on Good Friday. I joked to Luis that over literally every day. It was an interesting personal chemistry, a friend "I had to behave myself, because the brothers of the Cofradía were some ship whose center and bond was Luis. Luis would always joke and tell me big that Mariano and George had been arguing again: "Boy, those two fight like moved I had been. That after two years in the Valley, this Anglo had learned they're married to each other!" And his shoulders would shake with laugh a deep respect for his faith and that of his neighbors. dudes!" Laughter again, but Luis clearly saw and appreciated how ter. Another group of friends who met regularly, about once a month or so, There were plenty of lighter moments too. Like the time we woke at Luis's house were the Escuelita—a group of santeros, most of them up early one morning to find Lalo, a young Mexican man from Chihuahua younger than Luis, who got together, and spent all day carving, talking and who worked sometimes for Luis's nephew David, passed out in his truck in hanging out. Luis was a kind of leader and role model for these younger our parking area in front of Luis's house. He had gone on a drinking binge carvers, who were mostly in their thirties and forties; and he enjoyed their the day before, and had made it as far as Luis's—totally lucky to have avoid company as much as they valued his. It was also amazing how many peo- ed the local cops, which besides a DWI citation, might well have resulted in 166 167 garland music, mysticism and spirituality his deportation, since he was at that time illegal. "We had to wake up Luis as usual—that "I almost died!" and that he had been in the hospital, and and ask him what we should do about this. I went out and woke up Lalo that the doctors had made him finally give up smoking. How much we and talked to him, and then had to persuade him not to drive back to wanted to be back with Luis then! To help him through his withdrawal Chimayó where his family lived, because he was still drunk, incoherent and from cigarettes, and just be with him, for support, as his friends. We didn't reeked of alcohol. He nodded, and promptly passed out again, slumped find out about his death until almost three weeks afterwards, when a friend over his steering wheel. Meanwhile Luis called Lalo's father, who eventual visiting us dropped the news in the midst of casual conversation: "Oh, you ly came to pick him up)—^with a good scolding!—and drove him and the heard that Luisito died, didn't you?" The news hit us like a bombshell. Not vehicle back to Chimayó. "We laughed about that for days. There was the only had we lost a dear friend—someone who had been like an older time I bought a retablo at the Spanish market that depicted a woman saint brother, almost, to Esperanza—but we had lost a place, his home there being sawed in half from head to feet—a piece I had bought, frankly, under the shady trees in Nambe, which he had made us feel like it was our because it was so strange and grisly. Other people wouldn't understand that own home. We looked forward so much to seeing him and staying with or my reasons—^humor not tending to be a fundamental quality of most him on our next visit to New Mexico. And we lost an important part of rehgions, except perhaps Taoism—but Luis caught on right away. He took our past, of our own lives. one look at it, and just started chuckling, and said: "That's far out!" But he But I've found out over the years that friends never die. Because took his rehgion seriously too. He was a member of the Cofradía of the they continue to live on in our hearts and memories. Besides photos, I have Sacred Heart at the big handsome church located at the top of the hill, an image in my mind of Luis, on his porch, in his wheelchair, his cordless where you turned right off the road that led out to Chimayó, and descend phone by his side, a lit cigarette in his ashtray, carving away patiently at a ed down into the green lush valley area where we lived. He donated one of piece of wood that, Hke a miracle, would gradually be transformed into a his nicest statues to that church, and he himself is buried there. saint, or a Virgin, or Christ, luminous with life and spirit. He would always There were things we didn't necessarily see eye-to-eye on. Luis be ready to put his work down, welcome friends, or just listen to us and was a Republican, and fairly conservative in his politics—another unusu talk. Luis was the greatest Hstener—^people loved him for that, and loved to al characteristic, because most of Hispanic northern New Mexico votes come over and talk. Because he was one of the most unselfish people I have Democratic. So we didn't talk politics much, or if we did, I mostly kept my ever met. And despite his physical hardships and a life that was not easy, he opinions to myself. But I've come to respect certain political conservatives, seemed incredibly at peace with himself. He radiated a joy and love that was as long as they are not too extreme (the same goes with reHgion); and Luis's an inspiration to everyone who knew him. I wish we could have been there politics were well thought out and consistent with his moral beliefs. Perhaps for his funeral. Not just to pay our own final respects, but also because it that is another of the lessons Luis taught me: respect for other people, must have been an amazing and moving event. It would have been moving despite our differences. The people I lost respect for in the '80s were many to see his neighbors, the communities of Santa Fe, the Pojoaque and of my own yuppy, "Hberal," generational peers; who seemed to believe in Española Valleys, come out to say goodbye to one of their own. Luis Lujan, nothing but money, personal comfort and "success," and had no convic in his own personal way—of course in his work, but also in his individual tions bright or left or whatever—other than convenience and self interest: Hfe—^represented the heart and soul, and the resilient courage and humor— the selfishness of affluence. It was an inspiration to be around someone like all the best of northern New Mexico culture. I am happy to think of him, Luis—or Esperanza—^for whom faith meant more than money. buried and finally put to rest, in the cemetery of his beloved church, with was Luis died in the summer of 2001. We never knew just how old he its magnificent, commanding view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, over because he looked more youthful than his years. Laughter keeps you looking the village of Nambe that was his home for his entire Hfe. Luis young, they say. So does being at peace with oneself, and having a good heart. In one of our last calls, he had told us—chuckling, in his husky voice. 168 Lujan has returned to the earth from which he sprang. And, the true miracle was that Luis Lujan—carver of saints, Hfe169 CHAPTER 10 GARLAND long Republican, White Sox fan, chain-smoker, fond of his Catholic jokes— was in his way; the closest thing to a saint himself that I have ever been privileged to know. Not in some big, heroic, larger-than-life way that saints tend to be viewed, but rather in a humble, day-to-day manner. Every day M U S I C EXTENSIONS OF for Luis was a small act of heroism, and his generosity and humor were spe INFINITE DIMENSIONS cial. But it was his faith, above all, the deepest core of his belief and being, MILFORD GRAVES that made all of us who knew him recognize that Luis Lujan was a remark able man indeed. The example of his person, his life, and his beautiful saints, were and are gifts to all of us. May God bless you, Luis. And thank you. —Mogpog, Marinduque Island, Philippines, Easter 2002 The primary objective of the Cosmo-Mystic-Spiritual (CMS) musician is to initiate an intradynamical thrusting force on the various particles that com prise Earth's atmosphere. The frequency dynamics of these particles should be compliant with the cosmic energies that impinge on the tympanic mem brane and the integumentary (skin) system. Through our given sensory receptors and biological transducers, it is possible and permissible to cre atively decipher the concealed and hidden energies within and beyond the universe. I am using the words universe and cosmic energy not as absolutes, but as a transient-relative reference to activate the creative process to go beyond conscious universal knowledge. RNA^ is the messenger, composer and conductor of Biological Music. GUG rr^i CAU I 1 CUG ACU r CCU Tt-KT K ^ Ì GAG • ine development or KNA Codons is initiated by non-time dimensional energy transformations. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is the messenger of spiritual-mysticism. GAG AAG 1- RNA: Ribonucleic Acid with eight amino adds GUG valine CAU histidine CUG leucine CCU proline GAG GAG glutamic glutamic Imaginative and practical process of what needs to be known to transcend beyond the limitation of standardorganized music. The following is a functional description of the semantics of four particular transformative energies that can initiate the process of innova tive/creative music. Mysticism Cosmic energy that is concealed-hidden from intellectual translation and understanding. Primary function of mysticism is human transformation. 170 171 ACU threonine AAG lysine MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS GRAVES Mystical music involves producing music with a spectrum of dense cluster frequencies and functional a priori frequencies that can potentiate the motion of the basilar membrane.^ Greater . , , , -11 • 2. Basilar membrane: located in the cochlea potentiation ot the basilar membrane will stim(auditory) portion of the inner ear. ulate the innovative-creative thought process by effecting multidimensional neural activities in the subcellular system of the brain. Figure 1 is a spectrogram of a composite recording of a human Electrocardiogram, Heart sounds, and Brain frequencies. This trio of spec tral frequencies was then transformed into a relative form of Biological Music (mystical music). Neutrinos and other elementary particles: entry gate is the total body and serves as an initiator and substrate for mystical energy/thought. Ultra violet B radiation: entry gate is the skin and is transformed into vitamin D. Photons/visible light spectrum: entry gate is the eyes and is trans formed into quantum interactions within the sub-cellular system. This conglomeration of energy is transmitted through the vocal folds (Metaphoric Magic Wand [MMW]) in the image of singing/speech and on object based instruments (MMW) by finger (MMW) manipulations. Magic Words Magic words in reality consist of deductive articulation and quanta-toning of the constituent vowels, consonants, phonemes, and syllables that com prise a word. The utterances of these constructs are capable of creating large amounts of energy within the neuroanatomical pathways and networks of the vocal system. Figure 1. Spectrogram induced by Zeitgeber^-effens. Spectrogram is image of how the spectral density of a signal varies with time. JY 3. Zeitgeber. An environmental agent or event that provides the stimulus setting or resetting a biological clock of an organism. • IVluglL Initiation of the innovative process by deriva tives formed from the excitation of sub-molecular agents in the atmos phere [AIR] impinging on human sensor/mechanoreceptors (ear-hearing/ skin-touch). Calling of Magic through the Magic Wand Relative to the concept of a space-time universe and its derivatives, the human brain-mind-body complex can metaphorically serve as an organic magic wand. This process involves the reception and passage of cosmic energy through nano (10 ') to atto (10 '^) sized openings (pores) in the Integumentary System (skin). The realization of this matter is that there is a trio of cosmic energy that is injected into the biological system on a daily micro time basis. This trio includes the following: 172 Alchemy: Inner Alchemy Inner alchemy takes place within the biological system and involves Transduction through Transmutation of Electromagnetic-Chemical ener gies in the subcellular system. An ethnographic-prefix to the discipline of alchemy presents a limiting factor to the total functionaries and practice of alchemy. Irrespective of the ethnological prefixing/classification of alchemic practitioners, the common denominator of the various concepts of global alchemy is transmutation. Spiritual (Middle English, from Old French spirituel, from Latin spirituahs, of breathing, spiritual, from spiritus, breath', see spirit) involves soft circular breathing and articulation of less stressful vibrations for preservation of the vocal cords. Soft circular breathing produces less contraction-expansion and stress on the cheek muscles, thereby avoiding disruption of blood flow 173 GRAVES MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS and oxygen to the brain. Ear: Grand Gateway for Reception of Cosmic Vibrations/Energy Soft breathing (spiritual breathing) is required when subvocalizing (quiet thinking) to transmit biological energy to the vocal cords. From the aforementioned we can construct a S E M A N T I C NETWORK: The SPIRITUAL allows one to perceive concealed wisdom (MYSTICISM ) and how t o transmute ( ALCHEMY ) and germinate ( MAGIC) their receivings to the unexposed to produce innovative-creative music. SPIRITUAL : humble/open minded/receiving-giving MYSTICISM ; concealed-betweenness of what we think we know A L C H E M Y : biological transmutation to nutrify mysticism/ spiritualism Stapes (attached to oral window) nitrogen oxygen hydrogen carbon dioxide sulfur dioxide methane Semicircular Canals Vestibular Nerves atmospheric pressure iodine helium argon neon krypton Eustachian Tube Tympanic Membrane Round Window Figure 2. Ear. M A G I C : receiving and projection of mysticism The EAR with its constituent energy activators: tympanic membrane (eardrum)-ossicles-cochlea and nerve pathways are the mystic energy forces that participate in the continual loop for the transfer and projection of what is con ceptually known as the expanding angular energies of the universe and beyond. A healthy human tympanic membrane (eardrum) is amazing. It has a conscious frequency range of approximately +/-20 Hz to approx. +/20,000 Hz, with a frequency resolution of approximately +/-0.2%, mean ing that we can discern between two tones with a frequency difference of Semantic network. STATEMENT OF CLARIFICATION The primary purpose of this essay is to focus on an integrative process of how to interweave the hidden wisdom of imaginative thinking (mysticism, magic, alchemy, and the spiritual of music) with scientific methodology. This revelationary'' endeavor requires a certain degree of Polymathic® qualities to properly understand how seemingly disparate ways of thinking are all integral members of the grand unified energy con cept of cosmogenic transmutations. The input, sequence flow, and the output informatics of this arti cle are to inspire one to go beyond what is said to be impossible to do. 4. Revelationary: person who adopts change in his thinking and actions as a result of something unknown being revealed. 5. Polymathic: someone who is very knowledgeable. A secondary meaning of polymath is Renaissance Man. 174 approximately +/-2 Hz. From a spiritual (breath) perspective, the frequency range of the tympanic membrane is greater than the conscious range. An important relationship that should be known is that between the oscillatory properties of the tympanic membrane and the size of the hydrogen atom, the most abundant element in the universe, and the wave length of visible hght. At 3,000 Hz the motion of the eardrum is about 10 ' cm (or .1 angstrom) less than the diameter of a hydrogen atom. At 20 Hz the motion of the eardrum is approximately 10"' cm (or 1,000 angstroms) less than the wavelength of visible light. The diameter of the eardrum (approximately +/-12mm), its microoscillatory response time-displacement, and its obliquity of approximately 55° to the floor of the ear canal (external auditory meatus), is capable of forming and correlating cluster motions in response to the impingement of air pressure/particles on it. 175 GRAVES MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS Magnitude, tone quality, and duration-modulation changes are prime parameters in creating the micro-geometric shapes of cluster motions. Neuroectoderm/ neural tube Central nervous system, retina, Pineal body, Posterior pituitary Cluster motions are important because of their ability to create intertwining-twisting type motions that comply with how organs and tis sues are formed from the three primary germ layers during embryogenesis.' A particular distinction of the tympanic membrane is that it is formed from the three Embryog«nesis: « the process , . embryonic germ layers: ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. of cell division and cellular differentiation of the human embryo, The perspective observation of the dynamics of air particles, musicacoustic parameters, and the eardrum-germ layer connection, clearly allows Morula. us to understand how a vibrating eardrum can energetically connect with all of the organs and tissues that compose the spirit-mind-body complex. The family of the EAR represents the biological transducer for the cosmic energies and oscillations of the outer (objective-phenomena) and inner The Melodic-Modal music (sequence phenomena) sequencing of embryogenesis (genetic awakening from the previous to sequence into the (subjective-consciousness) space-time coordinates of the inclusive universe. future) is a transduction from the zygote, to the blastula, to the gastrula stage of the embryonic growth process that evokes the triploblastic condi TABLE OF THE ORGANS, TISSUES, AND THE THREE LAYERS OF THE TYMPANIC tion of the ovum that generates the three primary germ layers (3PGL). The MEMBRANE THAT ARE DERIVED FROM THE THREE PRIMARY GERM LAYERS 3PGL are the wave precursors for initiating the Tono-Rhythmogenesis of creative music consisting of Nth dimensions. Stratified squamous Squamous pithelium of outer part of the eardrum Surface Ectoderm Hair, nails, Cutaneous-mammary glands, Anterior pituitary gland/ Enamel of teeth/ inner ear/cornea/lens Mesoderm Fibrous layer of the middle eardrum Muscles and of the head/dentine Muscles of trunk/ Dermis of skin/ Skeleton except skull Endoderm Inner mucosal lining epithelium of the auditory tube and tympanic cavity Epithelial parts of Trachea, bronchi, and lungs All biological receptors must be fully open to receive, transport, and transmute cosmic vital energies to everything that is required to initiate the imaginary process for greater creative development. Equipolarization between creative imagination and conventional thought is the transmorphic matrix' for solving problematic negative energies. - J, , r> 1 r 1 Subvocahzation: Inner Sound of Quiet Wisdom 7. Transmorphoric Matrix; exchanging of scalar, real and complex events. SOUNDS FROM THE VOCAL SYSTEM : The energetical experience of a Revelationary^ incorporates the process of subvocalization supported by quiet and subtle circular breathing. Subvocalization or internal-self dialogue involves movements of Neuroectoderm/ neural crest Urogenital system Cranial sensor including gonads/ ganglia and nerves. Connective tissue Adrenal medulla gland and muscles of viscera/ Serous membranes 176 Epithelium of G.I. tract. Liver, pancreas, Urinary bladder, Urachus/ Epithelial parts of: Pharynx, thyroid, tonsils, Parathyroids the tongue and vocal cords that can be interpreted by electromagnetic sen sors, but is undetectable by the person doing the subvocalizing. 177 GRAVES MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS BREATHING/TONE PRODUCTION/MOTION ENERGY Experiential information initiates transformation. neurons-hippocampus Memory Center CIRCULAR BREATHING Biological Transmutations Hippocampus STERNOCLEIDOMASTOID M must be relaxed during subcellular (subatomic) circular breathing. Hyper-energy status relative to oxygen deficit in the Sternocleidomastoid M. can cause spatial disorientation-dizziness and/nausea. Eardrum derived from The heart (muscle) during contraction propels blood throughout the body with a twisting-spiraling motion. Spectrogram of frequencies of hypothalamus, heart, and neuron activity Ectoderm Mesoderm Endoderm Cosmic Frequencies • of autonomic nervous system. • Subvocalization • LUNGS Brain Tongue - Vocal Chords Pictogram Ip. The brain is constantly subvocalizing to the total biological system. The initiators of subvocalization are the dynamic-changing phases of cos mic energies that constantly enter the aural canal. The duration of each changing phase is measured within the time frame of yoctoseconds (one septillionth of a second/10"^''), which is the durational range of the changing phases of vital energy on the infra-subatomic level. Pacinian Corpuscle Pictogram 2p. Holistic-energy transmutations/transformations. Motions of Another Kind Chandler Wobble: small variations in earths axis of rotation over a period of approximately fourteen months. Twisting motion of heart muscle: caused by the heart muscles fibers being oriented in a spiralling direction. Restoration of the Soul: holistic ingestion of motion-energies. The way of the voice and how to direct the breathing process by the mechanism of WOBBLE, TREMOLO, VIBRATO and the entanglement of all three motions and sounds [E-trio] (similar to Quantum entanglement). See Pictogram 3p. 178 179 GRAVES MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS WE ARE A SPIRALING TWIST CAPABLE OF BENDING SOUND Possible causes of Chandler Wobble: ^3 due to fluctuating pressure on the bottom of the ocean caused by temperature and salinity changes and wind-driven changes in the circulation of the oceans. V3 is due to fluctuations in atmospheric pressure. Chandler Wobble: approximate frequency range is 0.0000000264073 Hz/A#/-47.01 cents to 0.0000000265894232 Hz/A#A35.11 cents amplitude is approximately 20 feet. Retimi Blood Vessels Salinity: Sodium Chloride Magnesium Sulfate Calcium Sulfate Bicarbonates Figure 4. Sequence of conglomerated Chandler Wobble and variable UV waveforms. when the BioPsychoSocial (BPS) energies and characteristics of VESTÍBULO-OCULAR REFLEX the mind-body complex are threatened by depressive elements, the proper therapeutic procedure requires that the vocal system process and articulate HorizontaJ Canal ULAR SYSTEM F O R B A L A N C E sounds (breath) that are entangled (see Figures 3, 4, 5), irregular, and non metronomic. Entangled irregular voicing provides for greater electromagnetic-spiritual exchange between energy elements in a given amount of convoluted space. TWISTING MOTION OF CARDIAC MUSCLE KIDNEY convoluted tubule produces Vitamin Production of Viumin D Chandler Wobble 0.0000000264073 Hz D JigtnaitmfA KIDNEY «Q^MARFE« uraa ... Pictogram 3p. Relationship between Chandler Wobble, Heart, Adrenal, Kidney, Cochlea-Vestibular-Occular, and Vocal systems. S/iind hAidt Stratum Spinosum UV-1071 Terahertz UV-937 Terahertz Ultra Violet (UV) Light produces Vitamin D NORMAL WAVEFORM RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ULTRA VIOLET FREQUENCIES AND CHANDLER WOBBLE FREQUENCY Stratum Basale SKIN Figure 5. Organ response and adaptogenic process of BPS depression. The Myoelastic-Aerodynamic theory is commonly used to explain the functional mechanisms of voice production. Nerve innervation to the Larynx (voice box): The recurrent (inferior) laryngeal nerve is a branch of the vagus nerve that supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx. Figure 3. Waveform relationship between lower and upper frequency range of Ultra violet light and lower frequency of Chandler Wobble. 180 The external laryngeal nerve communicates with the superior cardiac nerve posterior to the common carotid artery. 181 GRAVES MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS The internal laryngeal nerve is the internal branch (ramus internus) of the superior laryngeal nerve. It sends branches to the mucous mem brane of the larynx, the base of the tongue, and the epiglottic glands. Three group-components required for voice production: The circle-cycle of deterministic thought is broken when the mind of a unit link, fortified with experiential information, decides to detach their mind from the reference center point (gravitation). This is an innovative escape process that enables sub atomic-cellular functions to become more expansive with a greater amount of creative energy (magnitude). 1. Power generator/source: lungs 2. Vibrating mechanism: vocal cords Organodynamics^ of Tonogenesis of Biogenic Music 3. Resonators/resonance chamber: superior part of throat, mouth and nose. JO JO THE GRAND UNIFIED ORCHESTRA OF BIOLOGICAL MUSIC Stratified squamous epithelium of outer part of the eardrum and the diencephalon are derived from the ECTODERM ~ Relationship of Mechanical and Biological Energy CORRELATIVE THOUGHT; BREATH OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE 8. Organodynamics: efficiency of total cooperaron and organization between all organs/tissues ot the biological system. Right Thalamus Hypothamaluss,.,,^^^^^^. ' UNIVERSE AND BEYOND Escape Velocity 7mi/sec UNIT CIRCLE Speed Nerve Impulse -0.06 mi/sec I BEYOND SINGING LarynxA'ocal Chords a Minor Bi- D O ^ I ^ Proper breathing is a pathway to escape from the cycle of fifths. The breath ^ Q of a fifth is located in the fä thoracic region. The breath must escape f to the subatomic-cellular al V/5« 5\/7* Vulnerable Period/ Do Not Stimulate at this Time with High Energy 2» [peak Energy! 3^^ A ECG transmission of electrical impulses through the heart E _ = Electrocardiogram (ECG) I C Y C L E O F F I F T H S AND F O U R T H T ] Delivery of Essential Air Particles to the sub-cellular system requires precision space-time coordination between the P-R interval of the ECG, inhalation and scalene muscles in the neck. 100 200 300 I 1 1 1 400 500 600 700 Duration in Milliseconds of Normal Resting Heart Rale. Heart Rate is NOT METRONOMIC/IÎ is VARIABLE. Normal Duration pf PR Interval is 120-200 milliseconds. Pictogram 4p. Pictogram 5p. Hoot, h a r k , and h e r are three mystic long duration breath sounds. 182 183 GRAVES MUSIC EXTENSIONS OF INFINITE DIMENSIONS Experiential Information (EI) is the generating force that is required to overcome Concentric Gravitational Mono-Conceptual 2. Rhythmolgy based on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) 3. Space-time parameters based on human Circulation Time (CT)-. Thought Patterns (CGMCTP). EI is the principal velocity factor that can convert the constants of CGMCTP into variable thought waves that are innovative, and through improvisation, can adapt to and harmonically reverse negative linear energy waves. CT is the time for the blood to pass through a given circuit of the A relevant way of conceiving and producing music can be modeled 4. Cardiogenetics relative to harmonic-melodic dissonance and vascular system, e.g., the pulmonary, cerebral, or system circula tion, from one arm to another, from arm to tongue, or from arm to lung. from the transmission of Electromagnetic-Oscillatory-Energy (EOE) through various dynamic structures and functions of the biological system (see Pictogram 5p). EOE with conductorship from warped Spacetime-motions of the heart and vagus nerve will produce and sequence tono-rhythmological changes that are not scalar and based on integral multiple relationships. Formed (predetermined) music is a concept that imposes geomet rical limitations on the motion-energy of air particles. The dynamics of fractal-angular motions and the propagation of unpredictable homeostatic motions are not primary functions of formed music. The objective of formed music is the reproducible replica of a conscious derived tone-sound-lan guage that is conceptually classified as suitable for aural consumption. WE [2] are more than a conceptual ^'-.9 r n 'i 0 • equation (0^=J + 2jt + ^unity^ ^ Greek symbol (omega) for angular velocity Twofold methodology of conceiving and producing music Material Finite Music [MFM] relative to Spontaneous Improvised Music [SIM]: Both can serve as inverse functions of the other. clusterization. All of what has been previously mentioned so far requires an open and dynamic mind and body system. The neurovascular and memory sys tems must be pliable and capable of transmitting an array of innovative and creative energy and information. The immune system must be responsive and adaptogenic to variable types of perverse energetical agents. Important biological mechanisms and ingredients that are required to perform these tasks are: Citric acid cycle: metabolic pathways in the cells that converts carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into carbon dioxide, water, and usable forms of energy. Internal Alchemy: involves the Atomic/subatomic conversions and biological transmutations between Sodium, Potassium, Calcium Magnesium, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Phosphorus, Manganese, Iron, Silicon, and Sulfur. Food: My personal suggestion is a diet that consists of plant foods: SIM can provide MFM with a recursive template on how to create varia vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, beans, and herbs. My reason for tions on the constant values of predetermined-written music. suggesting a diet consisting of plant foods is based on a three step MFM can provide SIM with an analytical method of how to extract, process that involves the transmission of solar energy (via photo synthesis) from the sun, to the plant, to the human biological understand, and codify a dynamic-spontaneous event occurring within a specific time period. system. Again, this diet is recommended for its ability to transmit high quality solar energy into the biological system. The following are correlative ways and methods of composing and perform ing biological music: 1. Music composition based on the stages of human embryo development. PHOTOSYNTHESIS 6CO2 Carbon Dioxide 184 + 6HjO Water ^ -QeUulogg 185 + Sugar ^^>2 Oxygen CHAPTER 11 GRAVES The function of chlorophyll is to absorb light and transfer that light energy by resonance energy trans fer to a specific chlorophyll pair in the reaction center of the photosystems. Chlorophyll gives leaves their green color. Chlorophyll is found in high concentrations in Chloroplasts of plant cells. The R U L E : eat plenty of THE CRAZY VOICE L\RKIN GRIMM GREEN LEAFY VEGETABLES for consumption of C O S M I C E N E R G Y (Mystic Energies) Pictogram 6p. Energy events of Photosynthesis. M Y S T I C I S M , M A G I C , A L C H E M Y and the S P I R I T U A L are an undefined CLUSTER-ENTANGLEMENT of Nth dimensional ENERGIES. The greatest challenge of our generation is to mature beyond God," a friend casually said while improvising on a Chinese harp. In a moment of free improvisation, he felt free to say something that had been stewing inside of him his whole life. He had broken through a powerful psychological barri er with the help of music. Moments like this happen frequently in my life as a musician. I find that music brings out the best in people over and over again. It breaks barriers. My friend is right. If I were to make a list of the most stifling influences holding people back from their full potential as human beings, organized religion would be at the top of the list. A close second would be classical music training; it is musical abuse. I do not consider classical music to be in any way therapeutic for the individual player, and have spent long periods of time trying to rehabilitate classical musicians. The only thing that can save these people is Peyote or Harsh Noise. When I say "music," I am excluding all written music. But let's get back to religion, and to my per sonal story, because the only thing I can tell you about magic is what I have experienced myself. The religious establishment teaches children to reject the magic and personal power they were born with, and to hand it over to the leader. I never could accept this, even though it was social suicide to reject religion when I was growing up. I spent my early childhood in a spiritual cult. My parents spent so many hours meditating in the kneeling position that they had thick calluses on their knees. The children were seen as new incarna tions of the spirits of enlightened masters, coming down to earth to save humanity in time for the New Age. There were magical things about these people, but it was also a lot of strange pressure on me in a cult situation involving psychedelic Jesus freaks. The cult disbanded when I was six years old and my family moved into a remote part of the Appalachian Mountains. 186 187 GRIMM THE CRAZY VOICE The hippies I grew up around were in many ways as cock-eyed as the snake- establishment, but there was a tiny voice inside of me insisting that there handlers and holy roller baptists who practiced their cuckoo Appalachian was more to life than that abstract academic world. I had wild dreams and Christianity in my new home, where vampiric, bigoted preachers sucked frequent out-of-body experiences, but tried to ignore these things. By the life force from their congregations. I like to think that the experience of time I was twenty-one the inner conflict was so strong that I was a nervous growing up and breaking away from these things helped me to think for wreck. I was committed to a mental institution at my university, because myself and avoid future cult situations like academia and politics. Real magic I was unhappy when everyone thought I should be enjoying my great suc requires following your own inner voice, using your power to improve your own life in the present moment. Rejecting mob rule. cess. I was prescribed medication that turned me into a friendly robot and erased all of my favorite parts of my personality. I realized that I was Everyone is born with psychic abilities, but there are only a few considered crazy because I saw the world in a magical way. To me, every things that can bring them out in an ordinary adult. These are laughter, plant, animal, and object had a distinct life force and personality. I felt dancing, and music. These things break through a wall in the mind. They like my doctors were trying to force me to live in a dead world. Finally, I allow us to forget what we think we know. Magic, like music, begins with jumped ship. I decided to trust myself, and to start over from the assump intuition. We lose our magic when we allow ourselves to be subject to the external laws of society and culture. When we believe in God or Guru or tion that I didn't know anything and neither did anyone else. I stopped talking for a long time, and only played music. Genius instead of believing in ourselves, we become separate from our The process of reclaiming my sanity was questionable, but it was selves. We lose ourselves. We learn that in order to fit in, we must ignore our my own. It slowly evolved into a practice of taking two spoonfuls of psilo- inner voice. If this goes on long enough, we become half dead useless blobs cybin mushroom-laced honey every day until time and space melted away of soulless flesh taught to sit still and pay attention to useless information into flashes of mercury swirling around the periphery of my vision. I want about a world in which we can never thrive or live fully. Our consciousness is boxed in. ed to erase my mind and start over fresh, as a psychic. I decided to explore the world and learn things first-hand. I rejected all second-hand informa Music is one of the few things that has always been there for me, tion, including all I had learned about geometry, philosophy, physics, cal culus, anatomy, psychology, art, history, and music. helping me to break through. I used to ride my bicycle to the top of a near The medicinal use of Teacher Plants brought me back to the daily by mountain so that I could catch radio signals from a faraway station in Atlanta. This is how I discovered Björk, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Michael experience of magic that I remember from childhood. They helped to Jackson, P.J. Harvey, Dead Kennedys, Coltrane, Sun Ra, and other early silence the damaged and scarred broken record stutters of my man-made influences. The voices of these musicians, struggling to find meanings had a logical mind and my moral/religious mind. More importantly, the difficult search to find these illicit substances while touring as a musician introduced profound effect. I owe them my current freedom. One of my favorite ritu als of compassionate destruction is to listen to Diamanda Galas' Double me to a whole community of shamans, hustlers and misfits who were quite Barrel Prayer at top volume while jumping on the bed. Years of therapy successfully bucking the establishment. They lived off the grid. They fol couldn't be more successful than this. Seriously! When you bang your head lowed their own rules. They offered me a choice: be a miserable slave locked against a wall, then open your eyes as if opening them for the first time, and in the cage of your own numbed out mind, or accept your position as a wake up to the realization that this moment contains the only truth you will ever know, then you become powerful in your own life and able to choose your own path. Magic is believing that you can do anything. And doing it. shaman, exploring a different version of reality. The way to communicate as a shaman? Music! It is not easy to escape brainwashing. When I was growing up I fol lowed most of the rules. I did well in school. I subjugated my will and won In 2007 I met a group of shamans who had recently been on a long trip through the rainforest, recording Quechua medicine songs. They brought back some leaves from a bush that female shamans used in a full scholarship to Yale University. I spent my days studying under the their ceremonies, and gave it to me in tea, while playing their recordings. 188 189 CHAPTER 12 GRIMM Suddenly, my inner voice became this booming, powerful force, no longer competing with the millions of thoughts bouncing around in my head. At this point, my life changed. All I have to do is Usten to that voice. It knows everything about everything. It is like having a conversation with my god-self. Everyone has a voice like that inside of themselves, but they don't HOLY GHOST listen to it. My intention in playing music is to give that voice room to talk. TIM HODGKINSON To quiet the conscious mind and let the unconscious speak the truth. I hope that as it works for me, it will work for others who listen to my music. Music is a halfway house helping us learn to live in a magical world. Sound is a medium that encourages telepathic communication and synchronicity. Good music brings mind-blowing breakthroughs in conscious ness while it carves out space for you to focus your attention, allowing you to manifest a new reality. Music is a very useful and safe way to practice magic. It has been the only means of truthful communication available to me in my life. It works immediately. Not like reading a book. Stop reading this. No one can tell you the most important things. You have to feel it for yourself. Reject the habit of passively accepting information, and examine the world around you. You will discover that it is magical. Have I been wasting my time? Meanwhile you are falling. Prelude Summer 1996, Ust-Ordinsk, Siberia: Ken Hyder and I are on stage, every thing's ready, we're ready to play. I raise my saxophone to my lips. Suddenly I hear a voice. Someone is speaking, not in a hushed way, but outwards, someone is addressing everyone in the room, someone is asking a question: the question is: "How did you begin in music?" NOW? You want to know that NOW? Before even a note? "I started to hear certain music," I said, "as if it were a window opening into another world, a world that was more vivid than the one I lived in at home with my parents. And that intensity is something I've always gone after ever since. To lift people up out of where they are, to bring a sense of limitlessness, of possibility, a reminder that that also IS." You are so good at failure. In the end, when your face hits the ground. Will any thing remain besides love? Every human culture on the planet proposes not only a way of life but also a unique metaphysical theater. In each case, imagined beings, invisible to the waking eye, pushed up and out of visible matter, but at the same time pulled back into dialogue. And so sound. That which is not, rising out of that which is. Sound first it too pushing up out of the visible, telling always of the inside, voicing the shapes of enclosed air, unveiling the hidden; sound then captured and harnessed as voices of spirits, calls of communicants, summoning, purify ing, rising up and out like prayer, chant, invocation, and the trance drums, sacred gongs and Chinese fireworks that change the gears of time. Or is all this the wrong way round? Is the fundamental need to invent persons for imaginary conversations, and only then to invest them with voices and bodies? Cambridge, 1968, I'm at college learning anthropology: LSD, Vietnam, rock music, academia: at school I'd had the Cuban missile crisis, Civil Defense handbooks, nightmares of World War III, still have my 190 191 * HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST NATO pamphlet with its cowering prisoners behind barbed wire in an unfree land and on the opposite page our guys look gratefully up at their atomic shield. The social set-up (the existing socio-discursive mind-set of any one society) insists on itself, imposes itself, as fixed, coherent, complete and self-sufficient. What happens to the knowledge that this is a bluff? Where is that knowledge placed? How and when is it spoken and how does it sound? Read, study, synthesize. The rational mind pushing, it too, for a unified system. But suppose there is no unified system? Suppose human beings are not integrated wholes but dynamic fields in which different forces collide? Anthropology seemed to assume a basic continuity between nature and culture; societies were like organisms, bodies with every part having its function." But it seemed to me that exactly this transition from nature to culture that was being taken for granted was in fact the core vari able, was in fact more than a variable, was a gap: the gap against which, and across which, the preaching insistence of culture is generated. For the culture of a society is in the first place a propaganda directed at its incom ing members, its children, in the form of how they will be closed in to the world as that culture imagines it. Every culture generates to its own ends the subjects that inhabit it. In each individual psyche is installed the gap between the embodied inteUigence of immediate sensation and the con ceptual language-based representations that string together the obUgatory narrative of a person—as conceived and constructed within that culture's notion of personhood. Detour into human cybernetics. Pain is an image, sound is an image, this page an image. I mean that they appear to us. These images are finely collated out of tiny informations rising in the afferent nervous system. They are transitory patternings of neuronal activity, momentary states of a plastic and holistic medium. Therefore, quite rightly, they seem to us alive, in a state of becoming, liable to change. This, if you like, is the quality of experience itself. Compare with language: an extrinsic system for combining and recombining an array of fixed, individuated, and mutu ally exclusive elements, according to rules for articulating to other persons descriptions, attitudes, and intentions. There can be no match between these two different kinds of information: our being is cybernetically divided. If language wants to tell of experience, it can only describe from the outside. 192 The great suspicion against language, rising in the apophasis of the old mystics, echoing in the Romantics and the tradition of idealist philoso phy that holds music to be the purest expression of truth, hauling itself into modernism and into the Beats and settling into the aporias of Beckett and the rages of Jelinek. My proposition is this: the projection of the sacred is the human response to the untranslatability between the two informational modes that above all other factors define the condition of that being's being. Spiritual practice iterates a circular or rhythmic movement across the raw divide of this untranslatability. It is the shared but innermost secret of our species. The conversation with the gods is the conversation with ourselves we could never have. You might guess that I am then going to argue that art goes on from this to attempt the translation itself, attempts to fire off a kind of utterance that does what language can't, attempts to spill out what religion ultimate ly blurs and conceals. After all, as a musician I work with the intelligence of sound; music seems to plunge directly into the house of the spirit, eliciting complex inner motions that dart away from language. Is music then the expressive projection into sound of the images that are passing states or patternings of embodied intelligence itself—representations for which we can find no equivalents in language? The idea is tempting; after all, we have no direct access to our own embodied intelligence, but only to what that intelligence brings before us, namely the world as it livingly seems, as we hear, see, smell, taste and touch it—the image of the world as our senses sift and collate it from what comes forwards to them. This world is already talking to itself, and our attempts to join that talk, to talk that talk, can be thought of as attempts to cross the cybernetic divide that splits us. And a "word" in the language of the world would be something we could experi ence with our senses, like a song or a painting. But I'm more cautious than that. What intervenes enormously into this "expressive projection" is that no act or process is primordial in this way, but is rather always realized in the mutual doings of actual human groups. In other words, what music is and what spirit is, is itself a cultural and historical variable. I realize that I am going to need to set out exactly what is distinctive about an aesthetic act or process, as against a spirituallyorientated or ritual act or process. And the distinction is going to have to work in cases where they seem to be almost one and the same thing, and in 193 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST Other cases where they seem to be at each others' throats. And there's a further reason also. I don't want to say that inside us from conservatives to rebels. For musicians this means a natural conception all there's an authentic, or animal, or cosmic Self waiting to be expressed in of sound, as against the Western idea of sound purged of its natural elements before being allowed into the music room. "Living in cities is bad," Ayan art. A self is something much more complex and fluid and possibly multi goes on, "the philosophy is in the yurt, not in the building." And then he's ple that is constantly being negotiated and produced within the conflictual informational field of the human. interrupted by his mobile phone. Like fish in the water of animist belief, shamans move amongst the Clifford Geertz wrote that people move "very frequently between people, intercede with the spirits so as to cure illnesses, bless journeys, radically contrasting ways of looking at the world, ways which are not purify persons and places of bad influences, find lost animals, and carry out continuous with one another, but separated by cultural gaps." This passage funerary and other rituals. Each shaman must find his or her own unique between contexts allows the common-sense world to be "now seen as the destiny-fitted approach, part jived, part drawn out of a spoken tradition of partial form of a wider reality which corrects and completes it." It seems that techniques for tracking down the appropriate spirits and cajoling them into everywhere and often in the human world, cultural space is marked apart giving a result. Amongst these techniques are the use of spiritually empow for those special activities that we identify as ritual or spiritual and that ered equipment and clothing, a preparation ritual that turns attention address the sacred domain, and that some of this marking out is also carried inwards to the spirit world, knowledge of how to lay and light certain kinds over into the setting apart of art from other things that are made. But it's of fires and what to sacrifice on them, and a personal song that reminds the precisely this carrying over from ritual to art that's the issue here. Musicmaking was, and still is in many places, thought of as a spiritual activity. But shaman of her origins and the source of her power. Just as their rituals mark apart the spirit world from unwanted contamination by the everyday as a contemporary Westerner my grounding is to think of music as aesthet world, shamans themselves are marked apart from other people and looked ically organized rather than shaped by beliefs concerning transcendent beings. To think about music and spirit, to bring them into relation to on as slightly dangerous and strange. The economic-cultural type of South Siberian nomadism is iden one another, is also to worry at the edges and overlaps between ritual and tified with smaller units of economic production and consumption, but not aesthetic domains. In summer 2005 I found myself in the ideal place to do with political, military and administrative structures. The basic reason for just that: the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia, home of throat-singers, stone carvers and shamans. this is that for herders in this kind of terrain the amount of livestock mobil ity largely determines the degree of pasture degradation. You can only feed so many humans from so many cattle. Small scattered settlements are the Tuva practical ecological response, and there is no necessary one type of articula tion of these mobile family-based units with higher order political units. Kyzyl, capital city of Tuva, exact center of Asia, amiable and violent, feels safer at night in the company of locals. We're walking down to the river, the Rulers and ruling systems, in other words, may come and go, but life in the Yenisei, to look at the moon and talk about music. Security on tonight's pastures goes on. Or rather went on. Until recently each settlement would stroll is courtesy of Alash, an upcoming young Tuvan folk ensemble. "The important thing here in Tuva," says Ayan, "is that we think of our have had its own shaman. Now maybe half the population have decamped to Kyzyl, by far the largest city. But then as shaman Sergei Ondar said: "/ don't see any problem with shamanizing in cities, or indeed in extremely unshamanistic environments... All of my life has been a step by step devel selves as situated in the cosmos with the sky as our father and the earth as our mother. We're with the living creatures, the birds, the ants." So far he sounds much like a Tuvan government brochure. There's a mantra here repeated by everyone from the president on down to the effect that Tuva occupies a unique geographical space within which is communion between land and people. What's interesting is how the ideology embraces everyone 194 opment of shamanism: working in the city is part of that, and doesn't seem like a big break; I am in touch with my roots in nature and the cosmos." I had visited Tuva on numerous occasions from 1992 onwards, but this time I decided to focus right on the boundary between aesthetic and 195 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST Spiritual practice, as shown in the doings and sayings of musicians, carvers and shamans. I followed up my accumulated contacts and talked with as many people as I could. I found that Tuvan artists and musicians, like those elsewhere in Siberia, feel free to draw on a general shamanic culture. But Tuvan art is shamanic in a deeper way than simply referencing shamanism. Tuvan art is produced within the framework of a creative psychology that is often conceptualized and experienced as spiritual. An artist is free to ask permission from spirits, and to receive help from spirits, within the context of an aesthetic process. At the heart of Tuvan artistic imagination is an idea of nature as a totality, as a cosmos. It is towards this cosmos that an artist strives to open. Artistic skill is knowing how to work this opening towards the cosmos mto the materials of sound or stone. It is as if each thing or event in the world is cormected to everything else by networks of invisible forces, but that this connectivity is at first hidden, so that to reveal the connectivi ty is also to unveil the inner nature of things. This unveiling is often done in a spiritual state and it is tempting to think that for Tuvans a spirit is the per sonification of a node of cormectivity to the cosmos: In Tuva a person who listens to music or looks at art may receive kiish, the spiritual force residing in the work as a result of the artist's inner moment of creativity and dialogue with the spirits. But what happens next is conditional on how this person perceives and receives this force. So art does not itself have a direct and objective power to change a person and the circumstances surrounding them. The ritual actions of a shaman, on the other hand, are aimed at objective results and are felt to achieve them. A shaman is called when things build up to a head in real life, become risky or unpredictable. Shamanizing is case-orientated, and art is not. A piece of art is something that a person could encounter or not, respond to or not. True, a performed art, such as music, tries to be as case-orientated as it can, tuning itself to time and weather, place, and the feel of an audience. But this can't match the detailed crafting of a shamanic ritual to fit a personal crisis, with the careful astrological reckoning, the "inner" and "outer" observation, the probing questions asked. Whilst art addresses persons, ritual objectively changes the world around and inside persons, dealing with all the circum stances, near and far, that bear on the case. The power and cunning of artist and shaman diverge, the shaman primed to negotiate sacred worlds, the artist ready to hone a particular vocal technique or visualize the exact way a deer leaps. We can watch where the care goes, where the attention goes. Take the shaman Kunga Tash-Ool Boo, who is also a carver. When speaking of his carvings, he uses an unequivo cally aesthetic tone: "Look at this, look at how beautiful it is, how the two goats are standing together, the composition." As the only carver I know who works in horn rather than stone, he talks about horn being a finer and stronger material than stone, how this allows him to achieve greater delica cy in the figures. His work frequently shows a sense of exploiting variations in the color and texture of the material to achieve a more "living" quality in the figure. In this sense the carver Kunga is truly a maker, focused on tak ing physical stuff and crafting it into a physical thing. But as a shaman Kunga also makes ritual objects that have a ritual function, such as acting as vessels for spirits. Such objects may be the ongon figurines given to house holders to keep in their homes, to be prayed to, or given small sacrifices of food. Here his approach is completely different. Although the ongon depicts three human figures, it does so in the most rudimentary way; the work is done quick, using felt, metal, or wood, whatever is to hand. The care is directed at ensuring that the ongon really is a recipient and holder of r spiritual energy. Its form is merely adequate to this function. This difference as to where care and attention are directed was made even plainer to me by a shaman who had previously attended music college in Kyzyl. Sergei Tumat said: "When I shamanize, I'm not here, not in the place where I'm playing the dungur drum, it's just my material body 196 197 Gendos Chamzyryn: "When I'm playing, a particular spirit comes to me. It's above and comes down into my body and sometimes I'm playing and singing and it's not me doing it, it's someone else. It's the spirit from where I'm born, a place that's light and kind and beautiful." Alexei Kagai-Ool: "The carver has to feel the stone, be in dia logue with it. Before I start, I have to converse with the spirit of the stone, I do a ritual, I need to ask the spirit." However the claim to, or the acknowledgment of, contact with spirits is not for everyone: Alexander-Sat Nemo: When KK started to sing I listened with eyes closed and my eyes saw ancient Tuva, I felt it, no cars or electricity. He was like in a shaman s trance, his eyes closed, giving out a big energy. I told him afterwards and he couldn t understand what I was talking about. He didn't want to know..." HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST that's there: I'm away with the spirits, that's where my total attention is. mental that distinguishes xöömei from European kinds of harmonic singing If someone touches me, tries to get my attention there in the yurt, that's like those used by Stockhausen in Stimmung. How did this Central Asian dangerous, it would be like falling a long way: so it's completely different from playing music to an audience, where you have to be there, to be musical culture come to exploit the harmonics of voices in the way it did? Tuvan singers often alternate between singing words without xöömei, attentive to what your material body is doing, to everything I learned in music school..." and xöömei without words, whilst playing a bowed stringed instrument Although much of art's work takes place in the imagination, the artistic imagination is always fundamentally orientated towards an image nated from an attention to the harmonics of instruments? There is evidence throughout; is this a significant constellation? Had harmonic singing origi that the material culture of Central Asian music, in the form of instruments, that requires to be made in the real (i.e. this ) world. The dialogue is between has been stable for a long time. From the loth century AD, instruments maker and materials, via the imagination. The convergence between the similar to the Tuvan hizaanchi appear right across Asia from China to Iraq. plane of imagination and the plane of material is effected by a physical process These are designed to be played by touching the side of the string rather of making. (Taras Mongush, carver: "my favorite method is to choose a than pushing it down to a fretboard. They are appropriate for sustained stone and wait until I can imagine what I can turn it into.") Ritual, on the melodies and the accompaniment of epic recitations. Their Chinese name other hand, establishes a special kind of meaning whereby concrete actions hwuchyn indicates a Central Asian origin. The khomus jaw harp is at least refer to, summon, and bring to life a collective imaginary space designated 2,000 years old in Southern Siberia. The huur is described from the 13th as the sacred. Here is a movement starting in the plane of concrete acts, but century onwards as a string instrument bowed underhand with horsehair going away towards the plane of imagination. What happens in the yurt strings, inherited within the family, from father to youngest son. When it when a shaman shamanizes—drumming and singing, for example—is comes to throat singing, we have of course no material remains, but there is fundamentally orientated towards what happens in the domain of the sacred. a hint of the age of the tradition in the following: Vainshtein suggests that So a shaman takes care of the material plane primarily to organize it in the throat singing tradition of the Bashkir uzliau, which is not present in relation to the sacred, according to the special semantics distinguishing ritual acts and signs from everyday ones. In so far as what a shaman does is perceived as musical, it is said to be music for the spirits. any neighboring culture, predates their emigration from Central Asia to So this leads me to a first answer, a Tuvan answer, to my question about what is distinctive about an aesthetic act or process, as against a ritual act or process. Ritual action operates on an imagined sacred, which is believed speculates that "throat singing originally appeared in Sayan-Altai among in turn to cause directly a change in some person or thing in the everyday Turkic tribes—^the direct ancestors of Tuvan people." Nevertheless we have visible world. Against this, artistic action is towards the production of an image, concretized, and here it is exactly the connection or PAS SAGE between no actual descriptions of throat singing in the region prior to those of the imagination and real—taken as given in ritual—that is being constructed. Xöömei Xöömei is a Tuvan word meaning both a particular style of throat singing and throat singing in general. A way of seeming to sing two notes at once, developing a melody of upper notes that are in fact harmonics of the lower note. The important and difficult thing for the singer is the suppression of the fundamental in favor of the harmonics. It's this stifling of the funda 198 present day Bashkiria. This move must have happened before they were described in 921-922 AD by the Arabic writer Ibn Fadlan. Vainshtein also ancient nomads of the mountainous steppe regions of the Upper Yenisei basin in the natural habitat where in the first millennium lived ancient late 19th century Russian ethnographer Jakovlev, followed by Anokhin in the early 20th century. Despite our ignorance about the exact origins of throat singing, the existence of ancient instruments precisely designed for the production of harmonics is telling. In the case of the khomus jaw harp the note produced is constant in pitch, and the performer changes the shape of the mouth to cause different overtones and thus to create melodies. In the case of the stringed instruments these are played not by changing the length of the vibrating string, pushing the string down onto the fretboard, but by chang199 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST ing the mode of vibration of the string, touching it at the side. The idea is therefore not to produce a series of different fundamental frequencies, but a series of different harmonics of a single fundamental frequency. In xöömei, singing the melody is also done by passing skillfully between the different harmonics of a single fundamental. It seems plausible that once attention was given to the production of clear harmonics from the fundamental vibra tion of a string, the voice began to model itself on this. The metaphorical extension from instrument to voice is a case of the known being used to map the unknown: the voice, with its invisible mechanism, seems to issue from the lips as a direct output of the soul; now it is brought into relation with a humanly-made instrument that is under the hands, where the eye can see it and the hand can feel and find its measure. But, unlike in the Organum of medieval Europe, the external "machine" did not produce the result of thinking in terms of discrete notes, but rather of exploring the harmonics of one note. Thus although the voice was indeed conceptually instrumentalized in Tuva, instrumental sound itself was conceived as continuous, unified and transformative, rather than discontinuous and structural. Tuvan singers invariably refer to a close con nection with nature and natural sound as the decisive factor shaping their musical culture; they invoke the presence and connectivity of the artist within visible and sounding nature conceived as the bright skin of a wider deeper higher cosmos. In day to day life it is of course attention to differ ences in timbre that allows us to recognize from far off the call of a partic ular animal, to tell its gender, age and condition, or to identify immediately the voice of a particular person and their mood, or even to tell the temper ature of the air by changes in the sound of snow. In these instances it is change in timbre that carries the information. A musical alertness to timbre conditions the Tuvan approach to harmonics so that a movement between harmonics in xöömei is conceptualized as a change in something approxi mating to timbre, often described as "vowel sound" or as "sound quality"; if you get the "sound" right, your harmonic will be at the right pitch. The important point is that there is in Tuvan culture a perceptual and conceptu al continuum between natural and musical sound, and that the continuous transformativity of natural sound is carried over into musical sound. The great Tuvan musicologist Valentina Suzukey puts it like this: the heart of the Tuvan sound concept is that the drone and the harmonics are regarded as inseparable. Can I generalize one step further to the idea that a 200 sound and its transformations are inseparable? To the idea that the potential transformations of a sound are the "inside" of that sound? A specific cul tural organization of interiority-exteriority put the accent on looking inside the sound. The impulse was to go inwards, to bring out the inner connec tivity of a phenomenon, not to observe or manipulate its exterior. By filtering and amplifying the upper harmonics of a fundamental vibration we are unveiUng its hidden life. Tuvan melody is the melody of a sound, the unfolding of the inner nature of a single sound that, in that moment, stands for all sound. I am reminded of a statement by the Romanian spectralist composer lancu Dumitrescu when he spoke of his own musical project: "The attempt to release or unveil the god that is living in every piece of base matter." What this tells me is that the passage from imagination to realiza tion in Tuvan art, and perhaps in any art, requires a coming to terms with the presence of physical matter so as to bring out what is already hidden in it. Epic The Tuvan sound aesthetic is clearly embedded in a background shamanic metaphysics, but is it also historically shaped by the role of music in the performance of epics—long songs expounding the mythological stories that underpin the shamanic world view? Does Tuvan singing style originate as a solution to the problems posed by epic performance? Is there a connection between the relative absence of epic in Tuva today and the elaboration of throat singing there more than anywhere else in Central Asia? We need to imagine first of all a stock or collection of stories held in collective memory, never written down, indeed expressly forbidden to be written down. The epic bard draws on these stories but there is no fixed text to be exactly reproduced; rather the bard must versify the story on the spot. So for the audience and for the performer the story is imagined in the light of the way in which it is told. In Buryat (South Siberian) epic singing, each phrase begins without words with a drone deep in the throat of the voice which then rises to a middle register in which the words are articulated. As the bard versifies the story, the rhythm comes out; the pitch melody remains very simple and very constant, playing little or no part in expressing changes of scene or of character. I have heard Sakha (North Siberian) epic sung in a very different way where different characters are done in clearly contrasted singing styles. Generally in all the Central Asian cultures in 201 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST which instrumental accompaniment is used, the role of the instrument is to same way; they fail to bring the stories to life in the imagination of the give an anchoring drone, a point of departure that is always returned to audience, and are generally regarded as bad news. You still find today between strophes, though there may also be some use of harmonics to Siberians listening to music closing their eyes and going on a kind of suggest changes of mood or intensity. But it is easy to see how the instru cinematic flight or journey. mental drone voice and the drone played on a stringed instrument are interchangeable here. Carrying the drone into the voice would accentuate Monophony the special status of the ritual words then to be sung, separating them from other kinds of words. Why did the Central Asian outcome diverge so strongly from what hap Where would I place epic on my scale of variation between ritual and artistic practice? On the one hand, like a ritual, epic is directed at a brought into a considered relation to the instrument in the context of ritu specific effect in the real world. It should never be performed for no reason, or merely because it is beautiful and pleasing. It is done typically at the begmmng of autumn in the period of preparation for hunting, but may be performed as a way of preparing for any big undertaking. The point is not that the story contains a model of action to be imitated, but that the process of bringing to life a sacred narrative impregnates whatever is done after wards with the quality of normativity, a kind of putative "rightness." On the other hand, as in a musical performance, the accent is on the versifica tion and performance itself, and the skills of bards may be compared in a similar way to the techniques of artists. We intuit that the desired effect is not primarily aesthetic, in our sense, but we need to know why. The answer lies I think in reception. The desired effect on the audience is that they vividly imagine and are gripped pened in Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries when the voice was also al performance? In Asia, the exploration of the harmonics of single notes; in Europe, a more accurate conceptualization of movements between discrete notes. The key points here concern divergent kinds of textuality in the two situations, and a specifically Christian construction of the spirit-body divide. But to understand this we have to explore nothing less than the thousand-year incubation of Western art-music within the Christian Church—a defining factor in the anthropology of this music. Wlien John Baily—an expert in Afghan music—asked, as a question of ethnomusicological method, "Why privilege representation of musical patterns over rep resentation of motor patterns?" he fingered a key factor in ethnomusicology: the conditioning of the Westerner by the hierarchies of his own systems of representation. These hierarchies were established for art-music during the period of that music's incubation within the Church. It was the Church that provided the matrix within which grew up the idea of a consciously by the story being told, and that the story is imagined as happening within a sacred space-time. It is said that performance of epic involves going into constructed music. It was the epistemology of that music that became musi- trance; the singers act as if possessed and believe that they are receiving directly from the spirits the patterns, images and sounding strophes. (I lis tened with eyes closed and my eyes saw ancient Tuva...) West's take on other musical cultures. In the Middle Eastern Judeo-Christian traditions, urban and hier Essentially the epic is performed in order to evoke, generate, bring to life, the imagined sacred. But because here what is required is a prolonged act of imagination, this is not done in a perfunctory way via a semantics of ritual. The imaginary sacred must here itself be innerly performed by the audience. So although epic would appear to be an intimate fusion of ritual and art, the over-arching context and purpose is unambiguously ritual rather than aesthetic. Where epics have been staged in the form of operas and plays— often as part of national cultural revivals—they no longer work in the 202 cology and fed into ethno-musicology where it colored and still colors the archical, ritual is generally performed in special custom-built institutions: the Temple, then the churches and monasteries. The very early Christian ritual had been essentially Jewish and the Jewish cantillation allowed impro visation on the base of traditional forms and cadences. The Jewish Temple had an orchestra with lyres, harps, trumpets, cymbals. ...when they lifted up their voices with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music and praised the Lord... then the house was filled with a cloud.. .so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. —II Chronicles 203 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST But certainly by 400 AD the use of accompanying instruments was thought meaning of the words, but rather a musical reinforcement of the linguistic by many Church Fathers to be a dangerous influence. The heterodox practices of the young Church are by now becoming stripped down, cen shape and phrase of the text. So the Jubilate and De Profundis are sung with tralized, standardized. The monodie Chant, unaccompanied, now becomes cation of their function within a single ritual structure. An introductory the central musical expression of the Christian rite. The voice, privileged as greeting may be sung on a single note; a fall of a third may show punctua the essential carrier for the ritual, is represented as internal, inaccessible, dissociated from the physical being; singing and listening become activities tion; a question mark may be suggested by a fall of a semitone followed by no musical indication of their radical difference in content, and every indi a rise; the end of the gospel by a melismatic treatment of the first syllable of the last phrase. This removal of expression, this abnegation by music of any of the soul rather than of the flesh. In the same moment, the dematerialization of sound: as the body is expelled from music it takes with it bodily time paralinguistic expressive function, is part of the general "heightening" of the and all that is implied by the presence of bodily time in pre-Christian Chant, found also in the Roman tonus lectionis and theJewish cantillation— performance traditions. Sound becomes pure, an exactly regular vibration, a heightening that serves to distance the Chant clearly from normal every without physical shape. Equally the church building closes itself physically day speech, to get and keep attention and enhance mnemonic resonance. from the profane world and insulates itself from natural sound; the presence Chanted words had physical charisma. Throughout the patristic and feudal of the outdoors sound-world is replaced by the magnifying reverberation of periods, to read a text meant to perform it physically: to move the lips, to the indoors within the hard tall walls of the edifice. In here, sound comes pronounce the words, and to listen to them, hearing the voices of the pages. from everywhere and nowhere, an emanation rising towards the now verti cally-situated god. Meditation and prayer were connected to the idea of spiritual digestion and ruminating. In praising a monk who prayed constantly, Peter the Venerable At this time everything is, on the face of it, dictated by the demands of the ritual. But notice how much of this is carried forward into secular cried: "Without resting, his mouth ruminated the sacred words." The little private booths, or carrels, in the libraries were designed to cope with the composed music, even as the attention shifts gradually to the work of mak buzzing and muttering of readers and copyists. To make these motions of ing the sound image itself. The gradual discovery of autonomous techniques sound was to rehearse, to ingrain into the physical being, to physicalize the for this making will eventually lead to the emergence of polyphony and meaning, so that the words would always be there to reach for in any beyond that to the Renaissance... beyond which composed music is no longer contained and contextuaHzed by its liturgical function. moment of weakness or confusion. One of the crucial observations that helped define Christian atti What is the importance of sound in Christian thought in this vast period ? It is thought of as standing for the Word, the Word being language stimulation of both memory and forgetfulness. Clement of Alexandria considered as illocutionary, language that does rather than language that drew a violent contrast between the devotion proper to worship and the states ultimately, as the Word of God, bringing about the existence of immorality of secular song; he pictures the singers leaving the Church and matter itself. So to sound, or to cantillate, the sacred text is to express its illocutionary force, a force that, through utterance itself, directly changes forgetting at once where they have been. Instead of the praises of immor tality they now sing "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." He com the state of the singer and the listener, in the sense that to sing an Adoration is to be with God wondering, or that to sing a Thanksgiving is to be with ments grimly: "No, they will not die tomorrow, for they are already dead before God." God gratefully. And this force is behind the text, in the sense that the text itself can be translated and paraphrased without modifying the Word. (In The lifeline of the Christian self is the strong continuity between the self in prayer and the self in the world. Self-possession becomes intense Islam these two levels are much more intimately fused because the core of the Qu uran is the Word of God as inscribed directly by the Prophet.) ly important. To abandon oneself, to forget oneself, is a horror. This does not mean what it means in later discourses; Christian self-possession is remembering oneself in God and before God. This remembrance is verbal So how the text is set is not in any way a musical revealing of the 204 tudes to music is exactly that there is, within the psychology of music, a 205 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST and the binding thread of the Christian self is the store of remembered In Europe music eventually levers itself away from the verbal text words. So, meeting temptation, the Christian seizes on the words of a mar by acquiring its own textuality in the form of notation. A diagrammatic tyred saint; immediately he is no longer distracted from the destiny of his form arises which borrows the idea of discrete particles from written immortal soul; he weighs the matter of his own eternal death against the tug language but incorporates them into a mimesis of musical gesture in which of fleeting pleasure. But his faith is not in words as words, in their capacity spatial relationships reenact patterns occurring in the plastic and holistic medium of auditory sensation. The inspiration for such a spatial mimesis to mean what they say, but in the saying of them as an illocutionary ritual of remembrance; it is the music of the words as chanted that reinforces their mnemonic power and charisma, a music whose sound is a total sign, in the sense of a sign that suffuses all that is said with the power of God. may lie in the ancient practice of chironomy in which the Jewish Cantor indicated by hand gestures the melody to be sung from the Hebrew text. Around the same time as we begin to have written music (Hucbald's Ultimately, however, this sense of music as a total sign would be 9th century Europe) we have descriptions of the use of an instrument called worn away. Some relation between parts and whole was latent in the prac the monochord to teach singers the Chant melodies. Here again is the idea tical work of music-making. Within the structure of the Chant, melodic of separate tones envisaged on a vertical plan, a feel for a striated vertical elements and details had always been evaluated, substituted, recombined; it space in which each note is clearly separated from the one above and the one was simply that the modus operandi was articulated within a theological below it. This is achieved by placing the voice, so to speak, under the framework. Moreover the process had been both gradual and diffuse. The emergence of polyphony, which would telescope and superimpose this fingers, so as, literally, to digitalize it. The word Organum means instrument, or tool; the Organum in vocal music means, then, the instrumentalizing of process on itself, is the point at which music begins to refuse its role as a the human voice, the realization of a fundamentally instrumental concep total sign and to reject any way of mediating between detail and totality that might be imposed from outside. tion of sound in the medium of the human voice. Also around this time the practice of troping begins to take on a new urgency. Troping could mean the addition of new text, the addition of Polyphony new text combined with music, or the addition of new melismas without The Christian Church: a vast machine for creatively recombining sets of ele ments belonging to a sacred imaginary, in the interests of a hierarchy of rit ual specialists maintaining a symbiosis of power with changing political élites. Christianity's peculiar multitextuality is central to its ability to adapt to successive political arrangements, from the Roman Imperium, through the Crusades and the Slave Trade to the treaty with Mussolini and the Cold War. In multitextuality is on the one hand the power of the authoritative written text—reinforced by a monopoly of reading and interpretation by persons with a vested interest in the structure—on the other hand the simul taneous presence and interplay of many different texts. It is as if the textual dimension of Christianity were similar to a body of epic stories in a Central Asian culture, only that all the stories and their possible variations had been written down, each carrying its own textual authority. Consider only that even the Bible as we know it is further surrounded by a vast cloud of other marginalized texts known as apocryphas and pseudepigrapha of which there are many thousands of pages. 206 text. In its first form it consisted only of adding sequences or parts follow ing on from sections of the Chant. Later, with the technique known as farcing (stuffing), new fragments of text were interpolated into the original. It was a proto-compositional technique whereby local composers could contribute to the body of liturgical music as representatives of particular monastic and church communities, often paying tribute to important local figures and saints. At what point is the grip of ritual values loosened up when it comes to determining the actual shape and detail of the music within the ritual? The technical turning point is the discovery of a way of organizing the relationships between simultaneous, as opposed to successive, sounds. This invention—the invention of organized polyphony—challenged the author ity of the sacred text, not of course as such but in terms of its operational pragmatics as the sole integrative field for musical organization. Instead of varying by substituting melodic formulae for others, you could now take the Chant or any part of it and build something new vertically on it; from 207 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST the moment the Chant became merely a starting point, the alert musician would gravitate towards such other integrative principles as might emerge opened my mouth to say Glory, a flame touched my tongue which ran from the actual work of building music on it. These new principles ulti down me. My language changed and no word could I speak in my own mately formed a matrix in which musical thought and experiment could interact directly without the mediation of a liturgical framework. The satisfied. —Charles Harrison Mason, founder of Church of God in Christ, necessity of polyphony followed from the emptying out of musical space C.1893. round the monodie Chant and the pregnancy of this space for the possibil ity of textual substitution. Once the impulses towards textual commentary, substitution, superimposition, glossing, in short HYPERTEXT, become concretized in music, they begin to divide and link continua in ways that no longer simply mediate the divisions of experience reproduced in Christian discourse. The specific textual plurality that distinguishes Christianity from Islam, the notion of synchronous commentary, trope and textual and nar rative diversity, is the major causal factor in the emergence of polyphony in the Paris cathedrals and not in the Baghdad mosques. which enveloped my entire being above the brightness of the sun. When I tongue. Oh! I was filled with the Glory of the Lord. My soul was then And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. —Acts II Here we go to another thought, which is that the projection of the sacred is In short, a discourse centered on an unresolved cohabitation of transcendence and immanence (God, the Word made Flesh, the Son) sourced (motivated, in the sense that motivations are the causes of social produces its own negative and finds itself transcended (metaphorically of individuals. And that these experiences are the revolt of the psyche speaking) by Art's immanent critique. In so far as Church legislators practices) in the actual vivid and shattering religious or mystical experiences allowed themselves to be guided by an extreme distrust of music, they against the language-narrated self. So one definition of "spiritual music" is music that induces or draws on such experiences. The twist is how. achieved exactly the opposite of what they had intended; they were forcing Mainstream Christian ideology deflects and defers any unmediated music to become a disciplined, self-conscious, technical skill: they had cre ated the conditions for a learning process that would grasp more complex and overwhelming contact with God. In Catholicism, only after death is the materials on the firm basis of what had been learnt with simpler materials. They had made it necessary for music to discover its own generative processes, to find an equivalent to the gradual and collective folk-process of elaboration and variation, but to find that equivalent in the sphere of conscious and organized practice. In this sense, the emergence of music as an art is already implied in the liturgical demand for a body of musical mate rial that can expand and ennch itself without simply laying itself open to the uncensored influence of other musical traditions. Pentecost The Spirit came upon the saints and upon me... Then I gave up for the Lord to have His way within me. So there came a wave of Glory into me and all of my being was filled with the Glory of the Lord. So when He had gotten me straight on my feet, there came a light 208 Beatific Vision of God permitted. In life, such experiences are dangerous, extremely rare and confined to the deeply, and possibly only the profes sionally, religious. However, within Christianism is a partly suppressed and marginalized Pentecostal tradition. It emerges in our time around 1900 in Mississippi USA in the Church of God in Christ as an alternative to the white-ized post-slavery churches. This revived Pentecostal movement offers baptism by the Holy Spirit, and uses music to induce a state of being filled by the Holy Ghost and of speaking in tongues. It is said that The Spirit moves in the music. Its forerunners were the Revivalist camp meetings of the early 19th century, at which people would often fall to the ground rendered uncon scious by the sudden awareness of their sins, and sometimes further receive the gift of tongues and utter involuntary words glorifying God or Christ. And these movements in turn go back to the mystical "epidemics" that broke out spasmodically throughout the history of Christian Europe. 209 HOLY GHOST HODGKINSON dation of the mainstream churches with rising prosperity in this life. Thus contemporary art music. Jonathan Harvey, thinking about his own music, conceptualizes two intersecting identities: on the one hand the (Western) Christianity has a key interest in secular institutions capable of filling the instrument "as found" with its linear intervallic capacities; on the other its vacuum at the point where it fails to provide an existential experience of extensions, by means of electronics and timbrai modifications, into a verti God. Social groups who are systematically materially disadvantaged tend to cal timbre dimension. In his piece Advaya, the cello sounds at times corpo find this an unsatisfactory arrangement. It may be that some aspects of West African religion passed into real, as if celebrating its own materiality, but at other times is made to produce a radically desubstantialized sound having no immediate link to Pentecostal religion in the Southern States. Certainly a connection has any actual sounding object. Harvey thinks this as an unfolding in time of a been drawn going back the other way—between the "oral structures" of dual identity, within the cello, of material and transcendent being. It is clear Pentecostalism and the indigenous religions of Africa—to explain the extra ordinary success of Pentecostal churches in Africa since the 1970s. Amongst here that his way of showing out immanence is to show the points at which these oral structures Walter Hollenweger notes the inclusion of visions and scendent. In Dumitrescu, this relationship becomes more dramatic: what is dreams in worship, and understanding the relationship between body and immanent can only be shown out by being caught in the act of bursting mind revealed in healing by prayer and liturgical dance. Certainly every thing that revolves around the term Gospel comes out of the rise of these asunder its own material basis. The point is that immanent spirit can only be summoned by a churches in the Southern States from around 1900: the use of musical instru double perception, at once focused on the materiality of sound, AND ments, and the full range and expressive possibility of the voice both in the directed to how that sound is being disrupted or transformed in some mate sermons and in the choral responses. rial way by what appears as an other force moving within it. However it is Afro-American music that is the direct inheritor of What generally keeps the lid on these outbreaks is the accommo The spirit moves in the music. The Pentecostal tradition brought matter breaks out into spirit itself—^which can then only be shown as tran out of persons sonically present as whole and bodied persons, second the Gospel and Pentecostalist soimd traditions. Albert, we found out quick ly, could play his ass off He had a sound, alone, unlike anyone else's. It tore because the use of interference into the singing voice suggests the simulta through you, broad, jagged like something out of nature. Some critics said his neous presence of a material and a spirit source. The sense of something sound was primitive. Shit, it was before that! It was a big massive sound and pushing up from within or behind. Modulation, distortion, interference, familiar from information theory, from the functioning of radios, from wail The crying, shouting moan of black spirituals and God music... Albert was mad. His playing was like some primordial frenzy that the world secretly used for energy. Amin Baraka on Albert Ayler in The Autobiography of timbre back to life within Christian ritual. First because the sound comes electronic music, fuzz boxes and the rattling metal sleeves on the tongues of kalimba thumb pianos. A signal interacting with another signal. Normal speech modulated by a shake in the voice telling of emotion. The voice broken as if animal vocalizations were coming up from below. The formal ization of the signal on one level is partially disrupted by the presence of another signal on another level. And this disruption is displayed in the style. Leroi Jones, pp. 194-195. Coltrane's music, in comparison, is more weighted to the aesthetic. Listening to First Meditations, the music is not so much being pushed aside as modulated by Coltrane's intentions. There is the tension between the Consistent with this, musical instruments are vocalized. There are tonally leader's search for the "beyond" and the foreground or "here" of predeter mined melodic, rhythmic and modal patterns to be transcended and risen undefined mordents (like the consonants of language), glissandi and blurred above. There is the choice of musicians, where each musician has a highly transitions, throaty and growling soimds by various kinds of overblowing and embouchure, prominent changes of vibrato, harmonics, and so on. Something else is trying to come through. individual take on their own instrument, yet works with the others with extreme complementarity. At times it's as if each were playing a different A parallel approach occurs in the more calculated context of 210 music, and yet it's the same piece. Then there's an important narrative func tion, by which the soloist begins by voicing the theme and then passes 211 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST through different levels or steps in a larger movement or journey, each step work with these signifiers? clearly marked by changes in texture and rhythm by the whole group. In Can we imagine a range of unusual experiences, including those of the paralinguistics of the tenor harmonics, in certain sections of prominent seeing or knowing more than should be possible by normal channels, time vibrato, and some relatively brief episodes of arppegiated piano décor, the music can be said to illustrate or represent transcendence. But a far stronger travel, dreams, hypnosis, out of body experiences, drug-fueled hallucina tion, the effects of various and particular drugs—DXM is like living in a accent is on the movement between here and somewhere else that is hap dream. Everything seems new and foreign. There is a childish euphoria. You pening inside the music, a process that is being unwound, explored in the feel disconnected from everything and everyone but communication is easy. time that the music takes, by moving between a series of plateaus, each of Scenes are very choppy and you 'II feel like you 're in multiple places at once. which is itself multiply subdivided into phrases and periods. Finally the PCP more knocks you out of reality. You'll feel slow and sometimes heavy. sequence of solos allows the same process to be re-explored in the different Your feet get stuck, feel as if they were melting into the ground... yet you're media of the different instruments and their players. Coltrane's music is uplifting because it invites a performance in the listener of an expansive as light as a feather. There is less conscious command, and talking is difficult. aesthetic experience. The interpretation of this experience as a spiritual one not existing. Scenes are cut into long frames integrated slowly—being seized by the listener is cued by track titles and by the relatively discrete "tran- by aliens and taken up into UFOs for experiments, possessed by spirits, scendence-signifiers" mentioned above. It may be that the message-bearing inner flying, feeling yourself morphed into an animal, experiencing total aspect is what motivated the artist to explore this kind of aesthetic set-up. But it doesn't follow that the work itself expresses the artist's intentions or unity and submersion in the cosmos, seeing the white light, or feeling the wave of the Holy Spirit coming down into you? message; the work is the outcome of a long series of aesthetic decisions that surely take on a life of their own. And then there's the "plain, everyday spiritual experiences" in the following passage from Norbert Baumert writing about Pentecostal I admit to having a bone to pick with message-bearing art. A habit picked up in the debates on Brecht, on Social Realism and political music. Theology: What in the 20th century was at first called "Spirit-baptism," is a I ve come to believe that signifiers in art, even in poems, have to circulate from clear-cut experience of the Spirit of another kind, such as occurs in meanings, and not point hard outside the work; I see them rather as signposts inviting us in into the work and its dynamics, suggesting to us how we might mysticism or in the lives of many saints; on the other hand, it is distinguished start performing the work in ourselves. In art, aesthetic pull, centripetal, impact by the Holy Spirit; deepened living relationship with the three divine must be stronger than semantic pull, centrifugal; otherwise its power, its resistance against the world is dissipated. Only once the power of art is persons; intense, life-changing effects; love for prayer and Holy Scripture; an important bodily component with corresponding forms of expression; gathered can it then affect persons. Coltrane gathers the power of art, and readiness for vocal and free prayer, also in community; special manifestations that s what I meant by saying his music is more weighted to the aesthetic. of the Spirit, usually prayer in tongues. The specificity lies in the combination Does Albert, then, fall down on the question of message? Does his feeling of having something to say" drive him merely to illustrate and signify the experience he wants us to have by imitating the trance-shake of the possessed? of all the above...-where it seems that, for this tradition at least, prayer or thanksgiving to God already count as spiritual experiences. Hell, it seems like we're still just scraping the surface of this thing. Suppose a spiritual experience is only ever defined, or even only ever expe rienced, via cultural signifiers? Doesn't an artist then who wishes to com You'll be in a street, but the street won't "click," and you'll feel nowhere, like clear-cut experience of the Spirit, which, on the one hand, is distinguished from plain, everyday spiritual experiences. Its characteristics are: profound This spectrum of unusual experiences, some perceived as spiritual, some less so, depending on your point of view, suggests a high degree of cultural modulation. What happens to people—often unexpectedly and intensely—^is interpreted, and the interpretation may feed back into the experience so that it becomes largely culturally constructed. This interpret municate, to inspire, to stimulate such an experience have no choice but to ing, deciphering kind of knowledge has a more active counterpart in the 212 213 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST form of the techniques used by ritual specialists to generate and modulate to this kind of overloading. special experiences. In shamanism, for example, what the shaman iimerly Dissociation—a state of division or non-integration in the contin sees has the form taken by the spirit; the shaman sees a bear and knows that uous production of identity—may be regarded as a strategy or a resource of this is not any old bear but the Bear Spirit. So you might say there's an act the mind for dealing with certain types of difficulty, of which sensory over of interpretation here, in the sense that someone else might innerly see a load is only one. It is possible that dissociation is a normal state and that bear and think it was just any old bear. But, more than this, the shaman the Western notion of an integrated identity is a myth; to paraphrase leams to recognize spirits, that is, to construct the experience of spirits from Castoriadis, the world as experienced by the subject is not an integrated varied kinds of visual images that may be more or less detailed. The shaman whole, yet does not fall apart. But many religious and ritual practices offer learns to feel towards the image, to empathize with it as though it were another person, to detect its intentions and mood. institutional means of dissociation. Here the more traumatic aspects of dissociation for the subject are overcome by learning and habituation. "We had begun with shamans. I spoke matter-of-factly about the shaman using preparation rituals and other techniques to enter a special Within these cults or practices dissociation becomes a skill that triggers the state. "When I shamanize, I'm not here, not in the place where I'm playing a kind of imagining in which what takes place appears neither to be imag the dungur drum, it's just my material body that's there: I'm away with the ined by the subject nor to be happening in the physical world, but to be spirits... working of what anthropologists have called the autonomous imagination". I was concerned to establish the metaphysical and pragmatic "imagined to" the subject by some other agency, and so happening in its structure of the shaman's doings. The shaman's use of sound—That which own sacred space-time. So this is an experience of being taken over by an is not, rising out of that which is. Pushing up out of the visible, telling always other force, projected as a more powerful, more authoritative force. Then of the inside, voicing the shapes of enclosed air, unveiling the hidden—is I gave up for the Lord to have His way within me. The jazz musician glances enviously at the cult member who has integral to the techniques of entering the special state. The shaman's drum ming (active) takes her on a journey out of herself into the sacred world where the spirits may be met with. their dissociation technique all set up in advance. Against this, the jazz Now consider a socially more elaborate situation such as the Bori rituals of the Nigerian Hausa. Rituals here are conducted for the same kinds put themselves totally into their playing whilst dealing unaided with the musician is constrained by a culture of the individual expressive identity to indeterminacy of the artistic environment. Is this why some musicians in of purposes as those of Siberian shamanism—to heal illness and resolve the extremely insecure and stressful jazz ambience reached out towards problems. However the role of shaman is now split between a group of explicitly spiritual pathways? From an aesthetic point of view the potential musicians and one or more mediums. The music (active) triggers the medi um (passive) to enter a dissociated state and be possessed by a particular problem is that, whereas in a CULT situation the cultural signifiers that tell spirit. Possession by a spirit is shown by talking and acting like the spirit, you how to respond to the music are already given, in an ART situation, if you want to play spirit music you have to lay out the cultural cues in the falling down, sweating and shaking, lapsing into comatose states, speaking music itself or in whatever other information is attached to it. Can you do in tongues, twitching and acrobatics, frothing at the mouth and nose. Such altered states have physiological and psychological components, but they this without aesthetic compromise? are also learned: you learn what the cues are and how to respond to them; Art the learning takes place both in and out of normal waking consciousness. The music is the bearer of many of these cues. But it also triggers dissocia tion in the medium as a defense against the auditory overloading produced by a buildup of volume, speed and density of information. The mediums are I have so far dealt largely with aesthetics as a possibility incubating within ritual, as a potential that haunts the margins of other forms of practice and experience conceived in spiritual terms. It's high time to deal with it head-on. trained to perform the music within themselves in such a way as to succumb Because I approached artistic practice in Tuva as an anthropologist as well as a musician, I started thinking of art as an anthropological category rather 214 215 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST than a historical one. It simply seemed to me that in Tuva, people doing A general kind of isomorphism seems to be shared between ritual music and doing carving knew that they were doing a particular kind of and art. Ritual is isomorphic with itself, involving repetition, relations of thing that had a certain quite edgy relation to spiritual practices but that was also very distinct. The fact that a vocabulary of aesthetic judgement was formal similarity. These aspects constitute its formal semantics: they say we shared between practitioners of both arts encouraged me in this direction. its model. Ritual says: the ongon represents the three spirits; the representa In art, the accent is on the pragmatics of the movement from imag tion doesn't have to be good, there only has to be the idea of representation. inary to real, a movement that is taken as given in ritual. The convergence But how, and at what point, does the vessel containing the spirit no longer between the plane of imagination and the plane of material is effected by a do so by the force of iteration alone, but require to be formed in the like physical process of making. There is a physical dialogue between maker and ness of the spirit—or in the likeness of the spirit's house or body? If, for Kant, are doing something special here. Art takes the idea of ritual isomorphism as materials, via the imagination. Materials are anything that is taken into the discursive knowledge was prohibited from access to the interior of things, then work-process that was already around, and so had some characteristics of its own. For example, an orchestra, a theme, a tone row, a sound, a way of works of art are the objects whose truth can be conceived only as that of their making a sound, a bunch of chords, a recording of birdsong, Eric Dolphy I want to deal first with the work's imitation of itself. I see likeness as interior. Imitation is the path that leads to this interior. (Adorno) (if you were Charlie Mingus). The characteristics of the material are an based on grouping. (And perhaps this view of it is inspired by Stockhausen's important input into the dialogue because they offer resistance. The idea essay on the Klavierstück i.) The basic unit of aesthetic perception is a group does not simply impose itself on physical matter as if that matter were of sensations, in which the connections between members of the group, and nothing other than an extension of the idea. The material offers resistance between members and the whole group, generate sets of related forms; each partly because it is material and partly because of the respect accorded to it, form is then grasped in relation to its possible transformations, because its a particular kind of listening or looking that registers and explores its nature. In music composition, material may be chosen that is not physical constituent sensations remain active. All perception happens in time, not in one time but in a multilayered time in which syntheses of different kinds matter, but, once it is chosen as material, it is attended to in a similar way. occur at different speeds, and this is true for the artist as for the viewer, for the So a piece of art consists of some chosen material that has been worked on musician as for the listener. The things that set off these sensations physically with a particular kind of respect, and it is because of that respect that the material bears the traces of being worked on in the way that it does. shapes embody the traces of actions and not direcdy the traces of ideas. Come back to the front end of making a flute solo or making a piece of sculpture. The formal aspects of the work arise exactly through the fact that it is work, the cumulative trace of intentional actions taken towards the material. These acts of shaping are conditioned by a senes of acts of per exist—even if they are sounds—and have been shaped to do just that. Their These actions are conditioned by the possibilities of the material and by its resistance to being acted on. For example, a harmonic on a tenor saxophone, whether composed or improvised, is the encounter between an idea, dynamized into an intention, and the physical limits of the instrument. The harmonic ception that are alive not only to the material but to each other. The look- becomes aesthetically valued in connection to other sounds, or for its own ing or listening is at any stage towards a material already inscribed with the shape of which the parts are connected. Best is if you hear the shape of the traces of previous lookings and listenings. Hence every perceived form is held in intimate relation to its possible or actually present transformations. sound, and you hear it in relation to the shapes of other sounds, and in sev eral different dimensions at once, for example by comparing envelopes, or In other words, because of this particular kind of perceptual care directed at and into the matenal, attention returns to what was excluded from each per fundamental pitches, or by any mode of relationship and comparison that has been set up by the music. But that all this would be happening very fast and cept, and this residue is ready to be taken up in the next perceptual moment. in an unobserved way, creating a feeling of transformations within a holistic Notice that in this regard art is absolutely opposed to language, in which everything definite is cut out against everything else. and plastic medium of sound experience. The neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese suggests that the models of the 216 217 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST world by which we organize many of our thoughts and experiences are dynamic and tactile because their neuronal correlates—mirror neurons—are horrified that the wrong music might cause a person to forget themselves those that simulate actions and movements. These structures are activated in the same way when we see the actions of others as when we move our ollect themselves before God. In Tuva xöömei is said to make the Ustener forget their normal self to participate more deeply in the cosmos. According selves. They are, so to speak, the mental part of moving, but without the to Michel Ratté, music can be a proto-symbolization of the inner what- agency of the movement—^us or them—being determinative. Hence we feel we-are that is lost when we use the means of communication and represen before God, but believed that the right music would bring a person to rec the movements of others around us as familiar long before we decode and tation offered by society. Music is peculiarly suited to this because sound interpret them. We might go on to speculate that we also feel the dynamics constantly disappears, as if it were a constantly collapsing representation of of things, and read the traces of movements in forms, in way that is tactile and intimate, as if through the lens of our sense of our own bodies. Or in the listening self. Listening to music brings us into a state where memory no other words that aesthetic experience involves the mirroring of suggestive getting. Art is driven by the energy of a self that finds itself on the one hand movement and shape in art. But the important point that I want to borrow from Gallese is the idea of neuronal activity connected to movement but brought into relation to itself by the possibility of communication, and on the other constantly misrepresented by the inherently intersubjective char without being tied to images involving agency—^us or them, you or me. acter of that communication. The young Georg Lukacs also considered all His way of breathing was a joy: it had economy and grace and power; his longer has representation, and simply confronts itself as awareness of for human socio-cultural communicative acts to be a tragic failure in terms of management of time was perfect. He had the time to hit whatever note it the primal need for the subject to express the singular immediacy of their was that came next, then to extend the breath into the next phrase like a own experience. The individual is incarcerated in an incommunicable sudden almost-visible extension of the room, as if this phrase had yearned subjectivity, the isolation of the subject produced precisely within the to be united with its predecessor, and now they were together. Then he'd solidarity of all the speakers of a language. Art expresses what we are as such within the failure of communication. cut the end of that phrase and wander off into the split chink of a twilight zone, momentarily. Normal business would resume some time, but in this instant he had gone down steps he'd never seen until then, that led down Jonathan Harvey on Xenakis and Ferneyhough: Both composers possess a "hot" energy that appeals to some temperaments. There is in this a to a dark harbor where water clucked against the boats and rocks and a notion of assault on the self-identity of the subject. Piranesi, Beckett, Matta, constellation could be seen reflected. —Last Night's Fun, Ciaran Carson. Bacon, etc., all exemplify this. The self (body and mind) is torn to fragments The performing listener is here a writer creating a parallel text to the music. Giving a sense also of how a listener may interpret their own to reveal the nothing. experience as inhabited by the intention and experience of the acoustic of agency might be put on hold. I'm thinking of the ideas of John Cage: Cage's ideas about music as the production of a quiet mind, and as some performer. This opens up the idea of the active creative performance of the receiver/listener/viewer in response to the work. It's a fundamentally demo But there's another almost opposite way in which a listener's sense thing that can help to quieten the minds of others; silence as the totahty of cratic idea. The inner performance is not a passive effect of the work. Its the unintended, not a literal absence of sound and movement but the total agency is open. Listening to music we do not care if it is us that is actively ity of all the sound and movement that is happening anyway when the intention is quietened. In Cage's dualistic view, intention can only produce making the experience or not. Or, rather, the who of the activity is not an essential part of its quality. Again this places art in decisive opposition to language, which is almost nothing other than a grammar of agency, a schema for negotiating the differences between your position and mine. Music stimulates both forgetting and remembering. Christians were 218 a catastrophically rigid mind-set such as that employed in the workings of traditional tonal harmony. A person who makes music in such a structuring way is laying down a dominant continuity that imposes a line of hearing and prevents the listener's perceptual capacities from opening to any other possibiUties. Against Cage, this leaves out the recursive nature of aesthetic 219 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST perception as an activity, the constant sending back of the attention to adjust the fibers and discover something new. It leaves out the listener's contribu possible between the work as it exists in abstract or recorded form and the tion to the emergence of a new and unique continuity with each listen. demanded is not the reproduction of an ideal performance, such as might be If Cage's proposition represents a radical, perhaps deliberate, mis understanding of traditional music, Ws actual practice can be thought of as arrived at through competence alone, but the realization of a unique itera tion that listens to its here and now. simply moving the zone of the listener's activity nearer to the early stages of In jazz this quality is sometimes referred to as spirit or energy or incoming perceptual information. This perhaps relaxes the higher level vibes. Some musicians adopt a devotional metaphor as a technique for get (more abstract) processing activities uivolved in recognizing, sorting and drawing connections between perceptual entities. ting themselves into the right frame of mind. A shared vocabulary develops Taken together, the ideas I have been discussing suggest a vast range of possible types and intensities of musical aesthetic experience all of which empirical and social moment within which it is being realized. So what is between players and listeners: he taps into a higher animating spirit, playing like a man possessed, visibly transported.... The academic literature on the psychology of performance looks place the experiencing subjea's sense of agency in some way into parenthesis. mostly at questions of motivation and control of anxiety, as if these were the Finally, at the core of every truly engaged listening experience, something is retained from the transcendental religious experience: not the giving up of suffering from stage fear are explicitly acknowledged to be of dubious value; the self for the journey into the sacred imaginary, but a special condition in they bear little or no relation to the personal preparation methods used by which "I," the listener, am inhabited, and temporarily imagined, by the some musicians in order to let go of the anxious mind before going on stage. crucial factors. Furthermore, the various therapies available to performers subjeaivity of the music. Finally, by embodying the traces of the listenings of From yoga to double whiskies to private rituals of disorientation, musicians its maker, or makers, music, in the moments that it sounds, is listening to itself, and I listen to it by becoming it. will try anything that works for them. There is a further implication here that bears on the musician's own state of mind and how that indirectly contributes to the work's reception: practicing with a radio AND a TV on full blast. My guess is that a certain namely that the musician's own sense of agency may also be placed in different techniques, whether spiritual or secular, can create such dissocia parenthesis. We've already seen how, in the Tuvan psychology of artistic tion and partially re-organize a person's normal sense of agency. creation, a creative process may involve a dialogue with spirits, or a sense that it's not me doing it, it's someone else. Coda In Western culture also, certain modes of performance seem, to require an abandonment of the self. But what is being abandoned here is the self in the limited sense of that part of the mind that has previously acquired and that now consciously holds and deploys the necessary technical skills for the realization of the work. Furthermore this operative self is not being inhibited in fact its contribution to the output is being strengthened. The notion of giving up the 5e/f here refers to a restructuring of the attention so as to get a performance that has a sense of immediacy, a sense of the work being discovered in real time in front of and with the audience, and so a sense of risk, of going beyond what is simply known and adequately cov ered by techmcal competence. For the performance of a piece of music is always an attempt to open the deepest and most comprehensive dialogue 220 Glenn Gould famously overcame a block in some tricky passage by kind of dissociation is functional for optimal performance and that many Finally this question of agency/non-agency draws me back to the social doings of human groups and the distribution of power within those groups. An anthropology of power will look at how control systems—^previously biochemical and instinctual—are, in human beings, transferred to extrinsic cultural systems. This enables and fires off the singular human project of the variable, developing and undetermined adaptations of societies and cultures within different ecologies. The lynchpin of these effective possibilities is cooperative action, which requires the binding of the individual into the social group and the affirmation of the general power of a society over its members. My thinking here starts out from the work of Pierre Clastres on pre-political societies; societies in which the role of individual leadership and hierarchy is less important than the submission of every member of 221 HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST society equally to the rule of tradition; small-scale societies in which the generations of scholars to gravitate towards a sociological reduction of reli nearest thing to a leader is a person who solves disputes, gives away worldly gion. But the invention of the sacred, the peopling of a sacred dimension possessions and acts as the group orator. This account breaks with the with imaginary beings, has first to be grasped within the total field of the tradition of explaining (and legitimating) power differences in present-day human, the entire field of being as a simultaneously natural and cultural being. Only on this level can its true lack of sense be articulated. societies by reference to hominid, and therefore instinctual, pecking orders. It asserts cooperation within small groups as a fundamental step in human The extrinsic cultural system is largely vehicled by language, a acculturation, one that precedes the later emergence of political difference and inequality within single societies. My point here is that first we have to grammar of agency, of the constantly shifting positionality of the individual in relation to other individuals within the space-time of the group. So not reckon with the general power of society over its members, and only then only does culture confront the pre-cultural in terms of how it arrays, can we consider the case in which social power is unevenly distributed. processes and stores information, it also, by introducing a grammar of My power over another person could be defined as my capacity to get them to do what I want regardless of their own wishes and without the agency in the form of language, reconfigures human intentionality in rela tion to how information is activated. Who is doing it becomes an integral actual deployment of force. The communicative acts involved in the expres part of what is being done. From the perspective of the intending subject, sion of power are very often ritual in character. Ritual may be more abstract agency and positionality sink back as constants into the functional context than any actual violence, but just as physical, because addressing the body of action. However, behind and underpinning the grammar of agency, lies through the mimetic movement and complicity of bodies and the binding the general and unagented power of culture itself. This is now articulated of the body to exaggerated and repetitive gestures within the ritual proce through a secondary imaginary network of positionality. dure itself. In so far as the model for all rituals of power is the particular The way in which this secondary network is marked apart from category of actions by which we address the domain of the sacred, "spirit," actual relationality within the group draws on a pre-existing category of the content of that domain, is revealed as purified social power, or pure communicative action: I mean those forms of animal ritual that place certain coercion. In the initiation ceremonies of quasi-Ieaderless societies, all behaviors in parenthesis in order to reduce inter-individual conflict for the members of society submit equally to the tradition of the group by submit benefit of the group as a whole. The dog will lie down in front of the larger ting equally to the ritual knife. It is as if control, once displaced outside the dog in order not to get attacked. The action is marked out as communica biological system, has to cut its way back into the human body. Why does tive, and the logic is that of avoiding the unnecessary death of an individual this movement of control from biological systems to cultural systems have to take such a traumatic form? which would be counter-productive for the pack. Animal behaviors are This year, 2009, is Darwin's anniversary. Evolution is an improvi sation. No animal is a perfect and integrated system (despite our longing what would otherwise be normal functional behavior; all these formal projection of grace upon them) because every ammal is an improvisation on the basis of temporary solutions to earlier problems. Human language and ritualized by the application of exaggeration, stereotyping and repetition to aspects reappear in human ritual. Like a constant sound we only notice when it's turned off, the culture do not suddenly of themselves lift us out of that process. I began this general power of a culture can only be sensed and culturally articulated by its members at points of malfunction, recurrent difficulty or complexity; essay with a proposition concerning the untranslatability between the two points at which cultural knowledge is palpably not self-sufficient, at which cybernetically defined informational modes—natural and cultural—^that constitute the human being s being, and this remains the core of my answer. the world-image breaks down, at which a fragile walkway must be rebuilt after every storm. Through the development of a sacred domain as an imag We look for, we expect, smoothness, in the sense of a functional or analytic continuity. But clearly this expectation is conditioned by the social organi zation of our own project of understanding, the same conditioning that led inary network of positionality, human persons get to have a positional attitude, as if towards other real persons, towards those issues, frictions and 222 223 negations generated by the culture of which they are members, as it lays claim HODGKINSON HOLY GHOST to operational mastery within the total nature-culture system. Whatever is cally belongs to the kinds of society in which economic relations are still dangerous, or is simply unplaceable within a culture s categories, becomes posed in terms of relations between individuals expressed through an onto- material for that culture's construction of the sacred. Clastres' Chronicles of the Guayaki Indians opens with one of the greatest coups de theatre in logical ritual of bodies? Supposing that the development of the autonomy of art as a field coincides with the over-riding of all such relations by the ethnographical literature when he is woken in the middle of the night to more abstract relations of money? Suppose then that art has become assist at the rare and precious event that is the birth of a new baby into the nothing but a privileged zone in which survives a substitute ritual for the tribe. He describes the four or five Guayaki forming a protective circle bourgeoisie? Isn't what Bourdieu argues in Les Règles de l'Art that the final around the mother, staying silent, unsmiling and careful because they know push to define art (here, literature) as a separate field of activity with its that the sUghtest sound or a single word would be enough to attract a mor tally dangerous night spirit. own rewards and sanctions comes as a reaction to the flooding Ritual articulates nature as a complex of spiritual forces that enter into social relations with persons. At the same time it makes the power of Baudelaire? I blow the dust from my copy of the Communist Manifesto-, society seem natural by locating it in the body and its gestures and in the physical resonances of gesture, of relations in physical space, and of the voice. Power is in the first place a dimension of social relationships in general. The unagented, or collective, force of society itself underlies the later internal distribution of power that comes with the growth of political difference within society. At this point political power ceases to be one and the same thing as the general power of a culture over its members and culture takes on the new task of legitimating political inequality within the group. With political difference the collective and relational aspect of power gets concealed in rituals of authority where power appears as belonging to an individual, an office-holder. But even here to begin with power is direct ly spiritually conferred, or conferred by one whose power is spiritual. The rewards of power, the privileged access to social goods, the identification of the power-bearing individual as variously destined or chosen, as responsi ble, as privileged, as mandated, or as representative, all this agenting of social power is built up on the basis of social power itself. But if ritual is effectively the exercise (or even the manufacture) of social power direcdy through the body, art seems to commandeer this bodyinscripted process and instigate itself as its own power, or a separate field in which power is no longer hierarchical, applicable or applied, the worked material in art perhaps even standing in as a substitute for the cut body in ritual. The demqcratic possibility in art is that the receiving subject's sense of agency is left open, the receiving subject is not possessed by a spirit. Art democratizes ritual? Art as an immanent critique of power? But supposing that the association of power with the body most authenti 224 in of money, new money, into cultural life in the Paris of Flaubert and it hasn't been out much recently: The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the mot ley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the heavenly ecstasies of reli gious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. Marx did not foresee the society of the spectacle as the material form taken by monopoly capital and the need to absorb surplus production. The exploitation that in his time was becoming nakedly visible quickly concealed itself within a new universe of images. But it was Rudolph Bahro's remark that Marx wasn't materialist enough, that the human of dialectical materialism had been flattened out into too few dimensions, that first got me thinking about the material pres ence of the human being and the embodied intelligence of that being. Music can't be reduced to a social text, or a social process with an integrative and relational social function. Music is not beholden to society but to the whole being that is part inside and part outside society. An anthropology that isn't mere sociology will have to respect that. My patience, my pragmatic respect for beliefs of others in spirits and for the interpretation of certain experi ences as spiritual ones, survives my intense suspicion of organized religion because these are sure-fire indicators of that human complexity. —London, February 2009 225 CHAPTER 13 HODGKINSON Selected Texts Used Geertz, Clifford. Religion as a Cultural System in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. (^45^4 Monograph j, Tavistock 1966) pp. 36-39. Hodgkinson, Tim. Musicians, Carvers, Shamans. {Cambridge Anthropology, vol. 25, no. 3, 2005/2006) pp. 1-16. Suzukey, Valentina. The Drone-overtone basis of Tuvan traditional instrumental SIGILS JERRY HUNT music. (Kyzyl, Tuvan Scientific Research Institute for Language, Literature and Art, 1993) Baily, John. Music Performance, Motor Structure, and Cognitive Models, in European Studies in Ethnomusicology: Historical Developments and Recent Trends. (editors Max Peter Baumann, Artur Simon and Ulrich Wegner, Intercul tural Music Studies, 4. Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel Verlag. 1992) pp. 142-158. Adorno, T.W, Aesthetic Theory (RKP, 1984) ref. on p. 183, retranslated in S. Nicholsen Exaa Imagination, Late Work, on Adomo's Aesthetics. (MIT 1997) ref. on p. 21. Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Gruppenkomposition : Klavierstück i. (1955, in Aufsätze Birome (ZONE): Cube is devised as a reflex memory cabinet with transac tional core: the mechanism used is item-element invariant and system transparent; the cube zone is a body-memory exerciser and operates as a continuous "other": a sexual surface trance derivative emulator. The interi or surfaces of the cabinet serve as source skrying planes through access points using a system derived from the angelic tablets of John Dee; the core is a composite mannequin arrangement (homunculus) provided with inter 19^2-62 zur Theorie des Komponierens. (ed. Schnebel, DuMont Schauberg, active signature translators derived from a serialized variant of Rosicrucian Köln 1963) Gallese, Vittorio. Embodied simulation: From neurons to phenomenal experience. chess (sigil) and is sensitive to participant skrying action. The participant/ {Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2005. Springer.) 4: 23-48. Harvey, Jonathan. Complexity in Music? (Gaudeamus, Rotterdam 1990) Clastres, Pierre. Chronique des Indiens Guayaki. (Terre Humaine Poche 1972) Clastres, Pierre. La Société contre l'Etat. (Editions de Minuit 1974) bly to generate response signatures translated as context codes along a binary cabinet/core interaction is arranged in such a way as to cause the core assem interleaved multiplex transsexual spiral: the spiral contains embedded narrative whorls: each whorl generates a string of sound-image derivatives. Deep whorls (cores) use spatial reposition; continuant whorls (narratives) use temporal reposition. Sound and image sequences and stills are parallel threaded into the multiplex spirals. The system uses an audio/video retrieval mechanism in the surfaces (monitors), sequence and stream interactive with the accumulative history of the participant/cabinet/core exercise". a- a- 1- Concerning the system ground of Birome (ZONE): Cube and Birome (ZONE): Cube [frame] of Jerry Hunt, the Tarot is interconnected with a sys tem of Hermetic Qabalah references with prime and subordinate number interlocking systems with the Tarot representing a system of a "soft" div ination mechanism. No inherent meaning is utilized in these operations but they are not translated in the same way as John Cage's use of the I Ching as a mechanism of random numbers. The interdependent, multiple layer 226 227 HUNT SIGILS meaning structure, the number translations, and the root prime number systems are all used to produce an inter-layered, multiple plane interdepen dent system of significances that are translated as codes. The codes are then used systematically and coherently as significant systems in such a way as to produce a coherent language of information exchange. The surfaces of the cards have their principal and prime number significances, symbol and representational surfaces, historical and dramatic narrative as well as their scenario content apparatus supporting each card. The Qabalah system uses a table of prime and multiple number sig nificances—^the set of 0,1-10, and paths between the principal Sephiroth as subordinate number cormections. These are used transparently as arbitrary but coherent, systematic codes for the arrangement and disposition of the content derivatives and structures. The Watchtowers employ magical number systems arranged in squares with systematic movements within the squares producing a series of magical names and concurrent geometric configurations. The move ments within magical sigils are similarly constructed with movements of the names (letters, numbers) producing geometric configurations: sigils of the magical names. The work's sight-sound content contains direct (sight) and indirect (sound) representations of many of the sigils and patterns. The coding, sequence, and arrangement of the surfaces of the incidental components (sigil, Tarot content derivative, Watchtower significance, or historical detail of the development of one of these traditional methods) is ultimately derived from the "Watchtower mechanism, but not as exact correlations of the Enochian letter values. The coding series is represented as cormected systems in a manner similar to the sigil production m the Watchtower or magical square arrangements with geometric transformations of the sigils (rotation) producing derivative variations of the code series. The sight-sound production is finally categorized in such a way as to produce a continuous stream of materials with each defined by some characterizing feature and catalogued using the number-sigil mechanism. The interactive procedures of short-term memory exercises of comparison and mapping using feature detection begin to scan and analyze the codes for significant features during retrieval procedures and are pre sented as sight-sound emanations. 228 229 HUNT SIGILS 99 W X O-Lo-Lo -Q—Q_ (^(E7 230 231 SIGILS 232 233 CHAPTER 14 HYAKINTOS AND PARDEH Takhallus (signature) to his epic poem SdgM Nämeh: HYAKINTOS AND PARDEH ù j A j ò ^ j iXAo 3 (ESSIKA KENNEY AND EYVIND KANG "Ke Hafez cho mastane sazad sorud Ze charkhash dahad rud Zohreh dorud." I When Hafez in intoxication composes a song From the firmament Zohreh responds with her lyre.' Hyacinthus Racemosus Dodonet, or starch hyacinth, also known as haurut (or) maurut in the Armenian language. An interesting story is attached to this flower, for Harut and Marut are the names of two angels "of surpassing excellence" who were chosen to descend to the earth. In Genesis 6:4 we read: "There were giants {Nephillim) on the earth in those daysj and also after that, for the sons of God came in unto the 3. Dhän-e Häfez,Säghi Nämeh^ tr. Kenney. Harut and Marut are ultimately con demned to remain imprisoned within a pit in Mount Damavand. The finality of the angels' descent into the earth offers a counterpoint to Zohreh's ascent into heaven. In a Persian miniature paint daughters of men, and they bore children unto them, and they became ing we are given a dramatic image of Harut and Marut in their imprison giants who in the olden days were mighty men of renown." The Lord was ment within the mountain, tied up by their feet and hung upside down so unhappy with the situation, that He "was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart."^ above a pool of water. In Koran 2:102 we read further that "...only the devils denied, who taught sorcery i. "...the distance between their mouth and the water amounts only to the thickness of a sword blade. They shall remain so till the end of the world, and whoever desires to learn sorcery goes there and learns magic 6.é, trans. George Lamsa. to men/which, they said, had been revealed/to the angels of Babylon, Harut and Marut...." Harut and Marut are asked to intercede in a dispute involving a Persian Queen named Zohreh, and her husband. ...They learned what led to discord between husband and wife."^ Zohreh is a woman of great beauty— also an extraordinary singer. In the midst of 2. Koran from them."" 4. Tarjoma-ye tafsir-e Tabarin I, pp. 96-97. 2 V t í ' Ò 5 J Ì i tram. Ahmed Ali. their arbitration, Harut and Marut find themselves m love with her. Zohreh resists their desires until they grant her the knowledge of the Greatest name "Delam ze pardeh borun shod, Kojâ-i ey motreb." My heart from the pardeh tears through. Where are you? Oh! Musician! of God, which she pronounces and at once ascends to the sky to become the planet Venus, known to this day as Zohreh in the Persian language. In Persian poetic symbolism, she is often depicted as a celestial lute or harp player who is sometimes inclined to respond to the efforts of earthly musi cians. The great Persian poet, Hafez, refers to this connection in the 234 jJu La jlS" 0^ "Be nâlhân kaz in pardeh kär-e mâ be naväst." 235 KENNEY/KANG HYAKINTOS AND PARDEH To moan, to moan, for from this pardeh our work in song/well-being comes. pardeh gardani, offer themselves in music in messages as clear as our hearts' —Hafez^ ears. Yet there is a constant shifting also occurring in the listener as well as the music. Every correspondence reserves for itself a manner of self-com- Pardeh: 1. curtain; screen; veil; mantle; membrane; layer; coating; film; act (as in a play); painting; tableau; position, and in this way the meaning and the sound change even as the names of music continue their own mythology-laden courses. Every pardeh reserve; modesty. 2. (musical) note 3. (musical) scale 4. fret^ which hides from us, hides something from us, also shows us something If separation and union is the lovers discourse, pardeh is the intermediary and the else, and invites us to this inner limit. ^-Persian-English Dictionary J LJ boundary alike. Hafez in his supernal ambiva lence, gives the feeling and knowledge of pardeh transmissions. His pardeh Ù ù j j ¿,1 jl j l ò 6ÙJi Ij is full of the mundane pragmatism of a first music lesson and the hyper real ity of infinite intersubjectivity, with human agony and love suspended in "Moghani az än pardeh naghshi biâr between. The senses, the entry points and the interstices of phenomenal bebin ta che goft az damn pardehdâr" existence, are also pardeh. In fact, every pardeh in the body has a different quality, experienced by the sound which causes it to move, to vibrate. Musician, from this pardeh bring forth an image The ear drum itself is the pardeh of the ear {pardeh-ye gush). The inner ear and the cochlea is our chamber of music. The folds of the voice, Reveal that which was spoken from within by the pardeh-holder —Hafez* cords, create a curving, stretching surface which is also a pardeh, transmitting the tiniest upper partíais of their vibrations through the posterior struc tures of cartilage, called cuneiform and corniculate. In these spectral shapes, ineffable poems are inscribed, as if on the face of a petal. This resonance interacts with the drum-like membranes of pardeh, in breath, in voice, in fascial interconnectivity and intercellular respiration, the breath, the blood, the pulses. Every pardeh bears the weight of each moment's experience, and sometimes ruptures or disrupts its own sound, the tearing through of the heart of Hafez. The pericardium, the pardeh surrounding the heart (pardehye del), is the lilypad resting on the watery mirror, holding the blossoming of the heart s cries. A pardeh, which is also the name of the fret on the neck of the setar, might speak of the fragility of the deer's leg. It's hoof is bal anced on the edge of an abyss, tapping on the precipice. A fret, a note, a position in the cosmology of melody, pardeh is the remembrance of the atmosphere of a musical entity. Melodic modulation can be described as pardeh gardani, to rotate, turn, or cycle through the progressions of a melod/. The stations and forms of love, as the communication. Dr. Hos.em 8. Divän-e Häfez, Säghi Nämehy tr. Kenney. 3 I was a photon, I was a spark. I was the divine hyacinth. After my death, a flower grew from my blood. Apollo inscribed the syllable ("Ai Ai") on my petals. I was "like lilies with their silver changed to crimson." —Ovid 10:213 I was the son of Kleio, the Proclaimer. My father was King of Macedón, Pierus himself. I was raised by the Rememberances; I am a Spartan. I was born to love, to be in love, to be loved. Nymph Argiope, my lover—the first to love other men. My lover Zephyrus ruled the west wind. Thamyrus, my first lover, after my death: He challenged the Muses to a music contest. 236 237 CHAPTER 15 KENNEY/KANG Beloved Erato with Lyre, Euterpe with Launedas If he was better, he wanted to have them all. He would have even ravaged my mother! But he was not as good as them! They chose the punishment: "deprived him of both his eyes and his skill in singing to the lyre" —Apollodorus 3:3 MUSINGS ON THE HERMETIC LYRE WILLIAM ). KIESEL I was loved by Apollo, I did everything for him. He wanted to play, to throw the discus together. We stripped naked, rubbed ourselves with oil. What agony for Zephyrus to watch us play! The west wind blew up when Apollo threw the disc into the sky. Fearless, confident, in Love, I ran to catch it. The disc hit the ground suddenly, startling me. It bounced strangely towards me. Figure 1. Different forms of the Lyre. It hit my neck, slicing right through. I screamed in agony, blood pouring from my throat. Apollo turned pale, held me, tried everything to save me. He tried every herb that could cure me. Too late, too late, my life poured into the ground. Apollo screamed, he cried in misery. "No one will forget you in all of Sparta! Ai! Ai!" "The entire universe is like a lyre tuned by some excellent artificer, whose strings are separate species of the universal whole. Anyone who knew how to touch these dexterously and make them vibrate would draw forth marvelous harmonies. In himself, man is wholly analogous to the uni versal lyre." John Dee, Aphorism XI; Propaedeumata Aphoristica. In the aphorism given above the Elizabethan magus John Dee poetically states the doctrine of correspondence found in Hermeticism wherein the micro cosm is in union with the macrocosm. But why would a mathematician like Dee use the language of music in order to make this point? The answer Hes in the fact that musical theory is wrapped up deeply in mathematical quali Acknowhdgements. We -msh to thai^ Ostad Hossem Omoumi with whom we study Classical Persian music Md poe^. Note on transhteration: As we have mcluded the Persian text, our transUteration style is based on Iraman Persian (Faiîi) pronuncianon as it is often used in Iranian culture for the singing and declamation of the texts of the Classical Persian poets, [a] is pronounced similarly to "mark", and [a] similarly to "have". ties expressed as harmonics and to a renaissance philosopher such as Dee these precise measurements informed his search for universal understand ing. The renaissance thinker was always keen to learn about the universe by observing nature's rhythms and sought to use these observations in order to bring about changes in the world that were not only helpful for mankind but the universal order itself. Nature triumphs over Nature sayeth the wise. For if one could effect change in the universe by following its laws, then one was participating in the divine work of creation thus uniting oneself with 238 239 KIESEL MUSINGS O N THE HERMETIC LYRE the creative source of the universe. Dee uses the word vibrate to illustrate not only that sound itself is made by the movement of air but that the gra dations of all manifestation are merely different rates of vibration ranging from the higher subtlized divine world to the lower more dense material world. Just as there was the idea that the universe consisted as a unity divid ed up by degrees of vibration, so the philosophic idea of the Hermetic Ladder expressed the successive steps that lead from the terrestrial to the celestial realms. Dees choice of the lyre is no accident either as the instrument figures prominently in traditional mythological iconography found in west ern esotericism, particularly in the personages of Hermes, Apollo and Orpheus, whose collective legends help to preserve some of the musical the ories which have come down to us through the centuries. respective worlds. Thus each stage could be aligned with a planet, an herb, a metal and a part of the body. In alchemy these were expressed as the celes tial, vegetable, mineral and animal worlds respectively. Each of these worlds overlapped with adjacent worlds above or below in terms of rate of vibra tion as stated above, the highest being divine and lowest being the material world. Whereas the density of the terrestrial world was far removed from the subthzed divine world these nonetheless shared qualities by their har monic relationships. The Septenary Mysteries of Sidereal Harmonics The aetherial diffusions caused by the planetary bodies moving through space were held to sound specific tones ordered according to the harmony of the spheres themselves. This series of harmonics was based upon the var By the musical proportions of Pythagoras, a mathematical theory of music was determined wherein the idea of pitch being related to length of string was established. According to Pythagoras, music and astronomy ious sizes and weights of the planets and their respective reverberations in were seen as sister sciences, and Plato agrees. Plato admired the Pythagorean favored for stringed instruments, though 4, 9 and 12 were also employed. search for numbers m musical concords but criticized the purely empirical As we will see in the emblems accompanying this article, the seven strings approach, which lacks the push beyond the sensible world into true being where actual knowledge, it was alleged, was to be had. The theory of pro were "tied" to the seven planets and their correspondences in the human portion and the idea of the nature of sound as vibrating air preceded and made possible the Pythagorean musical theory. tion. Numbers, correspondences and the like are a means by which tradi the heavenly and terrestrial spheres. Thus seven was the number most often body, which in turn were equated with the seven metals in alchemical tradi tions may preserve their doctrines. The mathematical theories of harmonics convey a vast array of possible combinations with dissonance and harmony Hermetic philosophy teaches a doctrine of correspondences between the macrocosm and the microcosm which the Emerald Tablet expressed through a maxim that perhaps many have heard: As above, so below. The as a means of audible verification. But pure math cannot convey the totali idea was that through the study of nature, one could also learn about God and, since after all one was made in his image, the self as well. These con Pythagorean method. Part of the sympathetic qualities these correspon dences share is that of resonance. The hermetic principle of vibration sup templative, even mystical, meditations were also taking place among the ports the idea that specific harmonics have their correlation in the mineral, vessels and apparatus in the laboratory where the alchemist would repHcate the conditions of Nature in the quest for the Philosopher's Stone. plant, animal and the celestial worlds. Just as an operatic voice can cause a The ascent and descent of the soul, like the rising and setting of the sun was the chief concern of the renaissance interpretation of the myths. In considering the lyre itself one can perceive the high notes resonating with ed in the sublunary worlds. It was just this kind of thinking which lead the church to forbid the use of certain tones in musical composition. The impli the divine worid and low with that of the underworld. But the successive stages of ascent each had their correspondences within the parts of the body, the minerals of the earth, the plants of the vegetable world and the astral' bodies in the celestial sphere. Each gradation had correspondence in these 240 ty of the musical experience as Plato has pointed out in his exposition of the resonance in a wine glass, so also are the vibrations of stellar bodies reflect cation was that some tones had correspondence with the infernal regions and thus carried with them malefic effects. MarsiUo Ficino was particularly taken by Hermeticism's tenets regarding the intermediary realms above the corruptible earth and below the spiritual world. Thus a doctrine of correspondences wherein the plane tary bodies had their jurisdiction in the sublunary world whereby the 241 KIESEL MUSINGS ON THE HERMETIC LYRE movements of the planets had an effect in the world of man. Ficino's approach was to eschew the practice of demonic influence also ascribed to these things by magicians, instead he stressed that these were the workings of Nature itself and that by the study of Nature man could affect miracu lous effects according to nature. The power of words and harmony played an important role among the theories of Ficino's works, which had their root m the writmgs of lamblicus and Plotinus—two authors whose works he had translated as well. Thus in Ficino's view, the music of antiquity was a kind of ceremonial magic, of which he was keen to revive (again under the designation of Natural as opposed to demonic magic). The times warranted caution, he did not want to be charged with sorcery so he was careful to assure his readers that his theories had nothing to do with the worship of stars or demons, but rather the observation and practical operation of nat ural forces. The ascent of the Hermetic Ladder through the seven planets and beyond mto the mtelligible stars was the route through which the doc trine was administered—this was (like Poimanders)—a means of purifica tion as opposed to the acquisition of powers to be used on the earth. But while the transmutation of metals was indeed among the oper ations of the alchemist, this was but one aspect of the art which also involved a mystical or inner alchemy which was expressed elaborately through the use of mythology, allegory and a particularly popular visual art form at the time called Emblemata. Emblems are usually accompanied by mottoes or epigraphs and were intended to convey some allegorical or moralistic teaching. Resonance of Myth in Alchemical Emblemata The auditory world of tones is indeed powerful, but just as powerful are the effects produced in the world of images. The various qualities that come numbers, colors and the like held certain properties and ratios observed by the practitioners of the tradition and thus nearly infinite harmonious com binations were possible. We shall begin with the story of the birth of Hermes, who on that same day invented the lyre from the shell of a tortoise. This tortoise was encountered just outside the threshold of his mother's cave and Hermes wondered at its waddling charm, scooping it up and declaring that while it lived it would be proof against witchcraft but when dead it would surely make sweet music. At this he tucked the creature under his arm and retreat ed back inside the cave where he proceeded to empty the contents of the shell with a sharp implement all the while attaching curved horns and stretching sinewy strings across the fashioned instrument. It was this instru ment that charmed Apollo himself and stole away his anger at Hermes whom had garnered the Sun God's wrath by stealing his cattle by night. When Hermes gave Apollo the Lyre as a gift, Apollo returned the favor by bestowing the gift of his golden staff and of prophecy upon Hermes—so we can see the importance music has in communicating secret knowledge. In another story in the life of Hermes we are told that the Herald of the Gods encountered two serpents locked in battle where upon he struck his Apollonian staff between them and caused them to entwine themselves harmoniously about it. This is where we get the symbol of the caduceus so prominent in alchemical literature where the serpent is also figured as a volatile force, thus Hermes is seen not only as a reconciler between to opposing forces but also the act symbolically represents the fixing of the volatile. There is a resonance between the reconciliation of Hermes and Apollo and the two serpents tamed by the caduceus. Apollo bestows the lyre unto Orpheus who uses its awesome sounds to overcome several obstacles including staying back the crushing stones threatening the Argo, together in hermetic composition, whether musical or visual, produce specific effects based upon the doctrine of correspondence already explained. lulling the serpent which guarded the Golden Fleece to sleep and to retrieve Consequently the resonances produced by alchemical imagery depicting, say, a lion or a sun would share the effects of fire and gold, which are amon^ his love Eurydice from the very depths of Hades itself. Orpheus was said to be able to charm beasts, trees and even mountains with his playing of the the correspondences of the series. This was just as true with elemental qual lyre and this is symboHcally in accord with the three worlds of alchemy ities, human temperaments, historical epochs and geographical locations. Each of these things are seen to be microcosmic aspect of a macrocosmic order and the understanding and utilization of these principles allowed the being the animal, plant and mineral worlds respectively. Later at the death of Orpheus the gods plead in his favor with Zeus who in turn puts the lyre in the sky as the constellation of Lyra to commemorate the deeds of the same. proper link or resonance between the terrestrial and celestial worids. The 242 243 KIESEL MUSINGS O N THE HERMETIC LYRE Figure 2. Philosophia Reformata, 1622. In this emblem, from the Philosophia Reformata by Johann Daniel Mylius, we see the numbers 4, 7 and 12 represented in the various figures. There are four flammg spheres, seven ruling planets and their respective twelve astrological signs. Hermetic Qabalah postulates four worlds, which range from the most subde to the most dense not unlike the vibratory scales of alternately tight and loose strings on the lyre itself. Fire is much more subtle than the solid rock wherein the planets are represented. The seven metals embodying the god forms of the planets were also equated with the seven tones in music. The principle of vibration is implic it in the example of stringed instruments here shown as a lyre being played by Apollo. Some 5th century texts, such as Euripides, spoke of Apollo as the sun, which was common in the iconological tradition in art. Apollo secured early fame for himself among the gods when he slew the Pythian serpent that roamed Mount Parnassus and guarded the Oracle of Delphi. Just as Hermes tamed the dueling serpents with the staff Apollo gifted him, so too does the Far-shooter fix the volatile by piercing the scales of Pytho. These planetary characters endowed with their respective attributes are meant to portray the varied qualities associated with the deific archetypes and the corresponding materials over which they hold rulership. Figure 3. Musaeum Hermeticum, 1625. In this emblem Orpheus is depicted with his lyre amidst the nine muses. The three muses above are demonstrating the unification of the four elements while also expressing their active and passive natures. The active principles; fire and air are signified by the upright triangle, the flaming salamander and the skyward winds, while the passive principles of water and earth are indicated by the inverted triangle, the countryside and the waves of the sea. The third muse presents a hexagram, itself a symbol of union, harmony, the sun and gold. Meanwhile the remaining muses and Orpheus together are seven in number and thus shown underground commemorating not only his descent into the underworld but also to imply the alchemical metals which have their correlates in the seven classical planets. As if to confirm this the hermetic maxim "as above, so below" is again present, this time within the light and dark arcs framing the scene, indicating celestial and terrestrial stars, reflecting the doctrine of the metals resonating with the respective planetary bodies. Orpheus' depiction at Mount Parnassus and the Castalian Fount itself is a kind of resonance, his association with Apollo apparent. The well symbolizes truth since "truth comes naked out of the 244 245 KIESEL M U S I N G S O N T HE H E R M E T I C L Y R E well" but is also a reference to the alchemical phrase Visita Interiora Terra Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem (visit the interior of the earth and through rectification you will find the hidden stone), which forms the acrostic vitriol, an acidic substance used by metallurgists to draw pre cious metals from hard stone. This is another reference to the journey of Orpheus into the underworld in order to retrieve Eurydice. "Just as the lyre is an arrangement of harmonious and disharmonious tones, most apt for expressing a very sweet harmony which is wonderful in its infinite variety, so the universe includes within itself parts among which a most close sympathy can be observed, but also other parts among which there is harsh dissonance and a striking antipathy. The resuk is the mutual concord of the former and the strife and dissension of the latter together produce a consent of the whole and a union eminently worthy of admiration." —John Dee, Aphorism XII. Propaedeumata Aphoristica. Apotheosis The journey of the lyre through the mythological legends shows the alchemical process in action. From its invention in the birth cave of Hermes to the solar hght of the far-shooting Apollo and thence into the underworld through the descent of Orpheus and finally placed among the stars of the celestial sphere as the constellation of Lyra by Zeus himself, one may see the process of resonance^acting above and below according to the hermetic axiom. Unlike Hermes and Apollo, Orpheus was mortal but through the accomplishment of his deeds he was able to attain to the summit of Olympus after his death. The legend offers immortality to the mortal soul, which places it distinctly into the alchemical tradition of the transmutation of base metals into gold. The same analogy has been made in the Odyssey as Odysseus took up his bow when he; scanned every inch, then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song— who strains a string to a new peg with ease, making pliant sheep-gut fast at either end so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow. Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow s cry." —The Odyssey, Fagles translation. These two examples serve to show how nature can hold things together by the tension of opposing forces. It is just such a tension that allows harmonious or discordant sounds to be played upon a lyre, and in the tradition of hermeticism within the microcosmic being of the self, which reflects the macrocosmic divinity. In the life of Orpheus these opposing forces can be seen in his attempt to overcome the power of Hades in order to bring his lover Eurydice back from the underworld, having died by the bite of a serpent. Orpheus was able to sooth the souls of the damned with his playing, so impressing Hades so that the lord of the underworld allowed him to return with Eurydice on the condition he did not look back until he emerged therefrom. 246 247 CHAPTER 16 IN THE NAME OF GOD THE GRACIOUS THE MERCIFUL can a musical sound be the recipient of an impress of beauty from the IN THE NAME OF GOD THE GRACIOUS THE MERCIFUL Recognition of the Beloved YUSEF A. LATEEF Beloved, i.e., be it the will of God. The inherent fact here is that Allah "He is the Lord of all things" (Holy Quran, ch. 6, v. 165), which includes man's ability to hear the beauty of a musical sound and at the same instance he has the God-given realization that this hearing-beauty experience denotes an indication of the True Beloved. However, "...among them are some who give ear to thee; but We have put veils on their hearts, that they should not understand, and deafness in their ears. And even if they see every sign, they would not believe there In paraphrasing the Promised Messiah: Hadhrat Mirza Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in...." (Holy Quran, ch. 6, v. 26) Moreover, it is not at all odd to ascertain (peace be upon him), I venture to say; "A person's love of wealth or off- that the beauty inherent in an unseen sound of beauty is an indication of one sprmg or wife or his soul being attracted towards a musical voice or (musical sound) are all indications of his search for the True Beloved." {The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam, p. 52) of the special functions of the True Beloved, for Moses (who upon be peace) The Holy Quran says: "Allah—there is no god save Him, the Living, the Self Subsisting and All-Sustaining. Slumber seizes Him not, nor sleep. the Holy Quran says: "And to Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and To Him belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth." (Holy Quran, ch. 2, v 256) To be able to perceive this beauty is no doubt a blessing from said, "Our Lord is He Who gave unto everything its proper form and then guided it to its proper function." (Holy Quran, ch. 20, v. 51) And elsewhere the earth...." (Holy Quran, ch. 16, v. 53) ^ Al-Rahman (The Gracious) the True Beloved, for He has said: "And what Therefore it is logical to conclude that when sounds of beauty are emitted or sustained through a human being, the sounds themselves may not be only lifeless vibrations, for the Holy Quran says: "It is He Who ever blessing you have, it is from Allah...." (Holy Quran, ch. 16, v. 54) brings the dead to life, and that He has power over all things." (Holy Quran, ch. 22, v. 7) Mighty, the Wise." (Holy Quran, ch. 16, v. 61) What I am suggesting here is that just as God has the power to make the dead and barren earth vibrate with new life when rain falls upon it. He, to be grateful to the True Beloved, for He has said: "And Allah brought you Consequently, the beauty of the musical sound belongs to the True Beloved, because He has said: "...All sublime attributes belong to Allah and He is And the ear and heart that understands this beauty of sound is due forth from the wombs of your mothers while you knew nothing, and gave also, has the power over things other than this phenomenon of nature. you ears and eyes and hearts that you might be grateful." (Holy Quran, ch. Therefore, I postulate, in regards to the sounds mentioned above, that it is Almighty God Who has bestowed the beauty which the sounds emit. 16, V. 79) The reality here is that man cannot perceive with his physical eyes the Imperceptible Being, Who is latent Uke perfume in a rose. For example: belongs to the True Beloved, because He has said: "All grace is in the hand A man cannot see the perfume within a rose but yet he can perceive the sweetness of the rose, through the God-given faculty of smell, which God (Razzaq-The Provider) has provided man with, unless he has lost his Godgiven ability to distinguish odors. Likewise a man cannot perceive with his physical ears the Imperceptible being Who is latent in the sound of beauty because Allah is (Al-Ghaibi) The Unseen. (Holy Quran, ch. 2, v. 4) Also, if man can receive an impress of beauty from the Beloved, so 248 It is religiously correct to say that the beauty of a musical sound of Allah. He gives it to whomsoever He pleases. And Allah is Bountiful, All Kjiowing." (Holy Quran, ch. 3, v. 74) It appears that there are those who hear and those who do not hear the denotation of an indication of the True Beloved within a musical sound, for it is written: "And be not Hke those who say: 'We hear,' but they hear not." (Holy Quran, ch. 8, v. 21) And "Surely, the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are the deaf and dumb, who have no sense." (Holy Quran, ch. 8, v. 23) The anomaly here is that Allah is telling man that he should hasten 249 LATEEF IN THE NAME OF GOD THE GRACIOUS THE MERCIFUL to listen and respond to the beauty fashioned by The Beloved, because if one delays doing so, unforeseen circumstances may intervene to make one s heart hard or rusty and then one may refuse to listen to beauty of any kind. Therefore it is important for the listener to embrace, as soon as possible, this Godly attribute of beauty provided by Al-Rahman (the Gracious) for this attribute is purely one of the Divine favours from the True Beloved. "Therein, verily is a reminder for him who has an understanding heart, or gives ear and is attentive." (Holy Quran, ch. 50, v. 38) with His praise, but you understand not their glorification. Verily He is Forbearing, Most Forgiving." (Holy Quran, ch. 17, v. 45) The above narrative tells us that man has been created to serve a great purpose—to develop and reflect in his person Divine Attributes. "What did you think that We had created you without purpose " (Holy Quran, ch. 23, v. 116) "He has been endowed with a Divine personality and is manifestly the central figure in the whole creation or at least that part of the creation The reminder to Hsten here means to listen with the heart, the soul, the conscience and the mind which signifies the best part of a thing. which is related to our universe." (Holy Quran, Commentary 2022, p. 706) Such is Allah, your Lord, the Creator of all things. There is no god but He. How then are you turned away?" (Holy Quran, ch. 40, v 63) And are you aware? other than Ben Webster's intelligence. The following explains what I mean "It is He Who makes people laugh and makes them weep." (Holy Quran, ch. 53, v. 44) earth grows, and of themselves, and of what they know not." (Holy Quran, ch. 36, V. 37) Yes—"And by the soul and its perfection." (Holy Quran, ch. 91, v. 8) One meaning of this verse is that all the properties which the great heav Commentary enly bodies such as the sun and the moon, etc. devote to the service of God's creatures, bear witness to man having been endowed with similar qualities in a high degree. In fact, man is a universe in miniature and in him is repre sented, on a small scale, all that exists in the external universe. For example: While visiting Copenhagen, Denmark, during the early sixties, I had the privilege of hearing the late Ben Webster perform the Beades' composition In order to throw more light on the Websterian event that I have previously mentioned, I venture to say that there was another force involved by this statement: "Holy is He Who created all things in pairs, of what the "The verse reveals truth, viz., that God has created all things in pairs, which was simply inconceivable at the time the Quran was revealed and among the people to whom it was revealed. "Science now has discovered the truth that pairs exist in all things, in vegetable kingdom, and even in inorganic matter. It has yet to unfold this Yesterday on tenor saxophone, for primarily a Danish audience. Like the truth in all its various details. Even the so-called elements do not exist by moon, as he illustriously articulated the composition, he transmitted to those who were in the dark, the light of the Beloved, which he borrowed entific truth applies to human intellect also. Until heavenly light descends, themselves. They depend upon other things for their sustenance. This sci from the Great Original Source—^The Beloved. I say this because before he finished the first chorus approximately 90% of the Danes, having heard the man cannot have true knowledge which is born of a combination of Divine revelation and human intelligence." (Holy Quran, Commentary 2337, p. 2196) ways of beauty, were quietly weeping and as I have quoted above: "It is He (The Beloved) who makes people laugh and makes them weep." Who bestowed the beauty which the sounds emitted. And further evidence I am suggesting that in the above event there was a possibiHty that the illustrious and pervasive sound coming through Ben Webster's saxo phone was extolling the glory of the Beloved and at the same time the Danes and myself, being affected through listening, became part of the collective evidence that the whole universe bears to the Unity of God. The following verse alludes to this possibility: "The seven heavens and the earth and those that are therein extol His glory; and there is not a thing but glorifies Him 250 And from this commentary I conclude that it was the Beloved, that it was the Beloved Who was responsible for the beauty is that approx imately 90% of the audience wept as the result of listening, and, as I have cited previously: "It is He Who makes people laugh and makes them weep." (Holy Quran, ch. 40, v. 44) By the grace of the Beloved I shall, be it the will of the Beloved: venture to interpret the following Quranic verse in its relation to musical sounds. "And He it is Who has caused the two seas to flow, this palatable 251 LATEEF IN THE NAME OF GOD THE GRACIOUS THE MERCIFUL and sweet, and that salt and bitter; and between them He has placed a bar rier and an insurmountable partition." (Holy Quran, ch. 25, v. 54) reflect beauty, but themselves are lifeless. It is almighty God the Beloved, Who has bestowed upon them the beauty which they reflect. Taking two waters in the verse to represent first—the sounds that emit beauty bestowed by the Beloved and secondly—lifeless sounds, the verse signifies that both the sounds tempered by the Beloved, and the life "And truly We have set forth for men in this Quran every type of parable." (Holy Quran, ch. 30, v. 59) less and bitter sounds still continue to exist in the world, side by side, the Works Cited former yielding sweet sound-nectars and quenching the thirst of spiritual listeners and the latter barren and bitter, incapable of producing any good results. The reason being; "Evil things are a characteristic of bad men, and bad men are inclined towards bad things. And good things are a character istic of good men, and good men are incHned towards good things." (Holy Quran, ch. 24, v. 27) The Arabic word for evil in this verse ì s k h a b i t h a t , meaning evil deeds or obscene words or expressions, the verse purports to say that evil The Holy Quran with English translation and commentary published under the auspices of Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, Fourth successor of the Promised Messiah And Supreme Head of the Worldwide Ahmadiyyah Movement in Islam, 2002. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (of Qadian), The Philosophy of The Teachings of Islam. Translated into English by Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan. Published by Islam International Publications Ltd., 1996. persons do evil deeds or indulge in obscene and foul talk and scandalmongering, while nothing comes out of good and virtuous persons but righteous deeds and pure and noble expressions. When the sounds bestowed by the Beloved are mixed with the life less sounds, the resulting mixture is bitter. As long as these two sounds keep themselves separate, they maintain their respective qualities. Therefore, in order for one to position one's self as a candidate hoping to produce sounds tempered by the Beloved, I suggest that they continuously strive to become a good and virtuous people. This is suggested in that God has said: "Whatever of good comes to thee is from Allah, and whatever of evil befalls diee is from thyself...." (Holy Quran, ch. 4, v. 80) And it is gratifying to know, "We will provide for (you) every facil ity for good" (Holy Quran, ch. 92, v 8). And: "Surely it is for us to guide." (Holy Quran, ch. 92, v. 13) And Allah says concerning the soul: "And He revealed to it the ways of evil and the ways of righteousness." (Holy Quran, ch. 91, v. 9) And it is also gratifying to know that: "God has implanted in man's nature a feeling or sense of what is good and bad and has revealed to him that he could achieve spiritual perfection by eschewing what is bad and wrong and adopting what is right and good." (Holy Quran, Commentary 3360, p. 1270) The purpose of this paper has been to induce in the reader the real ization that the beauty of anything is not due to the thing itself. Things only 252 253 CHAPTER 17 NOTES (To Whoever is Listening) FRANK LONDON NOTES Praise God with the blast of the horn; praise God with the psaltery and harp. Praise God with the timbrel and dance; praise God with stringed instruments and the pipe. Praise Elim with the loud-sounding cymbals; praise Elim with the clanging cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. —Psalms i¡o Gaston notes that music and rehgion are integrally related. Their common purpose is to draw people together, to defend against fear and loneliness. Music seems to be a particularly appropriate mode for reaching for the supernatural. Dear Friends, united in love and respect and devotion, may we all be blessed with life. Amen. Selah. All praise to the creator, to the one who was, is, and will be forever. Who made the distinction between sound and silence; and the infinite vari ety of their combinations, it is a blessing to dwell in the garden of sound and silence. It is a gift to sojourn with the gardeners. Those whose lives' endeav ors are no more than an endless explication of the variations of sonority and vibration. Creation and recreation of sonic mythology. Listen Listen deeper Listen longer Listen with your heart Listen, friend, and understand. Listen! Some of the titles given to the Psalms in their ascriptions suggest their use in worship: Some bear the Hebrew designation shir (Greek ode, a song). Thirteen have this title. It means the flow of speech, as it were, in a straight line or in a regular strain. Fifty-eight Psalms bear the designation (Hebrew) mizmor (Greek psalmos, a Psalm), a lyric ode, or a song set to music; a sacred song accom panied with a musical instrument. Many others have the designation (Hebrew) tehilUh (Greek hymnos, a hymn), meaning a song of praise; a song the prominent thought of which is the praise of God. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. 254 SPIRITUAL {adj.) Consisting of spirit; not material; incorporeal; as, a spir itual substance or being. Of or pertaining to the intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual. Of or pertaining to the moral feelings or states of the soul,—distinguished from the external actions; reaching and affecting the spirits. Of or pertaining to the soul or its affections as influenced by the Spirit; controlled and inspired by the divine Spirit; proceeding from the Eloly Spirit; pure; holy; divine; heavenly-minded;—opposed to carnal. SPIRIT {n.) c.1250, "animating or vital principle in man and animals," from O.Fr. espirit, from L. spiritus "soul, courage, vigor, breath," related to spirare "to breathe," from PEE *(s)peis- "to blow" (cf. O.C.S. pisto "to play on the flute"). Mainly from Hebrew ruach. also meaning spirit and breath L. spiritus, usually in classical L. "breath," Breath is Spirit. Sound is air, breath, moving. The sound of the trumpet. Breath. "Life is absolutely dependent upon the act of breathing. Breath is Life. "Not only are the higher animals dependent upon breath for life and health, but even the lower forms of animal life must breathe to live, and plant life is likewise dependent upon the air for continued existence. "The infant draws in a long, deep breath, retains it for a moment to extract from it its life-giving properties, and then exhales it in a long wail, and lo! its life upon earth has begun. The old man gives a faint gasp, ceases to breathe, and life is over. From the first faint breath of the infant to the last gasp of the dying man, it is one long story of continued breath ing. Life is but a series of breaths. "The Science of Breath shows how to control the body, increase mental capacity, and develop the spiritual side of one's nature." —^Yogi Ramacharaka 255 LONDON NOTES "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist." —^Beethoven In the Torah, Moses leads the Jews in two songs of praise... The Jews sing upon miracles done for them with the well... sing songs to cele brate miracles. Songs to celebrate Miracles. Miracles & Songs Songs & Miracles Miracles & Songs Songs & Miracles Nign, NiGyNh song, melody: Clarke writes, "Not only did many early Western writers consider that the musician was divinely inspired, they believed the musician created in a state of ecstasy or divine madness." As Portnoy words it, "Plato's God is a God who has favored the musician above all other men, for he deprived him of his mind and imbued him with divine frenzy so that in such moments of rare ecstasy men would know that he is a prophet of God. Plato's musician is a God-intoxicated mortal who creates by inspiration and not by rule. "Aristotle and later Santayana believed that the creation of music grew out of man's need for emotional expression and a rational desire for order and form. Santayana suggested that music is created as a means of organizing chaotic and primitive drives. Santayana thought it was reason which creates music but Aristotle echoed Plato in thinking the musician is artistically mad. It is because of this divine madness that the musician is able Nun Gimel Yod Nun Hay—music, a song (a kind of mantra used to to produce in music not the outward appearance of things, but their inward directly convey or evoke a specific emotion or sequence of emotions. Usually composed of tonal sounds mixed with few, if any, words.) significance. Aristotle believed that the musician has the ability to abstract the essence from sounds created by the movement of the spheres and to Nign, NiGyNh song, melody is kabalistically = 118. Also equaling 118 and therefore aneuristically equaling music: Chet Yod Qof-—bosom; to requite; satisfy and nurture us. It is Chet Lamed Peh—song is Gracious. Chet Samekh Nun—it binds together; makes us strong, mighty, rich, to amass wealth; It is Mem Bet Vau Ayin—a fountain to draw from, quench our thirst Amorous: Lamed Chet Mem Mem—^for warming their flesh or body. Generous: Mem Chet Mem Lamed—compassion or pity; object of affec tion or favor. Dangerous: Nun Samekh Chet—^to pluck up or tear away; to turn out of a house; to expel or banish; to demoUsh; to be driven out. 118-2x59 Nign is twice 59. Twice 59—^the i/th prime—is two times Nun Dalet Hay portray in tonal form the order of the universe. Theophrastus, Aristotle's student and successor, agreed that music was an emotional expression but disagreed that it had anything to do with the divine. He believed that music has its origin in love, which is so overwhelming that feeling over takes reason." Invocation: Love is like a willful bird, do you want it? It flies away! Yet, when you least expect its bliss, it turns around and it's here to stay! For centuries man struggles, half-asleep, half-living! Small, jealous, bickering with moun tains of red tape! To be awakened the night God choose giving His great reward for hard work, the Moral ABC-unity-ecstasy-love evolving man above the ape! The Moral ABC-unity-love evolving man above! Coincidentally and yet Oh-so-slow, sweet-kisses-whisper-softly into waiting ears; arousing heavenly flames that enlighten renew, brilliant fires blazing through dark, lonesome years! Who else but God gave man this to give, a liberal gift, especially the hiring of a prostitute, removal or separa tion; what is removed, uncleanness or impurity.; an abominable act (espe cially incest). sensuous passion! Passions that quicken your senses, fulfill; quench the thirst of lonesome years! Yet the sun has shadows, learn to control your will; to enjoy life long happiness, not tears! Wait! Rise to the stars above and thrill! Arouse the very flames of life! Sweetheart, kiss me: Hold still, hold still! 256 257 Twice to move or flee away; to remove or put off, to reach out, LONDON NOTES Listen to God's reward for strife! Rosebuds, slowly woken, break budding open! Delicate, sweet, so on soft fingertips; shivering up your spine, red pulsing blood; in lightning speed through your pure body's lips! Caressing deep, searching, way out of sight; oh beautiful spirit of God's eternal Spring! Heat of passion in a warm moonht night! Ecstasy to be buried in heaven, within! Relaxed then to long, dreamless sleep; body & soul join close in life's most brilliant bliss! Revealing clarity-beautyharmony-peace, sailing on far away sun-laden ships! Yet-what-cunningfeminine-touch, can draw new desire to pulsing lips! When-soft-hands wander-casually-such, deftly down near lingering tips! Who else but God gave man Love that can spark mere dust to life, the Moral ABC uniting All-One, brave, all life. Like a beacon breaking through dark clouds that pass; your deep embrace, your sensuous kiss, who else but God can make Love last 1 trilhon years of sweet eternities! Who else but God! We are not true, while calculated calm controls us; blood flows near spirit in cold divided flame! Only love's stormy passion, striking deep within us; can turn blood to spirit & spirit to blood, untamed! Spirit to blood, untamed! —Emmanuel H. Bronner Roger Davidson's Core Principles of the Society for Universal Sacred Music Prophets of sound and silence. Joe Maneri Joe Maneri Joe Maneri Roscoe Mitchell Mahmoud Ahmed Alter Karniol Lester Bowie Lester Bowie Lester Bowie Oum Kalthoum Nasruddin Mingus Milton Cardona Milton Cardona Milton Cardona Malachi Favors Magustus God is one—one universal Father/Mother, the Creator and Organizer of the universe, the most radiant Being of Light, the center of all love and compassion. Suzanne Fiol No one is God but God; all spiritual teachers have been and always will be our brothers and sisters. But there is a spark of God in each of us, as God is the Creator of our eternal spirits. Jaki Byard We are all God's children, of equal value in God's eyes. Let us therefore lay down our arms and forever live as the brothers and sisters John Zorn we have always been! It is within our innermost nature to love and honor each other as ourselves—and therefore to create lasting peace on Earth. Sofia Gubaidulina Let the music we create and send out mto the world be a true reflection of God and of our innermost selves. May we strive, through our music and in our daily lives, to radiate unconditional love, infinite compassion, great beauty, and profound peace. 258 Anthony Coleman Jaki Byard Jaki Byard Jimmy Scott Collected and assembled by Frank London and dedicated with gratitude to my teachers, colleagues, friends, spiritual guides. May-October 2009. 259 CHAPTER 18 THE SACRED POWER OF MUSIC explanation for this experience other than intense, one-pointed focus of mind. Long Silences in Radial Energy I THE SACRED POWER OF MUSIC I composed a work in 1967 titled Radial Energy I which explored super- DARY JOHN MIZELLE erate the division between music and life by including life in the context of long durations of silence. The composed silences were years long and oblit the musical composition. I felt I was unifying music and life mto a common transcendental experience. The piece was published in the magazine SOURCE—Music of the Avant Garde in 1967. The work was not general Music has a long and rich history of association with mysticism, magic, alchemy ly understood at the time, either being discussed as a kind of "antimusic" or and the spiritual. In my own experience, sound itself has a deep vibration of an impossible-to-realize piece of conceptual art. Nevertheless, I began per Consciousness. Silence also vibrates with the same Consciousness. I find forming it in concert during 1967 and a performance of it continues today music made with this awareness to be fascinating. Some examples of my work over the past decades which use this in a fifteen-year silence. It will become sonic again in 2016. The score consists of seven pages of tablatures, two pages of graph awareness are discussed below. In some cultures, musical trance states are invoked by repetitive ic representations of spatial movements of sound, and a sine waveform used music which continues for hours or days with only subtle changes. The per to determine periods of silence. The piece is capable of bemg performed by any number of performers acting on any number of sound sources. Sound formers and audience members often "commune with the gods" or reach sources are chosen for the widest range of timbres and for their ability to altered states of consciousness in meditation using repetitive music or sung sustain long durations. Following the initial performance of arbitrary dura mantras. Western art music in concert halls rarely continues for these longer tion, a six year silence period begins. The second performance of some durations, and may engage the rational mind in a much more direct manner. material begins when the initial silence period is fimshed and lasts twice the Some exceptions are: 19th century operas and some contemporary music made by composers who have thought seriously about the durational ele length of the first sonic duration. Successive silence periods of 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 17, 15, 12, 9, 7 and 6 years follow each successive performance of ment and/or have studied various world musical traditions (Africa, India, sonic material. As the sonic material becomes longer, it will eventually over Indonesia) where the practice is commonplace. take the following silences and transform the point in space were it is being performed completely into sound. The piece may subsequently be trans The Musician as Medium for the Divine ported to other locations and carried on in those locations. The piece may Australian aboriginal didgeridoo music, Shona Bira possession ceremonies, be extended to other planets, galaxies, etc. When all of time and space are transformed into sound, the piece (and the universe) ends. The composition Amerindian Peyote songs, and Balinese trance dance provide a few examples from world music in which the music and dance comes through a kind of trance or altered state of consciousness. The Western art music tradition also includes examples of composers who thought of themselves as channels for the divine. Bach, Beethoven, Stockhausen (and others) seem to have consid ered themselves as charmels through which the divine could speak. I can remember an extraordinary experience I had in 1965 in which I sat for about twelve hours and watched the music emerge from the point of my pencil. I received its worid premiere at the First Festival of Live Electronic Music at UC Davis in 1967. See the score and a review of the first performance in SOURCE—Music of the Avant Garde issue three. Multiphonic Singing In the early 1970s I learned to sing vocal multiphonics similar to the vocal productions of Tibetan Buddhist monks and central Asian "throat singers" finished two compositions which were in progress that day. I don't have any 260 261 MIZELLE THE SACRED POWER OF MUSIC by imitating recordings that were becoming available through commercial to induce a kind of spiritual experience. I have used these vocal production labels. In 1973 I also became involved in a project of experimental vocal techmques (EVT) at UCSD where I was doing doctoral studies and work techniques in my compositions. Mandala for two multiphonic singers and drone (1973) and Quanta and Hymn to Matter for orchestra chorus and ing as a research associate in the Project for Music Experiment (later eight multiphonic soloists (1978). renamed the Center for Music Experiment). Some other people involved in this project included Bonnie Barnett, Linda Vickerman, Diamanda Galas, Phillip Larson and Roberto Lanari. At about this time I began improvising with Roberto Laneri using the vocal multiphonic materials. (We had earlier been improvising jazz with bassist Mark Dresser and others.) This work led to the formation of the group Prima Materia (with an obvious connection to alchemy) which was based in Italy and California. Laneri was a Roman who also attended UCSD as a graduate student and was acquainted with Giacinto Scelsi and his circle of musicians as well as other composers and musicians living in Rome during the 1970s (including Alvin Curran). I believe that the connec tion with Scelsi, who was a kind of godfather to our group, was especially important with respect to his connection with a different way of thinking about improvisation. The then-current ideas of jazz and contemporary improvisation involved a kind of "action and reaction" among the per formers, while we were involved in a "search for a primal vibration" out of which all sound would emerge. Evidently, Scelsi had used this approach in healing himself of a nervous disorder and discovering a new way to approach composition. Our group performed extensively during the mid dle '70s sitting on the floor in the Indian manner, and provided a context for numinous experiences in which the audience would often be invited to participate with us in the second half of the concert. There was much experimentation with concert rituals during this period, and this was a genuine departure from the traditional western norm. Some other musicians who sang with Prima Materia include: Susan Gormlie, Michiko Hirayama, Ron Nagorcka, Manuela Renosto and Pam Sawyer among others. The Australian Nagorka also added a fascinating didgeridoo element. Prima Materia gave two particularly moving and memorable per formances at the Berlin Metamusik Festival in 1974. Over the years, I have had good luck teaching the techniques of vocal multiphonics to students at University of South Florida, Oberlin College Conservatory and Purchase Conservatory (SUNY) as well as family members. Most people find these sounds fascinating, and my experience of learning to produce them seemed 262 The Alchemy of Mantra Yoga I have participated in yogic chanting groups (sometimes with thousands of people) in which all feelings of separateness between individuals are erased in a context of spiritual growth. This spiritual growth could be compared the alchemy of transmuting base metals into gold. The premise of this chanting is the yoga of mantra repetition. Practitioners of mantra yoga may experience the transmutation of the individual into a "siddha" or perfected being. I have always approached this yoga as a science, not a religion. Yogic experiences are empirical in the strictest sense, yet are completely subjective. They are often more real to the individual than the objective experiences of the rational mind. Most of these experiences are probably too subtle to be measurable by scientific instruments, although some of them may be studied scientifically by monitoring brain activity with Computed Tomography (CT) scanning. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) technologies. The instruments best suited for measuring the effects of this science are the neural networks of the human brain and nervous system, which are vastly subtler and more perceptive than contemporary scientific instruments. Sometimes these experiences may transcend the ability of language to express, or the mind to rationalize, yet they can affect the individual at the deepest levels of Consciousness. There is nothing necessarily contradictory between some forms of contemporary music (with its minimum of repetition, aperiodic rhythms and atonal melodies) and mantra yoga (with its cyclic rhythmic modes, high degrees of repetition, slowly accelerating tempi and modal melodies) since they can both be seen as different ends of a musical continuum, or they can be rationalized as all being sonic. In any case, the definitions of music as organized sound or musical activity as patterned changes in sonic parame ters includes all music forms. The participant/listener who appreciates every sound for its sonic value will also have no problems either since the sounds evolve in time as changes of tempo, dynamics and timbre. I once studied mantra yoga with a Yoga master (Swami Muktananda) who taught that 263 CHAPTER 19 MIZELLE "All sounds are Shiva." This understanding may be akin to John Cage's strategy of "letting the sounds be themselves." There is a long and rich yogic tradition for considering mantra as a medium for humans to realize the Self (Atman). In India, there are mantras THE SOUL'S MESSENGER to be recited for any and every occasion, to cure disease, to acquire wealth, MEREDITH MONK or to gain special powers or gifts. Indian classical music has incorporated this idea in the form of special ragas for different hours of the day, seasons of the year, to bring rain, call down fire, etc. Musical Behavior and Neuroscience Contemporary neuroscience has begun studying the effects of music and musical traming on the brain and confirms the power of music to influence neural activity, and even change brain structure, as well as emotion and gen eral health. Of course neuroscience is only just scratching the surface of Sometime in the mid-1960s, as I was vocalizing in my studio, 1 suddenly had a revelation that the voice could have the same flexibility and range of movement as a spine or a foot, and that I could find and build a personal vocabulary for my voice just as one makes movement based on a particular body. 1 realized then soul's messenger that within the voice are myriad characters, landscapes, colors, The voice is my: human behavior, and generally uses subjects who are musically unsophisti texmres, ways of producing sound, wordless messages. I intu itively sensed the rich and ancient power of the first human instrument and by exploring its limidess possibilities I felt that I was coming home to my family and my blood. cated, although this is starting to change; yet some impressive results are being obtained at this early date. Another fascinating area of exploration in neuroscience involves the study of mirror cells in the brain which vibrate in sympathy with observed behavior and induce a kindred response in the weather report observer. It may ultimately prove to be true that the numinous, magical experiences available through musical behavior are scientifically measurable in their effects on the brain and nervous system, which I feel would not explain them away, but add to the mystery and knowledge about the sacred power of music. lifeline Short Bibliography lacoboni, Marco. Mirroring People. (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2008) Levitin, Daniel. This is Your Brain on Music. (Plume, 2006) beacon Mead, Margaret and Bateson, Gregory. Trance and Dance in Bali. (Documentary film) Mizelle, Dary John. Radial Energy I. {SOURCE-Music of the Avant Garde, Issue 3,1967) Mizelle, Dary John. The Soul of Music. (Available through mizelle.org, 2009) Swami Muktananda. Siddha Meditation. {SYDA, 1975) Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia. {Vintage, 2008) Weinberger, Norman. Music and the Brain. {Scientific American, November 2004) Wolf, Mark. Giacinto Scelsi: Interview with Composer Dary John Mizelle. {Sound Collector, Number 6, 2001) 264 mystery comfort I come from a musical family: my great grandfather was a cantor in Russia; his son, my grandfather, was a bass-baritone who immigrated to New York and along with my concert pianist grandmother, opened a music conservatory. He also performed in concert halls, churches and synagogues. My mother was a professional singer who sang jingles, ballads, and swing tunes on radio and early television. My first musical training was in Dalcroze Eurhythmies, but I also learned to read music before I could read words. One of my earliest memories is singing myself to sleep. There are events that change our lives irrevocably; that moment of discovery in the '60s changed mine. From that point on, exploring my voice and what it could evoke, delineate, uncover, and ultimately give to others became the core of my work. lUght from the beginning, E was interested in primordial utterance: what were the first human sounds? What was the delicate and fluid membrane between speech and music? I knew 265 MONK channel blood THE SOUL'S MESSENGER that notes or musical phrases did not limit me in my exploration of the voice. Like an instrument, it could be universal. I thought of voice as sound, as a reflection of nature, of the urban world, of the stars. I began playing with what a vocal gesture would be. How would the voice jump, spin, spiral, fall? How would I abstract the sound of a laugh, of sobbing, of shouting, into a musical phrase? I began to realize that the voice had the power to uncover subtle shades of feeliag that exist between what we think of as emotions. It could conjure the unnamable. Coming from a movement as well as a musical background, I felt totally comfortable and trusting of non-verbal communication. I sensed deeply that the voice was a language in itself: eloquent, probing, and able to communicate directly to the heart. needle playground radar heart When I began, my path seemed lonely. I was not aware of anyone working ia this particular way. I had to trust my instincts. And yet, I was fortunate in that I had aheady buik a body of work combining images, movement, objeas, sound and film so that pick and shovel the discipline of daily work was essential to my life. Now I could use the same creative principles and apply them to my vocal exploration. It became immediately apparent that I had found what would be the soul of my work. What had been an urgent inner quest became the quiet certainty that this process would footprint become my continuing and ultimate truth. The method was and continues to be one of exploring the possibilities, the qualities, and the mystery of my voice; of listening and trusting what it reveals. Looking back, I am profoundly grateful for that time of solitude. Left to my own devices, I began a process of intense gauge investigation led by my voice, my ear and my musical sensibility. Where did they want to go? From intuitive moments of discov ering material, to the rigorous intellectual process of refining and weaving the material into forms, the adventure of making music has expanded my world in miraculous ways. mirror earthquake compass conduit wings stream For the first ten years, I worked alone making a cappella songs and pieces for voice and keyboard. In the 70s, I formed an ensemble of young singers who traveled along with me on my path and inspired me to enrich the textures, counterpoint, and colors in my music. Because they were in their early twenties and didn t have a long history of musical expectation or dogma, my 266 link to the unknown vocal language and approach seemed inherent and became second nature to them. This allowed for a spirit of concentrated and playful experimentation inspiring me to create intricate and shimmering forms. Now, the interdependence and intimacy of performing with the radiant and extraordinary members of my current vocal ensemble continue to reveal new levels of insight. My process involves long periods of waiting. When I begin working, I try to stay open to anything that might arise. Initially, I have to get through my terror of the unknown and expectations of myself. At a certain point, after a lot of resistance and trying to take very small steps, my curiosity and interest overtake the fear. Then questions, which are the basis of any work, begin to come up. I have the sensation that every piece is a world that already exists in another dimension. My task is to find what are its principles and laws and to follow them rigorously. When I am stuck, I say to the piece: "please make yourself known!" and try to stay out of its way. The experience of creating and performing are as close to meditation as anything I can think of. The combi nation of pinpoint focus and open relaxation to what comes up in the moment are fundamental principles of sitting practice: awareness of the moment and direct experience without the filter of concept. I have always been loath to codify or catalogue my vocabulary of vocal sound. That analytic process seems to take away the mystery of all the shades, impulses, colors, and dynamics that arise even within individual performances of songs I have sung many times. The commodification of these "techniques" can become a recipe involving mental calculation rather than an acknowledgement of the ineffable messages that are coming through. In a lifetime of making work, there are a few pieces that have a certain shine. They seem to have had a life of their own right from the beginning, to have been bom whole. Hearing them again after many years, I am amazed at their mystery and presence. Although I remember all the meticulous and patient work of bringing them to life, I also remember the seeming inevitability of their forms and the clarity and ease of their 267 CHAPTER 20 MONK link to the fulfillment. How did this happen? I consider these entities gifts from a larger and wiser realm and the times of making them, blessings. In between periods of inspiration, I try to be a good shoemaker, honing my craft, keeping up my discipline, begianing again and again. DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION TISZLJI M U Ñ O Z always known link to forever link to now In meditation practice, the basic instruction is to repeatedly come back to the breath (without judgment) even if the mind has wandered off into thoughts, fantasies or emotions. The moment of coming back is a moment of awareness. Making music is very much the same process. It consists of starting at zero every time; trusting the emptiness, the space, the gift of uncertainty; not judging too quickly; letting the materials remain themselves until the time is right to weave them together into a form. I try to never forget that I enjoy the privilege of engaging in an activity that affirms the spirit of inquiry and allows me to make an offering of what I have found. I am grateful for being part of music, for the magic of music permeating my life. Divine Death Is Life First, there is death, which waits for its death. Then there is life which is bom of death. First, there is darkness, which waits for its death; then there is light. First, there is ignorance, which waits for its death; then there is knowing. First, there is self, which waits for its death; then there is heart. First, there is self as other, which waits for its death; then there is compassion for all life. First, there is the desire for music as structure, which waits for its death; then there is awakened Heart-Sound and birth into the spiritual sound current. 268 269 MUÑOZ DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION First, there is the desire to be a musician, which waits for its death; then there is Enlightenment and the radiance of profound Silence. used to convey a thought, image, painful or pleasurable, deep or disturbing psychic impression, message or vision. Musical instruments and conven tional musical means are valid but secondary to any genuine process of cre ative or spiritual work. But the law of sacred sound vibration born of the The who who is death beyond death is all that may be true, divine selfless silence of it as isness is key to everything; every accomplishment, and ever-present transcendent music. plane of Spirit! Therefore, quickly grow beyond yourself as merely small Chapter i: To Infants of True Music means, limited to materialistic understanding and fabricator of self-reflecting rather than self-transcending worldly productions. every breakthrough and every masterwork and mastery of every level or The Path of Training—Self-Discipline Music as the Silence of Form Structure Truly, the one who breathes this egoic death-fire lives by the psy chic wind. What moves the wind is etheric water. What moves the water is silent fire. What moves fire is radiant space and whatever the sacred fire of What you do is not what you do, but you do it anyway. What is yours is space burns and illuminates in and as itself. The entire known and unknown universe is both the fuel for and presence of the fire, and by this fire the not yours and you use it anyway. Truly, the created, as the who and the universe appears, lives, disappears and reappears to the deep death of what, which is created, is the self of karinic effects, identified as the past and ever in pursuit of the eight ball of awakening into the present as creativity incomprehensible infinity. So it is with genuine creativity and thus it must be with music and all other forms of expression. This fire is sound no ear itself. The true creative is selfless. The no-one is Spirit. Spirit alone creates can hear and is hearing no mind can comprehend. Hence, the no-form of from sublime Isness. It is already created, cooked, finished, toasted. Stop, phenomena, be that of light or sound, is beyond the initiated awakened look and listen deep enough for yourself as pure Spirit, and access the no Spirit in any being in high or low disincarnate, animal, human, celestial, self, true, infinite, original, spontaneous awareness, the true kingdom with in! Your music is a beggar's bowl. intergalactic, trans-universal or transcendent form. It has been said and perhaps even assumed by certain psychically incorrect, opinionated authorities, composers and musical artists acting as creators in general, that in order to imitate the elements you need something method or school as a rule or as an aesthetic taste from the world of enlight enment, has merely relative value; but to whom, under what conditions, as which physically resembles natural phenomena—thus: effect for effect, effect as effect or effect by effect. This may be so for those who are weak of born taste-programming? Any conventional or unconventional form of Phase I mind, psychically challenged, and low in spirit; who do not yet know that only the child's viewing of the universe shows up as infinite levels of per Music, as traditional knowledge or "legitimate" form, structure, a result of which culture, representing what and whose time-world, is fearmusic is neither superior to the living man as master nor is it superior to intuitive intelligence in the form of radical spontaneous wisdom or creative, ceived psychological, psychical, causal, mental, cosmic, trans-cosmic, ultra- ecstatically selfless genius. However, for the unenlightened, music is assumed to be the ultimate form or structure of self as God, even when such micro-cosmic or spiritual, transcendent isness. For the strong in celestial or angelic imagination and creative realization, they can communicate or gravitational, materialistic self-music programs save no one and eiJighten transmit the presence of anything or any being by the creative fire of uncon heart-beings, only transcendent or pure sound awareness, as clear light mindless presence is source, that is, true, supreme, vast, deep-hearted, the scious or super-conscious mind alone, with or without the history of music, art or any manifestable or unknown prop, crutch, method, device, medium, no one from the fearful pain of self-death. For the enlightened, as self-free every sound, depending upon who is playing or using or hearing it, can be ever-present radiance of ecstatic open being, also known as the fire of Silence. For the spiritual musical master, conventional music is just conven tional music, beyond which is the fire sound essence of the entire universe 270 271 channel or form. Being the no-consciousness alone is sufficient. Hence, MUÑOZ DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION and its Heart-source. Many musicians are obsessed with and suffer the mechanical prin ciple and practice of training, but of what use is training for one who already knows from having mastered silence before? What time are you being? Whose time are you stuck in? Cannot silence play or speak for itself? Such true knowing reveals what and how it is done without having to be direct ed, conducted or forced to or told how. This sudden death process by fire is intuitive and independent of self, thought and mind. Who understands this? Playing music from here is as natural as free breathing and as power ful as a ragmg fire! Train m no-traimng. Die in no-dying. Live in no-living. Play in no-playing. Create in no-creating. Do you remember what you don't know, or ever hear enough to play it? A psychically correct composition is one that is Heart-true. But who knows what is true, more than what is conventionally, socially or culturally correct? Then, correct according to what school, what intellectual program or system of traditional rules, assumptions or self-building con fusion, self-worshipping doubt, self-re-enforced neurosis and self-inhibiting fear. Spirit-repressing dogmas and psychically stupid self-imprisoning musical mechanisms? Isn't the composer as dictator composed by compo sitions, and thus more appropriately the compose-ed? This is great practice in the beginning only or until the function of creator arises! Whose self is served by any such programming or ego-building bondage to ignorance? Is a composer free or is a composer bound to compose and hence, enslaved in a program of already composed, always composed or only composed mind forms? Relative to the subject of educationally acquired taste, at what level is such partial taste valid? Valid for whom? Isn't beauty the source of the ugly? Isn t ugliness the source of the beautiful? Whose taste relative to what level of knowledge, concerning what function of physical, metaphysical or spiritual phenomena, is correct or, beyond the point of relative cuteness, useful at all? Isn t taste a smatter of opinion more than the real matter of addressing or recognizing what is true beyond time, beyond scientific standards and only true of the Soul state itself? Isn't taste, style and culture like most else, subject to relative variants, such as taste of what, for what or whose others program? Liking or digging something musical at one point more than at another point as when you hear a thing played better or by a so-called better performer? 272 After reading more on a subject or having a catastrophic conversa tion with someone you could radically change your game or idea of taste about anyone or anything. The real creator has to go deeper. In other words, taste is relative preoccupation with estabHshed social or scientific values. But whose assumed or actual values are they? Why? Such is the nature of taste, which is relative information, relative to experience, which is relative to conditions, which are relative to perception, which is ultimate ly not relative to cultural as much as relative to a level of spiritual con sciousness. Who and what in you suffers the musical tastes of others or of the make believe world in general? All that should matter for the creative is what is true beyond true and whether or not one has the genius, force, intel ligence, burn-need and deep wisdom to love true genius alone! On Earth, the sacred presence of death, as time rules. As such, time is nature. Nature is time. Nature, as such, is the mechanical source or struc tural force of music. Death, time, nature and music are perception-creations of the human mind, the self-mind. The self-mind is not the Spirit-Mind; only the karmic or self-mind ego is then the source and master of conven tional, popular or merely conventionally worshipped and agreed upon "good" music. Since ordinary music is recognized relative to form, struc ture, composition in and of lower world time-space programs, then music, relative to the time-born karmic mind, is fundamentally gravitational or down-pulling in nature, and thus self-comfortingly binding as a result. Who is a musical thought-form? What is a musical thought-form, if not a gravity-centered, fear-reinforcing, self-identificational, self-building, geniussuppressing, mind controlling mechanism? What one calls nature ordinarily is but a mere reflection-impression one has of the universe's impact on their self-centered body-mind world. This means that all one perceives as the universe is effect, when even per ception itself is an effect! The universe is an effect, an effect mind-form, a most special binding, and too often blinding, effect. It is a dynamic prison, a circus of destruction, a negative psychic dungeon of disaster if you will, apparently bound by laws, interlaws and intralaws as interdimensionally perceived and agreed to and applied to all worlds and universes ad infini tum. Ad infinitum means one can't comprehend the all or the totality of it as anything to know, grasp or control. It is what it is, and as it is, always dis appears! So why lie to oneself when one dreams that they know what music or nature are beyond suffering, culturing or entertainment, when all such 273 MUÑOZ DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION fear-born conclusions are assumptions of appearances only? What good is mentally, emotionally or psychically deranged, the creatively warped or the an appearance if it doesn't lie and what good is a lie if it doesn't hide the truth, which every mere appearance is not? spiritually confused? And by such, I mean most ordinary, normal people! Human base-mstmct should be subordmate to higher mtelligence even if it is regarded as a form of physical intelligence. Truly, all such instincts is it supposed to compose? Why? What is it supposed to compose in the are human and at best dogs, wolves and hyenas begging to be trained, individual needs to be told what to play, how to play it, how often, for What is the true purpose, effect and end of composed music? Who listener if not in the performer, and for how long? What level or kind of mastered and transcended. Is the love or conventional practice of music whom, under what circumstances and to what degree or how many times? anything more or less than a base instinct? Does such an instinct free you of Must dynamics in music reveal what's true in, or necessary for, who, the childish behavior, wrongdoing, misjudgment, unhappiness, error or neuro composer, the performer or the audience? Isn't it better beyond the sis, suffering, worry, ultra codependency, sadness and confusion? What mechamcal or technical mastery of music to know oneself well enough to mstmct IS the true, profound, great or wise one? What instinct produces the master the self of imperfection, removing the self as needed to allow the best result, the highest product or the most profound effect, the instinct of higher or no-self as a super-conscious state to express itself as what is ulti music as selfishness or selfless compassion? Instincts, urges or drives are mately the highest function of musical channel-ship or heart-to-heart part of the unconscious machinery of the human as animal-beast and are creative sound-healing transmission? Who already knows this? Who are just as likely to get one into trouble, difficulty or tragedy if one is ignorant those who are free and receptive enough to get the healing transmission enough to leave their life or art up to the mechanical nature of any spiritu from loving peace itself—to share it wisely with all sympathetic beings? ally untrained, unconscious body and its soul-dead, sleeping musical mind prone to negative compulsive instincts. Who's so bereft of joy to have to be told how to play it, as if joy has to be told how to be joy, as if joy needs to be told how to be played as joy, Intelligence at the intuitive level, in the form of knowmg beyond or as if joy needed to be put in a specific box rather than freed and allowed any doubt and often not knowing or even caring how such knowing arises to express itself to the extent it needs to be felt, expressed or heard? Clearly, or whence it comes, is the best way. Creative art or musical expression, nav isn't it obvious that only the Heart-true—^the selfless, pure, deep, compas igated or piloted by impeccable spiritual intuition, regardless of its forms or sionate Heart-true—should be recognized as high, real or true music techniques, will produce truer results even if such results appear to have their own identity and their own manner of arising or bursting into existence that IS, as a result of itself. Is such a result of itself but a mere instinct? through the hands of one who is a clear channel for the soul's expression of Perhaps not, as instincts may follow the way of the laws of reaction, conflict, defense and self-division—uncertainty, doubt and the confusion of fear— ' business and criticism, only when who is playing the perfectly true as the whereas the intuition of "the resuk of itself beyond the resuk of the self arises as its own light beyond comprehension up from nowhere, impeccably correct, always on the spot or even perfect! Death is so beautifully correct! Most conventional or even creative music is born of the created ego as a program of infinite limitation. Such music is for the cultivation of facecentered egotism and too often represents the box of ego as only the ego is: as painful self-consciousness, obsessed with attaining and maintaining pub lic recognition, respect, name, fame, applause, awards, honor, praise, flattery itself as cosmic or divine, not mere self-worshipping cultural, musical intel ligence? Only when what is expressing the perfectly true beyond technique, Heart, is "on the spot" spiritually great, true sound healing, real Heart-Fire Sound music, the voice of radiant Silence Itself. Who understands this pro found death? No one is original because they are alone or lonely. No one is orig inal because they are left to be so. In other words, neither relations nor norelations nor situations nor no-situations determine true originality, which arises despite circumstances, situations, associations, relations or others in general. Genius can and will use anything and anyone as wood for its fire and more money, power and sex. Who needs such sweet materialism and such corrupted forms of medicine if not the beautifully imbalanced, the and more often than not, uses everything to express itself as its own school, its own way, its own truth, its own reality, its own depth, its own force, its own spirit and its own God or Isness or Itness! 274- 275 DEATH; THE FATHER OF CREATION MUÑOZ There's nothing particularly divine about a bullshit character with conventional mediocrity and self-worshipping slavery what true genius or a make believe personality mask, dedicated to entertaining self-worshipping enlightenment is about? Couldn't such radically true genius be what tran ego-mania. One is free to be as humorous or crazy as needed! But for some scendence over slavery and mastery over self, thought, mind, nature and the divine has to do with the profoundly selfless and the formlessly or inno cently beautiful in Heart, not merely with the mechanical or trained things super nature are about? The ordinary musician is an information-sucking vacuum cleaner one can do or act out in a relatively great or even profound manner. who cannot leave well enough alone. Music as training is a box world. Art conventional or studio jazz, is the product of the mechanical, intellectual is a self-worshipping box world. Any musician or artist who doesn t ques tion the dogmas they have inherited, which exist to serve what spiritual self-mind—the presumed superior mind controlling the inferior mind. In purpose, ah-eady obstruct the spirit of creative intelligence which knows no other words, the educated superior musician dictates to the presumed infe Umits, no bondage and no idiotic sense of beauty, being defined by the self- rior audience the karma music message of "As I am, be restrained, be con created, self-serving assumptions of those who are anything but spiritual, trolled, be dominated, be programmed and, therefore, in bondage," only to be composed into a casket of composition, which leads to spiritual decom enlightened Heart beings. Composed music is too often a watered down version of what is position. What of any of this could be considered truly beautiful in the light real, which means it is intentionally artificial, deliberately less than what that it is egotism imposing domination over those who are determined or human expression actually is. What could be more disgusting than bullshit, judged to be less musical, knowledgeable, programmed or aware? Who egoic presumptions and assumptions of what is true or real in human expres could call such manipulations of egocentric musical sound over mind and sion? For isn't such music or art dishonest and merely an "I merely believe" soul beautiful? Why call any such display or performance of art creative version of what the real life experience is as tragic, joyous, beautiful, difficult, when it is created for domination, deception, influence and manipulation of frustrating, devastating and thus potentially transformational, painful and others for self-serving purposes on the part of the so-called artist or created musician? Egotism promotes egotism. Egotism reinforces egotism. Egotism pleasurable, deep, torturous, but always purifying life and death experiences. Aren't such experiences intended to free the heart from the make- inspires egotism. Egotism validates egotism. Egotism exalts egotism. Egotism believe, the theatrical, the superficial, the merely entertaining performances is not spirituality, creativity or enlightenment. of the elite artistic few who have no real lives of their own; who, as a result, Traditional or perhaps ancient or European classical music, like What does true spiritual greatness have to do with such practices or must turn backwards for their drive and direction rather than forward and programs of enslaving others in ego-worshipping, time-fearing, freedomresisting mind forms with no other purpose than to enslave others into fol upwards for their transcendence and true experience of immortality beyond lowers, consumers or uncreative zombies or product slaves? Using mind the heart-closing narcissistic games of name and fame? Know your message. Know your purpose. Why impose any pro forms of musical or other artistic art forms to directly address the public's grams or ideas of art on others, as if such expression as a projection had need for enlightenment and liberation from art and artists altogether is what the true spirit of freedom and self-transcended spiritual enlightenment are actually about! absolute rather than relative value? True art is no art. True music is no Music to help people to help other people get free of music and musicians is great music! Painting to help people get free of painting and painters is great painting! Poetry to free the public from poets and poetry in general is great poetry! Science to free the public from scientists and science altogether is great science! Religion in order to free the public from music. True view is no view. Who understands this great death? Chapter 2: The Casket of Taste Phase 2 The Path of Experience—Self-Mastery Music as the Silence of Formlessness religion and its practitioners is great religion! Now, isn't this severance from From birth, most beings out of necessitj^ are forced to live in exile from their 276 277 DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION MUÑOZ true heart-soul. They are materialized into the cemetery which is Earth. This is a form of death by birth in bondage and suffering. From this there is no real rity, far beneath true, heart-opened creativity? One does this for what and for whom? escape. Only those who are caught in between catastrophic self/other programs Only dishonesty is bad taste. Only selfishness is bad taste. Clearly, are least served by such a creativity-less position in the universe, a location only bullshit is bad taste. Snobbish musical arrogance is bad taste. Super- from which to begin to create or re-create one's intended world in accor snooty ignorance is bad taste. Highly neurotic or eccentric behavior is bad dance with or by virtue of self-recognized suffering or limitation. Know taste. Incessant whining, complaining and bemoaning over monotonous, your creative potential. Know what you need to do to create your plateau boring, vainglorious reactivity, confusion, conflict, bigotry, prejudice, nar of bliss. Do it. Then, enjoy this immense peace of creating aloneness beyond cissistic heartlessness, small-mindedness, immaturity, deranged, perversion the created relative worlds of mechanical self, thought and mind programs. and self-important garbage-flaunting stupidity—all of these are the truth of Tell me, is there more to hear with the physical ears or more to hear bad taste and a sure sign of not quite intelligent unenlightenment. What taste is superior to intuitively creative intelligence? as Soul beyond the ears and physical hearing altogether? Mere physical hearing is hearing effect, not hearing psychic or subtle cause. To know the To kill the human spirit is bad taste. To kill an obnoxious ego is bet cause of sound, which is not mere ear hearing, is to give attention to that ter taste. To outlaw creativity, to ban free-spirited creative expression from which is of highest importance in life, art or love—the Heart Itself. Those the public, obstructing the broadcast of extreme but peaceful messages of who depend upon the physical alone for their enjoyment, function, mission heartfelt compassion for all beings or to sabotage or suppress in any way the or reality are always left wanting, needing and feeling incomplete and creative if not profound expression of awakened geniuses of Spirit, this is unhappy, regardless of all that they can attain, manipulate or scheme for, in bad taste, this is unacceptable style, reprehensible style, and the bad style of ignoramuses, fear-mongerers and paranoiacs. the world of always-changing appearances of imperfection, incompleteness and mere differentiation. Who hears beyond this casket of inherited educa- Composers, if you can only hear music that is outside you, do you tion-culturing and gravitational mechanical training in any tradition, school have any music in you at all? Could you imagine that God or whatever or system where artistic mastery, rather than self-transcendence, is the goal? created eccentricity, tragic genius, sacred profanity, heroic cowardice, sweet Truth of expression requires no particular musical formula, pro madness, meaningless laughter and absurd creativity for a sacred cause? Are gram or composition. Truth of expression requires no particular appear ance, costume or cosmetics, no particular beautiful melody, voice, instru we, each and everyone, part of this sacred cause? Are we not part of a great ment, orchestra, opera or fantastic singers, divas, prima dormas, virtuosi, prodigies, ego-maniacs, choir, band, ensemble, guests of honor, donors, decomposed? For isn't composition decomposition and decomposition re- sponsors or threatening critics, reviews, audience, theater, studio, hall, It is all already composed. We are this great composition decom room, stage or self-conscious face, schedule, applause, anus-kissing, pre posing into itself, as the Earth presently is, in the throes of inevitable re- show introduction, interview, salary, commission, contract, agreement, management, public relations, publicity or requested harmony, rhythm, composition or decomposing into re-composition compost. All of this is food, wood for the fire of creativity and each of us is all of it, but not just progression, groove, movement or dynamic. Truth of expression requires and only appearing to be anything or anyone. We are but we are not dark nothing particularly or especially musical at all! Why use a stage when a bathroom could do just as well for what you have to do? ness and ignorance, ugliness and disaster, atrocity and injustice, horror and The truth of expression is quite basic. Therefore, those that would like to add their materialistic musical trip on top of the basic true truth, go right ahead and know what you are doing, creating or reducing to the great composition and being composed in this very moment and then equally composition? Who could not be deeply inspired by everything high and low? death, hatred and war, insensitivity and stupidity, aggression and barbarianism, religious and political fanaticism, and idiots called geniuses, wise men, world leaders, kings, emperors, doctors, judges and representatives of the ness of what? Your atrocious buffoonery, hypocrisy and exquisite medioc so-called people, the natives, the peace-keepers, protectors of the Earth and angels of the skies. For Heart's sake, where does true goodness begin out 278 279 MUÑOZ DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION here on this purgatorial spaceship called Earth, who once again begins to rebel against her surface dwellers? playing, writing or composing music. Burn all of it. Chop all programs. Start from and end in zero. Stop and breathe into silence and let it, as the Open the inner ear beyond so-called music of culture—the lower dimensions of the time-space worlds of this solar system—and hear what Tao, reveal the way to you, beyond the wonderful world of garbage, which your mind has yet to hear of the Heart beyond this world of musical noise, egoic ignorance and scientific materialistic suicide. to anybody. Kill having to please anyone. Kill even having to please your self. Get to what is real and true, the two sides of the coin of Heart. Real, in Because death is law, love is madness and this madness is the ecsta sy of death! Death is the realization that there is no gravity, no Earth, no this case, means deep. True, in this case, means beautifully ugly. From what you bury this most sacred impulse of silence beneath. Kill having to appeal is true, ugliness is beauty. Everything is beautiful as true. world of matter, save for those who cling to it. Cling not to what you have Don't compose the way you compose, compose the way It com not created. You are created of Earth, but at death you are no longer that. poses. Music is without silence. Don't compose the way others compose, Perhaps you have never been that? Perhaps there is only Spirit? Every being is this, looking at itself everywhere in every form it appears not to be, until because It has another way for you to compose. Silence is without music. It composes Its own way through you when you are true enough to under enlightenment dawns and no one exists but It alone. Death has occurred stand this and let it be. Silence is music. Composers, don't be composers. and bodily ecstatic love bliss is real. This is the madness who is death. This Music is silence. Musicians, don't be musicians. Only music is music. death is the mother-father of all creation. Call it what you will, it is what it is, the Heart of all of this. Conductors, don't be conductors. Only silence is silence. Virtuosos, don't be virtuosos. Students, don't be students. The creative revelation stares you in the ear. Just be open to what's true and breathe what is true into being. If you call the Heart of it all God, then your body, your mind, your hands, your ears, your heart, spirit and soul must be turned over to that. It The ear cannot hear at this level. Get back to original nature and the origi is not that one can do this or must do it, but since you are already here, you nal creative impulse, the big bang of your own being, if you will. Only the have already done it at the dream level. Now you must do it and act it out Heart can hear this. The big bang implies the initial wave of infinite cre on the Earth level. Who feels this is so? Regardless of what anyone must play, ation. Freedom is the only vagina worth living in! to do it this way is good practice or selfless practice, good technique or spon Your ear is not your ear. Your limits are not your limits. Each one taneous technique, good taste or heart taste and good style or true style. This is wired to the infinite. Recognize programming to the contrary and recog is spontaneous transformation, transcendence and translation all at once. nize the need for opening to the infinite itself: infinite possibility, creativity, For mystics engaged in the process of purification, world transcendence and depth, vastness, intensity, vision, mind, heart and being infinite genius world service, this is living at the altar, this is making the great sacrifice and being the candlelight all at once. If we are not that "God" in Spirit, who are beyond opinion, school, culture, what is personal, what is impersonal, what is yours, what is of others, what is anybody's—and attend to what is we? If we are not that Heart of Hearts, what are we? If we are not the way nobody's. This infinite mystery no one has, no one knows, no one hears but of peace, why are we? If we cannot jom the hearts of all beings, how are we? Without this Heartfulness, where are we? So it is done, in one taste. everyone is. Kill imitation, repetition, monotony, uncreative idiocy. You're only imitating yourself imitating yourself stuck spinning in a cesspool time- Chapter Ugly Beauty world of no end. Dog, cut your tail loose. Girls, straighten up. There is no Phase 3 The Path of Creative \^sion—Self-Transcension Music as the Silence of Neither Form nor Formlessness learning after this. There's only creating by not creating from this point on. This is the brilliant all-burning path of death, which and who is fire, true Heart-Fire and being only fire itself beyond self, thought, speech, word, True Genius is the way of death. Kill academic conventional approaches to school, mind, body, others, worlds, universes and Gods altogether. The word Freedom is a concept method but as such is binding. You must free 280 281 MUÑOZ DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION freedom, free yourself from ideas of freedom and free yourself from ideas of bondage, knowledge and time altogether. itself. This is spontaneous being which is selfless creativity or true Heart The old masters are not the old masters, they are dungeon pro grams to the unconscious as a failure program. Open to the conscious as form of creative genius than is ordinarily developed by training, program infinite creativity and be free of dying to old, and thus already and always ultimately be creators or one with the creative intelligence of the universe. failed, forms of music. All forms are failed forms, regardless of how enter taining, impressive, outrageous, difficult, beautiful or exquisite any form is nature which, according to its capacity, would have to be considered a deeper ming or education, in the case of exceptional human beings who aspire to The issue here is that such an intelligence is impersonal and is can celled out by the personal, the egoic, the self-defining or self-limiting capacity of mind or intelligence being identified as form—and not neces or could be. Here, perception is a program of bondage, habit is a program of bondage, structure is a program of bondage, reference is a program of sarily a form of formlessness as much as form as formula or a programmed bondage and memory is a program of bondage. Thus, remember not to formulation, consistent with or parallel to popular or known standards or remember and be free of the time-space field altogether. Be free of the time formulations of such, all of which are walls, barriers, obstructions, products track as a gravitational Une to what was, the opposite of what is, and the transport portal to what needs to be. to go beyond. In other words, whatever arises needs to be gone beyond, ad infinitum. Whoever arises needs to be gone beyond, or there you are bound, To be free is to be more than to be free. It means to be empty, the emptiness of selfless fullness, which means pure being, free of emptiness and there be your bondage, which needs to be killed. Death to such bondage. fullness. This is called access to original freedom because it is beyond every^programming, tradition and culturing, education, preference, space. Create, therefore, the space for oxygen to support the inhalationexpansion of that creative fire which needs to burn freely in all directions. genius, capacity, ability, power, tendency, desire or self-study. As the true Life itself in infinite forms of potential nature is true creative beyond form, this which is fire beyond fire is nothing and no one! Isn't this expression. It is perfection no matter what anyone thinks about form and thing else Death to bondage programs. There must be death for there to be clear the true composer, who is death, the musician who is silence, the virtuoso beauty. Play or create music this way and be true to cosmic nature rather who is the void, the creation-conductor who is the true space of the Heart, the ultimate definition of the word Spirit as transcendent light? than be programmed by infinitely less in the forms of intellectual, academ ic or artistic criticism, taste and conventions, which have nothing to do with the sacred creation of the spiritual universe. This has everything to do with Only form makes form and only composition makes composition and naturally composers make composers, and similarly idiots make idiots and geniuses make geniuses. The point is, who makes words, sounds and self-imagery, inadequate sophistication and a lack of genuinely creative formlessness? Can you make formlessness, can you compose it, can you far less inspired by genius as much as distracted by phenomena, convention, produce it? Can you make God, can you make Spirit, can you make Love? This method concerns the process relevant to thè who. The who who makes anything is also the same who who makes nothing. This thread includes self as selflessness, thought as thoughtlessness, mind as mindlessness and world as worldlessness and further, music as musiclessness, sound as soundlessness, noise as noiselessness and silence as silenceness. Every conceivable mechanism of mind which generates or produces isms and ologies is a source of infinite potential, which, without the gravity of selfishness as contracted or crystallized energy representing who one assumes or wishes themselves to be as a personality, person or individ intelligence, which alone inspires true geniuses, not want-to-be's who are the status quo, society, survival, and authoritative producers and their prod ucts and effects. For a creative spirit, any formulation of a spirit—in other words anything written or merely thought—is not what the process is about. To write is to produce another product, a box, a form of bondage idea, which at best is a musical form but not necessarily a form of real or true music. Any strategy, mechanism, technique or approach to avoid anything is to be subject to programs and operating within the bounds of the created, work ing primarily from memory, and still, regardless of form, bound to time ual program of a mind-form, is free to spontaneously and ecstatically arise of games relative to what, according to the individual, "has already been played, so now what I'll play, because I can't remember having heard it. 282 283 MUÑOZ DEATH: THE FATHER OF CREATION must have been what has never been played or heard before." This is sim viewpoint, artistic is no longer the case, musician is no longer the case, but the ply a monkey-in-the-mirror program, and a mere self-reflection program relative to memory. mysterious is altogether the case as is the profound, the exquisite and the Length of music, composition or sound work should not be dictat ed by concept alone. It should be dictated by psychic force or etheric func Welcome the realm of the indescribable, where the universe itself as transcendent beyond words, as the all-feeling Heartfulness of divine presence. tion relative to its impact on the breath itself. Then, the etheric breath itself intelligence or consciousness is simply and utterly the invisible clear light of sound and the inaudible spiritual sound of light. This then becomes the must dictate the composition, if not the composed, as it will when allowed realm of so-called music in terms of transcendent melody, transcendent to. The Spirit is beyond concept, classification, school, culture, and is direct harmony and transcendent time. If you try to understand this, you are not ly related to sound—the sound current as an atomic spiritual process understanding it. If you feel that you've gotten this, then you haven't got governed by conscious vibration-modification, from form as darkness to ten it. This fire is without concept, knowing or realization. It is only light Heart formlessness as light, from terrestrial gravity to celestial or angelic beyond light. What is there to know or play beyond the peace of Silence? lévitation. Why suck on the teat of earth-centered music at the cost of not Can one be trained in this, or is this beyond all training, beyond all worlds, knowing one's true true relative to music, relations, awareness, creativity, inteUigence, wisdom, freedom and spirit? Who understands these spiritual facts of consciousness creation or creative consciousness? Who can't bring themselves and their music to this beyond the all, the everything and nothing, beyond the Who Knows itself? Perhaps this is the Heart and the true Ear who not merely hears but is the womb of infinity. Be no time—^past, present or future and be true. Be no one—^past, level beyond abstraction and abstract ideas, descriptions or interpretations present or future and be true. Be no instrument—^past present or future and of what is "in", "out" or anywhere in between or beyond? The mind be true. Be no race or culture—^past, present or future and be true. Be no cannot conceive what the sound is. The mind cannot properly conceive what silence is beyond sound, yet it is what everyone originally and always self, thought or mind—^past present or future and be true. Be no world— past, present or future and be true. Be no universe—^past, present or future, is at the core of awareness. For if you know the Heart, it is better that the and be true. Such is the way of Death, who creates all, who creates every Heart plays for itself. If you know the Heart, it is better that the Heart thing and creates nothing all at once. speaks for itself. If you know the Heart, and therefore open to it, then its radiant Silence will speak for itself. Relative to skill in music, what more could be said of one note perfectly played from the depth or intensity or philharmonic fullness or full harmonic, full ultra-harmonic presence? Is this limited to the musical or is this indicated in the ultra-harmonic realm of true Silence? Without self, per fection is easily attained. In fact, without self, perfection is already attained. Beyond this, it is a matter of breath and depth or infinitude of cre ative intelligence which is open to and allowed to manifest of and as itself, free of self, thought, mind and human culturing altogether. Kill the human. Enter the cosmic. Death is true creation. Death is the true creator. Only death is father, hear? From this Soul level of pure awareness, there is no music and as a result. Its music arises of itself. Its music seeks free expres sion through each and every living being but who knows this, enough to grant that to all as true musical freedom and true ecstatic being? From this 284 285 CHAPTER 21 TRASH metal pipes that were cut to different lengths and set into a wooden res onator. This instrument's role in the music was modeled after the saron, also an instrument in a traditional Javanese gamelan, and the technique of strik TRASH MARK NAUSEEF ing and muffling each note was directly borrowed from traditional gamelan. As unusual as these instruments in Lou Harrison's and Bill Colvig's (design er/builder) American Gamelan may be, they were built and played with preconceived ideas as to what function they would serve in the music. Also, the design and role of the new instruments was based on instruments and an orchestral concept that already existed. This is still a form of alchemy or Uchemistical experiences, making beautiful music with a stainless steel indus transmutation, and those oxygen tanks—that were once considered use trial size double basin sink and a 747 jumbo jet aluminum engine cowling. less—became incredible musical instruments.Yet the transmutation of the During my time as a member of Finland's Sound And Fury, the ensemble lead by the great Finnish composer Edward Vesala, the double smk was not based on a preconceived idea of substitution. The sink encounter basin sink was my main instrument. Being a percussionist, I often find ment, and in fact was discarded as useless in terms of its original purpose, myself contributing to musical concepts while playing objects that are not and making it into a conduit for music and accepting it for what it was, a normally considered to be "musical instruments," and a perfect example is sink. A musical sink that was once ready for destruction was now leading me toward discovery. The constructed, became the conductor. my time with the sink. It was not a new sink, but a discarded piece of junk. Once it was retrieved from its inevitable fate at the Helsinki junkyard, the alchemy began. After the sink was cleaned, Sound And Fury guitarist Jimi was about taking what was never designed or thought of as a musical instru Also, I as a percussionist was being transformed, as I needed to find Sumen attached guitar machine heads, stretching strings across the once and develop the appropriate technique—^which at times had nothing to do with techniques that I would have used with traditional instruments—in filthy basins that had now become rich resonators. A brace was attached so order to facilitate the arrival of music. This process required that I be wide that it could tilt and balance at different angles, making it possible for me to explore all areas of its body. There were many sound production possibili open to receive information from the source and explore and experiment with all areas of the object. Experiences like this, when discovering new ties within the body, as it was constructed with varying degrees of metal density, such as the thinner basins and the thicker skeletal framework. All sources of sound and developing extended techniques, naturally bring me to a state of acute but relaxed concentration. parts responded well to being struck, rubbed, bowed, scraped, shaken, Wagner was quoted as saying, "I feel that I am one with this vibrat plucked, beaten, kicked and whipped with all sorts of objects including, mallets, barbecue skewers, metal rods, superballs, bass bows, springs, wires, ing Force, that it is omniscient, and that I can draw upon it to an extent that is Umited only by my own capacity to do so." sticks, clubs and various chains. I occasionally threw myself against it, and of course, chain whipping a metal sink works wonders! The alchemical transmutation was not a matter of making the junk into a quasi version of an already existing instrument, as was the case while playing in Lou Harrison's Old Granddad American Camelan. While per Pulling music out of a sink. That's magic! I had a similar experience with a 747 jumbo jet aluminum engine cowling while rehearsing and performing John Bergamo's composition substituting for the kempuls, which are pitched gongs in a traditional Javanese gamelan. The other part of the composition that I played was for On The Edge, at California Institute of the Arts. My setup for this wonder ful piece was the cowling, which is a metal ring about eight and a half feet in diameter, placed on three tripod stands. The cowUng was placed so that the hollow gutter/trench side was facing up. My playing position was in the middle of the ring. The composition is very specific as to what takes place in the gutter. The piece is conducted and at various times I was instructed to 286 287 forming Harrison's piece La Koro Sutro, one of my parts required that I strike sawed-off oxygen tanks with baseball bats. The oxygen tanks were NAUSEEF TRASH roll items such as pool balls, marbles, bbs (birdshot pellets), golf balls, etc. modified. When mounting the pickup directly onto the rack or frame, con with force and speed determined by the length and dynamic of the sound I sideration should be given as to what kind of metal is used for the racking, was to make. As the aluminum was quite light, I was able to hft and balance the cowling which gave me the ability to change the speed and sound of the as the jewels of sound live within the vibrations traveling through the rack and into the pickups. A metal book shelf-support works very well as it is a rolling objects. Other instructions included superballing (rubbing a super- good conductor for sending rich and powerful vibrations to the pickup and ball that has been attached to a flexible wooden barbecue stick against the it also has screw holes that can be very helpful when attaching metal, cym metal while applying various amounts of pressure), scraping and bowing, as well as striking with mallets and sticks made of wood, metal, rubber, plastic and yarn. bals, springs, wire and other bits of trash. The difference with this amplifi cation technique, compared with the previously mentioned techniques, is Once again, as with the sink, there was no method—accepting the cowling as it was, without preconceived ideas as to what it could be. contact with the sound source. So while this is also amplification, which Over the years, I have had many experiences with the transmuta tion of rubbish into musical instruments. Through some mystical form of which transmutes the sound. Once played, the sound source/instrument mainly the extreme/radical signal/sound generated as a result of the direct helps extension of our range of hearing, this is also extension/modification sends a mutated sound (because of the direct miking) into an amplifier that alchemy, discarded toys, metal lamp shades, metal screens, grills and grat ings, pipes, sections of air ducts, oxygen tanks, botdes, rice bowls, coffee over the top vibrations that the pickup is trying to handle. The incorpora cans, kitchen utensils, pots and pans, flour mixers, egg slicers, containers tion of guitar pedals and electronics (the cheaper, the better!) can modify the made of metal, plastic, wood and glass, metal knives, forks and spoons, gal sound even further. Ring modulators, compressors, volume pedals, pitch vanized garbage cans, hubcaps, nutshells and more have produced beautiful music. shifting devices ... not the expensive designer gear, but the cheap stuff. Regarding the role of the composer and performer, in his book The Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, Professor Joscelyn Godwin writes will produce a new and unusual sound due to all the transient weirdness and Besides the obvious financial benefit, cheap devices can be the favored choice as the "inferior" electronics used within them often tend to respond to the instrument/signal by producing a mutated sound that is "... they are alchemists who help to transmute the Earth by making its sub stance and souls resonate with echoes of the heavenly music." richer in color and contains far more grease, grime and grit than the expen sive "good" stuff. Many of the metal objects mentioned above, which in their "natur al" condition as an object of purpose (food preparation, lighting fixtures, Some of the early pioneers of these techniques of close miking toys, etc.), already showed great promise for the creation/discovery of music, but may be transmuted further. Another aspect of playing found objects, junk and other newly dis covered instruments concerns electronic modification. Although sometimes referred to as "amplified percussion," this should not be confused with the common technique of miking something to simply make it louder, as with overhead or close miking. Of course, in the right hands, these techniques help us to hear many sounds with harmonics/overtones we would have a difficult time or possibly no chance of hearing without the amplification, but there is another kind of electronic modification. By directly attaching some sort of pickup to either the sound source itself or directly to the rack/stand which holds the sound source, sounds can be amplified and 288 and/or modification of acoustic sounds via processing include Max Neuhaus, John Cage, Hugh Davies and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Regarding percussionists, the meister motherfucker who defined this direction is Tony Oxley. Tony was first working with "amplified percussion" in the late six ties: amplified racks of metal, springs, knives, wires, egg sheers, all amplified by pick-ups attached to metal racks. The signal is then sent through sound modification devices (ring modulators, compressors, pitch shifter, volume pedals, etc.) before being sent through the amplifier. There is nothing like it. Sounds are stretched, bent, squeezed, shifted... (for great examples of Tonys work with amplified percussion, check his recordings on Incus Records, February Papers, Tony Oxley and Soho Suites, and The Advocate on Tzadik). Concerning pickups, Miroslav Tadic gave me the idea for amplifying my rack of junk with Walkman headphones. Talk about cheap! 289 NAUSEEF TRASH We're talking about the ones that they give away with the Walkman, noth ing expensive, strictly JUNK. Miroslav used rubber bands to tightly attach one must be "wide awake." This state of acutely concentrated lost in unknowing is a form of the philosopher's stone. the headphone earpieces to the rack, using them as microphones/pickups I think it's a good idea to have respect for your instrument, even if as opposed to headphones. The intensity/impact of whichever playing technique is used, along with the choice of what material the instruments it is trash, as it's not just a pile of wood, metal, strings, skin, etc., but a vehi are being activated with, makes quite a difference to how the electronics process the initial sound. Although the amplified sound going directly from yoga/meditation, with music as the object/point of awareness—by making music practice not just something that you do to improve your ability with the rack of junk to the amp can be a beautiful sound, it can also be com your instrument, but approaching music practice as a destination, a focused, pletely out of control. Even without modifiers such as a ring modulator, relaxed and concentrated state inside the music. This cultivation of attention distortion boxes, pitch changers and other devices, a volume pedal is a good makes music a place to create within as well as the product of creation itself. idea for shaping and controlling the sound. A compressor is helpful in con trolling the extreme dynamics produced by the wide range of sound sources cle that can bring you to an exceptional state of awareness and peace. It's One person's rubbish heap can be another person's altar. being used that are directly and cheaply miked and played with a large assortment of materials and techniques. The compressor is also helpful in protecting the speakers from murder when you forget to release the volume pedal from the completely open position and you strike a mighty blow with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat to a thick piece of metal, which is tightly attached to the rack! Now those pathetic headphones have great value: one day it's junk, the next day it's still junk, but now it's talking to you, and with an attitude!!! Over the years, it has come to my attention that certain forms of trash speak to me the same way that drums did when I was a child. I'm often surprised when other people don't react like I do to a great piece of rubbish. While I'm thinking about the possibihties of this junk to create beautiful music, others often think that it is simply useless rubbish. To quote Joscelyn Godwin again, "In order to undertake this work, the true composer, Hke the alchemist, does not choose his profession: he is summoned to it by a call that cannot be ignored." Although I have studied traditional instruments, and while playing them have experienced levels of concentration and "freedom from distrac tion" that have been inexpHcable, experiences with rubbish have been a bit different. With the transmutation of junk as a way of finding music, with out previous research of the "instrument" or an established method or technique, I beheve that the musician/alchemist accesses other levels of attention when dealing with the undiscovered. Even more inexplicable? Mystical? Having only a vague idea as to were the sounds in the object may be and how various parts of the selected junk may respond to activation, 290 291 CHAPTER 22 THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF IMPROVISATION Intelligence is the abihty to utilize and purpose detectable informa tion or data from inner or outer sources. THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF IMPROVISATION PAULINE OLIVEROS Creative music offers new patterns and combinations spontaneously. Improvisation is the ability to create spontaneously with or with out pre-planning—^within or without a plan of action. The reaction time of primal or core consciousness is practically instantaneous—much quicker than waking or thinking consciousness. Reaction time without thinking is typically i/ioth of a second with as little as i/8oth of a second possible. Improvisers may find themselves observing PRESENTED AT SONS D ' H I V E R , COLLOQUE A what the body has already played slightly after the action. Thinking con UNIVERSITAIRE PIERRE D I D E R O T sciousness is slower. The evoked potential for a premeditated action appears Pauline Oliveros, January 21, 2008 one third to half second before consciousness perceives it.' The brain he largest media event in history took place two days ago on January 20. I reinterprets the delay to be action in the present moment. The body acts prior to thought. The was proud to watch this event along with miUions of other Americans, improviser who trusts his or her body con coundess others around the planet (twenty-six million internet streams sciousness feels that the music is happening without thought or control. were watched), and to experience the depth of feehngs expressed by the It just flows. J magnificent turnout of people from all corners of the USA and the world. At the stroke of noon, possibly the largest wave of healing energy ^ " In the Phenomenon o/AfiîW^ Teilhard de 1« / \ * . 1 Delay, http://ww.consciousentities.coiTi/hbet.htm 2. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, (Harper & Row, revised English translation by Benjamin ever—peaked and washed over the planet, bringing joy and hope to all, even Chardin (TIE-YARH DE CHAR DAN ) pointed to the noosphere. The noosphere surrounds the though the oath of office was given minutes later. At last we have a presi planet like the atmosphere or biosphere and is the dent who knows how to improvise with his scripted speeches. President interconnection of human minds—^their thoughts, images and ideas. The Barack Obama knows how to listen and how to invite participation. He noosphere must also be threaded with musical information, auralizations plays the crowd as if it were his finely tuned instrument. He knows how to and sound waves as well as spoken and written thought. play the changes. Delivered from memory, his inauguration speech was deeply embodied and finely nuanced for this occasion. As WiUiam Parker stated yesterday, "improvisation is an exact science." President Obama Primordial consciousness is not bound by the alphabetic mind. When creative musical improvisation happens there is resonance from the minds of the musicians and the musical thoughts of living musi delivered his speech with precision, spontaneity and assurance. He caught the emotional wave of the American people and people of the world. cians and bilhons of musicians from throughout the ages. Yet the creativity President Obama, along with all who were present at the inauguration ities that are now expanding and extending throughout the world, just as the physically and virtually, have created an improvisational shift in the world energy field. healing wave of energy from the inauguration is opening new doors for Now for a few thoughts about music improvisation: Creative music improvisation communicates collective musical that emerges through improvisation carries new combinations and possibil masses of people. Through their music, musicians are the harbingers of world com munity and planetary consciousness. There is no need for musicians to inteUigence as an energy field. Whether an individual soloist or ensemble is improvising, there is a mining of musical information stored deeply in the collective consciousness of humanity. speak the same language. They can play together without speaking. They only need to listen to one another giving and receiving sound. Their 292 293 encounters with different tunings and styles can be negotiations for recon- OLIVEROS THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF IMPROVISATION ciliations of differences. engender creativity in the performer as well as to foster communication A world music genre has come about through many combinations of musical cultures in improvisation. This music moves through popular, with others and with the environment. classical and experimental styles and ideas. Our time is an exciting time tions or statements. The title is a portal for the composition waiting to be improvised where musicians can meet and improvise in person locally, through world travels and also virtually through cybernetics. Virtual venues have been with us since the advent of recording over 100 years ago. These pieces consist of metaphorical titles and very simple instruc that resides momentarily in my body and/or the bodies of other performers. The body expresses primal consciousness modulated by the accu mulation of experiences that are part of the body's knowledge. Recording serves as memory and expands the mind. Recording and radio broadcast made it possible to hear music from distant environments and cultures without being there. These familiar commodities were just as startling when they were first developed as our newer virtual realities are to some now. And they have, of course, made it even more compeUing to experience positive musi cal and cultural encounters in person, just as two miUion people showed up to celebrate in Washington D.C. for the inauguration, enticed by telematics and onhne technology as never before. I want to explain the term Telematic. This term refers to the inter face with computers and performers over distance. Dissolving your ear plugs: For classically trained musicians and anyone else interested. —Pauline Oliveros 1. Take some time—no matter where you are—sit down and close your eyes for a whUe and just Usten. When you open your eyes consider what you heard as the "music." Later try to remember what you heard and express it with your instrument or voice. Do this practice often until you begin to hear the world as music. The acceleration of technological development is producing many 2. Another time—sit down with your instrument and just listen instantaneous musical encounters and telematici venues for high quality per formances with distant partners. These telem with your eyes closed. As you realize that whatever you are atic transmissions can promote reflexive musical stream. Stop when the music is over. This is what I think friendships and enlarge the possibilities for world music. of as supported improvisation. 3. Listen to a favorite machine and play along with it. This is good There's another term that I enjoy using, and that is Sonosphere, this aural equivalent of other planetary fields such as the biosphere, stratos phere, ionosphere, etc. I propose the existence of a sonosphere coexisting and encircling the globe in resonance with the noosphere—mingling meaningful frequen cies and rhythms, music and sounds—fostering feehngs that can help unite humanity with the inteUigence of evolution. All of this is a universal improvisation that is moving ever onward from the quantum microcosm to the macrocosmic metaverse. hearing is "music," aUow your instrument or voice to enter this to do with sounds that you don't like as well. 4. Listen to a favorite natural soundscape and play along with it. This is good to do with any soundscape—^very quiet or extreme ly noisy. Pauline's Solo (1992-2008) "Listening to this space I sound the space. Listening to the energy of all who are present I sound this energy. Listening to my listening and your lis tening I make this music here and now with the assistance of all that there is. I dedicate this music to a world where peace is more exciting than war." I would like now to share the scores of a few pieces that are designed to 294 295 CHAPTER 23 OLIVEROS Pauline's Solo is performed both acoustically and with EIS—the Expanded Instrument System. This performance includes an eight channel surround system with EIS. The EIS developed from the composer's work with tape delay that began in the 1960s at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. The evolution of EIS has moved from multiple tape machines to digital delay processors to the computer. The MAX/MSP interface for EIS 2004 was programmed by Stephan Moore, 2005 by Jessie Stiles and 2007 by Zevin Polzin with design by the composer. THEE SPLINTER TEST GENESIS BREYER P'ORRIDGE The EIS is a continually evolving canonical form. EIS processes and distributes the sounds of the accordion during the performance. It can be said, for me at least, that sampling, looping and re-assembling both Nothing is pre-recorded. Sounds are picked up by internal microphones found materials, and site specific sounds selected for precision ov relevance in the accordion, and sent to up to forty delay processors. The canonical to thee message imphcations ov a piece ov musics, or a Transmedia explo delays are modulated by a variety of wave forms and distributed to the ration, is an All-Chemical, even a Magickal phenomenon. No matter how eight speakers in geometrical patterns. The ten possible patterns are selected short, o r apparently unrecognisable a "sample" might .be in linear TIME by algorithms. The size, speed and shapes of the selected patterns are morphed algorithmically. perception, E believe it must, inevitably, contain within it, (and accessible through it) thee sum total ov absolutely everything its original context rep resented, coumunicated, or touched in any way; on top ov this it must Sounding Secret Spaces implicitly also include thee sum total ov every individual in any way con When I am creating a piece on stage, the spaces are secret. The secrets are in everybody, including in me, until they are sounded. And when they're culture, and every subsequent (mutated or engineered) culture it in any way, sounded, the secrets are out. The audience is an instrument too. If I am pure about my listening and creating the sounds that come forth, the nected with its introduction and construction within thee original (host) means or form, has contact with forever, (in Past, Present, Future and Quantum Timezones). audience will feel that and respond to the sound. I am something akin to a "Any two particles that have once been in contact will continue to act as high wire artist. The audience is with you, because they perceive the risks and the dangers. though they are informationally connected regardless of their separation in space and time." —Bell's Theorem Let us assume then that every "thing" is interconnected, interactive, interfaced and intercultural. SampUng is all ways experimental, in that thee potential results are not a given. We are SPLINTERING consensual realities to TEST their substance utilising thee tools ov collision, collage, coumposition, decoumposition, progression systems, "random" chance, juxtaposi tion, cut-ups, hyperdelic vision and any other method available that melts linear conceptions and reveals holographic webs and fresh spaces. As we travel in every direction similtaneously thee digital highways ov our Futures, thee "Splinter Test" is both a highly creative contemporary chan nel ov conscious and creative "substance" abuse, and a protection against thee restrictive depletion ov our archaic, algebraic, analogic mamfestations. 296 297 PORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST ("My Prophet is a fool with his 1, 1, 1; are they not the ox, and none by the B oo K ?" —Liber AL L48) So, in this sense, and baring this in our "M I N D ", on a technical level, when we sample, or as we shall prefer to label it in this essay, when we SPLINTER, we are actually splintering people and brain product freed ov any ov the implicit restraints or restrictions ov thee five dimensions (as Richard Miller insists there are!). We are actually taking bytes. Reusing these therafter as heiroglyphs or memes. Thee tips of each iceberg. If we shatter, and scatter, a hologram, we will real-eyes that in each fragmeant, no matter how small, large, or irregular; we will see thee whole hologram. This is an incredibly significant phenomenon. It has all ways been my personal contention that if we take, for We access every variable memory Library and every individual humanebeing who's ever for a second cormected with, concieved or related to or been devoted to or despised or in anyway been exposed to this splin ter ov culture. We now have available to us as a species, really for thee first T I M E in Astory, infinite freedom to choose and assemble, and everything we assemble is a portrait of what we are now or what we visualise being. Skill full splintering can generate manifestation. THIS IS THEE "SPLINTER TEST"! We are choosing SPLINTERS consciously and unconsciously to represent our own mimetic (DNA) patterns, our own cultural imprints and example, a SPLINTER OVJOHN LENN ON; that splinter will in a very real aspirations, we are in a truly Magickal sense "INVOKING" manifestations manner, contam within it everything that John Lennon ever experienced; perhaps even results in order to confound and short-circuit our perceptions, and rehance ov "W H o L EN Es s ". everything that John Lennon ever said, composed, wrote, drew, expressed; everyone that ever knew John Lennon and thee sum total ov all and any ov those interactions; everyone who ever heard, read, thought ov, saw, reacted to John Lennon or anything remotely connected with John Lennon; every past, present and/or future combination ov any or all ov thee above. In magick this is known as thee CONTAGION theory or phenom enon. Thee magickal observation ov this same phenomena would suggest that by including even a miniscule reference or symbol ov John Lennon in Anything, in any medium imaginable, from any culture, which is in any way recorded and can in any possible way be played back is now acces sible and infinitely maleable and useable to any artist. Everything is avail able, everything is free, everything is permitted. Its a firestorm in a shop sale where everything must G.O. Thee "edit" in video and televisual programming and construction is in essence an "INVISIBLE LANGUAGE", in thee sense that our brain a working, ritual or a "siGIL" (a 2-3 dimensional product invoking a clear tends to read a story or narration in a linear manner, tending to blend, com intention usually primarily graphically and non-hnguistically, in a linear, everyday sense) you are invoking "John Lennonness" as part ov what in this particular context (i.e. "musics") is a musical sigil. pose, and assemble as continuous what it primarily sees at thee expense ov READING thee secondary sets of intersections and joins that it does not All that encyclopedic information—and the time travel connected with it, through memory and through previous experience—goes with that one "splinter" ov memory, and we should be very aware that it carries with it an infinite sequence of connections and progressions through time and space. As far as you may wish to go. We can now all maintain thee ability to assemble, via these "splin ters", clusters of any era. These clusters are basically RE-MIND ing. They consciously, or independently, SEE. Yet thee precision ov choice in where to edit, and thee specific emotional and intellectual impact and inate sense ov meaning that is thus specifically conveyed is as much a text ov intent and directed meaning, even propaganda, as is thee screenplay, or dialogue itself. Everything in L-if-E is cut-up. Our senses retrieve infinite chaotic vortices ov information, flattening and filtering them to a point that enables commonplace activity to take place within a specific cultural consensus real in an acceptable form. i.e TV/Film/Musics/Words) and traveUing directly ity. Our brain encodes flux, and builds a mean average picture at any given TIME. Editing, reducing ov intensity, and linearity, are constantly imposed upon thee ineffable to facilitate ease ov basic coumunication and survival. into ahistorical sections of thee brain, triggering all and every conscious and uncounscious reverberation to do with that one spHnter heiroglyph. what we utter, are all dulled and smoothed approximations ov a far more are acutally bypassing the usual consensus reality filters (because they reside 298 What we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we touch, what we emote, 299 PORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST intense, vibrant and kaleidoscopic ultradimensionai actuality. tally spiritual and revealingly autonomous. Small elites can no longer make Those who build, assemble, ASSEMBLY is thee invisible language ov major technological, ecological, or economical decisions. Fractally anarchic our TIME. Infinite choices ov reality are thee gift ov software to our children. clusters ov individuals with integrated extended family structures and Thee Splinter Test—Appendix A stretches out before them in a neo-pagan assimilation ov all before, NOW! transhumanE agender groupings must participate and calibrate what Thee Scattering and to be. "I.T. will BE because LT. is inevitable" "And they did offer sacrifices ov their own blood, sometimes cutting —Old TOPI Proverb themselves around in pieces and they left them in this way as a sign. Other times they pierced their cheeks, at others their lower lips. Sometimes they We plough thee feeled and scattering thee would—ship ov our plan. scarified certain parts ov their bodies, at others they pierced their tongues in a slanting direction from side to side and passed bits ov straw though Thee Splinter Test—Appendix B thee holes with horrible suffering; others slit thee superfluous part ov their virile member leaving it as they did their ears." A Formal Process ov Moral Reasoning Source are Rare In thee future thee spoken word Wills to be viewed as holding no power or resonance and thee written word Wills to be viewed as dead, only able to be If Astory is any clue, thee succession ov civilizations is accompanied by imbued with potential life in it's functional interactions with what Wills to bloodshed, disasters and other tragedies. Our moral responsibility is not to have become archaic software and programming archeologies, namely stop a future, but to shape it. To channel our destiny in humane directions, and to try to ease thee trauma ov transition. "We are still at thee beginning ov speech. That is, just as a symphony orchestra preserves a museum ov exploring our tiny little piece ov thee omniverse. "We are still scientific, tech Culture; so, thee WORD Wills to be seen as thee preservation vehicle in a nological, and cyberspace primitives; and, as we revolutionize science itself, expanding it's perameters, we wiU put mechanistic science—^which is high ly useful for building bridges or making automobiles—^in it's limited place. Alongside I.T., we will develop multiple metaphors, alternative principles DNA-like chain ov Digital breakthroughs and Cultural intersections. Thee musics, ov musics considered seminal and part of a DNA-like spiral ov WORD Wills to be viewed, not as a virus that gave speech, nor as thee gift ov organic psychedelics through which civilization (i.e. Living in Cities) was made so "wondrously" possible; but, as a necessary language skill for those specializing in thee Arcane science ov Software Archeology, or ov evidence, new loggias, catastrophe theories, and new tribal ways to sep arate our useful fictions and archetypes from useless ones. Thee scattered SoftArch Processing, as I.T. Wills to NOW! be known. In much thee same shapes ov this new civiHzation will be determined by population and way as Latin was for so long a required subject and qualifier ov scholarship resource trends; by mihtary factors; by value changes; by behavioral specu at prestigious Universities when thee drone majority found I.T. incongru lations in fields ov consciousness; by changes in family structures; by glob ous, if not ludicrous. Ov course, Individuals Will to be utilizing laser based al political shifts; by awakened individual Utopian aspirations; by accelerat ed cultural paradigms and not by technologies alone. This will mean design systems to access and exit thee neuro-system via thee retina; and, these sys tems in turn. Will to transmit, wirelessly, to a new breed ov computers using ing new institutions for controlling our technological leaps into a future. liquid memory instead ov micro-chips (this is already being pioneered in Detroit). If we are to disbelieve what we don't hear, then conversation Wills I.T. will mean replacing obsolete political, economic, territorial, and eco logical structures. I.T. will mean evolving new micro-decision making sys tems that are both individually and tribally oriented synthesizing participa to be a status symbol ov thee leisured classes, and power elites. As ever, thee same Processes that delineate POWER, in this case, a perpetuation ov an tion and initiation, and, new macro-decision making systems that are digi atrophied communication system, i.e. WORDS. Wills to always be appro- 300 301 P-ORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST priated by those who position their means ov perception at an intersection I.T. hungers for thee death ov thee WORD . Rightly so, for we are diametrically opposed to those who oppress with I.T., for I.T., or because imprisoned in thee NAMING sorcery that was both built, and solidified within thee Process ov Control, and more critically, and integral to I.T, sub mission and subservience. ov I.T. Put simply, any form ov literal or cultural weapon pioneered by authority Wills to some day be used by "esoterrorists" bent upon destabil ising and/or, at least temporarily, destroying it's Source. Thee poles becoum clearer, thine enemy more Known, as thee mud settles and we protagonists This death is craved, intrinsically, by all in order that a showdown may occur, as thee World Preset Guardians laser burn their retina ov lust for are exposed standing shakily on our rocks, above thee Golden Section, and result. Thee WORD wills to go, I.T. is here to go. visible to all who would disown and destroy us. I.T. is in this spirit that this work was created. Thee Brain Coumputer interface will replace all verbal media ov coumunication, for bitter or wars. Thee new being merely that which is Imagine, if you won't, that you are a subversive in this future. You conspire to be hidden by thee use ov thee wo RD . This act could move you inevitable. Nurse it along so that I.T. may become a living intelligence system. Thee Museum ov Meanings. into a position of becoming a co-conspirator in thee Process of desecre- But as tiny child-murdering Mary Bell once said, "I only murder ation. To conspire literally means "to breathe together". Thee all pervading that I may return," and what Wills to be re-born Wills to vary with thee input ov thee user surveillance systems are N ow ! so digitized that they have no voice recogni tion software, this has also been manifested to protect thee conspiracies and debaucheries ov thee Control species themselves. "Hell, even Deities need privacy son. We used to plot murders and takeovers in saunas, then bug-proof buildings, now we just talk son, no one out there listening, all just PLUGGED IN". One fashionable lower class, blue collar medical expense is thee vocal chord removal process. I.T. is taken as a status operation. A clear sig nal to one's contemporaries that your software interface is so advanced that you need never consider thee use ov speech ever again. Thee wo RD is finally atrophied. No longer a dying heart, but dead. Thee bypass is on. So, here you are. You FEEL something is out ov balance, you TALK. They TALK. Thee world swims in silence. Thee only place ov secrecy is a public place, thee only manner ov passing on secrets is talking out loud. Neither protagonist is aware that thee other is TALKING. If they were all hells would be let loose. Forcible Vocotomies in thee street, subversives held down at gun point, their chords lasered out in seconds. Loud laughter ov a rich Vocotomy tout, thee ultimate status signal "ov power". Know, thee wo RD is gone, it's power defused, diffuse, in order that these scriptures of thee golden eternity be fulfilled. In thee ending, was thee WORD. As a recipient of this cluster you are encouraged to recall, and remain constantly vigilant ov thee dilemma I.T. exposes. 302 Debug thee old Preset programming. Leave only an empty timezone that you might later fill with your Will to and clarity ov intent. Thee Splinter Test—Appendix C Cathedral Engine "VIDEO IS THEE ELECTRONIC MOLOTOV ov THEE TV GENERATION" Cause thee Cathode Ray tubes to resonate and explode. You are your own screen. You own your own screen. Watching television patches us into thee global mixing board. Within which we are all equally capable ov being victim or perpetrator. CD Rom, and thee cyberspace internet carrying audio/text, visual data and scrap books via Personal Computer modems actually delivers a rush of potentiality that was previously only advanced speculation. Thee lines on thee television screen become a shimmering representation ov thee infinite phone lines that transmit and receive. We have an unlimited situation. Our reality is already half-video. In this hallucinatory state all realities are equal. Television was developed to impose a generic unity ov purpose. Thee purpose ov "control". To do this I.T. actually transmits through lines and frequencies of light. Light only accelerates what thee Brain is. Now we, with our Brains, can edit, record, adjust, assemble and transmit our deepest convictions, our most mundane parables. Nothing is true, all is transmitted. Thee Brain exists to make matter of an idea, television exists to transmit 303 P-ORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST thee Brain. Nothing can exist that we do not believe in. At these times con Preset thee transmissions in some, as yet, mysterious way. sciousness is not centered in thee world ov form, I.T. is experiencing thee Videos can move televisual order, and conditioned expectations ov world ov content. Thee means ov perception wills to become thee program. perspective, from one place, and reassemble it's elements as if glueing a Thee program wills to become power. Thee world ov form wills to thereby smashed holgram back together, all the while knowing that each piece con reduce thee ratio ov subjective, experiential reality. A poor connection tains within I.T. thee whole image. In other words, these are all small frag ments ov how each ov us actually experiences L-if-E. Through all our sens between Mind and Brain. Clusters ov temporary autonymous programs globally transmitted, received, exchanged and jammed will generate a liber ation from consumer forms and linear scripts and make a splintered test ov equal realities in a mass political hallucination transcending time, body, or place. All hallucinations are real, but some hallucinations are more real than others. We create programs and "deities", entities and armageddons in thee following way. Once we describe, or transmit in any way, our description ov an idea, or an observed, or an aspired to ideal, or any other concept that for ease ov explanation we hereafter will to describe as a "deity"; we are thee Source ov I.T. We are thee Source ov all that we invoke. What we define and describe exists through our chosing to describe LT. By continued and repeated description ov it's parameters and nature, we animate I.T. We give I.T. life. At first, we control what we transmit. As more and more individu als believe in thee original sin ov it's description, and agree on thee terms ov linguistic, visual and other qualities, this "deity" is physically manifested. Thee more belief accrued, thee more physically present thee "deity" wills to become. At a certain point, as countless people believe in, and give life to, that described and believed in, thee "deity" wills to separate it's SELF from thee Source. I.T. then develops an agenda ov it's own, sometimes in opposi tion thee original intent and purpose ov thee Source. Thee General Order at this intersection becomes G.O. And thee I.T. continues to transmit to our brains. Our brains are thus a Neuro-Visual Screen for that which has sepa rated from it's Source and become a "deity". This is in no way intended as a metaphor, rather a speculation as to thee manner in which our various con cepts ov brain are actually programed and replicated. In an omniverse where all is true and everything is recorded, as Gysin wondered, "who made the original recordings?" Or in more contemporary jargon, who programmed thee nanotech software? Our response can only be a speculative prescience. Thee Guardians who exist in an, at present, unfathomable other World and 304 es simultaneously. In every direction simultaneously. Even in all five dimen sions (at least!) simultaneously. Bombarded by every possible nuance and contradiction ov meaning simultaneously. Quaquaversally. This is a relent lessly INCLUSIVE process. We do not just view "L-if-E" anymore. Although perhaps we can, at least potentially, have an option to view every thing. Intention is thee key. What was once referred to as thee "viewer" is now also a SOURCE OV anything to be viewed, and thee Neuro-Visual Screen on which to view I.T. Thee constructed, and ever increasing digital concoction built from millions ov Sources that is commonly referred to as "Cyberspace" is accelerating towards deification, and separateness. Towards thee moment ov a sentient awakening ov it's own consciousness and agendas that we feel is more aptly described as thee "Psychosphere". This Psychosphere challenges us to seize the means ov perception and remain thee Source. "Change thee way to perceive and change all memory." —Old TOPI Proverb Thee Splinter Test—Appendix D Since there is no goal to this operation other than thee goal ov perpetually discovering new forms and new ways ov perceiving. I.T. is an infinite game. An infinite game is played for thee purpose ov continuing to play, as opposed to a finite game which is played for thee purpose ov winning or defining winners. I.T. is an act of freed Will to... No one can "play" who is forced to play. Play is, indeed, implicitly voluntary. 305 P-ORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST Thee Splinter Test—Appendix E Thee night under Witches that you close up your book ov shadows and open up your neuro-super highway to thee liquid blackness (within which dwells an entity) represents thee edge ov Present TIME. LT. pinpoints pre cisely thee finality ov all calendars. Wherein LT. is clear that measurement, in it's SELF, and ov it's SELF equals "DEATH" or "DAATH". Thee spoken binds and constricts navigation unutterably. Thee etymology ov thee word spiral (DNA), from thee Greek, indicates an infinitude ov perceptive spaces and points ov observation, where "down", "up", "across", "distance" and other faded directional terms becoum redundant in an absolute elsewhere. Thee eyes have LT. and they suggest a serpent that was once thee nearest metaphor to cold dark matters such as wormholes and spaces between. Thee Splinter Test by Genesis P-Orridge Use Full Glossary of Terms: Astory: An alternative suggestion for the perennial problem of finding a non-gender word when describing the ebbs, myths, flows, interactions, Sigil: For the purposes of this essay let us define this as a 2-3 dimensional product or ideagram; consciously invoking a clear intention; often pro duced in conjunction with a formal ritual including orgasm consciously and unconsciously designed to "make something happen". A Sigil is usu ally and primarily graphic and/or non-linguistic, in a linear, everyday sense of things. Transmedia: A crossing of cultural borders and taboos. A synthesis. As a general guide, holistic. An examination of constructed "reality" devoid of preconceptions. This is not an alternative word for mixed-media, interactive or multi-media. It is a recognition of the arrival of one, entirely new, single contemporary medium that contains within I.T. all other previously sepa rated media. Transmedia encourages us to establish a re-newed, but not controlled, state of flux; to develop an openness to the very nature of our transhuman existence. I.T. relies neither on pre-conceived concepts about what we should believe, nor on a creative or social consensus of any type to which we must conform. (Special thanks to Brother wo RD s for co-author ing this definition) conflicts, migrations and belief systems of various peoples and social group TIME: Time Is M... Ending, (sic). ings throughout recorded and speculative TIME. We would posit that we can at least all agree that these are a story! Outsane: Exoculation: The opposite of inoculation, where inoculation would mean contaminating a clean medium, so that whatever you introduce wills to grow and proliferate. In this more controlled environment the host medi um (culture) can thereafter identify I.T. and can then generate its own "anti bodies". Humoral Response: The process by which, upon the introduction of an antigen, the body creates antibodies to combat, neutralize and contain these irritants. LT.: Imaginary Time. Thee Splinter Test We now have available to us as a species, really for thee first TIME in Astory, an infinite freedom to access, select and assemble. Everything we assemble becomes, and is, a description ov what we are now or what we visualize "being" at any level; from thee deepest, sub-molecular, neurocellular programs that we have named "DNA" to thee farthest interdimensional reaches ov galactic expansions and contractions outside TIME or SPACE. Skill-full "splintering" is a magickal tool and can generate manifestation. THIS IS THEE "SPLINTER TEST"! Occultare; The inevitable equivalent in the realm of hidden teachings, techniques, and knowledge, of consensus and popular culture. Quaquaversal: Pointing in every direction simultaneously. In the dictionary centroclinal is defined as the opposite of quaquaversal. We are choosing SPLINTERS consciously and unconsciously to represent our own memetic (DNA) patterns, our own cultural imprints and aspirations. We are in a truly Magickal sense "INVOKING" manifestations, perhaps even results, in order to confound and short-circuit our percep tions, and rehance upon "WHOLENESS ". We are creating our own subjec- 306 307 P-ORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST tive and speculative descriptions ov "OTHERNESS". manifest a desire or change, or create a symbolic, but active, (all) chemical, It can be said, for me at least, that thee transformational implica tions inherent in sampling, looping, cutting-up and/or thereafter re-assem bling both found data materials and infinite combinations ov site specific or biological reaction in a literal or visualized "host" culture. founds, consciously and with clarity ov purpose, a consensus reality and all sounds, is as probably equivalent to, and as socially significant and pro thee suppressive and limiting constraints that inherently go with that same found as, thee popularization and mass proselytisation ov LSD and thee consensus reality. We are introducing cultural and memetic antigens. We are splitting ov thee atom. All three involve thee cutting-up ov thee essential literally short-circuiting "control", stepping outside thee mundanity and "matter" ov science, religion and language; thee basic, potential inhibiting, cornerstones ov what has been coined, our contemporary "dominator" cul form ov one dimension, into limitless and quaquaversal pool ov alternate ture. All three are innately magickal processes giving thee initiate practi Osman Spare, we are creating, consecrating and firing a "si GiL " as tioner, tools to travel within their previously finite consensus reality con we create audio-visual, linguistic, or physiologically active worlds and com tainer, thereby to reveal and describe and physically adjust a place both ov binations that have never ever existed. However, in a very real sense, it is pos IN "control" and OUT OV "control". A place, quite literally, ov infinite space. A place previously reserved for thee elite mysteries ov power, or sible to suggest that with thee advent ov relatively cheap, and global, access We are collaging, if you will, an image ov a desired reality that con dimensions and geometry's ov perception. In thee terminology ov Austin described in covert and arcane codes by thee ritual magickian; thee shaman- to sampling data collected in various "internet" information banks, an extra, and highly potent, quality has been added to this ancient lineage ov manifes woman. A place we might label for thee present, " SPATIAL MEMORY". tation. This most recent quality is an apparent ability ov that sampled, thee Change thee way to perceive and change all memory. As Bruce Wagner put it in Wild Palms thee individual n o w has thee ability t o " SEIZE THE "meme" ov certain theorists, to replicate as well as resonate. Sorceric ritual MEANS OF PERCEPTION". "user" into repeatable contact with entities and galactic ebbs and flows; and We are living in an age where we can shatter, splinter, and fragment could already reveal thee hidden; attack thee source ov stasis; accelerate thee through all this and more present us to thee nano-technology ov thee most at will, all linguistic, or perceptual constructs ov description and through minute primary codes ov what we could dub, sentient L-IF-E. this process, redefine and refine thee essence ov learned perception; thereby redistributing thee wealth ov any status quo system ov belief in as many identify what cyberspace commentator Doug Rushkoff would call a "media patterns and forms as there are imaginations at play. virus"; an individual cultural item ov such precise metaphorical weight and This base process is initially a matter ov selection, a selection ov "matter"; ("...and it really doesn't matter if you're wrong or right."!). resonance, within it's contextual societal structure and/or belief system, that "Splinters" ov any medium are carefully isolated for their precision ov rel evance to thee message bearing qualities and subversive implications ov a piece ov occultural creativity. This "spHnter" can be an image, a glyph, a From this perspective, the process ov selection wills to primarily is equivalent, in it's potential disruption and infection ov any established pohtical status quo (or social immune system) to a virus attacking it's host organism. So, in a very real Astorical sense, we are committing acts ov "sound-bite", a conscious behavioral short-circuit, even a piece of discard heretical cultural exoculation "to see what is really there", as Brion Gysin once said. To further draw upon an analogy ov Gysin's when he stated that ed, proto-anthropological, physical detritus. In this, thee methodology is "In a pre-recorded universe, who made the original recording", we are surprisingly akin to many nature based african religions; to generic shamanic techniques ov sympathetic magick, or a Tibetan Bon Po colored sand attempting to "see" into the very nature ov "material" or "matter" and it's mandala invocation for example. A collecting together ov an apparently dis connected group ov objects, words, articles to form an atavistic or person ally empowered "picture" that focuses will to a specific, subjectively ara- primary programming data. As once we split the atom, we are now isolat ing and splitting the very particles ov which information, art, and culture are constructed. This is not intended to be an idle, or convenient metaphor. tional, occultural end. Equally identifiable, is a clear intention to physically Rather, a very hteral description ov yet another pivotal developmeant in the latter half ov this century, and thee manipulative and connective "Process" 308 309 P-ORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST catalyzing and facilitating thee early visible appearance ov a new "Eon" temporary channel ov conscious, positive and creative media "substance" both in thee visible consensus culture, and in what we chose to describe in abuse, and a protection against thee restrictive depletion ov our archaic, thee early '80s as "Occulture". algebraic, analogic manifestations ov inert and redundant assumptions and This activation ov popular culture, or Transmedia exploration as we would designate I.T (where I.T.= Imaginary TIME), E would argue, is par evolutionary metaphysics ov intent. allel to an All-Chemical phenomenon. There is a knowing and precise refin ing ov "matter", it's origin being at this stage in Astory, any information in any medium ever recorded in any possible or impossible process whatsoev equations ov cultural "matter", with its subsequent restriction ov a quasi- ("My Prophet is a fool with his 1,1,1 ; are they not the o x , and none by —Liber AL 1:48) the BOOK?" er. For the very first TIME we can develop cultural fragments or samples, as So, in this sense, and baring this within our "MIND", one can sug minute, or generic as we choose by accessing thee almost all pervasive reser gest that on a technical level, when we select a sample, or, as we shall prefer voir ov material contained within thee host spheres ov our post-computer dataglut generating thee equivalent ov a cultural humoral response. connected with its introduction and construction within thee original (host) to label it in this essay, when we SPLINTER, we are actually splintering transhuman ikons and cultural transmedia brain products freed ov any ov thee implicit restraints or restrictions ov thee five dimensions (as Richard Miller insisted to me once that there are!). We are actually taking "bytes". Reusing and re-assembling these thereafter as heiroglyphs or memes. Thee tips of each iceberg. Upon their release back into thee L-if-E stream ov their host culture these select splinter-memes develop an independent, sometimes virulent, sometimes benign, antigen agenda ov their own; sepa rate from, but continually resonating internally with, their initial Source. This is a process ov "deification", ov thee creation ov "Gods/Goddesses/ Entities/Demons", that E describe in a little more detail in thee essay culture, and every subsequent (mutated or engineered) culture it enters "CATHEDRAL ENGINE". No matter how short, or apparently unrecognizable such a "sam ple" might be in any mechanistic linear TIME perception, E beheve it must, inevitably, contain within it, (and accessible through it) thee sum total ov absolutely everything its original context represented, coumunicated, or touched in any way. Likewise it must retain every memory, feeling, occur rence, thought and instant ov existence ov its originator. Further, in addition to this hypothesis, E would argue that it must also implicitly include thee sum total consciousness, and experience, ov every individual in any way thereafter, in any way, means or form; or has contact with forever in all Past, Present, Future and even speculative Quantum Time Zones. "Any two particles that have once been in contact will continue to act as though they are informationally connected regardless of their separation in space and time." —Bell's Theorem Let us assume then that every "thing" is interconnected, interactive, interfaced and inter cultural. "Sampling", cutting-up, is all ways experi "Thee Memeium IS thee Mass Edge!" —Old TOPI Proverb As most ov us are aware by N ow !, if we shatter, and scatter, any hologram, we will real-eyes that in each fragmeant, no matter how small, large, or irregular; we will see thee whole hologram. This "scattering" is an incredibly significant contemporary metaphorical and physical phenomenon. It has all ways been my personal contention that if we take, for example, asPLiNTERovjOHN LENNON that that same splinter will in a mental, in that thee potential results are not a given. We are SPLINTERING very real manner, contain within it everything that John Lennon ever expe consensus realities to TEST their substance utilizing thee ritual tools ov col rienced; everything that John Lennon ever said, composed, wrote, drew, lision, collage, composition, decomposition, progression systems, "ran expressed; everyone that ever knew John Lennon and thee sum total ov all and any ov those interactions; everyone who ever heard, read, thought ov, dom" chance, juxtaposition, cut-ups, hyperdelic vision and any other method ov assembly and description available to our imagination and skills. This process melts Unear conceptions and reveals holographic webs and saw, reacted to John Lennon or anything remotely connected with John Lennon; thee specific Time Zone, calendar date that it theoretically fresh spaces. As we travel in every direction simultaneously thee digital highways ov our Futures, this "Splinter Test" is both a highly creative con- ov thee above. 310 resided in; and every past, present and/or future combination ov any or all 311 P-ORRIDGE THEE SPLINTER TEST In magick this is sometimes known as thee C O N T A G I O N theory, or phenomenon. A magickal observation and perspective ov this same phe specific cultural consensus reality. Our brain encodes flux, and builds a nomena could suggest that by inclusion ov even a minuscule reference, or mean average picture at any given TIME. Editing, reducing ov intensity, and linearity, are constantly imposed upon thee ineffable to facilitate ease ov symbol ov John Lennon in a working, ritual or a "SIGIL", you are invok- basic communication and survival. What we see, what we hear, what we iiig "John Lennonness" as part ov what in this particular context (i.e. sam pling "musics") might fairly be considered a musical sigil, a conscious invo cation of clear intent ov Will. smell, what we touch, what we emote, what we utter, are all dulled and All that encyclopedic, associative and implied information, and even thee potential resultant time travel connected with it—accessed Anything, in any medium imaginable, from any culture, which is in smoothed approximations ov a far more intense, vibrant and kaleidoscopic ultra-dimensional actuality. any way recorded, or recordable, and can in any possible way be played through memory and through all connective previous experience—goes back, is NOW ! accessible and infinitely malleable and usable to any sorcer with that one "splinter" ov memory. We should be very aware that it does innately carry within it an infinite sequence of connections and progres ic "artist". Everything is available, everything is free, everything is permit sions through time and space. This is not proposed as symbolism. You can a firestorm in a shop sale where everything must G.O." travel as far as you may wish to go. We can now all maintain thee ability to assemble, via these "splin ters , clusters of any era. These clusters are basically RE-MIND ing. They ted. With the dissolution ov thee "Frame ov Reference" ov Peter Berg; "It's For those who build or assemble, A S S E M B L Y is the invisible language of our TIME. Infinite choices of reality are the gift of software to our children. are actually bypassing the usual consensus reahty filters (because they reside in an acceptable form. i.e. TV/Film/Musics/Words) and travehng directly into Astorical sections of thee brain, triggering all and every conscious and unconscious reverberation to do with that one splinter hieroglyph. Editor's Note: Genesis' intentional misspellings are part of her idiosyncratic hi jacking of standard English, and are meant to give words added levels of meanings. We access every variable memory Library and every individual humane being who's ever for a nanosecond connected with, conceived, related to, been devoted to, despised, or in any way been exposed to, this splinter ov culture. In a similar, linked way, thee "edit" in video and televisual pro gramming and construction is in essence an "INVISELE LANGUAGE", in thee sense that our brain tends to read a story or narration in a linear man ner, tending to blend, compose, and assemble as continuous what it primar ily sees at thee expense ov READING thee secondary sets of intersections, and joins that it does not consciously, or independently, SEE. Yet thee pre cision ov choice in where to edit, and thee specific emotional and intellec tual impact and innate sense ov meaning that is thus specifically conveyed is as much a text ov intent and directed meaning, even propaganda, as is thee screenplay, or dialogue itself. At this point in T I M E everything in L-if-E is cut-up. Our senses retrieve infinite chaotic vortices ov information, flattening and filtering them to a point that enables commonplace activity to take place within a 312 313 CHAPTER 24 MUSIC-MYTH MUSIC-MYTH Cckvt ¿tream. W ^ TERRY RILEY -í aiAoi.OokCvV£\ % |"jíA.Ü£ ^ y {jócSt- t.6fl.D Is ^gSST^- cs^A^A ^ /J áot p1^ Vi»/^¿i , ( . . ccvv-L- U K ^ - ll' ^ í>y^cx- ¿W.No¿¿ k-iUv^. ¿Vv CV cWp b4.¿ A'i c>^ /5st\v5 (íA-iW ^UoR_. £X¿.Ul& ¿XV"Í^ ¿MisUis cd^-^-P' {.•vcLí=\' c\.V^ Üa, ¿}.pp>£A.y tKÍ-V^ C-^ííJ-AA—, •""TÁnoAV^X i3 "fki CmW CSHl. ¿xvü-xWt.. ^Wi. I íS li lí?*^ YTk^UccJtifthtl^ vili !^i «»^CC.-rWcvt ¿. ' I IH civ. i ! ¡«TtaAi^ UJU'I o.IL í| 4-t> s^t. 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U.1 V\cmK (.It^t-dL 3c>J|>cwi_. ^t- v"-*-^ "^c> Í—> £t2Lf^ ^* ¿- a,c+iva-V-Éc\ bt^ -'prcllaffi- .- U/Watr i-S X n.iA«< «JOI «joî. Cou.\A "TVIÛU» A>\K"Jot^ ' vo bt. covwmf+t^,, tö "rtv-t. ffi Uo^/t. . ,n\ ..\ * v^Vî c^, /juèlc IS •pVö.UtlS- l£ c\û(\ CClTi. ¿Aoú/ye»^ ^ .• •; <^oVn.Wtc.4tA -W'TW Ino-jJ /|-v\c\ oocî. ii\j t ci.ivïc4iÀ\ci t(ft,i.^t •p<ta.l^£v-^u, 1 irti^uî <.<5 <3^A ¿it-wá^ víng4 -v 't'o r^ov/vx-vïs viiwxvt. 'ak't. buv Ta^t p\o-c^ I UJt V-t-a-tJA ou-vwcsv^t. i/v\ 't'w.^ itv/wi ai«<^ ^<-ui Ä-^ (-.5 ¿X Ictoj^i'n-içu.L /^ a. ^ ¿>0.1^ / / u/t ¿.«ClA^ -Vo '^\cvAA.-V ^lùijoi-V^ OVN_--H\.I, «aA\<-<\."t^tM i-v • ulwvi, -pioua-a-^O^ZtK. ou„ xkt- s.acn<^ £a.v4u, ojt plcv^-V -^o^w•£-^¡^s (JLA 'i'^i- Go-vi-tAA ujVvt,V-t- ^O.AAA.-2_£». kokiL "t.oLS'f 1 ? ^e*r CA.5 . 322 oitut i<syw?^ ^ /^,CKSVi^lu\ . •JJi> 'S>t^ti(KJ'M S i c-. TVit £>u.v • li v-mboi-ji <dvi\/wa^ CL-V \t<X54 J , vS Tivi '5cxc(rtcU< £;C0<.ritv\C.t¿L .SröV- ívvokaVi c5M.''oun_ "Ve. u3 0.yv(taa!,4 jt!í truí-v- rtnu-Çi c_ b t-a tM.s ccGkfi 'uiUdcV" üJí. iCwouj i.5 ewt>s. ,Á^ £\ uiwa-v awftax ^IVaT I AA\0^-**tA\T < v'i to to 1VV\^ dtet V-^Ä ".-' t~ VA'L l-ra T-t^ * A.U - , • <5~A ^ lAA t/W öuiß-cviatni. L— •£;v\iâîaa^ (_v \-vvi t>o'Vv*\ (pov_aaa< caacx tjtiw/vrtpwpi-s. • •- £\br«.f^ âvoç.5 cv g^cí«v"iáva xotdcjj. . . b utt ixjwta/s ¿vvííwfl.tm-f Ca(,^Tl-5 ÎAA. ci.ll 1,X5 -paoil-fi--• ' ÎOJÙIJW. fWcV Vt-ai i-vÄ^vvtwf- íoMáS u>\.u h 2lm>(fclvta«•tív-vil«ALAAö, 4£'•'"s iC-VwA¿ 6M. îcUi ^ v" p•€AC«, (O. Sitiö-W ot £¿f;ov\\prïss< iaa,4^ -tWx-t (j^¿,-'1ivvv\,ímíx.'vta^/^0l*v"ié''^"^ ? 323 RILEY s-iax-ckwi., ^va\áij d'f^ikvw MUSIC-MYTH ~\¡\\iXÍ^ bit. 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Vi ovv AOOvUc^ ¿a-á-ks/mt. uino vs tmt. <pUs.^VXV\A^ TA\fcbt '•^íî' :3^vs.dos -rvojt wt. i3 o^ c-crc^í, ruva'vr— <xa\c^ £ii.cé3 'vw.c.w csv\ 'VVxi. . -x ^ ,' ^ f ¿:í.<ré.vyx<swr<vl -tvcv.-\-i¿ ^uu cc^-^j^^ c.<^v-ut.ov a/vv4 ka.5 tiau^ owú/^ 6tt.Vviívv5, Tf ts vrí-spffvii, loilt^-i-o -iiiVifc tw-i ¿dx-v^jv o^p^tcv p"_^' . i.w1 l>it.<lca+t¿v^ ,. . -V. -tul X\oev ±?v<.á.lcu^ I , ( m ' i > s ^ ' ^ ^ ' ^ ' 1 ' • ;^r"rtia-'T (^6m-i,W^ fc>Uv-M.\<. Ua. -ha4t t->v-c>w;oa ¿:w<^í ¿io \iuc.t öl-v 6^^ cvjwck $.€iî. nvvt. it-i-ar cvjwa ' i>^ökvvv rtvt ¿rvaaííl'x -x-óvsa aa^í»^l-f <5v\<r»vt¿»uv'l^c^ /^5 out, uoolí^ ôïat t-ut m-f-iic in v'(it\ os idoua c:it«<xwv 324 325 RILEY MUSIC AND MYSTICISM, RHYTHM AND FORM A Blues Romance in 12 Parts ADAM RUDOLPH Mysticism Knowledge is freedom and the study of elements in sound is a path. Mysticism reaches beyond religion into creativity, which belongs to every human being. For the artist, mysticism is an attitude whose imperatives are the willingness to cultivate imagination and the courage to express what is discovered. For the creative musician, it also means research into the science of sound, which is the chemistry of the universe. Mystics and physicists alike know that all earthly creation is in fact star stuff, sub-atomic particles vibrating at various rates. Music speaks to us and transforms us through the medium and essence of what we ourselves are: vibration. The musical artist's invisible alchemy is to arrange these overtones as they move through time. Throughout the ages this art has been intimately intertwined with the mystic's path. Imagination Imagination suggests the existence of a divine spark in human beings. Its source, what William Blake called the Divine Imagination, is beyond ratio nal apprehension. While it is a mystery as to whether it is received like a radio signal from the cosmos or dredged up from the murky oceanic depths of the unconscious, it appears to us through visions, dreams, inspirations, language, dialogue, fantasies, and contemplation. Creative imagination is ù ^OKiBSToWe- our richest human legacy and birthright. It is a kind of beacon—a scout sent ahead that precedes us into history. In the great mystical traditions of the world, inner and outer realities are reflections of one another. Similarly, any music one can imagine in the mind's ear already exists or has existed in its own unique interpretive design. The creative process begins with the inner ear, with the imagination. It continues with the manifestation of this inner audi- 326 327 CHAPTER 25 RILEY MUSIC AND MYSTICISM, RHYTHM AND FORM A Blues Romance in 12 Parts ADAM RUDOLPH Mysticism Knowledge is freedom and the study of elements in sound is a path. Mysticism reaches beyond religion into creativity, which belongs to every human being. For the artist, mysticism is an attitude whose imperatives are the willingness to cultivate imagination and the courage to express what is discovered. For the creative musician, it also means research into the science of sound, which is the chemistry of the universe. Mystics and physicists alike know that all earthly creation is in fact star stuff, sub-atomic particles vibrating at various rates. Music speaks to us and transforms us through the medium and essence of what we ourselves are: vibration. The musical artist's invisible alchemy is to arrange these overtones as they move through time. Throughout the ages this art has been intimately intertwined with the mystic's path. Imagination Imagination suggests the existence of a divine spark in human beings. Its source, what William Blake called the Divine Imagination, is beyond ratio nal apprehension. While it is a mystery as to whether it is received like a radio signal from the cosmos or dredged up from the murky oceanic depths of the unconscious, it appears to us through visions, dreams, inspirations, ùapuji's lôj'oBSîôwe^ language, dialogue, fantasies, and contemplation. Creative imagination is our richest human legacy and birthright. It is a kind of beacon—a scout sent ahead that precedes us into history. In the great mystical traditions of the world, inner and outer realities are reflections of one another. Similarly, any music one can imagine in the mind's ear already exists or has existed in its own unique interpretive design. The creative process begins with the inner ear, with the imagination. It continues with the manifestation of this inner audi- 326 327 RUDOLPH MUSIC AND MYSTICISM, RHYTHM AND FORM tory experience in the vibrational spectrum; voice, instruments and In India, Rasa describes the emotional color of a raga. Melodic human interaction enter the picture. If w^e can imagine it, we can play it. shapes delineate tension and release, painting emotional timbre while orbit In this way, ideas lead the development of technique, which is a door to the space of freedom. ing out and then returning to the unitary sounding of Om. Many cultures use visual colors to manifest music ritual. The Gnawa of Morocco play a system of seven colors in their nightlong healing and trance ceremonies. Dialogue Each "presence" or spirit is accompanied by a specific color, incense, Any new musical language must be based on understanding existing music rhythm and dance as it meets the ritual participants' consciousness in ecsta tic space and time. languages in their uniqueness and through their underlying universal principles. Just as the laws of physics simplify in the higher dimensions, so too do the elements of music unify as they transcend style and move towards essence. When developed musical skills exist to serve an awakened being, a great potential is created. For this potential to manifest, compassion must inspire the artist to seek dialogue, a sharing of realization. When this inten tion allows communication between humans to occur, a cycle of enlight Form Even as nature is in a constant process of becoming, there is nothing in nature without form. Chaos contains the source, energy, and material that form is made of. Form itself is temporal, and rhythm is the world working through time. Sound is the soul of form and brings it to life from the inside enment is created. In the Middle East this is called "Tarab." The musician out. Rhythm is the element of stability that not only gives life to music but also holds it together. It is implicit in every musical gesture. becomes a creative conduit, the musical instrument a voice and tool, and Sonata-allegro, kriti, muwashshah, frevo, jo-hya-kyu, gending, and the listener an active partner in the creation of the transcendent state. In blues are but a few examples of the many traditional music forms found improvisational music, this circle expands to include interplay between worldwide. For the improviser, phrasing in form is the greatest challenge. In musicians as dialogue. It is the mirror that reflects both group and individ order to navigate through form one must be able to generate phrasing and ual states at the moment of creation, bringing us together in our most in order to phrase one must have a grasp of rhythm. The great improvisers human being. With the arrival of the divine spark, improvisational music becomes a textless ecstatic dialogue vibrating open the door to the lumi nous moment. have all been masters of rhythm. Rhythm There are as many rhythms in the world as there are stars in the sky. Color and Motion Every culture has dozens, if not thousands of rhythms. To these pulse Through music, the essential unison—^vibration—manifests as a duality: beats and patterns, each person and musician brings his or her own sense color and motion i.e., timbre and rhythm. The dialogue between color and of timing, breath and imagination. To be human is to embody this rhyth motion is superimposed through the complex of space and time. All color in music is based on the overtones—earth moving to air and beyond. mic infinity. Human rhythm has, as both its source and manifestation, three Attack, pitch, intonation, decay, texture and noise make for the quality of color in sound. Because of their especially complex overtone content, aspects: language, dance and mathematics. Spoken language informs vocal drums are the musical instrument most commonly used worldwide to induce trance. In some cultures string or gut is stretched across the drum and instrumental performance in a myriad of ways. The Yoruba language, which is tonal, can be spoken on the lya drum. When North and South skin to further complexify overtone content, adding shadow sounds of buzzing voices. Indian music uses vocalized syllables to teach the drum language, each spoken syllable corresponds to a particular drum stroke. At the same time, creative and cultural movements of humans are 328 329 RUDOLPH MUSIC A N D MYSTICISM, RHYTHM A N D FORM determinants of rhythmic phraseology. In many parts of the world drum language is a sonic manifestation of dance gesture. Call and response The Dogon people of Mali call the even (2) element "Tolo" and ascribe to it female or yin energy. "Nya" is the odd (3), male or yang ener harkens to a practice before history, where music, dance and storytelling were one. gy. They say: "Every rhythm has the two parts, often with complex inter play that suggest both a dialogue and union of male and female principles." Numerologically, 2 (even) and 3 (odd) are the fundamental build ing blocks from which all existing rhythms are created; from the heartbeat Timbre and Tone to the most abstract. "Cyclic Verticalism" is a creative approach to devel oping phrasing and form through the combination and expansion of cycles and polyrhythms. Cycles of various lengths are built by using the additive concept of combining rhythm cells of 2's and 3's. (Figure 1.) If that fundamental polymetric verticality of 3 against 2 was moving fast enough it would sound as the interval of the perfect 5 th, the second over tone. The overtones, or harmonic series is the acoustic material that gener ates pitch, melody, harmony and what Edgar Varese termed "sound mass." For example, 2 plus yields a 5 beat cycle: century European music uses twelve tones and six intervals to gener ate melodic and harmonic materials. Joseph Schillinger, Yusef Lateef, 1 2 1 Counted division Olivier Messiaen and Nicolas Slominksy, to name but a few, published Accented pulses studies of creative permutations of these. In India it is twenty-two Srutis Total pulses that describe the microtones between octaves. Pentatonic scales, made of 20th X X 1 2 3 2 3 4 5 the first five tones of the limitless spiral of 5ths, are found worldwide, especially among people who live close to nature. 3 plus 2 plus 2 yields a 7 beat cycle: 1 2 3 1 2 1 X X 1 2 3 2 Counted division Accented pulses X 4 5 6 7 Total pulses Circularity Non-linear thought informs the creative mind. Circular imagery is central to many mystical traditions, the Mandala being a well-known example. Depictions of the Tree of Life in Kabbalah, roundtable discussions, Whirling Figure 1. Excerpt from Pure Rhythm by Adam Rudolph. Dervishes, the shaman's drum, and stone Native American Medicine Wheels are but a few of many circular images found worldwide. The Kongo Verticalism references polyrhythms, whereby two or more rhythms are played simultaneously. A rhythm cell of an odd amount Cosmogram Yowa shows the sign of the cosmos and the continuity of human life (Figure 3). At the center is the Crossroads, the radial point of sounding at the same time as a rhythm cell of an even amount generates African cultural improvisation that has profoundly seeded so much American music. motion in sound. The fundamental polyrhythm is 3 against 2. (Figure 2.) 3 against 2 (6 total pulses): 1 2 * 3 * * 1 4 5 6 X 3 duplet accents of the pulse * 2 3 4 2 triplet accents of the pulse 5 6 Figure 2. Excerpt from Pure Rhythm by Adam Rudolph. Figure 3. Yowa-Kongo Cosmogram. 330 331 RUDOLPH MUSIC A N D MYSTICISM, RHYTHM A N D FORM Creatively applied in music, circular thought can open the mind to potentials of relationships not available to linear thinking or depiction. + Circularity suggests possibilities of innovative notational semiotics that in turn can generate new musical syntax. John Coltrane s circle (Figure 4) shows a non-Hnear multiplicity of possible tone relationships. TKv» JÍ3 O Figure 5. Tal Chakra by Pandit Taranth Rao given to Adam Rudolph 1981. In each of these drawings the multiplicity of possible relationships of elements invites broad syntactical possibilities. Each offers the potential and openness that is essential for the improvisational practice central to both music cultures. Figure 4. Drawing by John Coltrane given to Yusef Lateef 1960. Since humans first observed the movements of the sun, moon, stars and the seasons, musicians have been responsive to cycHc phenomena in Weaving Ostinatos of circularity are content distinct from the linearity of the nature. Circular thought is central to many music cultures throughout the practice of theme and development. Recurrent gestures are the events world. In a manner similar to the Coltrane diagram, this North Indian Tal Chakra drawing (Figure 5) shows the potentiality of multiple relationships, in this case between various rhythm cycles. that generate time inside the circularity of musical form. This rhythmic 332 333 weaving of space and motion is a common musical practice in the world. In Persian arts, the term "Dastgah" refers to both weaving patterns into RUDOLPH MUSIC A N D MYSTICISM, RHYTHM A N D FORM carpets and weaving modal melody in music. Mbuti Molimo ritual and atives of life: spontaneity, initiative and surprise. Sundanese Jaipong music performance use what Miles Davis, describing his own music in 1973, called "thematic fibers." A Nigerian cloth (Figure 6) depicts an elegantly danced weaving of threads in repeated patterns of rhythmic regularity and irregularity. Emptiness Improvisational music reflects an evolved cosmology that could be described as a celebration of the Eternal Now. It aims at the total elimination of subject/ object through the expression of sound rhythms. First, in the stillness of Beginners Mind, we hear the silence. Now intention moves emptiness into the manifestation of form in sound. Starting from breath itself, each gesture m creates the musical moment. The formless manifests a time element, a dimension, and a shape, the abstraction of which is conditioned by sound and motion. Each musical sound a human can make has a beginning, mid Figure 6. Nigerian Woven Fabric. As is common in much solo performance in Africa, the Ugandan Akogo (thumb piano) requires a synchronized patterned weaving of the left and right thumbs to play the music. As repeated motifs continually evolve dle, and an end. There is a feeling of death with the end of each sound that implies transcendence. The Heart Music is a reflection of the heart s evolution. It speaks to the inner being and modify, the musician enters a mental state similar to contemplation of a since it is itself of the inner being. Listening with the heart asks for a quiet Mandala. Whether performed by the individual or the collective, patterns of ing of the mind which judges, filters, and compartmentalizes. It beckons us sonic fractal design create a momentum that over time becomes a Call. to lift out of temporal limitations, to open up to the deepest sentiment of our own being and allow our very essence to be touched. Communication through this invisible alchemy called music invites us to reach into ourselves, Miraculous in its evolution, the use of ancient highly refined signal patterns, manifest through instruments of particular overtone content, serves to open to seek to know ourselves and to fearlessly express that which we discover. the door to the transcendent state. The Call is the invitation to move from observation to participation in the transcendence. Answering the Call is It is a way of coming to know who we are as we exist in the universe and to join in the shared experience of the mystical lifting of the moment. the universe that exists within us. Music is the language of the heart and it It is what mystics describe as resonance; what the Surrealists named the Supreme Point. is a path to awakening. For those who are aware of the mysticism of sound, music is a profound means by which we share our most intimate and deep desire for universal consciousness. The Inner Voice Great improvisers are recognized in one note. They play their instrument as an amplifier of their irmer voice. The Dogon have a word "mi" which means the inner spirit of the person expressed through the voice of the instrument. With creative action, the inner auditory vision is expressed as a unique human story through the development of musical language. Every human who uses a musical language tells us something about who they are in rela tion to their art and their life experiences. Musical sound is the revealing of the inner being. The master improviser drenches her/his art with the imper334 335 CHAPTER 26 A SILENCE THAT SPEAKS to be separate, and are reified by their differences which appear through a confrontation with each other. A SILENCE THAT SPEAKS The AU-Emhracing Unification of Space and Mind (With Sound Meditation inj Parts) DAVID CHAIM SMITH The equalizing aspect of space in which all distinctions are made is almost always conventionally ignored. Does it oppose either inner or outer? Can space be broken in two? And what about space itself and its silent origins? Have either sounds or perceptions been ripped away from the pristine womb of silence which they appear to have arisen from? The problem is even more basic when we consider the silence. When we believe that "something" has been belched forth from "noth "Music is the healing force of the universe." —^Albert Ayler "There is no such thing as silence." —John Cage ingness" there is a conflict. This is the basis of all of the dualistic habits that insidiously fragment the world into infinite unrelated pieces, obstructing any chance of apprehending the cohesive wholeness which is the goal of Fora listener, music can become a profound mystical practice. Ordinarily, it seems as though sounds are projected in external space and perceived in internal space, as if through a permeable barrier. What then is space itself? Both sound and perception are expressions of energy. Music can be the ecstatic experience of their union within the energetic continuum. It is an invitation to merge outer and inner within each other, to swallow each other, leaving only the vital field of possibility which defies fragmentation. The continuum of energy is like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Its undulating body is an endless primordial waveform; the unify ing seal of all contrasts: up/down, negative/positive, on/off, active/passive. This is the raw voltage of transformation. The whole of space explodes with its wild capacity for adaptation. It manifests all energetic frequencies as well as the capacity to experience them. Sound and hearing are mutually interdependent. Neither has independent existence, but both arise to reflect the uniqueness of the other. Sound hears itself through human ears as both express one allembracing field of creativity. Understanding this is the doorway to a pri mordial ocean of dynamic space in continual variation. Music, like all great artforms, has the capacity to point to the absolute within itself. First it must become clear how the perceptual fragmentation of the world comes about. To observe this just follow the conventional cognitive sequence: spiritual practice and human evolution. What results from this process is the familiar randomness of the cognitive status quo: the ceaseless conflict between inner and outer in which the senses present foreign objects to a self-identified subject to grasp at. Ironically, this situation even persists on a totally internal level, as mental objects called thoughts and feelings confront the awareness that perceives them. Division only leads to more divisions. Sounds are ripped from silence. Listener is pitted against the music. Created things are defined and categorized out from undifferentiated creativity. Fragmentation occurs as mind moves. Like music, perception is a state of motion. Disruption comes through the mind's habits of temporal reduction and isolation. These habits interpret all motion (including its own) as a series of bound aries: bits of time that come and go. Reliance on time is a symptom that the mind has given itself over to dualistic fixation. All we can see within it are unresolved questions. To and from where do the pieces of time go? What is the moment that goes? No one can experience future or past directly, so why do we think they exist? The "present" keeps presenting itself, but try to examine it. If you do it will be gone, and another present moment will have taken its place. However as Albert Ayler suggested, music can be a remedy for this disease. It can be a way of repairing a shattered conception of reality. Through meditative absorption, music can be liberated beyond the confines Sounds arise in what seems like "outer" space and are apprehend ed in what seems like "inner" space. The barrier between them is the appearance of the body and its egoic sense of self. The two sides are taken 336 of time and constraint. It can break free of temporal measurement while simultaneously moving as open space. Space is always free of contain ment, and music becomes its prayer when its heart is exposed. This is the 337 SMITH A SILENCE THAT SPEAKS offering feast which continually consumes itself. Sounds arise and dis S O U N D = AWARENESS solve, freely giving their life blood to and from the energized space that With this formula as a base we can begin to train ourselves to swal they truly are. In this manner both sense and sense-object obliterate each other while simultaneously living through each other. The energized space low music and be swallowed by it. Recordings can be used with great suc of creativity is the offering, offerer, and that to which the offering is dedicated. It is the essence of the equation: es in which this can be attempted, as well as recommendations for specific SPACE = MIND and my recommendations are merely suggestions. Once you get the idea The apparitional playground arises through awareness. Space-asmind is the becoming of anything and everything. Its vastness is all phe cess to refine this facility in its most subtle aspects. I will give three exercis recordings that yield good results. Of course the selection of music is open, from my descriptions you will know how the exercises can be applied to any piece that even roughly fits the model. nomena. There is nowhere it is not, and it always creates. This leads to the realization that there really is no such thing as "ordinary" phenomena. All I. phenomena are miraculous. The sublime cannot be diminished, only This first meditation involves binding the mind with silent space as ignored. It is the job of both the artist and the witness of art to take responsibility for living this equation through. minute sonic elements arise and dissolve within it. The aim is to hold the Cultivating an Integrated Sense of Receptivity sense of vast openness without the elements obstructing or obscuring its When space degenerates through conventional reductionistic thinking it manufactures the so-called objective outer world of "reali quality of spaciousness. When no sound causes disruption, equanimity ty." When mind degenerates through conventional reductionistic A piece I like to use for this exercise is Margaret Leng Tan's solo thinking it manufactures the subjective means to know it called the performance of John Cage's Music for Piano #2 (from Daughters of the can be recognized between sounds and silence. "individual." If we believe these fictions actually exist, then we must Lonesome Isle, New Albion). In this piece, as in his later "number pieces," beheve they are separate. If we challenge these assumption, then both aspects can reflect what theists call "god." It can only happen by chang ing one's mental view. Cage allows the open space in which sounds arise to be a central concèrn. The sonic elements enter and exit with extreme delicacy, highlighting the Any investigation of the divine is a mental operation. If the equa tion mind =space is acceptable, then we can consider that mind is not the a quiet expectant scenario, in which piano sounds bloom without seeming pristine purity of the openness of space which seems to engulf them. It is either related or unrelated. They simply assert themselves in their variety, biological byproduct of the nervous system, nor is it the property of an individual human life. Mind is the living conscious dynamism of creativi ty. In this sense god/space/mind are all equal. This equality is the basis of all inquiry as well as that which is inquired about; both goal and method passing into and out of focus, without the intervention of any intrusive of epistomological and ontological study. This view is evident in many of position of simultaneous receptivity and concentration. Concentration that is "too tight" makes experience rigid. It freezes the barrier between the works of kabbalah and hermeticism, evident in the following quote: compositional structure. We begin by sharpening attention while relaxing it at the same time. Simply listen, and let the sounds be. This involves developing a dis sound and hearing, and blocks their dissolution together. It will always be Mind has not been cut off from god's essentiality; it has expanded like the light of the sun." —Corpus Hermeticum 12 And now we can proceed with a formula more specific to our purposes: distracted. Contrarily, if the experience becomes "too loose" it will be sloppy, and no profound qualities can arise within it. You will find your self just drifting, maybe into a semi-sleep. The goal in all of these exercises is for the sonic field and mental activity to merge out of their separate identities. Blending attention with 338 339 SMITH A SILENCE THAT SPEAKS space requires the cultivation of the quality of expectancy; the sense that "anything can happen." This helps allow elements that might otherwise be interpreted as intrusions or disruptions to unfold as organic extensions of the continuity of the piece. Because this piece is so slow and quiet it will appear easier than it actually is. You will probably be far more distracted than you realize. One reason why this particular piece is so effective is because the sounds are almost manageable. It allows you to "fine tune" your capacity for abiding in a deeply receptive state. The first thing you might notice is that the piece encourages hyperfixation. Every detail tends to jolt itself into focus to dominate the sonic field, tured field resulting in distraction. What results is a jagged and frac that repels conventional aesthetic sensibilities. To most peo ple this piece will seem to be comprised exclusively of disruptions. However as a meditative event, it is not a matter of simply enduring a series of unpleasant reactions, like some stoic form of punishment. It is a matter of recognizing that the so-called distasteful elements are Like space, mind neither mechanically accepts nor rejects sounds. They simply happen. If you can recognize and abide in the sonic field with this natural quality then the experience will be both vivid and vast at the same time. You may come upon a "razor's edge" of difference between the internality of mind and the externality of sound, or between the intrusiveness of sound and voidness of space. In all cases of distrac tion, remember that the nature of sound is inherent in silence and the essence of silence is inherent in sound. This precept can help cut through distractions. You don't necessarily need to think about it, simply under stand and feel it. Never try to push a distraction out of your mind. Any attempt to consciously dismantle a mental construct will make it worse. Let it all pass into the openness of the equation: themselves inherently spacious: expressions of pure potentiality shin ing and crackling with life. The vibrancy of the barrage delivers the raw dynamism inherent within space. If you can recognize directly in the act of listening (not merely intellectually) that the essential nature of all sonic life equalizes the most annoying sounds with pure silence, then you have realized something rare. As a consequence, one can then be able to transcend one's aesthetic preoccupations. When it is engaged deeply, meditation on the nature of sound simply cuts through the habitual fascination with one's own tastes. The accumulation of likes and dislikes can simply be outshined, and as a result, is often altered beyond all recognition. The goal of the exercise, as always, is to cultivate wakeful nondistraction and vivid spaciousness. You won't have to worry about the SOUND = AWARENESS vividness aspect with this piece; that takes care of itself. The struggle 2. Managing Cognitive Saturation might be to discover a sense of space in spite of what can appear to be claustrophobia. Simply let the sonic bombardment blossom as it will The second exercise involves maintaining open receptivity as a sonic over load unloads on you. The goal, as always, is alert non-reactivity. However the challenge is to cultivate this state as a full on barrage of sound tries its best to disrupt and interfere. A piece that is quite well suited for this is an early one from Alvin Lucier: North American Time Capsule (from Vespers/Other Early Works, New ^Ji^orld Records). It is a good solid sonic assault comprised of disparate layers of electronically processed vocal sounds. The sounds have varying degrees of unrecognizabiUty as vocal elements. They transmit some of the rhythm and cadence of speech pat terns, but nothing specifically coherent as language is communicated through the opacity of the electronic treatments. The layers are collective ly and individually almost impenetrable, and produce a nice disorienting while meeting whatever resistances arise head on. A method that might be helpful in penetrating these resistances is to try to place attention con stantly within the overall field of the sounds, and not in the details. This technique of "widening" the sonic window takes the focus away from the disruptions as singular isolated events. It allows you to place emphasis back on space. Only when you have the sense of overall space can you begin to relate it to the space of your own mind, ultimately merging them beyond distinction. This process is essentially no different from the last exercise, except for the challenges of the circumstances. Instead of minute manageable sounds that appear one at a time there is total destruction. In fact, this one is very effective if done right after the last one, back to back, with no break. wall of sensation which is perfect for our purposes. 340 341 SMITH J. A SILENCE THAT SPEAKS Cultivating Stability that has filled This last exercise is probably the best one of the three to use regularly as a sound meditation practice. It involves the cultivation of meditative stability, which is one of the long term goals of all meditation. It is not sufficient to manufacture a series of momentary "oceanic experiences" the sky. Even if you become engulfed by the vastness of the object, the problem is that there is a "you" to be engulfed. When both the you and the object disappear without a trace of mechanical residue, then maybe the alchemical marriage has begun. You will not know for sure. It is best to not think about it. It is best just to practice. that come and go. The goal is to abide in the unbroken continuity of being without falling back into dualistic habits. This is the deepest and most natural response to life as it is. It is not an artificial mental trick that is entertained and then forgotten. What we do with sounds and silence is symptomatic of what we do with everything else. This is why sound meditations can function as genuine mystical practices in their own right. Many drone pieces can be used for this practice, such as those created by composers La Monte Young, Charlemagne Palestine and Polke Rabe. What is required is a combination of consistency, density and spaciousness. A particular drone I enjoy using for this practice is a piece by Phil Niblock called Early Winter (from Music by Phil Niblock, Experimental Intermedia Foundation). It offers a tremendous sense of depth built from multiple layers of sounds. They are comprised of overdubs of flute, eight tracks of bass flute, thirty-eight samples of synth voices, and a full-on string quartet. It seems to be both full to capacity and yet open at the same time. It is truly a drone in which the mind can sink into oblivion. It also has a searing quality which seems to drive right through whatever is in its way, and ultimately what is in its way is you. Make sure it is played very loud. The goal is meditative absorption. This is relatively easy to under stand but almost impossible to do and sustain. It requires a vivid clarity that does not grasp on to anything, but allows everything. If aspects of the sonic field are witnessed bit by bit, we can be sure that continuity and absorption are not happening. The method is to surrender completely while being alert and responsive. We are not asking the piece to swallow us, nor we to swallow the piece. We are after a simultaneous and process-less swallowing of any and all conceptual identifications. Anywhere the mind stops to notice David Chaim Smith, Three Stages to Seal Nullification. (First panel of triptych.) 2009, pencil and ink on paper. "something," a distraction has occurred. Because drones often appear fixed and homogenous (which they are not) we tend to react to them as if we are confronted by a great object 342 343 CHAPTER 27 HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON ers on the margins of the Kingdom? Out here on the "edge," the charisma of esoteric exclusivism and the delightful numinosity of heresy can for a HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON Harmony is Stronger Unseen Than Seen time make up for our personal lack of true 1. A Persian term that simultaneously means honor, balls, soul and ancestral chivalry. "gheyrat."' But if we are actually Strong, strong c» / o o enough to be brought to justice and be wellconfessed in conscience to the monarch of sim TREY SPRUANCE plicity, we might be inspired to find contentedness with our lot, to open afresh the window of our solipsistic universe onto a broader scenery, and to take life in once again. Wouldn't it be refreshing to finally, Confessio ingly, take account of the habitation of our fellow man? But then, how sur The "obvious" is the place where the deepest secrets are found hidden in plain sight, out in the open. Faustian personalities are mocked by obviousness, and always prefer to be seduced by the whispers and goose-hunts of com plexity. The suggestive innuendo of incomprehensibility compels the curi ous nature to look under those inscrutable multilayered veils for all of life's greatest profundities. Against this, the banal "open secret" offers the mer curial esotericist nothing to further edify his self-image in the vocation of an individualist. It only robs him of his sense of self-distinction, of special pur pose. Being plunged head first into a mundane wash of communal aware ness can only erode any sense of solipsistic aristocracy. Nevertheless, life's epochs seem to always at some point cause even the most nit-picking Faustian narcissist to return awestruck to "the obvious." We might hear him then declare, finally, that it's the simplest creeds that teach us how to unlock the strict cyphers of the ordinary. But this truth is usually only briefly admitted, either under duress or in a flash of inspiration... lip ser vice is then paid to it, but no praxis is employed to consistently hoist its fundamental truth aloft amid the crushing entropy of everyday life. Being forced to resubmit our oaths to the basics is actually good for us, but we usually only arrive at this experience unwillingly, like criminals dragged before the King in shame. The mind that habitually authors boasts and legends about itself will eventually find a way to re-mythologize such basics into its "extraordinary" narrative. Or maybe it's simply preferable to never even admit them at all, and instead to subject the King to a "transvaluation of values. Can we not make him our subordinate in a private utopia out on the edge of things?! That is after all what our culture of "radical genius" and "breaking the mold," etc. is telling us to do. But is there room for uncondescend- EVERYONE to peddle the snake oil of curiosity to superstitious travel344 prised should we be at the moment of beholding our fellow man's works to see an earth-hewn skyline dotted with shadowy ivory towers just like the abandoned rotting colossus we just left behind us? No, we knew this was how it was all along. All those years we had our noses up to the grinder of self-congratulation, we were always aware in the back of our mind that everything else in the world was developing along parallel lines, even nip ping at our psychic heels, driving us forward—that was an essential part of our frenzied motivation! So now we behold anew this world, this nursery proliferating with "absent-minded professors" like ourselves, too busy to notice or care what's going on around us. Disinterested for this brief, tem porary moment, we behold the streets of the individualist cosmopolis that we helped build, filled their fifteen to capacity with busybody coal-feeders, racing to minute appointments with the Promethean furnace. And for once we actually understand the blind mechanics of this place. It seems that the speculum of this region of the universe reflects not an image of the glory of what is Above it, but rather tends obsessively towards the bottomless ever-fracturing abyss of self-reflecting enchantment Below it. We know it so well. Look! A mason's trowel—a reminder of how we ourselves so willful ly demolished the self-evident exoteric beauty of the uncarved block by feverishly chiseling away at our esoteric self-portrait, year after year after year. Maybe once or twice we were satisfied that our powers were at a peak, so we said the magic word and our elaborate Faustian Golems came to life. But gone forever was the aether of the simple and the sublime and the per fect and the shared and the obvious. That had all long ago been replaced with the obsessive "tangibility" and complexity of our laboratory, with all its damaged and hoardable and theoretically recyclable materials. And then we watched it culminate in our own personal and 345 inscrutable creation, the HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON SPRUANCE Frankensteinian egregore of our "art." Peering out into the bustle of the cosmopolis we could now nod along with our brothers, whose folly we cer tainly shared, and with our voluminous stash of a far greater quantity of delusion, perhaps even feel a wish to commiserate with them. But here, now, a new perception confronts us: the clear realization that the entire edifice of the extraordinary is in a kind of mortal panic, because it subconsciously realizes that it has been parasitic on a host that no longer exists. The ordinary was a host that the extraordinary has now actu ally killed.There is nothing savory about being a fresh witness to a feast that can only eat itself for dinner. That's not even a matter of determinism but of Will: even now our friends the fleas turn their noses up to the potentially nourishing carrion corpse that has been beaten down before them. Instead of ingesting the still-warm the wisdom of the ages, they busy themselves with recycling parts of it that can be bent to fit this or that "new paradigm." Oh how we feel with them, and bitterly weep that the broader construction of this activity on a scale that they cannot see is just a featureless concrete wall. All those tiny private utopias in ad hoc laboratories of the Art of selfworship, incorporated into a body-politic of the eclecticism of sameness— mixed like microscopic aggregates into wet concrete that forms and tight ens into a statistical mean of grayness. By making ourselves so small we have streamlined the construction project of a blocky post-communist psychic architectural determinism, micromanaged at every turn by "me," the author of all. The skyline is transforming into hard repetitive squares. We are walling ourselves in. Shall we scream in revolt? My brothers are still rushing to the fur nace, consigning to the flames the alchemist's and Psalmist's exhortations to keep for later what we would now be tempted to throw away;^ to hold on to the exoteric outer layers of the skin (Latin 2. Baro Urbigerus, Circulatum minus cutis, cognate of Greek skatos [dung]) as we Urbigeranum, XV. Psalms 118:22, plumb the immeasurable vacancies of the daz zling esoteric interiority. We might scream our lungs out in warning to our brothers, but we know full well what kind of power the village idiot has to compel the strong man of revolutionary weakness. To be cast in the role of "helpless witness" to the terminal decline of a body we ourselves had a hand in virally infecting seems only appropriate somehow... so we watch. We weep. Upon further reflection, we should have seen it coming in our 346 arcane crystal balls. It is inevitable that the Dionysian deconstruction would run its course and become the new snooze, the new yawn, the new ordi nary, the new block-housing. It is inevitable that the ceaseless revolution, the artifice of the "new paradigm," that inevitability of Protestantization and sola scriptura on steroids, would commence under the watch of a coincidentia oppositorum between the Übermensch and the Last Men. It is inevitable that the resukant ecstatic utterances of liberated desire would then perversely attach themselves to what remains of the last intact reli gions, and that the Dionysian bacchanal meltdown on the mountain Tmolus would be revealed TOO LATE as being even more boring than everything that had been destroyed. One can at any point in life heed the perpetual call to ordeal, chaos and liberation. But shouldn t we visit them as bees visiting flowers, taking only what we need and leaving the rest behind?^ What has happened instead is that "l"' vampiristic depletion of the mysteries seed-carried by the Traditional hosts has resulted in a total loss of manna. The depletion of this essence is a process that began more than 1,000 years ago within Christian Europe—or rather, within the endlessly schismatic denominational proliferations of apostate Christianity that created Europe in the first place. The seepage from these humanistic fractures has now culminated in a colossal global-scale spiri tual hunger, whose intensity has now reached a desperation-level previ ously known only to vampires. Its not just Pentheus who loses his head after spying on the humanist orgy, or God who is erased from the human ledger by whinging academic crypto-neo-pagan Graecophiles, but a world where the Hollow Man himself loses every source of dope for his post hoc charlatanistic/syncretistic bohemian charades, and begins to be directly swallowed up by the void. The void isn't bad. Even Nietzsche s Übermensch could be reconciled to it, if the overbearing premature ejaculant of his will didn't always prevent it. Having been stripped of the instinct to the noble paradox of emptiness, self-sacrifice and martyrdom, the Übermensch is driven slavishly and meekly "forward to his desper ate and hysterical immersion in the anti-heroic futility of survival. Don't we here behold the world's saddest and most pathetic spectacle? Brothers and sisters, I don't marinate these regretful pages with the tears of a crocodile. My accusing finger points only into the mirror. But enough of this talk. 347 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON Light Einstein showed us a way that hght, as a phenomenon of our perception, also bears profoundly upon our perception of phenomenon. I can only reflect in this area from my own limited lay-persons knowledge, since I didn't get far beyond the second year of astrophysics in college. So there won't be excessive technicality in what follows regarding light, before we move on to more directly musical matters. But I offer this rumination for the treasures it contains in relation to our discussion of the alchemical properties of music. As everyone knows, mass of varying density composes our world (the sun, diamonds, air, jellyfish). Light is mass-less and doesn't participate in any kind of composition. Yet it somehow discloses the entire material Jumping way ahead to 25% the speed of light (46,570.6 miles per second as opposed to a mere five miles per second of our satellite) we are now at a meager relativity factor of 1.03, still barely above relativity factor one. Going half the speed of light (93,141.1985 miles per second) brings us to relativity factor 1.1547. Still nowhere. At 161,325 miles per second, roughly 86% of the speed of \i^t, finally we have hit relativity factor two! But what does relativity factor two mean? Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity famously shows that objects in motion undergo three relativistic changes: 1. An increase in mass 2. A contraction in the direction of travel (Lorentz Transformation) 3. A "slowing down" of time. (Time Dilation)® symphony to our sense of sight. Beckoned by the mystery, mankind has endeavored to carefully look at light as itself (which has come to seem a bit , 5 These changes would never be noticed at .I b i d . of a paradox). Aside from the wealth of philosophical material amassed on the meager velocities of our fastest rates—our satellite's increase of mass and the subject, which arguably reached its zenith in the middle ages with relative contraction of space and time dilation at 1.000000000360219 is not Suhrawardi and his school, in the material sciences it has recently been even worth mentioning. But if you were somehow in a spaceship going observed that light sets the velocity boundary for our universe. Light never insanely fast at 86% the speed of Hght, your relativity factor two means: travels faster or slower than the speed of light. It is totally constant and con sistent, and ignores entirely the variable speeds and cadences that matter dances to. Actually, even Aristotle could've told us this, but now the exclu sively empirical basis of modernity is satisfied with what it considers to be the "fact" of light. Much to our corporeal frustration, nothing that is made of matter can travel at the speed of Light, or even really anywhere near it. The reason for this is explained by something Einstein called the "relativity factor." This author will bypass the math'*if the reiuier will forgive the inevitable pedantic tone embedded in reviewing the models of physics, 1. Your mass/size has doubled 2. The contraction in the direction of travel has made space half as big as it was at relativity factor one 3. To an outside observer, two years would be passing in one years time for you If you were in a spaceship traveling at relativity factor six: 1. The ship's mass (and you) would increase by a factor of 6 2. 100 miles in front of you would now be 16.6666 miles how ever basic, by unqualified laymen like myself. Thankfully, to under stand relativity factor all we need are some basics. We can begin by not 3. 1 year to you would seem to be 6 years for someone back on ing that compared to Light, things that are flying around in the universe are generally moving very slowly, even if it seems to us they are going incredi Now let us imagine relativity factor infinity, the speed of light: bly quickly. For example, with earth considered stationary, where you are now sitting with this book in your hands, you are at "relativity factor one." Looking up in the night sky at some satellite, lets say with an orbital Earth 1. The ship's mass (and yours) would be infinite 2. Space in front of you would be infinitely small 3. Your time to an outside observer would be infinite velocity of 5 miles per second, there is a relativity factor change of just 1.000000000360219—a totally miniscule relativistic movement. Consider that under these conditions (relativity factor infinity) even one atom would take on infinite mass, filling up the entire universe 348 349 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON with itself. Yet what is nonsensical for matter is completely normal for Light. As said, Light exists at relativity factor infinity. Having zero mass, ty. As an absolute, if you will. Man's intuitive sense of this "fixity" against the flux of things indicates a deeply embedded knowledge of this "other" infinite multiplication means nothing to Light. With an infinite negation time. Even without knowing it consciously man has always been measuring of space before it, in itself it traverses no distance. Its participation in time IS only that of infinite time. At the threshold of the interiority of Light, there is nothing we can say other than that it inhabits the Time of Origination/Origination of Time. the past and future against the eternal moment of the Present embedded in Light. This a priori knowledge is what differentiates man from the animal kingdom. It's not to say that by this trait he is automatically better or high er or anything of the sort (since he surely can and does sink far below the It s not my intention to dally on these famously esoteric warpings, and being neither intelligent enough to be surprised by them, nor good- animals, and brings disgrace upon the animal kingdom every time he tries natured enough to be particularly excited by their "wacky-ness," I am not "nature.") But same as he sees what light discloses to his eyesight without the person to do their further exposition any justice. But I bring all this up in order to illustrate something extraordinary about a very ordinary thing. Logic tells us that in order to notice the chronological "passage" of the time we know of, man must be participating both in chronological time and somehow in something standing outside of it—something "fixed." Once upon a time, this would have seemed an abstract metaphysical princi to ennoble his sinking into sub-humanity as something having to do with necessarily knowing about light's mass-less, timeless, spaceless state, by his nature man is also an inhabitant of a world of the two times (one fixed and eternal, the other a flux of incremental periodicity), even if he, now at least, only consciously and expressly admits of one of them. (Later on we will relate this to a discussion of the Pythagorean table of opposites, specifically how the concepts of the Limited and Unlimited applies to light and sound). ple at most,^ but with Einstein's understanding of To draw this discussion of the two times out further and to give Light we now have an empirical reference to the us a working vocabulary, from Orthodox Christian praxis there is a notion existence of just such a constant. At least here empiricism confirms what man has already always known, but how has he that I think could be useful here. Just prior to the Liturgical event, after all experienced this knowledge? He might be right to roll his eyes at us and ful chant the doxology, the deacon announces the words from Psalms 119 whether speaking of Lao Tzu, Aristode r Suhrawardi. T " U 1 • • i r the petitions have been performed by the priest and deacon, and the faith simply point at the sun's movements, being satisfied that such cycles explain "Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio" ("It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act.") themselves, taking for granted the background against which the "passage To which the priest replies "Blessed is our God, now and forever and unto of time must be set even to make the observation. For if a man was exclu sively and unselfconsciously immersed in time passage, he would need the ages of ages. Amen." This annunciation at the beginning of Liturgy indicates that the time of the Liturgy is an intersection of chronological nothing to relate that motion to in order to call it the "passage of time."^ Nevertheless, in all of that, an inexplicable sense (Kronos) time with Eternal time (Kairos). "Kronos" is the chronological, of -fkedness- upon which man has always based his understandings has linrlpnial-.lv been vertical, holy time of immaterial things. Kronos time is the normal time of TCLS.rJ'ptSZ to knowledge of things related to / t h em a t e r i a l r e a l m , a n dn o e t i c k n o w l e d g e taken for granted. What I'm saying is that if relating to things of the immaterial and jr.. . JO divine realm. But without attempting to accounted for (i.e., noticed, not negated) this circumscribe the higher by the lower, Tm £ u r ' n -1 1 1, , . , ^ going to be fairly insistent on approachsense or IlXlty might not be all that misleadsome issues here from the lower way « n » 1 seeing. mg as a common sense notion. Perhaps it is after all directly akin to the mvisible fixity of Light velocity we have just learned about. Light being anchored into the Zero of itself, being timeless, yet precisely being rooted into that eternal moment, that eternal present, it grants the constant of 186,000 mps as the sure measure of universal veloci 350 horizontal, worldly time of molecules, and "Kairos" is non-sequential, history, of "chronicles," of "chronology," of things coming into and going out of existence. It is the time of sequential events, of unfoldment from past-into-future marked by the interaction of sun and earth in increments/ days. There's a continuity with pre-Christian notions here, since the preSocratic God Chronos, or "Father Time" was personified as the spinner of the outer circumference of the wheel of time, the zodiac. Chronos was an incorporeal God not subject to time's ravages, though his later embodiment as Saturn in Roman times often emphasized the malefic and devouring properties of time. 351 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON By contrast, Kairos time is the timeless ever-Presem. It is the vertical and radial arm drawn from the circumference of the spinning wheel of Kronos time to the center which is completely at rest.® This is the "Sabbatical" time contingent to nothing, eter nal—a "beginningless" Present as much as an s As ¡f to light our way, we are given the or the star of David with its six representing the days of creation tracing the circumference of the circle of 1" '^e center of this circle/star we 7 t h point, t h e seventh D a y , t h e Sabbath, at rest precisely because Hke the wheel, it is motionless. Its much more than a coincidence that we 'endless" one. All chronology has its origina„ . . . . tion m Kairos. Things partaking of beginnings j j . L - r 1 1 - 1 - and endings begin irom and end m this Eternal ^ • • 1 • •J 11 Í • r 1 resent. Kairos is also incidentally the time of the invisAle ¡»tenority of Ught at relativity factor infinity. As we have seen with Einstein X " wSX' this IS not really the abstraction it sounds like, but is quite empirically true. Through Light we have one elegant way of actually seeing that this ineffable time is not wholly aloof and distant from us, but rather that there is an intimate interaction between its interiority and its outer manifes tation in velocity as a photon.' Considering But in order to honor music's strength as a (if not the) medium of har monic sympathies and antipathies, if the properties of the medium are to be wielded with any sense of effectiveness, I think it is essential to ground that nature into a context. Therefore, seeking the solid ground of the tried-and-true, timeless-yet-intergenerational Wisdom, I will expand a little further on the subjects above by illustrating some of the explicit teachings on the intersections of Kronos and Kairos time. What can it tell us that mankind has always either implicitly or explicitly noticed the existence of both times, and even passed on wisdom directly relating to both? For example, what can it mean to our subject that Adam, prototype of humanity, makrathropos, was originally fash ioned in Kairos Time, and subsequently enfleshed in Kronos Time? What we are dealing with here is the original conception, unsullied by fancy esoteric ephemeral allegorical interpretations that recast Adam as a neb ulous immaterial all-possibility of archetypal man-ness. But there is a S property at relativity tactor infinity again, much deeper dimension to it. Pre-Fall, from the simplicity of his own free will, Adam is entirely and unselfconsciously conformed to God's as described above, we can see clearly in it the intersection between the two times." On the one hand, light is in chrono will. God's image is beheld in him; in his emptiness he is filled by God. In this way his existence is maintained above Kronos time—is never 9. "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was Hght." —Genesis i:j 1* L > i • • r • • logical time and defines the velocity boundary of the universe as a photon even subjected to it (because it doesn't even exist). The transgression traveling at 186,000 miles per second—a universal constant, the only truly and expulsion from Edenic Kairos time brings with it the advent of fixed clock. Yet on the other hand, the interiority of light revealed by it being at relativity factor infinity is a clear description of its inhabitation of Kronos time. Adam necessitates Kronos—necessitates death. In conse quence of eating of the Tree of Knowledge he suddenly perceived that Kairos time it recognizes no distance, no second, no moment of passage from past into future. It is ever-Present, in one eternal moment. he was naked—which is the precise moment that he took on flesh and entered chronological time. Some observers insist that the heaven- What is the glue that binds these two "modes" of Light together? As far as, I can tell, it is entirely appropriate to say that they are in Hypostatic union. They are never in isolation from one another. They are distinct, unmixed, yet one.'° 10. Which is also the Orthodox definition Being every bit as much of a lav-Derson bound "corpus resurrectionis" must be composed only of Light, which o ft h eH y p o s t a t i cu n i o no ft h et w on a t u r e s of Christ the Logos; i.e. full humanity (here, full participation in Kronos and having a beginning and ending) and full Divinity (fuU timeless and Essential unity with begjnningless and endless Ineffable God in Kairos.) . . . in patristics as I am a pseudo-astrophysicist, it is •••11 Similarly not my intention to provide a confusing 11 L 1 1 j j 1 | . . and Jiam-nanclecl pseuclo-catecnism in Ortliodox ...L theology here. My vocation is as a musician. Music is "mercurial" by nature, and to be sure it also participates in a kosmic tautology intertwining both the visible and invisible realms. The purpose of this paper is to draw that relationship out. 352 • . . . is an understandable objection in a climate of reflexive materialism. But the mystery is deeper than that. Adam is a flesh and blood man (with sense of touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste), who died in the machi nations of Kronos, and whose bodily composition is re-united with Kairos Time at resurrection. The whole point is that something "changes" in Heaven from pre-Fall to post-resurrection Adam. What changes is that the flesh participates in "Eternal Time." The mystery of Adam's restoration is bound up completely in his material and created nature in both realms. In our subject, the major significance of Adam's transgression is that it inaugurated into the kosmos the incremental rhythm of life and death. By the transgression the world 353 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON itself is made subject to chronology." In this L . we can see that procreation came as the only r 1 1 1 1 I T means tor the once-deathless human life, now It is interesting to note that rhythm itself begins with the increment of being see light, with a body that lives and dies, and yet He is also the deathless bom, because what is bom will die. This Creator of the universe, the Alpha and Omega, of one Essence with the establishest h ep r i m o r d i a lsubdivision. "chonologized," to combat against death. Generation of offspring is a kind of approximation of eternity necessitated by the advent of death, played out in chronological time. An individual life, the most basic and primordial increment, yields to continuity of species. On the one hand it yields its individual mortality to a higher sense of intergenerational survival through procreation. But on the other hand, if such a life has been kept in faith and the heightened purified state of Love for divine things, it yields its individ ungenerate, inconceivable, uncompassable Father in Kairos time." In co14. Contrary to popular misunderstand ing, there is no violation of Tawhid here, no shirk. The Trinity is of One Essence. God is One. 15. "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." —John 8:12 essentiality with the Father, the Logos exists just the same in the infinite relativity factor of Light; or rather, as is famously known. He is Light.'® The important thing to our point here is that Adam's dissolution and laying down horizontally in the coffin of death is restored beyond any idea of thaumaturgical resurrection in the world as an individ ual worldly incarnation over to the redemptive aspiration—quite exactly the hope of restoration to Kairos time. ual who will die again. Instead, Resurrection is seen here in its fullest sense How can we better conceive of this? That the intersection of the horizontal time with vertical time forms the pre-eternal glyph of the tion, to the vertical position in the eternal Present of Kairos time. We have cross is no coincidence. Quite obviously the crucifixion itself indicates the Kronos/Kairos intersection par excellence. At Golgotha ("place of the skull," the skull = Adam's) we are witness to the scene of the restoration of Adam from his mcremental dissolution in death. It is a change from tem porarily "having had a life" in a chronologipl mortality, to a restored nonincremental existence of ''having Life," eternal, in Kairos time. There's yet more to see here: in the one anointed to be crucified we have the bodily incarnation of a man whose fully human nature lives and dies, is "chrono logical," i.e. temporary/temporal, yet whose simultaneous full divinity is attested by Himself and everywhere in Orthodox Christian patristics. The gist is that here is a chronological man who lives and dies, simultaneously (resurgere "rise again") meaning restored to the original position/orienta shown that it is entirely appropriate that this is accomplished in the full radiance, splendor and power of Light.'' Let's hear it said better by St. Máximos the Confessor: "Some things began to be in time for they have not always existed. Other things did not begin to be in time, for goodness, blessedness, holiness, and immortality have always existed. Those things which began to be in time exist and are said to exist by participation in the things which did not begin in (emphasis added) To "exist by participation in the things !oU p. ï"""" whi^^h did not begin in time" is to adapt oneself to their nature, which is to become empty of co-substantial with the ungenerate, timeless Originator, the impossible-to- needless content. In this way the Thief, who is dying beside the man-Logos whose human death marks the intersection between Kronos and Kairos conceive-of Father.i^ The co-substantial Logos of 12. "I and the Father are one." —John io:}o time, becomes the first person to ask the Logos if he may follow Him into the Father being born as a man" (due to the 13. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the begin ning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." —John i:i-^ the Kingdom of Heaven. In a state of total openness and repentant empti fulfilling of the covenant by the first Saint, Mary ness, he beckons Him: "Remember me O Lord, when you come into your the Theotokos) is a phenomenon in Whose very Kingdom." I can't do justice to this remarkable formula. I just want to point out that the request being made is for God to "remember ME." To be a par being we witness the only full and complete inter section of Kronos and Kairos. Let's now recall the dual nature of Light, how it participates outward ly on the one hand in the chronological manifes tation of a "particle/wave" traveling at 186,000 mps, and on the other hand existing in spaceless, mass-less, timeless eternity. Very similarly, the Logos of God is He who as a man exists chronologically like Adam, with eyes that 354 ticipant is a two-way street: it implies that remembrance/anamnesis is not only an "I" that remembers "Thou" and recapitulates the intersection of worldly and heavenly Events in some one-way street from man to God; but as we saw with the deacon at the beginning of Liturgy, it is equally if not more-so an asking of "Thou" to remember "me" (or "us" in the case of Liturgy), and for a recapitulation of the Events of "my" life (Judgement) in 355 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON the hope for full participation in the Kingdom. To be "remembered by God" is to be received into the Divine Mind. It is to be raised like Adam from a powerless death in horizontal Kronos time into the upright vertical ity of Eternal Kairos time. Since by the acts under discussion the Time of death is said to have been abolished for man, even under the malefic sign of his own collusion with death, at least the potential for his own Adamic mtegrity has been recovered, and he is said to have been freed from the limit of time.'® 18. Reception of the Holy Spirit. Qf course any man can be like the other thief and refuse the Kingdom. But the portent we need for the purpose of this paper is clear enough: the transition from one time to the other is marked by the passing of Holy Friday, the 6th Day, with the completion of the six days work of Genesis heralded anew via the oth 19./0Ä« 19.30. erwise enigmatic phrase "It is accomplished."" Kronos time passes into the Holy time of Sabbath (7th Day, of stillness). Much more could be said here, but it would take us too far off topic. What is pertinent is that as we pass out of the Sabbath we have the recapitulation of the First Day (Sunday). Easter (Pascha) in the Christian East announces the endless/time less day of Resurrection. It is significant that the eternal Event of the Resurrection is conceived as Ogdoade, or "Octave of Easter" (Pascha). Anyone who plays music understands that after scaling up seven scale tones one arrives at the enharmonic recapitulation of the original note one octave Furthermore, it can be called eighth as being the icon of that eternal day of the age to come which will be the first and one not interrupted by the night." (St. Gregory the Theologian) Also: "That Sunday (Easter) was one of salvation; this one is the anniver sary of salvation; the former was the fi-ontier between the grave and the Resurrection; the latter is purely the one of the second cre ation, so that, like the first creation which began on a Sunday, (this is quite clear, since the Sabbath falls in fact seven days after it, being the rest from labors), so dhe second creation also begins on the same day, which is at the same time the first one inrelation to those that come after it, and eighth in rela tion to those before, more sublime than the sublime day and more admirable than the admirable day. It is, in fact, related to life above." (St. Gregory the Theologian) Dick illustrated subtly and brilliantly in his book Ubik, the eucharistie participation itself is the formula of Life against death; it is the anamnesis proscribed by the Logos, who by human death established the human hermeneutical rite of remembrance of eternal life.^"* The same sacrificial blood that dripped upon Adam's "Golgothan" skull for the restoration of the primordial man and woman to the Eternal timeless Present of Kairos, is ingested by believers as the life-force that 21. Perpetual/infinite Day illuminated by the Uncreated Light. restores the soul against the inherent entropy of Kronos time. 22. 52, the number of weeks in a year, is the Hebrew enumeration for the word BeN, "Son," which is itself twice the numerical value for the Tetragrammatron of Father (26), which may or may not be related to the 26,000 year precession of the equinox es, or "Platonic Year." It is significant that unlike Pythagorean- 23. "Taste and see that the lord is good; blessed is the manwho takes refuge in him." —Psalms 34:8 24."TO0TO noieîTE eiq Tiiv éfii^v áválivnoiv," —Luke22:19;I Corinthians 11-24 derived music centered on a seven mode system. Orthodox Byzantine music operates on a system called "Octoechos," a system of eight (octo) modes/tones (echoi). To be sure, in other musical aspects parallels with other systems can be found, but the structure of Octoechos is a singular phenomenon so far as I am aware. Later on this paper will explore some of the physical, conceptual and spiritual issues arising in the displaced. In exactly the same way, the "8th Day" recapitulates the Pascha/Easter (the day beyond day-ness," the Day of Resur-rection in formalization of human understandings of intonation. Kairos) on the first Sunday after it, Thomas Sunday. It is simultaneously the ing most of our encounters with Christianity in the west), none of the first Day (Sunday, since the 7th Day is Shabbot) and the chronological remembrance/anamnesis of the last or 8th" Day, both being the same Day in Kairos.^° Sunday becomes the chronological Events of this dramaturgy are confined to the Kronos time of history,^® icon of the eternal Day of Kairos,^' outside time, with the Liturgical Event as its anamne sis, its complete and total recapitulation (by free will participation). Thomas Sunday (the "Eighth Day") becomes the first day of fiftytwo more Sundays^^ in a year where we, in our tendency to doubt and forget, are invited to 20. "Of all things in this world, unquestion ably the greatest work, surpassing all human understanding, is the Resurrection of our Lord which we celebrate and renew not just once a year, but every week contin uously. The first of this event is the present Sunday which should be called by a special name, both eighth and first. Eighth because it is the eighth day after Easter and the first because it is the beginning of other ones. Needless to say (and contrary to overwhelming confusions regard but are ever-Present in the hierohistory of the eternal Moment.^' At the inauguration of the Liturgical Event ("Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio"— "It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act") the full remembrance of the primordial matrimony between the incorporeal to the corporeal, between 25. Although this does not at all negate the Incarnation, as Arian anti-historicity would have it. 26. One of the many reasons one must finally reject Ariansim and Valentinian Gnosticism. the Uncreated and the Created, is being prepared in Heaven and on Earth. This particular sense of kosmic sympatheia will be useful to us in our discussion of other musical applications of the notion of sympatheia. "touch" the Realities for ourselves and be restored to them.^J As Philip K. Music and prayer, praises sung to Divinity: all prayer is anamnesis. But the 356 357 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON Liturgical anamnesis (Liturgy = work for the common/public good) is the gnomon is placed around the binary Dyad (two points, even) making an group praxis against the forgetful tendencies in our own souls. This idea will oblong shape, one unit tall, two units wide (1:2). Extrapolating from this be important for our understanding of what it is that constitutes actual musical harmonia. (adding units according to the shape of the gnomon), in the case of the Monad/odd, according to the stable shape of the square edge we expand If nothing else we hope we have illustrated the way some (Orthodox) Christian conceptions of Time in its unmanifest and manifest dimensions from one to three units: stable/square proportions between edges are only dovetail with our modern conception of the different modes of Light. By the three units produces 2:2 square edges (two horizontal units, two verti introducing these two poles of discourse in this manner we can now more cal units, with one unit shared by both at the corner). Adding to the gno easily approach some of the more challenging aspects of the musical subject at hand. mon squares edge in odd units, five units produces 3:3 square edges (three Opposition and Harmony: The Limited and Unlimited It s now time draw the reader's attention to the peak of Pythagorean ten sions (the top of the Table of Opposites) where we can be instructed in the relations between categories of opposition. Opposition itself, as we will see in Heraclitus, is the genesis behind even the notion of Harmonie. But before maintained as the figure extends out from 1, 3, 5, 7 units, etc. In this way, horizontal units, three vertical units, with one unit shared in the corner). And so on, seven units producing 5:5, nine units producing 7:7, etc. We see clearly that these extensions are "limited" by the shape of the square. But now for the second case, the Dyad/even. Squaring two units off we have an oblong shape whose proportion is 1:2. Squaring four units of we have an oblong shape that is 2:3 (two units tall, three units wide, with one shared in the corner). The proportions we see emerge are infinitely variable with the we get to that we will benefit much from exploring some of the intriguing addition of each two units to the gnomon. The shape and horizontal/ver- working dynamics of the Pythagorean oppositions.^^ Capping the list often oppositions is the Limited and Unlimited, often translated as the finite and infinite, but 27. For brevity, we are forced to assume such that six units produces 3:4, eight units produces 4:5 and so on. In this 1J..J jTTr*i- ' tJie L,imited and Unlimited is a better way to ,1 • 1 /-• • 1 • 11 1 t. . tnink or It. C-onsidering the lengthy discussions ^ general familiarity with the Pythagorean notion of the "Harmonia of the Spheres" as well as the Platonic cosmology Timaeus. tical ratio changes proportion as the figure extends out from unit quantities, way we get an endless series of never-proportionally-repetitive rectan gles, i.e. 5:6, 6:7, 122:123, 526:527, ad infinitum. In this case the "square," i.e. the Limited refers to a stable equiv we have just had regarding the opposition of alence of geometric proportional values as odd numbers are extended Kronos time (Limited) and Kairos time (Unlimited), illustrated in harmo nious relationship in Light, I doubt I need to hammer the obvious and through the shape of the square gnomon; and the "oblong," i.e. the Unlimited refers to infinitely variable proportional values as even numbers rewarding implications here much further. But suffice it to say that in the are extended into oblong shapes according to gnomon. This very simple and next section we will apply this same fundamental principle to the opposi tion between Silence (Unlimited) and sound (Limited), and search for the "harmonic relation" between them (it's there). incredibly interesting ways, both in terms of ideas of musical resonance (a harmony between the Limited and the Unlimited approaches to intonation It's very interesting how some elements of the Table of Opposites describe and refer to each other. We can see an explicit relationship in regard to the Limited and Unlimited with another pair on the Table of Opposites, the one belonging to the device of Square and Oblong numbers, and yet another, that of Odd and Even (the Table has ten principles with twenty opposites). The device used in the case of Square and Oblong numbers is the gnomon (carpenter s square). It is placed around the first singular point, the Monad (one point, odd) making a square of one unit per side (1:1). Then the 358 basic property of numbers has massive ramifications that I feel correlate in we will see below) and in terms of some basic but overlooked orientations of Philosophy,^® or even for example, the 28. In a cosmological sense Plato, with his non-immanent transcendent creator god, i • i • i i • i i relationship between cataphic and apophatÄ'lTü,™ £ îsr i': theology- More on that later. My postulate for now is simply that there is a musical understanding appropriate to each principle, and perhaps there is even at times even a harmonic relationship between the two. To get into this we will need to finally begin dealing with the notion 359 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON of Harmony," and the three discernible senses of this word from antiqui musical terms, with reference to "mode" and "scale" and "composition," all ty. First, in the works of Homer and Heroditus, its usage is derived from a cases where the forces of entropy acting upon an instrument's physical/res- root meaning literally "to join" or "to fit together" in the physical sense of carpentry and building. The second and more figurative sense of Harmony onant properties will be at odds with the ideals set before the musician; adapting his instrument to scale, mode, motif, song. The next question is "is is developed as a concept of hostile parties coming to agreement. It is pre the musician himself in tune?" He is as equally a part of the hylic universe cisely from this sense that Heraclitus, direct ancestor of the Stoics, devel as his instrument, but he also participates in the world of the Soul, which is oped a notion of Harmony that was rooted in the principle of opposition: a world where things can also be either in or horribly out of tune (though People do not understand how that which is at variance with itself agrees with itself. There is a harmony in the bending back, as in the cases of the bow and the lyre."2' in a deeper and more subtle way than in strict physical resonance). The The original and correct term is "back- s'. Heraclitus. turning (palintropos), not "back-stretching" / I * 30 ChariesH. Kahn, - v i o fH e r a c l i t u s , 1^. 1 ^ 6 . (palmtonos), but we will return to that in a truth is that we can go very far (in fact completely off the deep end as I have done) contemplating and implementing certain implications of the Pythagorean cosmogony on both a "hylic" and "pneumatic" plane. We'll get into that a Httle bit. But of particular interest to the point at hand is the simple idea of the harmonization of the opposition of Limited and moment.î°The idea here is that the arms of the bowman pull in opposite Unlimited, found most readily in the fragments of the Pythagorean directions, and the tension of the string working against the bow results in the desired harmonious" flight of the arrow: through an application of force m opposite directions, a joining together and agreement of purpose is 31. The principle is edified in Philolam, Fragment 3: "Harmony is generally the result of contraries; for it is the unity of multipUcity, and the agreement of discor- t"s i68,Guthne,F.deier. made.^^ With Hesiod this idea is extended further, i: »• 1 j i ngUratlVely, tO gOdS, SUch aS the personified «T3 T • » 1 -i 1 r . power OÍ Keconciliation, child of Ares and Aphrodite (Theogony 937), and in Empedocle», significantly, with the explicit naming of Aphrodite as Harmonie, counterpart to "Strife and Conflict, the principle of proportion and agreement which creates a harmonious unity out of potentially hostile powers."^^ It's probably significant that Plutarch, when quoting the Heraclitan fragment above ° ' changed the word "back-turning" (palintro/>oi) chad^H. Kahn, neAn and nought Of HeraclituSy^. Philolaus.^^ It's easy (and admittedly has been 33. "The worlds nature is a harmonious compound of Limited and Unlimited elements; similar is the totality of the world in itself, and of all it contains (DKi)." —Philolaus, Fragment i [Strobaeus, 21. 7; Diogenes Laertius, 8.8^) The Pythagorean Sourcebook, 168, Guthrie, Fideler. somewhat rewarding for me) to get hung up on rigid adherence to the properties of physical resonance, conceived as a kind of skeleton key of universal harmonics implied by the ratiobased intonations of Pythagorean musical theory. However, I am qualified to say at this point that a living tradition rooted into the actual practice of these somewhat all-encompassing funda mentals, such as the Persian Dasgah system, is an entirely different matter than when, in the absence of the cultivated grace of "radif" (repertoire), this line of thinking leads to a kind of materialistic idolatry of the "magical" power of resonance, tempered only by one's individual phantasia. What is perhaps a salvific formula for someone like myself, who is neither a lifelong apprentice of the Dasgah system nor a neognostic resonance materialist or to back-stretching (paliníonoí) to fit the more usual sense of a bow being pneumatic astral plane gymnast championing the Faustian genius of "my fit with an arrow. With the term Palintonos Harmonie (back-stretched har own" discoveries, is that it is yet quite another thing to attempt to under mony) we have a very early usage of the term tonos, which very interestingly is the ancestor of our english word "tone," but here is simply is used stand the cosmogenic principles behind the proposed harmonization of things such as, for example, square and oblong numbers. If one contem as a principle of tension and stretching. This will turn out to be very impor tant for the overlap of musical and cosmological concepts among the Stoics. plates deeply enough the question of what it means for such an opposition to be "harmonized," this itself should lead to seeking a cure to any tempta The third and musically figurative sense of Harmony and "reconcihation" will be plain to anyone who has ever tuned a musical instrument or tried to play one in tune. Pindar offers the term "Harmonie" in openly tion to a strictly physical resonance-o-centric idolatry. To elaborate, we can plainly see in the example of the circle of 5ths that the "circle" part of the question has been imposed by mathematics. 360 361 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON Sound itself following the natural harmonic proportion of the 5 th does not actually return to the same place. It is "off" by a "remainder" (if that is how we are forced to think about it^"), which is 34. Archytas introduced the mathematical called the Pythagorean "comma" or koma.^® world was founded—that is, of the Limited and Unlimited elements. Now Thus, taking the interval of the 5 th established course, the things that were similar, and of similar nature, did not need har as a "harmonic mean" as our "gnomon" (see note 34), and proceeding basically with the general principle of "squaring," the natural intonation is revealed to have been "squared off" (by harmonic mean) in order to fit into the pattern of a circle. This imposed pattern of idea of the harmonic mean, which opened up many possibilities for man's alteration and adjustment of natural phenomenon to suit his own purposes. In the particular case of music, the harmonic mean opened up the possibility of polyphony by adjust ing the proportions of tonality to remain consonant across octaves. 35. Note that the shape of a comma is a spiral as opposed to a circle—the remain der, or difference,constituted by the comma is the amount the harmonic progression is "off" with regard to it not being a circle. parallel circularity fits the description of since these principles are not mutually similar, nor of similar nature, it would be impossible that the order of the world should have been formed by them in any manner whatever unless harmony had intervened. Of mony; but the dissimilar things, which have neither a similar nature, nor an equivalent function, must be organized by the harmony, if they are to take their place in the connected totality of the world. . . From statements like this I believe it is 36. Philolans, Fragment 4, Pythagorean Sourcebook, 168, Guthrie, Fideler. possible to finally begin to appreciate the impor tance, centrality and motivation behind the fundamental expressions of music. When we stop to consider that man is the mediator between know- Limited very nicely. I would defend this operation against attack so long able and unknowable realities, between created and Uncreated existences, as one is aware that he is doing it (i.e. imposing "limitation" for whatever and that his very existence is the "mesocosm" of harmonization between reason, and for the case of polyphony it makes sense to do it). At the same these two realities, we can begin to appreciate why his dramatic role in the time, the unaltered extension of the natural harmonic proportion of the 5th creates not a circle but a spiral. The issue of the "comma" (see note 35) refers universe can become so intimately understandable in musical terms. Man as exactly to the natural harmonic progression based on 5ths (here using the natural 5 th as our gnomon instead of the 5 th produced by harmonic mean). This progression arrives into the kosmos unahered as an unlimited spiral, as opposed to a hmited circle. In cycling through the twelve tones of the progression of 5ths it does NOT return to the same place. In this sense, the Pythagorean progression being the natural empirical fact, we must say it has t\it priority over what came after it, i.e. the conditioned mathematical limitation of the circle. Furthermore, just like the example of the Oblong in the harmonizer between finitude and infinitude^^ I . . . . . I . -y puts him in a unique situation his contemplar TT •r • tion ot opposition and Harmony, it it takes place on this level, ought to draw him empty-handed • • 1 1 1 37. "and as harmonizer of pro-active mentai boundary-making at the same time as being the (potential) receiver of noetic Um- kenoús." and open-Hearted to the threshold of a two-fold observance. If he has one foot in the "knowable" and another foot in the "unknowable," and if he is to be whole,^® he must place both his feet on a 38. A word that shares etymology withthe word "Holy" 1 1 • 11 1 • * road that incorporates both an apophatic via relation to the Square, what we see with the comma is an infinitely spiralling negativa and a cataphatic path of affirmation. The two already naturally meet as One in him, but they can become harmonic progression, according generally with the ever expansive nature estranged. Since it is plain that a kind of musical harmonization is what of the Oblong, against the predictable parallel geometrical repetition of binds these things together, it should come as no surprise that music itself the Square. But even more tellingly, the spiralling harmonic progression fits the description of the "Unlimited" perfectly—just as the circling har monic progression based on harmonic mean accords with the "Limited" equally perfectly. can also play a decisive role in their estrangement. We will address that issue This is the state of affairs concerning Nature and Harmony. The Being of things is eternal; it is a unique and divine nature, the knowledge of manifestation as visible light, Light behaves according to Limitation—for it establishes the velocity limit of the universe itself. Furthermore, Light as a which does not belong to man. Still it would not be possible that any of the things that exist, and that are known by us, should arrive to our knowledge if this Being was not the internal foundation of principles of which the knowable phenomenon is perceived by our limiting instruments and con cepts as a kind of irreducible ambiguity between a wave and a particle. Yet 362 363 at the end of the paper. To conclude this section we will benefit from once again taking notice of the example of Light. In its visible dimension, its "cataphatic" in the invisible, unknowable "apophatic" dimension of Light's own interi- SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON ority, it is Unlimited—timeless, spaceless, eternal and infinite. As engaging as that IS, and as naturally as we have been led to also appreciate the two dis terms of the Sabbath—the sense of all the motion of a wheel's spinning mobile circumference ceasing to be registered as movement at its center, its tinct properties of harmonic proportion, one Limited, the other Unlimited, Heart. It's for this reason that Hesychasts''^ doesn't the idea of sound itself also partake of something of all this? Isn't the positive manifestation of sound "limited" in the sense of having a begin 39. Also being bound to molecules in sound waves, with a speed limit, and entropiedispersionreducingthemalways back to nothing. ning and an end?^' Contrasting this against the • negative, « 1 • » apophatic j- dimension of Silence, 41. Hesychasm engage in an intense ascetic method of deep is a tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox monastic and church tradition dating back to at least the 4th century, and has been being practiced continually from then even into modern times. ... inward vigilance called Hesychazo (liouxâ^œ) , tO KCCp StlllneSS. llllS inVolvCS 3. Complete which IS begmmngless and endless, i.e. Unlimited, retiring of the senses and passions, a retreat and cessation of all forms of emotional, psychic or kinetic activity, in order we find ourselves, human beings that is, once again at the center of another major cosmological dynamic. One dimension to enter fully into a state of pure emptiness, pure receptivity and Silence and openness to God. In (Orthodox) Christian doctrine, God the Father is of reality is accessed and even given the property of "limitation" by the conceived of, or rather not conceived of, as being utterly boundless, dimen- affirmative mental process, i.e. by the sounding board of "knowing" appro sionless, description-less, impossible to circumscribe in any way, shape or priate to molecules and interaction. The other dimension of unlimited form. No positive statement can be anything but misleading regarding God Silence is only really accessed by "unknowing," un-hearing, which modern the Father, which is why the only type of theological statement that can L ' I ' I • • i i ii • t t i - . . man is less (if not totally) unfamiliar with. It's another order of "knowl really apply to Him is "apophatic," meaning a negation, or an expression of edge" called noetic, which is appropriate to things beyond molecules and what He is not. But this does not mean we cannot have any knowledge of interaction of any kind. Wisdom Tradition always seats the portal to noetic God the Father. On the contrary. Experiential knowledge of God is the reality in the Heart, where access to the UrJimited is granted by the kenot- very goal of Hesychastic practice. But the nature of that knowledge is not ic emptying our*° of "self-ness" into Silence. This circumscriptive, it is not mental knowledge of an object, it is much deeper something approached only through rigorous practical discipline and the supervised methodol and more intimate than that. It is "noetic" knowledge that does not origi ogy related to "apophatic unknowing"—the via negativa transmitted exclusively by Holy Tradition. There can never be any benefit in decontextualizing it. within ourselves, from our very center (the Heart), which is like the ever- psychic activity. The proper trajectory of approach, one that incorporates both dimensions (cataphatic and apophatic), is something sublime far beyond my nate from an external source, but rather comes from the deepest part motionless hub of a wheel. The Intelligence of the Soul, called the Nous, has its seat precisely there in the stillness of the center, or Heart.''^ To Orthodox Christians this is the highest faculty of cognition, 1 I J.» the bodiless ((fyy 1 r 1 OI 1 1 1 1 c the soul that by the Grace or 42. It's said that the Soul (psyche) is shared between the mind and the Nous. capacity to convey properly But there can be no doubt that its nature and God partakes of the limitless: praxis has been developed, maintained and embodied with coherence and "Hesychasm is the enclosing of the bodiless primary Cognitive fac ulty of the soul in the bodily house of the body." Saint John of Sinai— Ladder, Step 27, 5 consistency by the Hesychast Fathers. As we touch on the Silent dimension in the next section, we will have to tread lightly, since I am not only dismally incapable of doing the Fathers justice, but am also terrified of confusing anyone with fancy ideas when what is called for is utter simplicity, which as anyone can see, is not exactly my personal forte. The Silent Partner The Greek word Hesychia (nouxia) generally means Silence. It also im plies stillness and being "at rest," in the sense that we spoke of earlier in 364 This enclosing is a matter of setting the bodily house in order by actively cleaving to the primary cognitive faculty. The secondary cognitive faculty^', the mental process, tends to be oper43. "The soul (Psyche) does not have the N<™sassomed.¡i.gdis(ínctfíomit«lf.but • 111 1 ^ting Constantly, whether we are awake or -St. John Damascene: (see footnote 44). Ae same. The undisciplined secondary faculty loves to usurp the primary position, with the result that the Nous just 365 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON "sleeps" in the background. The enemies of noetic activity are bodily pas 44. "In diligent exercise of mystical con templation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non-being, that you may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him who transcends all being and all knowl edge. For by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and of all things you may be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness." —Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology^ Chapter i 45. This is the Light of the Transfiguration, seen by Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor {Matthew 17:1-2, Mark 9:2, Luke 9:28-36). It was not something "new** that Christ showed to them, but the ever-pre sent Uncreated Light of His eternal Divine nature. This is something which His human incarnate nature normally obscured from human senses. Uncreated Light is an "unapproachable light" for any created being. It belongs entirely to the "apophat ic" dimension; yet even so, if God so chooses, even the dimmed perceptions of humans can be opened to receive the ener gies of God—through fleshy eyes, as seen with the Events onTabor. Again, this is the Light of the 8th or Eternal Day. 46. The Hesychast tries to attune his facul ties to limitlessness abnegation—to restrict and nullify any obstruction to pure recep tivity, pure stillness and darkness. By this he hopes to receive God's energies shining in his Nous, by Grace. On Mount Tabor Peter, James and John had their Noetic Eyes opened by revelation alone, and beheld the very same Uncreated Light. Either way, if a person's Noetic Eye is per mitted to gaze upon the Uncreated Light, the Eternal Day, whether by prayer of the Heart or revelation as on Tabor, this is essentially the same thing as saying he is being united to God through His energies. sions and restlessness, mental fixations and com articles of Orthodox praxis is placing the thumb and first two fingers together to indicate the Trinity, and to draw them from the forehead to the pulsions, and any kind of imaginative concep Heart/center/Nous, and then go from the right shoulder to the left in the tions, whether invited fantasies or uninvited shape of a cross. It's an act known in the west as "crossing the Heart." We intruders. By intentionally, rigorously putting everything in these categories "to sleep," by aim spoke earlier of Hesychasm as the enclosing of the "bodiless primary cog ing for Stillness and Silence through Noetic crossing one's Heart not only indicates this very clearly, it also expresses prayer, Hesychastic practice aims at the awaken and enacts a very potent praxis of "setting of the bodily house in order." nitive faculty of the Soul in the bodily house of the body." The gesture of ing of the Nous.'*'* The Hesychast who has "died The first act or stroke in this gesture is the movement from head to Heart. to the world" in this way hopes for the Light of This movement is literally the intended subjection of the secondary cogni the dawn of Eternity to break—it's a kind of liv tive faculty of the Soul (the power of reason/dianoia and logos which is ing "death" whose solution (by the Grace of God) seated in the mind), to the primary faculty of noetic consciousness in the is Resurrection. To approach this unapproachable Nous. If the primary is the horse, and the secondary is the cart, there is topic from another important angle, it's said that the Soul of man is created in God's Image. The one of the means by which the faithful wrestle all the forces working good reason to insist on putting the cart behind the horse! "Crossing" is waters of man's Soul can only become placid and reflective of this Divine Image when he puts his against the proper ontological priority (the bodily passions, the mental passions and mind to complete Stillness. ty of the Nous). It's also quite significant and appropriate that the line drawn from head to Heart is vertical, constituting the vertical dimension of Significantly, to receive this Image, to behold it, is to noetically behold the Uncreated Light."*® Here activity, the imaginative fantasy, all repeatedly pushed behind the authori Kairos time—after all we are dealing with noetic cognitive faculty applied then is the meaning of the opening of the "Eye of to what is limitless and uncircumscribable, being itself potentially the the Heart"—it is the Noetic "awakening" in the ever-Present morning of the Soul."*^ Man's shares awakened Eye of the Heart that sees the Uncreated Light, the timeless and in the limitless Divine Intellection through his Nous, which is the direct participation of his Soul ture to the horizontal gesture, gracefully indicating the priority of Kairos (Eternal Present) time to secondary Kronos (past and future) time. It's in God's energies through its reception of Uncreated Light."*^ good to point out that the opposition here is blatantly manifest in the per pendicularity of these conceptions (above to below against right to left, "For a man to attain this experience, vision of the uncreated Light, which is identified vertical inconceivable God against horizontal conceivable creature), but with deification, it is not a matter of developing his reasoning and loading his brain with knowl form together. A similar depth according to the principle of opposition is the edge, but a fruit of his purity, of his nous return ing to the heart, and illumination of the nous.""*® general Hebrew genius that brought the Qabalistic Tree of Life into geo metrical being. The orientation of the first Sefirah (Keter) is that it is the one To guard against the impression that this is all some lofty "esoteric" secret doctrine sequestered away on Mount Athos to hide it from simple believers,'" I want to just mention one thing. One of the primary closest to God and tends infinitely in the direction of the Good. By contrast 366 367 47. Considering everything that has been said up to this point, to me this whole thing is stunning beyond all imagination. 48. Metropolitan Hierotheos of Na^aktos, The Mind of the Orthodox Church. 49. To be sure, true Hesychasm is not encouraged or taught much outside of a rigorous monastic setting, and there are very good reasons for that which I person ally couldn't agree more with. eternal dimension. Similarly appropriate is the priority of the vertical ges they are harmonized in absolute Unity and balance in the intersection they the Sefirah in the last position (Malkhut) is the farthest away from God, and tends infinitely in the direction of Evil. The vertical line that unites these two Sefirot is called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil {Genesis SPRUANCE 50. Sefer Yetzirah: The Book p. 46, Aryeh Kaplan. of Creation, HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON 2:9).^ The comiection between the fìrst and the persistent mental construct), the fact remains that in our universe any two last Sefirot shows the causal Sefirah Keter (Crown) events taking place non-simultaneously together establish an increment—a as beginning and the receptive Sefirah Malkhut prior/anterior event and a later/posterior event. A "before" and an "after." (Kingship) as ending.^i This vertical line has the priority with respect to the formation of the rest of the Tree. The next and Even light, what we see of it anyway, stubbornly flows along time's pas sageway from the past into the future at a duration we can observe and secondary event of opposition is the horizontal line of linear time extending measure. To be sure, we have great flexibility in our understanding and between the Sefirah Chakhmah and the Sefirah Binah. Here we have usage of time. Musicians can command time into almost any shape we want another perpendicular event intimately related to the two times; Chakhmah to see it bend into by imposing an almost infinite array of limiting devices, (Wisdom) acts as pro-active past and Binah (Understanding) acts as recep tive future. "The Present is the interface between these two Sefirot,"®^ and is or "gnomons." Time measured differently from bar to bar; steady time that is regular like a heartbeat; irregular time that is warped and curved in their harmonization. Once again chronological accelerandos and ritardandos; metric-modulations, poly-rhythms; time that time is brought into interface with the timeless is cyclical and repetitive, time that is linear and un-repetitive; modular time, Time of God by a perpendicular bisection, in this case by the vertical line of the Tree of Knowledge.®^ un-subdivided ratio-based time. It's a wonderful and open universe of pos It would take us too far afield to go into the in the abolition of linearity or of mental constructs. Neither will "escaping incredibly rich details to be found here, never division" or "moving beyond time-with-a-direction" take place musically mind that I am not a qualified person to even talk much further than these cursory notes, but we through the gestures we have become accustomed to. But must the "con 5\. Sehr Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, p. 58, Aryeh Kaplan. 52. Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation, p. 240, Aryeh Kaplan. 53. There is a whole wonderful develop ment of the apophatic nature of the roots of this Tree extending into "negative exis tence" through the quasi-Sefirah Da'at (Knowledge), and the Sabbatical/Eternal/ at-rest time that extends from the centrahty of this quasi-Sefirah in the "restored" version of the Tree and the Sabbath Star diagrams developed by Aryeh Kaplan's student Leonora Leet, especially in her great book The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah: Recovering the Key to Hebraic Sacred Science. Her last book The Universal Kabbalah is really a disaster, however. ... should just mention that the convergence and sibilities. The question of the "timeless" in music will never be answered ceptual negation" of this particular question constitute its answer? Absolutely not.®® "harmonization" of the tendencies to Good and Let's not talk about the abolition of any Evil takes place in the mysterious implicit nega tively existent Sefirah Da'at (Knowledge). This Sabbatical Event occurs as a coincidentia oppositorum that unites and thing. Let's just talk about Silence and try to approach it with the proper attitude. Because it harmonizes the primary vertical opposition of Good (Keter) from Evil Unlimited that we find the wellsprings of Truth (Malkut), whose opposition itself harmonizes the secondary horizontal and creativity. These are not to be found in the opposition of past and future in the verticality of its Eternal Present. So here overpowering of Silence with unbridled passion again we have the priority of a vertical Time®^ and the secondary nature of the chronological time of past to future, form ate distraction in pure aesthesis and rationalized sensory indulgence, which only leads to walls of ing the glyph of the cross as a coincidentia oppositorum that resolves itself in its "center," Limitation being built that end up being incredi ^eJeeSda^rE!^." " is in the harmonization of the Limited and bly musically boring®^—neither are they to be and by apophatic means (Da'at is in fact the Sabbatical "stillness" at the "center" of the diagram, see note 53). found by exclusively and artlessly emphasizing "meditative" practices at the expense of (i.e. neglect Moving on to more applied musical territory, let us observe that our bodies and minds reside in time and space. It's natural to say that our ing harmonization with) a basic contextual aes music depends on the passage of time, and on the reverberating of bodies/ matter in space. Despite a few avant garde pretensions towards the abolish ment of linear time in music (which are at best capable of deconstructing a 368 thesis; I'm sorry but the iconoclastic reflex of abolishing all expressions of Limitation and focusing only on Promethean matters of the "pure spiritual alchemy" of the Unlimited misses 369 55. In California there are many quasimusical expressions supposedly crafted according to principles of various neoBuddhist ascesis, or neo-Anything, really. These musical expressions are just attached as "impressions" onto what we the listen er are supposed to accept as a depth of praxis residing at the core of the musical genesis. As we will see later on in a discus sion of Wagner, this constitutes a discon nection of music from what is considered to be Real; or it is at least a subordination of music to a kind of background/moodenhancing status, in order to simply embellish what is central, "masculine," noble and active (meditation, or in the case of Wagner, the text) from the position of a feathery "feminized" aestheticallyconfined periphery (music). If we recall what it is that seems to constitute a gen uinely timeless aspect to our musical expression explored in this paper, we can see that in reducing music to a realm of individualistic ephemera to simply provide a secondary running commentary for the primary and encompassing meditation, essentially music as brain farts, we are doing nothing but abandoning the original question. 56.1 will certainly go off on this pet peeve in the concluding chapter. SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON the basic point of the broader idea of harmonization.®^ Coming back to a more usual sense of the term, we can say that Süen» resides below the depths of every vibration, however low or 1*¡«ríS 5^1,XS» high (Hz), however loud or soft (db)—it is the "iH'. nc^^sarily Limited or Unlimited, or simuhaneously Limited and UnUmited; but they could not all be U n h m i t e do n l y . " — P h i l o l a u s( i B ) ^ ' ' "negative space" of all sound. The unironic , . . . zero of Silence, ancient and primordial, is yet and thundering advocate of Philolaus needs to be reminded sometimes that: the birth-giver to every positive value, every "new" sound. Silence is the womb of all, yet an unconcealed depth right out in the open, never as far off as it may seem. Everywhere music is made Silence is present. Because silence IS the Present. In fact, as musical gestures pass from the past to the future. Silence is the only ever-present component. Everything else fluctu ates. Much like our perception of light, our experience of Silence in time receives it as an ever-unfolding constant against which all things can be measured. But with Silence, opposing things (sounds) are seen in positive values instead of negative. To unpack this a little more, just as the speed of light is the positive velocity of photons and the velocity boundary of the universe against which all other motions can be measured (a velocity in which matter-based things themselves cannot participate but can only be imperceptibly, these gestures always maneuver their way back to the Silence from whence they came. Plato talks about time as a moving image of eternity.®® As musicians we are constantly dealing with a moving image, projecting moving sound images that have been conceived in linear time. It's much like the process of making and projecting actual films, but what what do musicians project their sound images on to? For the moving image of an actual film to make sense, it depends upon the stationary blank surface of a white screen. When it comes to pure Silence and vacuum in "black blacker than black" 58. And again we are haunted by the inter section of Eternal and Chronological time: "Now the nature of that Living Being was eternal, and this character it was impossi ble to confer in full perfection upon the generated thing. But he took thought to make, as it were, a moving likeness of eternity; and at the same time that he ordered the heaven, he made, of eternity that abides in unity, an everlasting likeness moving according to number—that to which we have given the name time." —Plato, Timaeus 37 blackness, any sound we'd project into it would of course simply be swal lowed up the instant it was made. But if we say we project these moving sound images onto a kind of liminal screen that exists somewhere between the linear unfoldment of spacetime and the timeless "uncarved block" of Silence, perhaps we are not stretching the truth too much. As we have been hinting, the human being himself stands between these two Realities, so he himself is a kind of liminal agent of both, and therefore also the receiver and measured in "negative" with respect to it). Silence establishes a similar uncrossable sound boundary of the universe. Silence is the Zero (whether interpreter of music which relies on both. Much like mankind's pre-scien- we speak of 0 db or 0 Hz) against which all vibration constitutes a "positive" value. This applies even to soundless harmonics in vacuum like that of orbits noisy world he seems to also be endowed with the ability to at least conceive and the like. But for the moment we'll just talk about our ears and bodily tific yet inexplicable appreciation of both dimensions of Light, in man's of Silence... but can he really know it? My theory is that he must already know it, at least a little, at least in his unconscious (or latent noetic con perception, the "mesocosm" of man where Silence seems to disappear at the moment a sound is made. sciousness), otherwise no music would be intelligible to him. Sure, we like The harmonization between sound and silence begins with the observation that every sound, but more importantly every musical expres only projections. There may be favorable or disfavorable reactions, but sion, begins by "breaking silence." When initiating its movement, music, that potentially most blessed counterpoint of silence, might abruptly assert its opposition in a blatant manner contrasting with the voidness of the a pri ori silent state of its origination. Or it can try to be more harmonious in itself, embracing that silence, working with it, taking it for a partner and gracefully emerging in and out of its arms in a dance of geometric admix ture. Billions of ways for a gesture in sound to be defined against the ever-present Silence are accepted by the human consciousness as musical. And just as surely, whether just as abruptly or just as gracefully or just as 370 to imagine that the animals react to music the same way we do, but these are intelligibility is another matter. On the other hand, it is certainly possible for humans to be blind to both or either the visible and the invisible reali ties (where animals can have real advantages), and to find entire sections of either of these realities "unintelligible." Even if the visible perception is healthy it's possible (and all too common to the point of being "normal") for someone to be handicapped with regard to one of many mental or noet ic processes relating to what is invisible—and this holds true vice versa; as when a visually blind person becomes remarkably more astute with regard to invisible realities (sounds, smells, touch and abstract reasoning). In just the same way, a person's ears can be functioning perfectly for the appre371 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON hension of sound, and he may be mentally or noetically handicapped with nance? Such an idea could only mean that both the amplitude and the respect to Silence—with the converse truth that a deaf person may by "note" or frequency that Silence is "tuned to" is Zero. To enter into "reso nature become remarkably mentally or noetically situated in the realm of nance" with Zero might not be a bad way (though neither particularly good Silence, something the rest of us have to battle for ad infinitum in order to way) to describe an process of emptying out, of inducing Silence and even "be there" at all. Stillness. Couldn't it be said that the motionlessness of Ineffable Silence can So I think there are certainly degrees of interaction between the produce the same motionlessness in something that is "tuned" to this modes of perception appropriate to each side of the equation. The follow Silence? Strictly speaking it would not be proper to call this "resonance," ing is a more speculative construct, but perhaps music can be said to be dif since Silence is an anti-acoustic phenomenon. But there is another, broader ferentiated from word that fits sound or "noise" because it takes place as harmonic or disharmonie®' moving sound images projected this overall situation well: Sympatheia ou|iná08ia. The word Sympatheia is from a combination of pathos syn, meaning LI n intentio„.lly vi. sound waves onto a kind of psy- "same," "together" or "of the same," and malleable to the^tjyicai reflex "tr^juation or all values that many would habitu- chic liminal barrier existing between the sound- "emotion." Though the idea certainly applies to and is extended in musical ally impose upon it. appreciating-capacity and Silence-appreciating- terms related to resonance (i.e. sympathetic strings), it has a longer overall capacity of the listener. I do believe that the nor reach. Musically speaking, in addition to physical resonance, Sympatheia ° meaning "passion" or mal human being is extremely sensitive to both of these things, and also also addresses the pathology of the listener,^® not (with Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, the CIA and Charles Manson) that var just his or her vibrating molecules. As with bod- ious impairments in either direction (whether physical or mental/psychic or ies in motion, the characteristics of the emotions a combination of both) can be impressed upon the soul through musical and passions may be brought into harmonization by the musical Object mediums. I had intended to write something here on the processes culmi affecting the listening Subject (and sometimes vice-versa)—this is in fact the I . 1 , 1 1 A • 1 1 J 60. Sympathes "having a fellow feeling, affected by hke feelings " nating in Wagner, and the fallout we live under, but have decided to save that most fundamental quality of music. The more general "laws of sympathy" rant for another time. Instead, it is time to conclude this paper by finally are demonstrated beautifully here: "like produces like," and our memory wrapping it together with a good look at the powerful notion of Sympatheia retains the impressions of a melody and the feelings related to it are recalled. (and a brief digression hastily charting the collapse of a worid that has inten This fact that everyone has experienced demonstrates lucidly a general tionally lost the ability to perceive its own Harmonic infrastructure). Sympathetic principle: an object that has been in contact with a sympathet ic subject, but having since ceased to be so, continues to have an "influence" Sympatheia on it at a distance. This is a slightly less empirical (or rather less material) "Resonance" occurs when one body in motion causes the same kind of motion in another. The motion of one body will resonate another body the same way if it is in the same or a similar state of tension (Tonos). Most musi cians are familiar with the phenomenon: when a stringed musical instru ment is played near another one finely-tuned in the same way, the strings of the second will vibrate and produce a like sound, even though nobody is touching it. "Acoustic resonance" is something that belongs to the catego ry of physics. It is a phenomenon of "like" sounds and kinetic movements and broader phenomenon than acoustic resonance, but no one would doubt that the phenomenon is very real. When a particularly emotive melody it is brought back to mind by the memory, who doesn't also recall some of its emotional impact, some of its trans-acoustic content? We might even go so far as to put purely-physical resonance as a secondary issue to this deeper and more primary feature of Sympatheia. In any event we can perhaps now begin to make sense of the idea, which before seemed like a paradox, of the likeness and affinity existing between those things whose "pathos" is united amplified by either direct contact or at a distance through a medium or, whereby the "like" movement passes from one body to another. But can we propose a kind of harmonization" of sound and Silence through reso 372 61. ánáeeia: freedom from all passions; for Stoics, a state of mind where one is free from emotional disturbance, i.e. peace of mind. in apathcia^^ i.e., no pathos. Here, if we say the human 373 . NoUS IS i i « • attUncd tO the VlbratlOH SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON of no vibration" (Silence), acclimating to the "motion of no motion" (Stillness), and seeks to enter into a shared apathos with the Ineffable, it is by a kind of Sympatheia that it must receive its fullness and depth. The human Nous cannot reach such depths on its own. Not even close. But by the principle of "like producing like" in Divine Emptiness, the dimension of it that is human and noetic can be said to receive the eternal Ineffable Event of the other that is utterly transcendent. Rooted into those considerations, yet now emerging on to a more interactive, worldly and dialectical level, let's consider Sympatheia in its more hoHstic definition as "affinity of parts to the organic whole, and mutu al interdependence."" Musically speaking, then, 62. "Sympatheia [refers] to the close con nection between different parts of the same body as a whole." —Katerina lerodiakonou. The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its Byzantine Appropriation in Michael Psellos, in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, edit ed by Magdalino and Mavroudi, p. 99. The quote continues in Stoic ideas that do not apply here, which we will treat of a little later: "or the close connection between everything in the world as a part of the world as a whole, or between the body of the world and its soul as parts of the world." to be in tune according to Sympatheia means for all parts to be united in pathology, purpose, intent and execution—as well as in pitch—and oriented to the locus of the whole. The idea converges beautifully in a remarkable metaphor of St. John Chrysostom. He describes hymnody as many tongues united in a single purpose and inclination, in the same way that a single instrument has many strings tuned differently yet not at odds with each other, but rather being utterly united as one: ent sound yet a godly harmony. . young, have different voices, but they do not <• 1 1 ing, in this case that which is enshrouded by Silence (which automatically implies an emptying of pathological content), perhaps only then can we even truly speak of being "in tune." In other words, perhaps we can only really be in tune with each other if we are in some way tune with Divine 65. There's potential for overstatement in that, but I think it's a wholesome overstatement. Silence.^® We are reminded here of Heraclitus' famous and bcautifully wordcd phrasc "nar. . . r > diner m the word of hymnody, for the Spirit andern plucked string instrument (kithara sounds suspiciously like "guitar") —commonly in patristic sources, the body = the instrument. stronger unseen than seen. Recalling offered to the transcendent, it goes without saying that everything depends upon deep inner listening. The unity of pathos, purpose, intent, etc. between members comes from this inner attention. Listening. The rest of the details (execution) are a simpler matter of outer attention, of unity in aesthesis. Unity or harmonization in pitch perhaps negotiates a kind of middle term, but the point is that it s all related; it s a tautological whole. In music we deal with Sympatheia on a very intimate level, because pathology can only be harmonized to a limited point by exterior listening alone; there will 374 harmony is Unseen timeless dimension, while secondary status is given to the "seen"/visible dimension. The double action of prayer in hymnody applies to this exactly: attentive listening in the "negative" inward dimension of Silence, takes priority over the simultaneous vocalizing outwardly in the affirmative of sound. The two acts pull in opposite directions, but (if done diligently) produce a harmonious result. If we briefly recall the Heraclitan principle of "Palintonos Harmonie" (back-stretched harmony), the idea of the bow and the string stretching in opposite directions of the arrow, the fundamental agreement here Moving on to the "tautology" of Tonality, the principle of stretching is embedded in our tonos ("a stretching, taut string.") This word came to mean pitch or key, literally On this level (hymnody), since it is a matter of prayers being » 7 and Kronos time, the priority here in Heraclitus is again given to the Greek word in all."" • the double action of Light in Kairos word Tone, which is from the aforementioned blends the voice of each and effects one melody 1 monie apnanes phaneres kreitton, is obvious.^ "For indeed women and men, old and 1 participant's attention and inner ear is turned toward the same inner listen to produce the "harmonious" event of the flight "Our tongues are the strings of our kithara,"putting forth a differ , inevitably be variance in temperament, ideas, interpretation, etc. If every related to the tautness of a string on a musical instrument producing a certain frequency or pitch. Byzantine and Orthodox music still retains the terminology of Tone when referring to what in the west we would call "mode." It makes excel lent sense to call a "mode" a Tone, because if you visualize an instrument with multiple strings tuned to different starting points of the same (properlyintoned) family of notes,^^ each of which produces 375 66. "...accounts of tonike kinesis as simul taneous motion in opposite directions, or alteration of two opposite movements, show why the Stoics felt it proper to asso ciate their concept with Heraclitus. He had repeatedly stressed that harmony is of opposites and this seems to be implicit in the Stoic's doctrine that the stability of the universe is constituted by the tension of the active principle—its contrary move ments which unite the center of the cosmic sphere with the circumference." —Stoic Sudiesy A.A. Long, p. 52. I have avoided commingling Stoic ideas of "tensile motion" (tonicê kinêsis) with the overall proposition here because there's a chance there's something inaccurate about look ing at that way (Stoic ideas of pneuma and an immanent god are incompatible with the priority of an entirely transcendent God). A 4th century Christian Bishop of Emesa in Syria named Nemesius spoke on this subject, but I'm just not sure what to think as far as applying it to music. In any case, with what we have drawn from Herachtus we are not hazarding any such problem—no need to risk mixing with the Stoics. The main issues there will be dealt with in a couple of paragraphs. 67. In the 8 Tones there are two tunings of the diatonic genus (hard and soft) with interlocking/overlapping plagals, as well as a chromatic genus. SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON its own pitch relationships with notes in common as well as altered notes, works echo off the same now-featureless-and-blocky walls, and bounce any one differently-stretched string (Tone) is harmoniously-related to all into the arms of an all-embracing all-accepting culture that regards all things the others as a part of an interlocking and "tautological" tonal system; an as equal—meaning equally irrelevant. The corollary to this is that the only overall pattern of "Tonality." As with the current notion of Sympatheia we things that can last are the things of coarser and coarser dimension; the are discussing, each Tone represents a different part of the same body unified stupider and stupider and more and more square tendencies (corresponding m Sympathetic relation to the whole. The "whole" in this tightly-woven sys to tonally and rhythmically imprisoned perceptions) will continue in their tem is the "Octoechos" mentioned before; eight (octo) modes/tones (echoi). perpetual cultural ascendant, because the only thing that provides a sense of stability and basis to a world dislocated from tonos is that which is common This kind of interweaving of tensions is of course a fundamental principle in creating structural integrity in buildings and other geometrical constructions. Consider structures with intertwined parts and tautological to a passionate instant of imagined escape from confinement. This is why the body is conceived of as a machine that everyone can "relate" to, and flexibility that absorbs and redirects force along multiple members in many why its mechanical functions assume supremacy; it is supposed that directions; force arriving back upon itself as in the case of a sphere being just "escape" lies in the direction of endless agitation for freedom against the one example, but the structurally soundest of all. Triangles, domes, spheres, oppressor of the body. But it is precisely this concept of the body that arches, cones, all are inherently superior to blocky stacks of repeating imprisons it in a narrower and narrower determination. It would be one squares. As we may tend to forget or ignore these facts in one area, we thing if the marvels of the body were explored in multiple dimensions: flex might actively seek to destroy them in another—say by replacing beautiful ibility and opposition, mysteries of death, symmetry and asymmetry, even 800-year-old domed structures with cheap shoddy communist block hous martyrdom. Instead we get nothing but the hypnosis of sex and pseudo- ing that will fall down in thirty years—and doing it in the name of justice, spectacular drugs of "liberation" and "preference," over and over, taking liberation and efficiency. In the century we see the breakdown of command of all content, and with everything perpetually accompanied by tonality, where each step in the breakdown is usually considered as a "lib repetitive 4/4 beats—how marvelous to see the world's most effective eration or at least a minor positive "revolution" of some kind. In any oppressors all working together in the name of freedom. The only "sympa event, aligning with our own self-reflecting myths in the avant garde, it's all theia" possible is that which accords tragically and ironically as a witness to a progression from confining laws of tonality," etc. Tonality becomes the diminishing returns of parasitism and auto-cannibalism. The ruins left "new," and what becomes important about it is not its actual tonos (few care for that) but its "newness." It's no mystery how we have arrived at this behind by this squandered civilization will be only the most blocky dimen 20th point. Once rules become as arbitrary as they had in Western European civ ilization after a thousand-plus year falling away from ANY actual truly sions of Limitation; and the passions invoked along the way having been molded into equally coarse and imprisoning shapes, the body suffers the ishment of now-arbitrary rules would hit the ground in the deconstruction same fate. No one has to go along with any of this, of course. For me perhaps the ultimate irony is that music originating from of tonality itself (always hailed as a new" tonality, when what it means is the original, natural and structurally justified sense of tone would now be actually "non-tonality" or "dim echo of tonality" or "tonality of special considered "microtonal" and even avant garde. This profound vertigo- effects or confused pseudo-tonality.") Neither should it surprise us in the absence of any truly Tonal principle that the supposed progress we have inducing inversion of reality is part of my daily bread. Nevertheless, no one is prohibited from making use of the principles of Tonality. If some have made in our alterations of tonality would result in structures that, how ever beautiful, when they are complex, are fleeting, unlasting, weak, and fall down quickly. Furthermore, since the context for appreciation of any such simply gone tone deaf in the process of the human race being dumbeddown to fit into the deterministic boxes that modernity has prefabricated for us, it does not make anyone else a "genius" for barely listening out works of depth and beauty has also correspondingly crumbled into dust, all beyond the featureless grid of the pseudo-All-Possibility, that deceptive 376 377 structurally-integrated tonality, it's perhaps no great surprise that the abol SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON modern psychism of "liberation," towards that more fundamental tonal architecture that aaually exists. passive matter. This it does through different proportions of air and fire its pneumatic substance. In the first How did we get so far away from that, anyway? If we pick up in proportion (the most airy) we have the shaping pneuma of tension (tonos), which inhabits inanimate objects and where we left off before the indulgent digression just above, we may find unifies and stabiUzes all matter and grants it cohesion. This is where the some clues to help us answer that question. In this paper we've been speak Stoics extrapolate beyond Heraclitus' proposition of oppositional harmony (tonicê kinêsis), thus associat ing mostly from a Hellenic terminology, but even within that there are to their own proposition of "tensile motion" vastly different meanings and implications to be drawn, but that we can learn ing the idea with their physical substrates of substance, ideas foreign to from. According to their divergent cosmological perspectives, Hellenic Heraclitus. In another proportion of air and fire conceptions of Sympatheia definitely differ between the Stoics, Platonists, pneuma is literally the inhabiting life force, the spirit, that distinguishes liv Alchemists, Neoplatonists and such. I have not been particularly faithful to ing things from inanimate objects. And the final any ONE of these conceptions because they each depart in different measures frorn what I consider to be the most important underlying transcendent 68. My fidelity would be to the Fathers. principle.^ It would be disingenuous of me to Omit my own reasoning in this regard, so by way of (the most fiery) (the most balanced), the proportion of air and fire is the pneuma of psyche (soul). This pneuma inhabits every part of the organism, regulating and governing its movements and giving consciousness to its perceptions. So for the Stoics everything in the world is created out of transfor conclusion, I will briefly (and inadequately) discuss it. Perhaps the discus mations of the unified divine substance, which is the sion can help us chart the course of a certain trajectory of tonal alienation. primordial fire Cleanthes, second head of the Stoic school in Athens after Zeno, understood Heraclitus tonos as arche—the material they call god and logos. The soul being the most fiery of the pneumatic gradations and closest to the primordial arche therefore has the tension which does not cease in the (sub closest proximity to the mind and body of god. In fact, a soul is said to be stance) of the universe." This Stoic idea of "substance" is the site of a depar a fragment of god—so we can see here how different the idea of Sympatheia ture from the transcendent prmciple. What they generally mean by it is is in Stoic usage, since it would refer to the (benign) idea of parts of a body pneuma and/or matter—in any event material substance. Early Greek physi being united in a whole, yet cians located human vitality in the breath;*' air as nection between everything in the world making up parts of the whole (dis the movement of spirit, an invisible and subtle S Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Taylor & Francis, 1998), p. 145. ^ matter, but a material substance nonetheless. So penses with the transcendent and harmonia with it), and also to the idea of the body and soul of the world, both material, constituting "parts" of its for Stoics the universe is constituted of two kinds of substance, pneuma and primitive matter. In totality the universe is also to the "underlying substance"-based con one, God and oneness. In the Stoic world god is immanent in the universe. Nature, a reason- "Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one mg and wholly material universe. The Stoics divided this material into active substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one and passive classes. Matter is the passive substance, which "lies sluggish, a perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act substance ready for any use, but sure to remain unemployed if no one sets it with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all 70. Seneca, Epistle, hcv.motion."7°This Certainly anticipates the "prima things that exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the 71. Chrysippus as well regarded pneuma as "the vehicle of logos in structuring matter, both in animals and in the physical world." —David Sedley, Stoic Physics and Metaphysics, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ç.iis lïiateria" of the Alchemists, a notion mistakenly 'L j a • 1 • attributed to Aiistotle. The active substance is of t • i • proportions L ^ between elemental aether/intelhThe Stoics draw from Heraclitus the idea of the Universal Reason (Logos) governing the cosmos,^' and for them it is through the pneumatic substance that reason acts on 378 structure of the web."^^ It's important to note (for the later i COUrse, pneUma, whlch IS described aS VailOUS gence and primordial fire. 72. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations^ iv. 40. development of Alchemy among other things) that this Stoic understanding legitimates divination and astrology through the mediation of the pneuma, and that the concept of God's immanence (inhabitation of divine-material things) is what makes this idea possible. Plato's Timaeus also presents a kosmos where everything is inter- 379 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON connected with everything else. But in Plato's kosmos everything is not purely material—there is a transcendent dimension, and this dimension 73, Plato, Tinmeus, 30,37. "material" universe, later Platonists/Neoplatonists by and large remained faithful to the original conceptions, but did borrow here and there elements priority. The Platonic conception keeps God as transcendant, and grants the forma tion of the universe to explicitly incorporeal powers. It is the world that is from the Stoic usage. It could be that the theurgic fascinations of some of the later Neoplatonists demanded a "material substrate" for their magical created as a living, rational being, fashioned in the image of the Divine Neoplatonic theurgy, there is yet another shift in the usage of the concept Intellect, which is an intelligible yet immaterial living and divine being. of Sympatheia, most of which relates to the Chaldaean Oracles. The (Timeaus 41a-b). In this conception, the material world possesses its own Cosmological/Philosophical principles in that work reveal a strict hierar soul, the world soul, which governs and holds the sensible world to order by illumination in the Divine Intellect. Hence, unlike the elemental amalga primordial beings who organize, engender and sustain the universe. It is the operations. (Certainly this became the case for Alchemists). With the chy; that of the "Father" of emanations sitting at the summit of a Triad of mation of the Stoic pneuma, the agency of the "world soul" performs its actions over sensible things via immaterial means. magical elements (rituals and instructions) in the Chaldaean Oracles where The Platonic Sympatheia, then, originally casts the origination and power of the universe not in the elemental materia of arche or its pneumat ic agency (hence astrological and divinatory concepts are not justified by Some Neoplatonists took up the same theme in their theurgic and magical physical interaction), but locates this power in the immaterial Intelligible ness occurs between the human and daimonic realms—simultaneously realm. With Plato we find relations of the immaterial divinity with the material sensorium occurring on the basis of an "analogical" concept of har a quasi Stoic overlap in some kind of materiahty, and a reduction of the Platonic likeness (mimesis) between material and material to a likeness monía and Sympatheia; specifically established is the likeness (mimesis) between the material and immaterial realms. It's not a dualism in the usual between human and daimonic. This could be conceived as hylic participa tion in greater and lesser degrees according to the gradations of sub- sense because the relationship is asymmetrical: the sympathetic relation between the immaterial Heaven and material Earth operates from above to below, with the Above determining the operations Below, and with the terrestrial, terrestrial, and supra-terrestrial, i.e. tending to a hylic nature, a Below never affecting the transcendent Above. The emphasis is on their linkage, and dependence of the Below on the Above. The Stoics certainly departed from this idea, and from Platonic Sympatheia between Macrocosm one finds "discernment" between "good" demons that help one towards the Father, and "bad" ones that lead to perdition away from the Father. writings, usually contingent upon a cosmological idea where a shared like pneumatic-hylic balance, and a more pneumatic nature. This is an echo of a familiar theme! Like the Stoic understanding, it can be conceived in a pneu matic understanding of matter itself, or enspirited/"spiritual" matter. At any rate, the idea was not just that the daimonic forces had power over human and Microcosm, replacing all that with a sympatheia of immanent reason beings, but that human beings, wielding sympatheia as a magical tool, had power over the daimonic (so the ideas of lamblichus and Proclus go). and divinity in active elements acting upon passive primal materiality. I will just say that here we are drifting far afield even of the cos This IS a sigmficant departure we will see taken one step further with the Alchemists. To finish with Plato, most importantly for our purpose, with mogenic idea of the Stoics and any context where sympatheia found its him the agency of the transcendent operates within the material, and occurs specifically by the illumination of the Soul with Divine Intellection—Philo defines the transcendent organizing agency here as the Logos, or "Reason" of God. Again, this is all quite opposed to a Stoic idea of universal reason/ logos being distributed everywhere materially/pneumatically, and the soul partaking of arche, primordial fire, by degrees according to its proximity. If the Stoics adapted the Platonic Sympatheia to their purely 380 earlier expression. It is also quite different in character from things like the comparatively passive visionary Mi'raj of Cicero's Dream of Scipio and other like accounts, which arise in a context wherein asceticism against passions is taken as a given, and that by apatheia the cultivation and attain ment of moral perfection is enshrined both as praxis and goal of Stoic Philosophy. Such "paganism" by its very nature is easily distinguished from some of the other things that go by that name, such as the syncretic appro priation of decontextualized Priestly rites from foreign Priesthoods, in 381 SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON however altered or watered-down a form, being used on the one hand to construct a kind of speculative theory if not a full-fledged Philosophical with every notion of "thing-ness" itself. To re-quote St. Dionysius the apologetic for magical practices (late Neoplatonists), and on the other, to Areopagite from an earlier note: "In diligent exercise of mystical contem plation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all engage in such a patchwork of practices, regardless of the decontextualized things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non- nature of the source material which arrives by appropriation or theft being, that you may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is Chaldaean, Persian mystery traditions in the Hellenic romance attainable, with Him who transcends all being and all knowledge. For by of the satrapies of Alexander), which not only inevitably introduces an insurmountable breach in authentic Tradition, but also engenders an the unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and of all things you may be borne on high, through pure and entire self-abnegation, into the impassable vortex of spurious material to be contended with. Our modern era amplifies this problem beyond all reasonable measure. superessential Radiance of the Divine Darkness."'*The Alchemical method, This discussion has been necessary in order to bring us to the point where we can clearly discern what kinds of issues the "alchemical" concept ties by pointing its mirror towards them, is quite different from this. It assumes that the visible real raises when applied to music. Alchemy brings with it a whole cosmological ities are working in an analogical relationship with the Soul, which is an idea proposition unto itself. It too has a reflecting Speculum, a mediation that works in tandem with point (b), the assumption of the primal unity of between Heaven and Earth, conceived as a mimesis of the Above by the Below. It also fully concretizes the idea of prima materia. It's generally accepted that alchemy came in to full swing at the beginmng of the common era under Graeco-Roman Egyptian metallurgical auspices. Several elements combined for the emergence of what we now rec which instead fixes its attention onto visible reali1 . . . . 77. An idea that habitually gets blamed on Aristotle, but probably more fairly belongs more to Neoplatonism. Alchemical "Prima Materia" seems more than anything else like a fairly straightforward materialization and divinity-neutering ognize as alchemy^"*: (a) the practices of Egyptian 74. This concise observation is owed to Michele Mertens in the introduction to h e r e s s a y G r a e c o - E ^ t i a n A l c h e m y i n Byzantium, p. 206. i « j i i • i i i i i metalworkers and goldsmiths who learned by • ^ • i * 1 1 1 1 1 experimentation how to simulate gold by work- ing with alloys and dying metals; (b) "the theory about the fundamental unity of matter, according to which all substances 1 1 • • 7 6 . D i o n y s i u s t h e A r e o p a g i t e , M y s t i c a l Theology, chapter i. matter.'' So Alchemy actually takes even the . NeoplatOniC * * . . theurglC 1 • r COncept • m 1 between humanS and mVlSlble » / 1 1 • • \ 1 « of 1•1 llkeneSS • • 1 eUSpiHted mat11 ter (the daimomc) down yet One more level: a likeness between the workings of the human soul and visible matter. Our choice of a Hellenic milieu to tell the story of the transforma tion in these ideas has been well placed. The earliest of historically visible Alchemists is Zosimos of Panopolis, from around 300 AD. His early com are composed of a primitive matter and owe their specific differences to the mentator and Neoplatonic Philosopher in his own right, Olympiodoros" is on record having worked to establish retro-active presence of different qualities imposed upon this matter; (c) the idea that the aim of any technique must be the mimesis of nature; (d) the doctrine of uni unks between the early Alchemists and the preSocratic Philosophers (including Heraclitus). But versal sympathy, which held that all elements of the cosmos are connected even as radically as things had changed from the time of the pre-Socratics to by occult links of sympathy and antipathy which explain all the combina tions and separations of the bodies."'® We should by now be familiar with ^s.ibid. the Alchemists (as we have seen), they changed even more radically over the most of this. Leaving point (a) for a later time, we can see the idea of the "practical" Alchemist, the Persian polymath} bir ibn Hayy n arrived on the scene, and is credited with an early development of the experimental "speculum" and likeness referred to earlier expanded in point (c). To say that the aim of any technique is to imitate nature surely reorients the idea of 1 1 1 » Michele Mertens, Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy in Byzantium,The Occult Sciences P' ^ next 1,000 years in the transmission of the alchemical practice to Europe. For considerably later than Zosimos, the man considered to be the first the speculum/mirror away from any invisible realities. The aim of the method and technique of seeking Silence, or even Stoic apatheia, for exam method and having employed laboratory techniques. Even here Arabic tra dition attributes the teaching of Alchemical sci79. Maria Mavroudi, Occult Science and enee to Muslims to a Byzantine Monk named Society in Byzantium: Considerations for ple, is certainly not to reflect any "thing" of any kind, but rather to dispense Marianos/^ In a book m the J birian corpus called 382 1 . . 383 Future Research, The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, p. 87. SPRUANCE HARMONIE APHANES PHANERES KREITTON Book of the Monk, J bir beseeches his master, who is a pupil of Marianos, against attachments and passions. What? Our passions, so excited by our Instruct me... so that I may share your knowledge and can mform others "escape" into a new spiritual possibility, told us to relativize and revolu of it in your name; for, although I have occupied myself with this science, I cannot dispense with a teacher in many respects."^" tionize everything. We blinded our eyes to the newly emerging absolutism threshold of Limitation. The passive prima materia awaits the human will to impress itself upon it. The human Soul awaits its likeness derived from visible realities, as opposed to humanist aristocracy, but at the same time against Pythagoras and St. Symeon the Stylite. Free of such visions, we proceeded to prostrate ourselves in a 80. The Classical Hentage m IsUm, îuotedl Ibi. p°p. of an anarchic consensus of non-hierarchization, against Nietszche's pallid deeper bow than ever before to the horizontal kingdom of Man. With our noses to the floor we secretly wondered why our art too was suddenly from the Unlimited and Eternal Uncreated Light. And mankind has finally becoming ugly, and we not-so-secretly justified it by claiming it was a mir set up his laboratory of individuation. Now his experimental, solipsistic, Faustian effort shall fracture his spirit every-which-way by the formula ror, reflection of "the times" (the final bottoming out and inversion of the Speculum). But when we began depicting man himself as ugly or as a mon solve et coagula" and he will emerge from it a new man, adept in the hall ster, we didn't justify it that way, we took it much farther: we converted the of mirrors of material algebraic combinatorics. He will complicate himself sub-human spectacle before our eyes into an image of divinity—not by away from every simplicity. He will become a sorcerer who fraudulently calls his magic "science" because he can prove it. He will wear a Dominican focusing on the inspired nature of a human struggle that contorts the out Friars robe and bear the title "Saint" as he falsely circumscribes the Ineffable in a fallen and humanistic project mistakenly ascribed to Reason question. "Who's to say this contortion in pain and despair isn't actually angelic," etc. By reinventing how we saw, we were free to reinvent the ugly and Logic. The Renaissance world will froth in anticipation as he pulls out as beautiful, so the idea went. All the while the premier champion of the his many newly-fashioned gnomons in order to Limit and quantify every thing, according to the fleeting taste of the times. With each new century he "transvaluation of all values" continued to complain pretentiously of not will equalize the temperament of the intervals ever further, against nature in favor of the idiosyncratic orderliness of finally making a grid out of them & keeps it to himself, which todays hipster barbarians do but Nietszche more attuning them to Hz! He will make a grid of musical time and confine it to hemi-demi-semi quavers, locking the idea of rhythm into a system of sub ward condition to a beautiful inner one, but simply by calling all value into being able to stand the common, the ordinary, the mundane, etc. (even if he honestly didn't). Every despot of the non-hierarchical seems to brandish his complaints in a downward fashion, and somehow interprets his disgust with the ordinary as a measure of rare strength standing against the weak divisions of equal parts instead of the naturally occurring phenomenon of ness of the common and "hierarchical" (actual hierarchy in today's world is ratios and proportions. The Heart, which a priori knows the language of proportion, will be scoffed at and systematically shoved out of the equa something most of us would have a hard time spotting anywhere except in tion—into the defensive sentimentality of obligatory Hallmark cards and forgotten. The head, which prefers the systematics of encompass ing nature with various filters and screens, will cite Timaeus 44D as it takes utter supremacy. content and disgust are feelings of sickness, helplessness and weakness. bank accounts). What few seem to have noticed is that these feelings of dis Anyone can relate to them. Stuck on a subway or stuck in traffic, we get annoyed with the people around us... these are moments of anything but strength. Anyone who empathizes with such feelings empathizes only with The rest of the body of this Tin Man, this fabricated Golem, long ago awakened to the magic words first whispered in the laboratories of what is weakest in mankind. This is how our hysterical Übermensch came to advocate the worst kind of sympatheia on earth. It was only when he Byzantine proto-humanism. 1,200(?) years later and we, the bastard chil dren of this occidental godfather of the eclectic, still never had the chance to finally looked in the mirror that it finally cracked, and he was delivered, humbled, back to the obvious. ask ourselves how? In the 19th century, for example, the "Dionysian" spirit came to associate itself with an asiatic spiritual path noted for its battle 384 385 CHAPTER 28 DREAD OF THE KNOCK MASK 2: A creaking floor is heard one night in darkness, in a place, a home. As assonance and alphabet suggest—from within sleep, from within the sonic vocabulary of horror, terror, the supernatural—the creaking door DREAD OF THE KNOCK opens onto the creaking floor. A Ceremony of Auditory Hallucinations for the Dead of Night sure, cooling, movement within the greater structure of the building—^pass es over or through a flexible DAVID TOOP A moving body, or some other agent—^pres surface, causing audible friction in this quiet place. Sound radiates outward in all directions, feeling and probing its way both through the solid structure of a building and the interior channels of air space, entering finally the ears of a listener. Dread of the Knock: A Ceremony of Auditory Hallucinations for the Dead of Night, for three masked players, reciter, small improvising orchestra, audio RECITER: "The playback and magic lantern slide show, the performance to be held in a Gaston Bachelard, "is a sort of geometry of echoes... Still farther it is resonant room, such as a cellar whose surfaces are stone. possible to recover not merely the timbre of the voices, 'the inflections of The piece begins with low knocking sounds moving through space—above, below, behind, some muffled and distant, some close enough old house, for those who know how to listen," wrote beloved voices now silent,' but also the resonance of each room in the sound house." to make the skin prickle—as if presences are striving to gain entry from MASK 2: their unknowable worlds into objective space. This resonance speaks for the history, the memory of a house, venerable personal place, a rubbing of old boards; but perhaps at the source MASK 1: Out of deep dreamless sleep I was woken, startled by a hollow there is an intruder, and so a sound from another place, a place literally out resonance, a sudden impact of wood on wood. Was the sound an isolated of sight, is an omen, a bringer of trespass, threat, unease, disturbance, fear. hearing event within my consciousness—auditory hallucination or a Anomalous sound enters in the way of an animal or insect: mouse, rat, spi moment of dream without narrative; was it a neurological event, something der, cockroach, fly, internal to worry about, or was it a sound from the physical world, some watch beetles, celebrating warm weather and desire by banging their heads thing external to worry about? The reverberation time was too long for the against the tunnel walls they have bored through old church timbers. wasp, woodworm or the uncanny ticking of death- sound to have emanated from the bedroom. It came from distant space so implied the entrance of an intruder, but this seemed unlikely The sound [AUDIO PLAYBACK: r40", came from nowhere in this sense, belonged nowhere. Its existence was real oak beam, Edingthorpe, Norfolk, recorded by Chris Watson. The magic enough to wake me yet unreal enough to be ambiguous, intangible and lantern shows its first deathwatch beetles, advertising display in slide.] lacking in verifiable space. [AUDIO PLAYBACK: hollow, wood sounds are heard, the clok of a Japanese shishi odoshi, the bamboo filling with water, falling, Ì \ striking stone to scare deer, emptying again and rising, this trembling emptiness between each strike marking the ma of uncertainty; from the early morning chant of a Buddhist temple, the bok of a huge mokug-yo fishmouth slit gong, a sound both soft and hard, penetrating and diffused.] 386 387 DREAD OF THE KNOCK TOOP MASK 3; A little drummer, the greater death watch beetle knocks on the fabric of the house, just as a knock on the door in the dead of night bangs at the membrane of all that is homely. RECITER: "I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the darkness as it stole over the horizon," wrote Edgar Allan Poe, in his notes to Part II of Al Aaraaf. MASK 1: Atmospheres of darkness and hyperacusis, feelings of loneli ness enclosed in webs of malignant, oppressive sound and silence. Spaces possess lives of their own. The beating heart that betrays its own kiiler, the hollow knocking and shrieking of the prematurely or unjustly incar cerated, suggest that Poe listened with fastidious concentration to all external and interior sounds. MASK 3: The Tell-Tale Heart begins by interrupting a conversation or confession, either between the perpetrator and himself (or herself), or with an unnamed listener. A neurotic condition of "nerves," of exagger ated acuity, establishes a context of microsonic hearing. He opens the lantern, shines it onto the eye, then hears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton." The pulse grows louder, faster, the thud of the old man s heart, increas ing his fury, "as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier mto courage." As if a steady crescendo within the silent dark, the pulsations grow louder still, loud enough for a neighbour to hear, the murderer shouts, the old man shrieks and is suffocated. Even after his death, the heart pumps on with a muffled beat, then like a decaying echo of sound haunting its original self, gradually fades until sunk into silence. He dismembers the corpse and buries it under the floorboards. At four o' clock in the morning, there is knocking at the door, policemen investi gating reports of a suspicious noise. The murderer greets them with confidence, shows them the house, seats them exactly over the spot where the old man's remains have been hidden, but as time passes, he begins to hear a ringing in his ears. Throughout the story, the narrator has meticulously drawn a distinction between madness and the hyper sensitivity to external sounds that he claims to suffer. Now the question of what is generated from within or without reaches a point of crisis. RECITER: "I found that the noise was not within my ears." RECITER: "Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard many things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?" MASK 2: For reasons unknown to himself, the narrator has decided that the old man who shares his dwelling must be killed. His eye has settled the issue, "the eye of a vulture," and so this prelude to murder progress es in silence by degrees of time and darkness "black as pitch," its object revealed to vision by a dark lantern whose thin ray of light is released cautiously each night for seven nights, each night falling on the closed eye of the old man. On the eighth night, moving with painful slowness in the thick darkness, the perpetrator chuckles. The old man moves on his bed. The narrator's thumb slips on the tin fastening of the lantern and the old man springs up in bed, crying out, "Who's there?" For one hour the mur derer stands motionless, saying nothing, conscious that the old man is still alert, sitting up, listening, "just as I have done, night after night, hear kening to the death watches in the wall." 388 MASK 3: What he hears is the "low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton, increasing and increasing, too insistent to mask by pacing across the floorboards, raving and swearing, or scraping his chair. In the end he admits his crime, no longer able to tolerate the return of the sound he sought to still: the beating of the old man's hideous heart. MASK 1: Startled awake by a hammering on the door in the dead of night, the knocking that signals an ending—police, immigration, secu rity forces, Gestapo, Stasi, the neighbour with a machete, death itself or the demon. Whatever is outside wants to come inside, like the thunderous knocking of Shirley Jackson's story. The Haunting of Hill House—"a hollow noise, a hollow bang, as though something were hitting the doors with an iron kettle, or an iron bar, or an iron glove. [At this point, the three masks re-enact the Rites of Eleusis, staged by 389 TOOP DREAD OF THE KNOCK Meister Crowley at the Caxton Hall, London, in October and November 1910. On a candle-lit stage, Crowley recites Swinburne's first verse from Atalanta, Victor Neuberg dances "the dance of Syrinx and Pan in honour of our lady Artemis," spinning until he falls to the floor and lays exhausted until the end. After a long silence, Leila Waddell plays the viohn with great passion. The magic lantern shows a number of slides. The robed adepts at Caxton Hall are ranged around the magical circle, Crowley high above them poised to strike with his ceremonial sword. The quality of the photograph is poor, a reproduction from The Liverpool Courier of October 28,1910, but one of the adepts appears to be holding a gong (almost certainly Burmese). Another slide shows Leila Waddell posed with her violin, and then her most familiar image, Waddell naked, her breasts concealed by long black hair, her linked fingers and upright thumbs framing a tattoo—a roughly drawn cross within two concentric circles—branded or inked onto her bare chest. Lying flat on the table at which she sits is a metal disc with shallow boss and a central hole. Again, the image quality is poor but the disc may be a Chinese cymbal. Crowley s summation of ^iC^addell was typically brusque. She was, he claimed, a fifth rate fiddler" but under the influence of the rite and charged with the invocation of lunar influence, she discovered inspiration within herself and entranced those members of the audience who documented the experience.] [AUDIO PLAYBACK: drumming birds and insects, including wood peckers, whose rapid, resonant drumming echoing throughout wood land suggests the image of an upper region of communication populated only by percussionists; the red-winged grasshopper, Arphia pseudonietana, a bug that flies as if doomed by its own vanity, a sudden vivid flash of red, sharp clicking, an ungainly descent back to earth; the sapsucker, the manakin, the African broadbill, the Australian palm cockatoo that uses a twig to drum on logs. The magic lantern shows its second slide.] RECITER: From the Mataco myth (cited by Claude Lévi-Strauss, From Honey to Ashes) of the origin of mead: "It was a bird that carved the first drum, and he beat it all night, and at dawn he was changed into a man." MASK 1: A hole is dug into the ground, a journey to the centre of the earth in search of music, and as with all holes in the ground, the digging disturbs artefacts of the human trace. A cavity, hollow, vessel or pit deepens, unearthing memories of burying, hiding, storing, amplifying, echoing, mnnelling, shelter ing, trapping, containing, planting, suffocating, sinking, secrecy, sacrifice. MASK 2: In Musical Instruments Through the Ages, Klaus P. Wachsmann noted an Abyssinian (Ethiopian) instrument known as the Lion's Roar, a narrow tapered hole dug in the ground to fashion a resonating, transforma tive vessel for the voice. Is it possible to imagine a more economical diagram of pre-scientific cosmology than this prototypical loudspeaker? Sound is earthed or grounded within place and human society, yet it extends in all directions: outwards to intersect with the communications of non-human organisms; upwards to air, sky, the heavens; downwards into the dark underworld. With a shout—raaagh—the connection is made. MASK 3: Documentation of terrene instruments is rare, perhaps because of their ephemeral nature, or because they had been largely superseded by 390 391 TOOP DREAD OF THE KNOCK more portable and sophisticated technologies by the time ethnomusicology was sufficiently advanced as a scholarly discipline to pay attention to such devices. More important than this, they were safe from collectors and explorers. Shipping home a hole in the ground for future collection in muse ums such as the Horniman in London or the Pitt Rivers in Oxford was hardly a practical option. In Musical Instruments of the South American Indians, Karl Gustav Izikowitz described an elaborate signal drum made by the Brazilian Catuquinarú Indians. First reported in 1910 (only three years before the notorious Paris premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring), the instrument was complex and mysterious: a large earth pit filled with resins and wood fragments and capped with rubber, and in the centre, a vertical hollow log partially filled with powdered mica, bone fragments and other materials, again capped by hard rubber. MASK 2: Between 1961 and 1967, French ethnomusicologist Hugo Zemp found similarly strange instruments—an earth drum, an earth bow, and an earth friction drum—during his researches among the Dan of western Ivory Coast and Liberia. A photograph of the earth bow can be seen in Zemp's book. Musique Dan. A man squats and sings, plucking an ingenious version of what came to be known among African-American musicians as the diddley bow (though by fixing the string to a wall, the diddley bow uses a dwelling as resonator, rather than the earth itself). In this case, a sapling is bent over to form a bow. A string connects this to a sounding surface, a whole palm leaf fastened securely over a hole dug into the ground. Zemp categorised the earth friction drum, rubbed fibres threaded through the bark cover of an earth-pit resonator, as the voice of a mask or supernatural being, hidden from the sight of women and children and destroyed after ceremomal use. Named guéyibeu, Mask-that-eats-water, the otherworidly sound of this instrument could be heard on Masques Dan, a coUection of Zemp s recordings of mask voices released by the Ocora label. MASK 1: As we go deeper, darkness gathers. Animals of sinks, wells, pools and damp darkness croak and slither. Of the innocent frog, Seamus Heaney wrote: "The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat/Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting." The childlike satisfaction of digging a hole (perhaps all the way to the other side of the worid) may be followed by associations of burial, entrapment and the underworid. One interpreta 392 tion of the léth century English nursery rhyme, "Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well," hypothesises that the "pussy" of the rhyme described a woman accused of immorality; the sound of the bell may have referred to the "rough music" of pots and pans, the instruments of darkness played as the woman was paraded through the streets on the way to her torture by duck ing stool (the precursor of waterboarding) in the village wellpond. MASK 3: The drum is a vessel, a pit, an encircling, a craft, a receptacle for magical objects, vibrating or anticipatory air, a covering skin, a landscape of many dimensions. At the end of the 17th century, during the Christian con versions of Nordic Sami people, hundreds of shamanic drums were burned. Some people pretended that the drums were used as compasses; some hid their drums in remote caves. [The magic lantern shows its third slide.] RECITER: "Let us make you overgrown with flesh," sang the Tuvan shaman to his drum. "Let us make you a living creature." MASK 2: The uncanny associations of Chthonic resonance may also apply on a smaller scale to material culture. Ueda Akinari's 18th century gothic tale. The Kibitsu Cauldron, tells the story of a haunting in which unpropitious omens are established from the outset by a Cauldron Purification 393 DREAD OF THE KNOCK TOOP ritual (Mikamabarai) held on the grounds of the Kibitsu Shrine, a Shinto shrine in Okayama, western Japan. For this divinatory rite, still extant, a fire of pine needles is lit under a water-filled kami, a large iron rice cauldron. "It has long been the custom," wrote Ueda, "for worshippers at the Kibitsu Shrine to make abundant offerings, present hot water to the god, and seek a divination of good or bad fortune. When the maidens complete their ritual prayers and the water comes to a boil, the cauldron will, if the prospects are good, produce a sound like the lowing of cattle. If the prospects are bad, the cauldron will make no sound." Inevitably, the caul dron Is silent and so the story ends with its villain hanging by his topknot from a roof beam, all other traces of his body other than hair obliterated save for a smear of blood. inhabited and possessed by this intruder, the man robbed of self, is no longer himself: he has become nothing more than a vibratmg strmg, a sounding pipe." MASK 1: Sound is a spirit, many spirits—malevolent, monstrous, antique, mediocre, joyful, trivial, ugly, violent, seductive, seraphic, salacious, base or holy; to work with sound is to fly into the spirit world, to become a companion of spirits, take spirits into the body, transform. [Within the room, darkness becomes complete.] MASK 3: Bodies are instruments and instruments are bodies: the double basses with gashes in their sides; the semigrand open piano whose music hath crocodile jaws, the piano as coffin, the deep, soft, open darkness of the self. Wooden boxes, cooking pots, cups, bowls, bottles, drainpipes, tin cans, jerry cans, plastic water jugs, matchboxes. Throughout the literature of organology and ethnomusicology lies scattered evidence of these every day vessels being transformed into musical instruments. The majority of the musical instruments that we call acoustic—^piano, clarinet, guitar, vio lin, drum, and so on—derive their audible energy from being enclosed or semi-enclosed rooms, chambers, tunnels or vessels of marvellous shape, their equally fanciful apertures opening out onto the greater vessel of an external world. The crowded molecules of sound move about in these rooms, the equivalent of social beings, mixing and conversing, crowded or left alone, emptying out and filling up, speaking quietly or making noise. This movement is reminiscent of the architecture of the body and our sen sitivity to sound moving within the body or escaping from the body. The story of Syrinx and her transformation into Pan's flute reminds us of the body's potential to become an instrument, and the absorption of music into and through the body. RECITER: Vladimir Jankélévitch describes this as an act of trespass: "Music acts on human beings, on their nervous systems and their vital processes... By means of massive irruptions, music takes up residence in our intimate self and seemingly elects to make its home there. The man 394 395 CHAPTER 29 horn o' plenty Years later, as a jazz saxophonist doubling as a reluctant congregant at a traditional urban synagogue struggling to stay on its feet after 100 years. I was pressed into service to try my hand at the shofar. The Ba'al Tokeiah had passed on, and there was no one left who could get a sound out of the holy horn. This shouldn't be so hard, I thought. After all, I am a wind player! Keep the air moving, relax, visuahze... A few days before Rosh Hashanah I gave a try. . . t e k i y a . . . noth ing... tekiya...splat... Hmmm... I consulted with the Rabbi, who said that I might have luck with another shofar, and showed me a drawer containing several others. I had better luck, but still was not able to consistently produce a steady tone. I then saw one wrapped up underneath some other articles, and held it up. "Don't bother," he said. Nobody can get a sound out of that one. I held it to my lips and blew, tekiya! A huge sound filled the room... shvarim... The blasts bounced off the walls, and danced along the rafters. I ran up the stairs to try out my new ax in the huge main sanctu ary upstairs. t r u a ! . . . The shorter tones rang out in counterpoint to their still reverberating predecessors. I was psyched, and I was ready. Rosh HaShana came and went, both days, and the notices were in... The new Ba'al Tokeiah was a hit. "The best I ever heard!"..."Strong enough to set the walls a tumbling..." It felt great to be a Jewish musician, playing the original instrument... But, was there more to it than that? After a few years I found myself being more and more drawn to the synagogue and, feeling woefully inadequate due to my almost complete dirth of Jewish knowledge, I started a casual study of classic Jewish texts. It wasn't long before study became a regular part of first my weekly, then my daily schedule. I started to learn Hebrew, and began to study the meaning of the ancient verses that we chanted in the synagogue every Saturday morning. I became a father a few times over, and it was time to move on. My wife and I decided we would raise our children within a Jewish com munity, and provide them with the education to gain the literacy that was required to navigate within. My new rabbi, upon hearing of my predisposi tion to hornblowing, asked if I was a Ba'al Tokeiah, a shofar blower. Yes, I proudly responded. "Would you like to blow shofar for our community?" he asked. Sure, I replied. "Have you studied about the laws and customs of 396 397 HORN O' PLENTY GREG WALL "Blow the great shofar, TEKIYA, TRUA, SHVARIM blasts, wails, broken cries, stamp your feet and the tombs will quake." "And the mingling sounds will rise to the roots of the souls, and the wheel of destiny will turn to rebuild all that is desolate..." —HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook Growing up a secular suburban Jew I had a polite connection with ritual, dab bling in dreidles, matza, gefilte fish. Twice yearly we endured the forced pilgrimage to our local reform temple, where I would hear the organist and choir accompany the cantor in the seemingly endless annual show, with a large supporting cast. On Rosh HaShana we would know it was close to liberation when we would hear the cantor, or some other big lunged desig nate attempt to emit a few blasts on the shofar. Like the factory whistle, the sound turned our hearts and minds to something much more substantial than the reHgious service we were suffering through, to the tables of cakes, fruits and confections that awaited. Off with the yarmulkes, bring on the boiler makers of petit fours and Coca-Cola. In later teen years a cynical anticipation emerged. Would he or wouldn't he? A few well intentioned splats,blats or other ill sounding emissions from the shofar would instantly bring a smile to the face. Perhaps the human element was in conflict with the divine tribunal... wall horn o' plenty the shofar?" he asked. No—^not really...not ever. That would be the pre requisite before taking on the role in this new synagogue. Laws? Customs? Why can't you just open up and blow...? First things first... Jewish tradition teaches that it is a mitzvahdivine commandment—to hear the sound of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The shofar is mentioned in several other contexts elsewhere in the bible, but it is the Rosh Hashanah ritual that most people are familiar with. The com mandment in the book of Leviticus (23:24) mentions a "Zichron trua," a remembrance of the shofar, and in the Book of Numbers, (29:11) it says con cerning the holiday, "It shall be a day of sounding the shofar." Why the shofar? The sound of the shofar emanating from the heavens was heard at Mt. Sinai. It was blown to mark the end of the "Jubilee" year, after sevenyear agricultural cycles, and was blown in the orchestra at the holy temple in Jerusalem. Tradition teaches us that the Akeidat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac by his father Abraham, took place on Rosh Hashanah, and the ram's horn is symbolic of the ram Abraham sacrificed, instead of his son. According to the tradition, the shofar must not be made from the horn of a cow (keren), as that would make a connection with the Golden Calf, a major spiritual challenge for the Jewish people, who's negative ener gy is still in the world. The mystical tradition teaches that there is a parallel shofar in the heavens that is activated by the shofar on earth... Says the Zohar: "Rabbi Abba, who was sitting before Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, said to him: Look here, I have asked many times about the meaning of the shofar, but so far I have not had a satisfying answer. "He [Rabbi Shimon] replied: This is the true explanation. Why does Israel require the ram's horn (shofar) on this day, but not another type of horn (keren)? For it is known where the other type of horn comes from, and we do not wish to adhere to judgment (din). However we have learned that in word and deed we should perceive and deal with secret things. "Come and see! When the supernal shofar, in which all universal lights are included, departs and does not illumine its children, then judg ment is awakened, and thrones are set up for a court. And this shofar is called 'Isaac's ram', i.e. Isaac's power, the praise of the 'fathers'. When that great shofar departs, and does not suckle its children, then Isaac is strengthened and prepares himself for judgment in the world. 398 "When that shofar is awakened, and when people repent of their sins, they should draw the sound of the shofar from below, and that sound ascends, and there awakens another, supernal shofar, so that mercy (rachamim) is awakened and judgment departs. We must perform a phys ical act with the shofar, in order to awaken the other shofar, and to pro duce those sounds with that shofar below that will produce all those sounds from above which are included in that supernal shofar, so that it be awakened to go out. "And with those sounds from below Israel is given strength above, and therefore we must blow the shofar at its proper time, on this day, and with the sounds in their proper series, intending by this to arouse the other shofar above, which contains all the sounds." —Zohar, 'Emor, III, 99a-100a That's quite a mouthful. The Zohar mentions three conditions necessary for "arousal"— proper time, proper series of blasts, and proper condition. The time was the easy part—during the day. The series of blasts required was another story. Due to to some talmudic confusion over the order and actual performance of the notes the nine bibUcally mandated blasts would now be 100! Ouch! The condition—one blowing the shofar must have the proper mindfulness, the intention, or kavana. According to the tradition, one must have in mind that he is blowing for everyone present, and that every sound is for the singular purpose of directing the congregation's spiritual energy upwards to the heavens. A lapse in concentration could cause a disconnect between the lower and upper worlds. I told my rabbi, "Thanks, but no thanks... I'm not up for this!" He replied that my response was the one he was looking for, that an eagerness would have indicated I was indeed the wrong person for the job. I would have to see it through. The morning of the Day of Judgment came. I went to the syna gogue early, and practiced a few blasts. Nice...smooth. The youth director asked me to blow for the children's service. Thirty blasts, feeling fine. Someone asked me to go around the corner and blow shofar for someone too ill to come to the synagogue. Thirty blasts later I was back, still plenty of time until the main congregation reached the shofar service. I put on my white kittel, the ceremonial frock symbolizing purity, and stepped up to the bima. The cantor called o u t — t e k i y a! 399 CHAPTER 30 wall I put the shofar to my lips.. .nothing. I tried again...nada, gornisht... Once more...zilch. Silence filled the room. "Take a minute" I was told. A stand in sho far blower ascended, and I went out to the garage and cried like I never had. "R. Eleazar also said: From the day on which the Temple was destroyed THE PERSPECTIVAL LUTE PETER LAMBORN WILSON the gates of prayer have been closed, as it says. Yea, when I cry and call for help He shutteth out my prayer. {Lamentations 3:8) But though the gates of prayer are closed, the gates of weeping are not closed, as it says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; keep not silence at my tears {Psalms 39:12-13)..." —Babylonian Talmud-Tractate Brachot, 32B 400 The painter Arcimboldo (1526-1593) worked for Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, where he met some of the greatest Renaissance "Magi:" Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley, Giordano Bruno, Rabbi Loewe (creator of the Golem), Count Michael Maier and other Rosicrucians, not to mention the alchemymad emperor himself and all the inhabitants of Prague's famous Street of Alchemists. Rudolf loved Arcimboldo's caricature of his Imperial self as the god Vertumnus, a "composite portrait" in fruit and vegetables; and also the wonderful "Flora," a goddess made out of flowers, like a Welsh fairy, for which the ruler bestowed on the artist the title of Count Palatine. Like Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance painters, Arcimboldo mastered many skills and dabbled in inventions. He studied botany, architecture and metallurgy, and designed floats and tableaux for Imperial tournaments and Processions, which were like movable operas complete with plot and characters, elaborate scenes and music, and allegories based on Classical mythology and Hermetic cosmology. The greatest of all alchemists Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus (1493-1541), whose life overlapped with Arcimboldo's, had passed on to Rudolfine Prague an obsession with the Four Elements, including the Seasons and Humours associated with them and the Nature Elementáis that rule them: Earth/Gnomes, Air/Sylphs, Fire/Salamanders and Water/Undines—characters who appear in Arcimbol do's paintings. The Seven Planets also offered categories of "correspon dences" or "Signatures" linking visible and invisible worlds, as did the Zodiac and the stars in general. (Even Kepler and Brahe, the Court Astronomers, no doubt contributed to the Emperor's horoscope.) From Hermeticists such as Cornelius Agrippa and Marsilio Ficino we know that each Element or Planet can be Unked magically with certain angelic rituals designed almost synasthesically to involve all the senses 401 wilson t h e perspectival lute simultaneously, as well as Imagination and Intellect. Ficino's Planetary Rituals again resembled opera as gesamtkunstwerk in their mingling of colors, perfumes, wine and food, fabrics and textures, song and music. Michael Maier's fabulous book Atalanta Fugiens (1614) combined image, poetry and musical scores to provide an allegory of alchemy as a kind of silent opera to be staged in the reader's mind. (Adam McLean and Joscelyn Godwin published a modern translation of Atalanta with CD of the music, a linked series of fugues based on occult numerology.) We know that Arcimboldo himself invented a "perspectival lute" and a "color organ," both sadly now lost, perhaps precursors of J.K. Huysmans' imaginary "taste organ" (based on various liqueurs) or Liberace's "color piano," not to mention the psychedelic son et lumiere of the 1960s. Clearly the Occident once knew an art of mystic music very simi lar to those of Persia and India, although the immediate inspiration arose from the Renaissance rediscovery of Antiquity—in this case, Neoplatonic theurgy and Pythagorean numerology. Sound both organizes the cosmos and is organized by it—whence the "Music of the Spheres" as well as a kind of musico-magical therapeutics or alchemical music for aligning the Humours—"Pilles to Purge Melancholie" as the title of an old English songbook promised. Hermetic figures "Zoemetra" and "Geometra" from a volume Giordano Bruno wrote in Prague in 1588, Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus huius temporis mathematicos atque philosophos (One hundred and sixty articles against the mathematicians and philosophers of the present time). These complex, deliberately puzzling diagrams represent parts of^Bruno s effort to trace the hidden structures of the universe. In an age when everybody from aristocrat to peasant could play an 402 instrument or at least sing along, this kind of popular esoteric knowledge was far more accessible than now. Although we moderns of course possess vastly more data than our ancestors, we have invested nearly all of it in machinery and mediation. We are "represented" by professionals and stars who sing and play for us—since we cannot do it for ourselves. Recorded music can of course still be magical—but always with a magic imposed upon us rather than created by us for ourselves. The ultimate model for an Occidental Mystical Music derives from the myth of Orpheus and the Orphic Mysteries. Shakespeare referred to it with his "charms to soothe the savage beast." Another vital myth concerns Apollo, patron of the Muses: he receives his first lute (made from a tortoise shell) from the infant Hermes—the babe's precocious first invention, prior even to the art of writing. The "Rout of Bacchus"—the wild parade of Dionysus and his maenads, satyrs, panthers, fauns. Sileni and other genii/ djinn—must of course be set to music of panpipes, lyre, percussion and song. Dionysus himself "comes from India" and may be said to stand for the deepest proto-shamanic Indo-Iranian-European traditions that link the Vedic Rishis and Zarathustran Magi with Greco-Roman, Celtic and Norse pantheons. (Hermeticism, being perfectly "universal," also integrates Jewish, Islamic, African, American Indian and Chinese wisdom, besides its base in Egypto-Sumerian antiquity.) Orphic music, rediscovered by Renaissance Hermeticists, was once again repressed and submerged—first of all by bigoted religion. Protestant iconoclasm swept away "decadent" Catholic musical mysticism as well as the neo-pagan revival, and the Counter-Reformation did the same. (Nevertheless certain esoteric secrets survived in Baroque music as well as other non-verbal arts such as the Emblem Book and the Garden.) Another coffin-nail was supplied by Enlightermient Rationalism and its scientific materialism which distrusted music for its vagueness, emotionality and appeal to ecstasis—^traits almost stamped out in i8th century music (Mozart the Freemason being an obvious and glaring exception). The lid was finally closed by 19th century Progressism and the Machinic Revolution. All spooks were on the verge of being exorcized from music forever. But suddenly the Romantics re-rediscovered traces of a lost tradi tion and attempted to forge again a living link with Orpheus. The music miming through my head as I write this sentence is Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, composed before his sixteenth birthday, 403 wilson the perspectival lute simultaneously, as well as Imagination and Intellect. Ficino's Planetary Rituals again resembled opera as gesamtkunstwerk in their mingling of colors, perfumes, wine and food, fabrics and textures, song and music. Michael Maier's fabulous book Atalanta Fugiens (1614) combined image, poetry and musical scores to provide an allegory of alchemy as a kind of silent opera to be staged in the reader's mind. (Adam McLean and Joscelyn Godwin published a modern translation of Atalanta with CD of the music, a linked series of fugues based on occult numerology.) We know that Arcimboldo himself invented a "perspectival lute" and a "color organ," both sadly now lost, perhaps precursors of J.K. Huysmans' imaginary "taste organ" (based on various liqueurs) or Liberace's "color piano," not to mention the psychedelic son et lumiere of the 1960s. Clearly the Occident once knew an art of mystic music very simi lar to those of Persia and India, although the immediate inspiration arose from the Renaissance rediscovery of Antiquity—in this case, Neoplatonic theurgy and Pythagorean numerology. Sound both organizes the cosmos and is organized by it—hence the "Music of the Spheres" as well as a kind of musico-magical therapeutics or alchemical music for aligning the Humours—"Pilles to Purge Melancholie" as the title of an old English songbook promised. Hermetic figures "Zoemetra" and "Geometra" from a volume Giordano Bruno wrote in Prague in 1588, Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus huius temporis mathematicos atque philosophos (One hundred and sixty articles against the mathematicians and philosophers of the present time). These complex, deliberately puzzling diagrams represent parts of Bruno s effort to trace the hidden structures of the universe. In an age when everybody from aristocrat to peasant could play an 402 instrument or at least sing along, this kind of popular esoteric knowledge was far more accessible than now. Although we moderns of course possess vastly more data than our ancestors, we have invested nearly all of it in machinery and mediation. We are "represented" by professionals and stars who sing and play for us—since we cannot do it for ourselves. Recorded music can of course still be magical—but always with a magic imposed upon us rather than created by us for ourselves. The ultimate model for an Occidental Mystical Music derives from the myth of Orpheus and the Orphic Mysteries. Shakespeare referred to it with his "charms to soothe the savage beast." Another vital myth concerns Apollo, patron of the Muses: he receives his first lute (made from a tortoise shell) from the infant Hermes—the babe's precocious first invention, prior even to the art of writing. The "Rout of Bacchus"—the wild parade of Dionysus and his maenads, satyrs, panthers, fauns. Sileni and other genii/ djinn—must of course be set to music of panpipes, lyre, percussion and song. Dionysus himself "comes from India" and may be said to stand for the deepest proto-shamanic Indo-Iranian-European traditions that link the Vedic Rishis and Zarathustran Magi with Greco-Roman, Celtic and Norse pantheons. (Hermeticism, being perfectly "universal," also integrates Jewish, Islamic, African, American Indian and Chinese wisdom, besides its base in Egypto-Sumerian antiquity.) Orphic music, rediscovered by Renaissance Hermeticists, was once again repressed and submerged—first of all by bigoted religion. Protestant iconoclasm swept away "decadent" Catholic musical mysticism as well as the neo-pagan revival, and the Counter-Reformation did the same. (Nevertheless certain esoteric secrets survived in Baroque music as well as other non-verbal arts such as the Emblem Book and the Garden.) Another coffin-nail was supplied by Enlightenment Rationalism and its scientific materialism which distrusted music for its vagueness, emotionality and appeal to ecstasis—traits almost stamped out in 18th century music (Mozart the Freemason being an obvious and glaring exception). The lid was finally closed by 19th century Progressism and the Machinic Revolution. All spooks were on the verge of being exorcized from music forever. But suddenly the Romantics re-rediscovered traces of a lost tradi tion and attempted to forge again a living link with Orpheus. The music running through my head as I write this sentence is Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, composed before his sixteenth birthday. 403 wilson t h e perspectival lute which evokes for me the Hermetic Shakespeare depicted by Dame Frances Yates or Lovejoy's old book on The Great Chain of Being. If Romanticism has a precursor as our eternal rebel avant garde it must be Hermeticism. And indeed even the "tolerant" Renaissance could burn a magician at the stake, like Giordano Bruno in Rome's "Field of Flowers" in 1600. This is Blake's Everlasting Gospel, always already suppressed by orthodoxy, always esoteric, occult and forbidden. We in the West must live with the consequences of this entire series of catastrophes, the successive suppressions of musique mystique which have left us alienated from our Orphic heritage. Goethe, Wagner, Nietzsche and Emerson (among many others) looked to Iran and India for ways to overcome the Occidental occultation of mysticism in general, and in the specific case of music we might now follow their lead, relatively unencum bered by the "Orientalist" distortions they had to confront. By looking at Tantra and Sufism, for instance, we can find specific techniques handed down from the most archaic shamanism. Here I can speak with at least a modicum of first-hand experience, having lived in India and Iran from 1968 to 1978 and attended many seances of mystical music both Hindu and Islamic. In India it's often difficult to separate the two strands since Moslems perform sacred Hindu music and vice versa in a syncretistic pat tern dating back at leaast to the Mughal period (when Prince Dara Shikoh declared, "Our Sufism is their vedanta, their vedanta is our Sufism." Tantrik teachings on sound as mantra have deep implications for music. Each mode—indeed each note—^is "presided over" by a specific deity, just as each mantra evokes or rather constitutes the sonic body of a divine persona. In Zoroastrian and Persian Sufi tradition these deities are easily seen and embraced as Angels. The twelve Classical modes of Persian music have their Zoroastrian-named Angels as well as Zodiacal signs, months of the year and other "Signatures." Naturally these systems imply a spiritual psychology of music in which the musician (or listener in an ecstatic state) identifies the limited self with the god or angel-self of the mode. As Arcimboldo knew, there are no ideas but in persons. Paganism (or its "monotheistic" analogy in angelology) knows neither abstractions nor "dead" things; the cosmos is held together by desire, and desire exists only amongst living beings. The Greek version of this ontology derives from Hesiod's cosmogony in which Chaos is formed by Eros into matter [mater. Gaia, Mother Earth) in the dark womb of Old Night. In medieval Persian Sufism of the "School of Love" this esoteric system was performed in an informal ceremony known as sama' or "Audition." In the heterodox atmosphere of Persia and North India this rite took on its classical form: a small group of Sufis, musicians and "beloveds" would meet in private to dance, perhaps drink wine or use cannabis, and induce states of mystical ecstasy. In these circles the ideal form of eroticism was a chaste pederasty limited to "gazing," perhaps kissing or dancing "breast to breast." In Tantrik ritual the beloved must be of the opposite sex to the worshipper, but Persia followed an archaic (even shamanic) preference for same-sex love, also found in both Platonism and Orphism. If this classic form of sama' {or indeed the classic Tantrik "lefthand" sex ritual) still exists, I never experienced it. In modern (more exoteric) times the sama' takes the form of music dance sessions of dervishes unstim ulated by intoxicants or erotic (dis)play. In India it has become a public qawwali concert performed at the tombs of saints by such maestros as the late Fateh Ali Khan; I saw him sing in Lahore in 1972 at the shrine of Mian Mir. In both these modern forms of sama' the hai or mystic state of exalta tion is experienced by at least some participants and auditors—otherwise the session would be deemed a failure. The afflicted ones sometimes jump up and begin to spin, just like the Sufis in medieval miniatures. The most evolved and ordered sama' developed in Ottoman Turkey among the Mevlevl followers of Jalaleddin Rumi, with full orches tra, written scores, and intricate choreography based on the whirling spheres of heaven. Western audiences have seen folkloristique versions of this, but you'd have to visit Kurdestan to witness dervishes so entranced by music they eat glass and scorpions and pass swords through their cheeks or skewers through their tongues. It would be difficult and perhaps absurd simply to import such practises wholesale into "Western music" or modern spiritual practise in general, like some sort of Orientalist Rave Culture. Nevertheless it might remain possible to seek inspiration and even some techmcal secrets highly useful to any possible "Hermetic revival" of music in our era. Music, the art to which all others aspire according to Nietzsche's highly Orphic aphorism, remains the esoteric art par excellence because it communicates essences without words or inages. Of course word (song) 404 405 wilson t h e perspectival lute ideologizes music just as the caption ideologizes the image, as Walter Benjamin would say. But non-representational sound alone is still the angelic body, perhaps most so when unconstrained by semantic enclosure. Nevertheless mystic music always seems to want to embrace all other arts as well: poetry, dance, perfumery, theater, cuisine, etc.—in a union of the senses aimed at breakthrough into the "invisible" Mundus Imaginalis or world of the creative Imagination. As Mozart and Charles Fourier (the mad 19th century French "Utopian Socialist") and Wagner agreed, the perfect Hermetic form ought in theory to be opera, the "complete artwork." Fourier believed that Utopian society would create operas without audi ences, in which everyone would perform, just as in "primitive" societies where everyone participates in music dance ritual—where no one is "represented" and all are present. Every recording is the tombstone of a live performance. Recording increases musical data but impoverishes musical wisdom on the social as well as individual level. Just as Magical Theater (from Artaud to the Living Theater) attempts to break down the proscenium between artists and audi ence, so too the barrier of recorded music must be breached if practical mysticism rather than dry theory is the goal. Perhaps musique mystique must be considered not only as live and present but even as "site-specific" and thus literally impossible to record. One reason why church remains so popular in America may be its role as last refuge of amateur group music—and in some Pentecostal or Spiritual churches music still whips up hal-Vike states of ecstasy, even glossolalia and snake handling. In anti-pessimistic moments I refuse to believe the human spirit can be wholly crushed by technology and the rule of money. I foresee some kind of Luddite uprising against "machinery hurtful to the common alty," and I even imagine poets/artists/musicians as the "unacknowledged legislators" of this rebellion. (By the way, Shelley supported the Luddites.) Inevitably this would involve a Hermetic Revival, and a renewal of Romanticism as the eternal avant garde. If "life without music would be a mistake" (Nietzsche) we are already experiencing the effects of this error— and only music itself can rectify it. For inspiration we might well return to our own Occidental wisdom—tradition and come to conceptualize music as alchemy. Only in this way—or so I suspect—can we hope to re-invent Arcimboldo's perspectival Lute. There remains too the "Problem of the Audience" considered as passive consumers of music or ritual. The 20th century magician Aleister Crowley once dosed an entire audience with mescaline before a perfor mance of his "Rite of Eleusis;" but he judged it a failure, since "asses on drugs are still asses." We cannot simply wish into being a cultural climate in which people know how to fall into ecstatic states. We've all grown up in a world where technopathocratic Too-Late Capitalism has attempted to abolish not only Nature but even human society—and has largely succeeded. We find ourselves inundated with music but somehow paradoxically plunged into mourning over its absence. The same might be said of all the arts in as much as they are reduced to systems of commodities sold to an atomized populace rather than poetic artifacts produced by a free and creative people. Recently I realized its been years since I've heard anyone singing in the street. Recorded music is so overpoweringly omnipresent in my vil lage it seems to have killed off even this last vestige of social production. 406 407 CHAPTER 31 metaphors, mythos and metaphonics METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS Z'EV "...if you have ears to hear, then hear" attributed to Jesu, son of Mary. —Matthew //.-/j "If 'in the beginning was the word,' then it is our hearing of that word that makes it sacred and so allows us to hear each other into a transcendent humanness and wholeness." In his book I T —^Nelle Morton* ^ -7 r ^, . \.The Journey üHomeM-yíonoa. I h e t o r g e a n a t h e C m a b l e , Mercia Eliade, that most amazing Historian of Religion wrote: "According to their traditions, Chinese Alchemy was developed utilizing three elements: Principles, Myths, and Techniques." To my delight, I realized that this three-foldness and its ordering was mirrored in the selection of concepts that I had already chosen as the title of this writing. To wit: between Metaphor and Trance, because when emotion and reason (i.e. the traditional body/mind dichotomy) merge, the result can be some form or another of Trance. Metaphors are used to describe {illuminate could also be used here) preternatural truths as well as natural ones. In rituals Metaphors are used to describe the nature of cosmic forces. As such. Metaphors can lead one to an innate "Realization." Or, we could also call it an "ahh-haa" due to the reaction it elicits. Regardless, some form of Realization is generally one of the results of the Trance experience. Therefore: Trance is an Altered State of Consciousness, Consciousness being the sahent, i.e., that which is altered. And we only know, or at least can only discuss, our Consciousness by means of Language. While I do not agree with the philosopher J. Jaynes^ on his most d r a m a t i cp o i n t sr e g a r d i n gt h eo r i g i no fc o n s c i o u s . . . 2. The Origin of Consciousness in ness, on these next points I can agree: B r e a k d o w n o f t h e B i c a m e r a l MM. "It is by metaphor that language grows. (Its) grand and vigorous function is the generation of new language..." He reaches his summation with the following: "All of these concrete metaphors increase enormously our powers of per ception of the world about us and our understanding of it, and literally creates new objects... .Indeed, language is an organ of perception, not sim ply a means of communication." In the cognitive field it is a fairly common assumption that there are two quite disparate modes of apprehension: emotion and reason, which are bridged by the use of Metaphor. To my mind, this clarified the relation Being consequential then. Metaphor is an organ, and perhaps the most vital organ, of perception. If, through Trance, we are able to break open the Doors of Perception, might we not also be breaking open the Doors of Metaphor? And by-andthrough the very means of Metaphor itself? For we can regard all our ideas and behaviors as reflections of some Metaphor: That is, as the outcome of treating the world "as if" it is a certain way. That is, by experiencing it through a particular worldview/frame of reference. Metaphor, in this sense, is enacted and reflected as much in our actions and feelings as in our patterns of thought and behavior. It would not be going too far to say that Metaphor operates at every level of our consciousness and sub-consciousness in our inter-reac- 408 409 Metaphor is the Principle on which these musings are based. Mythos (Myths) reveals a universal depth of being the world over. And Metaphonics is the word I am coining/suggesting for the major Trance Induction Technique on the planet. Metaphor Dictionary definition: "A transferring to one word the sense of another." Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS rions with the world. Therefore, in considering worldviews, it should not be too hard to imagine the dichotomy which exists between the antipodes of a hteral view, on the one hand, and a metaphoric view, on the other. The literal worldview supposes a sort of frozen reality, where any particular idea or action, once reflected on or experienced, would remain absolutely stable. Resorting to Metaphor, we could call this a Photographic or a two-dimensional worldview. The Metaphoric worldview, on the other hand, supposes a fluid reality. To achieve a representation of this would require something along the lines of a holographic motion picture. Holographic because you would want to be able to walk around whatever notion you were considering. Just to kind of get another angle on it. And a holographic motion picture at that. Because things happen in Time, as well as in Space. Since its inception. Western Science has functioned on the premise that the only way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, was to dissect it and study its separate parts. However, in a holo graphic Multiverse, this separateness is an illusion, because at the deepest levels of reality everything is infinitely interconnected. Thus, the electrons in each carbon atom in a human being would be connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every other animal, veg etable and mineral on the Earth, and beyond that to every star that shim mers and planet that shines in the sky. And indeed, in 1982 a research team at the University of Paris led ,3. ,http://www2.cnrs.ir/en/447.htm „ X, , , by physicist Alain Aspect^ discovered that under • A ^ A certain circumstances subatomic particles (such as electrons) could instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. The physicist David Böhm beUeves Aspect's findings implied that an "objective" reality does not exist—^rather that, despite its apparent solid ity, the universe is in fact holographic. Because, unlike photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The work of these two scientists, and they are just a cursory sampling, strengthens the notion that only a holographic metaphor of consciousness could enable the vast amounts of frequencies being shared by all our different senses to be sorted out to produce our conventional perceptions. 410 Research is continually discovering that each of our senses is sensi tive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected. For example: 1. Our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies (which is how my sound works in the dark functions). 2. Our sense of smell is in part dependent on intra-molecular vibra tions, referred to as "osmic," or absorptive frequencies, 3. Even the individual cells composing our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies, which accounts for the phenomenon known as "whole body hearing." Biologist Lyall Watson has described"* an 4. Gifts of Unknown Things. encounter with an Indonesian Shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, caused an entire grove of trees to disap pear and then reappear, off again and on again several times in succession. Obviously Western Science is incapable of explaining, let alone accepting, such events and experiences. But they are "explainable" if what is referred to as "consensual real ity" is formulated and functional at a holographic level where all minds are infinitely interconnected. In this holographic multiverse there would be no limits to the extent in which the fabric of reality could be altered. Experiences such as Watson's are rare then, only because we have not agreed to share the metaphors that would make them commonplace. The point that seems to be arising here is that a literal worldview would reflect the normal state of consciousness and a Metaphoric worldview any of the variety of altered states of consciousness. In 1987 Cathy J. Wheeler wrote The Magic of Metaphor^, an absolute ly killer article that rocked my world when I came 5. The Mazic of Metaphor in: Metaphor across it, and I can't recommend it enough. emd Symbolic Aaivity v.2 (4). Jungian Psychologist James Hillman', b^The Th^u£>t of the Heart md the Soul who has revised and revitalized Jung's work, con nects the metaphorical-literal contrast with the notions of monotheism and polytheism. Monotheistic religions regard their god as the ultimate. The One True God. No wonder then, that within this worldview,for any phenomenon there must be One, single, exclusive, and absolute Truth. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of particle physics, this is still the pervasive 411 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS mindset of Non-Animistic Cultures and their Sciences. In contrast, Polytheism esteems diversity, plurality, and complexi ty. Polytheism not only acknowledges many god/desses but it tends to be loose, adaptable and non-dogmatic. Polytheistic cultures generally do not regard themselves and any other religions they encounter, or might in the past have conquered, as mutually exclusive. Unless, of course, that religion is/was Monotheistic. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Trance Cultures throughout the world are decidedly polytheistic. For example, go to the market and check out the candle depart ment—dollars to doughnuts you will find Santerian candles. Santería is a perfect Polytheistic blend of Catholicism, with its vast list of Saints, transported/transmuted into a New World adaptation of tra ditional African religions with their Pantheons of Powers. And Polytheism does make the perfect transition to the discussion of Mythos—because where would the Myths be without their vast pan theons of Divine characters to gossip about? Mythos For the Greeks, Mythos meant: word, saying, fable, tale, talk or speech. This was contrasted with logos (The Word) and later with historia. Literary criticism regarding the veracity of Myth began as early as 500 BCE, and Mythos eventually came to denote that which was unreal. It is most interesting that even that far back in history the Metaphoric func tion/purpose of Myth was beginning to fade. Closer to home, in a current Encyclopedia Britannica, Myth is introduced as a collective term denoting a symbolic narrative in religion, as distinguished from symbolic behavior (of a sect or during a ritual) or sym bolic places or objects (temples, icons, drums/instruments, etc.) What this is implying is that, as simply a "narrative," Myth should be understood as existing somewhere separate from, or inaccessible to, ordi nary human experience or behavior or place or object. And that seems pretty sad to me. The novelist Ian McDonald^ set forth a 7. Desolation Row. notion of Myth most beautifully: "Marvelous how all human strife and conflict was a symbolic enactment the present was merely a fragment of the past repeating itself over and over again." The theologian Paul Tillich and the philosopher Karl Jaspers have both put forth cogent views in which: "Myth is that which is taken for granted when thought begins." —^Tillich And "Myth is the limit reached in the course of scientific analysis when it is (continually, I might add) found that no further progress in definition can be made after certain fundamental principles have been reached." —Jaspers Ian McDonald said in this regard: "The science which doesn't include that which it can't explain is no science at all." This dead end has been apparent in Western Science for quite some time and is responsible for the instigation of discussions about the limits of what can be scientifically explained. This dilemma is the force behind the impulse that has brought out all the books about Science and Spirituality, as well as all the conferences on that topic. The upside is that it has also sparked a renewed interest in the Mythological dimensions of human knowledge and consciousness. Now these dimensional levels can also be considered as functions of Memory. For, as far as I am concerned, it is only the very least of what Mythos is that manifests as the collections of fictions that exist in their oral or textual form. While that aspect of Myth is clearly the most usual refer ent, I would define that aspect as the stuff of Legend, Fable, Folktale, Epic, Saga, etc. For the purposes of this discussion I would posit rather that Mythos be seen as levels of informations redolent with the transforming powers of Life and Death and the unfolding forces of Nature. Because, absolutely, these Mythic dimensional levels (in a metaphorical without) exist in-potential within each of us. And this is central to this paradigm. For within us too, running deep throughout oxir 75 trillion cells are these same dimensional levels of Mythos. That is "in" what we call our Memory. This reflexive notion (a without and a within) is echoed in the of loftier struggles between the Powers Cosmic so that every moment of 412 413 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS classic esoteric dictum "As above, So Below" which can be heard echoing throughout this discussion. As to how this Mythic information is/can be accessed? The tradition of the Bat Kol from the Qabalha can shed some light here. Literally translated as Daughter of the Voice, figuratively it denotes the "small still Inner Voice." My belief now is that the voice alluded to here is that of our own dear Heart. In Qabalhistic Tradition it is held that all true teachings originate in/on what they refer to as the "Inner Planes," the access to which is gained in the Trance or Dream state. These Inner Planes are generally synonymous with the Akashik Record of Eastern Traditions and the Dream Times of many different cultures (Aboriginal, Malay, Amerindian et al.). On the one hand they are Hieroglyphically/Holographically rich places" (i.e., states, levels, realities of mind, etc.) which can be visited. On the other hand, they are also repositories for the sum total of possibilities of life-in-action. Metaphorically they are quite obviously holographic "Ubraries" of all past, present and future her- and his- stories. There are many Trance practices aimed at attuning one's self to the presence of this Inner Voice, whereby the neural activity of the brain is quieted, thus enabling our connection to the informations emanating/ resonating from/in/out of our heart and cells and/or the quantum seas.' And, as we shall see, most if not all of these 8. Due to space constraints I'm unable to practices are aided and abetted by Sound/ go into depth regarding the molecular side of this whole process, but for those so Music. interested see: a) Molecules of Emotion: The Science Between. Metaphorically then, the Quarterly b) Mind-Body Medicine^ Candace Pert. Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)dy C. Pert and N. Marriot. Nature of our consciousness (comprised of And regarding the Heart in this process, these cellular, cerebral, heart and quantum ele for those so interested see: a) The Living Ener^ Universe^ Dr. Gary ments/energies) can be considered as a radio, Schwartz ana Dr. Lmda Russek. b) The Heart's Code^ Dr. Paul Pearsall. that through intentional practice can, ultimate c^ The Human Heart, Rudolf Steiner, a) http://www.heartmath.org/research/ ly, receive such information/s—transmission/s research-our-heart-brain.html e) http://www.heartmath.org/research/ both inside and, eventually—which is the science-of-the-heart.html goal—outside of the Trance state. Metaphonics Breaking this word down: 414 Meta- is a Greek and Latin preposition originally signifying the relations: "in the midst of," "among," "between," "after" and "according to." Its first definition in Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary is: "changed in position or form," "altered" and "transposed." Which leaves us with: Phon—^which is from the Greek phone: "sound" or "voice." Metaphonics then, is the term I am coining for what is now gener ally termed Sacred Musics. That is, music/sound that is most concerned with transition/transportation. Or whose intent is to alter consciousness or to transpose between states of consciousness and/or levels of reality/ies. This would be in contradistinction to secular musics that seek but to distract or entertain. So from the Shaman's rattling drum to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, virtually all societies have favored sound as the medium to establish the Setting for their most sacred activities. While sound is hardly the only stimulus used for this, due to its pervasiveness and potential for subtle variation it has always been the ideal tool to provide the markers for the changing moments of ritual action. Consider the fact that many such rites are conducted at night or in a dim light which also serves to enhance the sensitivity of the ear. Consider too that a ritual lead by a deaf person would be as rare as the proverbial chicken's tooth, while rituals lead by a blind person are very common indeed. Perhaps the primary power of sound, and this is especially true in regard to Metaphonics, is in its relationship to Time. More specifically, this relationship is expressed by sound's ability to achieve various degrees of Time-Dilation; i.e., relative/subjective experiences of Duration. As Albert Einstein was related to have said, "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it's two hours. That's relativity." And it is also Time-Dilation. This demonstrates that during experiences of Time-Dilation one is taken out of a mechanistic/linear reality and inhabits the probability rich realities of Relativity. In respect to the Uni- vs. Multi- ness of our Verse, it would seem that while physically it is Uni (that is, Newtonian), when considered psy chically/spiritually it is Multi (that is, Relativistic/Holographic). 415 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS Another way of saying this is: you can only build a machine by using Newtonian Physics. However, you can only consider the cosmos or the relationships of matter using Quantum/Relativistic Physics, and per haps only then from within the Holographic Metaphor. So it is probably safe to say that the vast majority of peoples today think of their bodies and the objects around them and the space in which they both exist as three-dimensional. An obviously more recent development in Western Science is the concept of a fourth dimension, although this concept was introduced in 1908 by H. Minkowski. In considering the ramifications of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity he pointed out that it was now necessary to include a fourth dimension, that of Time, to the basis of our three dimensional world. Minkowski, not Einstein, referred to this "new" WorldView as the "fourdimensional space-time continuum." Simply put: if the three spatial dimensions are extensions in Space then the fourth dimension of any object is its duration, or extension, in Time. (Note that it seems the current contender in mainstream Science for this 4th position is gravity). In an article by S.C. McLaughlin^, The Relation Between Physical Dimen• 1 J "TI n 1 • T> r\i ' 1 sions and Higher Consciousness'm: Journal entitled i h c ixQlCltlOTl Bctwcctl Phystcul of Altered States of Consciousness Dimensions and Higher Consciousness, he states as its purpose, "...to present the elementary principles of a system of ideas in which the transcendent or spiritual element in human experience is described in terms of the dimensional structure of the physical universe." McLaughlin has gotten very consequential with the ramifications of this Worldview in the consideration of states/levels of consciousness which are directly related to my concept of the Metaphon. In his article he posits that 3i purely three-dimensional form, having no fourth dimension (i.e., duration) could not enter our experience. Conversely, a purely fourth-dimensional sensory observation is equally outside the range of human experience because it would entail a sensory awareness of the infinitely eternal sequence of events attached to the "life" of each-and-every "thing" encountered. For McLaughlin then, human sense-impressions (i.e., conscious ness) lie somewhere between those two dimensions. The reason I mention this is that within his paradigm, which he refers to by the term "dimensional 416 level of consciousness," changes in states are basically Time based. And I would bet that everyone reading this has had some experi ence with Time-Dilation. That, at the very least, you have "gotten lost" when listening to music, while driving, etc. This is what I am putting forth regarding Metaphons. That it is, by their ability to alter one's relationship to both Space and Time, which they, in fact, both can—and do—enable one's conscious ness to be altered. The current paradigm for thinking about the dimensionality of the physical world was introduced into the West by Pythagoras' who coined the term philosophos (lover of wisdom); he was the first person to refer to himself as such. Pythagoras gained his place in the annals of Western Science primarily for introducing the idea of the limit as the cor relative to the then current conception of a limitless something out of which the world was made. According to his theory, the limitless once Umited produces the point, twice limited the line, thrice limited the plane, and/o«r times limited the solid. And he was satisfied that all things then arose from the various arrangements of these geometries. His search for the secret of the Octave led him to associate mea surements of length and weight with musical tones. His success left the West with a large chunk of their "scientific method," the conversion of quality (in his case sound) into quantity (in his case lengths and ratios). Tradition holds that Pythagoras was inspired by hearing hammers striking a stirrup against the anvil of a Smithy. Attaching the heads of the hammers to cords of equal length and substance, he went on to develop his theory of the Octave. Many versions of this tradition relate it only in terms of the lengths of the cords or the relative size of the weights. Also, Pythagoras' intent here was to erase the Shamanic element by leaving out the context, i.e. the Smithy. For what would a Philosopher like Pythagoras be doing in a Smithy anyway? However, Aristotle wrote that Pythagoras had a golden thigh bone. At the time this was recorded Aristotle could have been doing noth ing less than conclusively identifying Pythagoras as having been within the Shamanic tradition. An Archetypical Smith is actively present in many of 417 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS the traditions which have been documented regarding initiation rites in the (irmer) Underworld. This Smith is generally concerned with that part of the initiation process that includes the dismembering of the novice. This is often followed by their immersion in a cauldron, or not. Either way, when they are reconstituted as a Shaman, some bone(s) have been replaced by metals. So Pythagoras had his epiphany in the Smithy. And he discovered that the basic intervals of the music scale recog nized in his day (i.e., the fourth, the fifth and the octave) could be repre sented by the ratios (or proportions) 1:2, 3:2 and 4:3. This correspondence made it appear that kosmos (i.e., order and beauty) was imposed on the potentially chaotic range of sound by means of the first four integers 1, 2, 3, and 4. And he saw this as a further vindication of his four-folding of the limit. The numbers 1+2 + 3 + 4 add up to 10, which provided striking confirmation, if it was not the actual ground, for the Pythagorean belief that the number ten was, as Aristotle relates; "something perfect, and containing in itself the whole nature of number." This number they represented graphically by the figure known as the tetractys which became their sacred symbol. It also appeared in a formula by which his followers were said to swear their allegiance to his School: "By him who handed down to us the tetractys, source and root of everlasting nature." The number 10 also signifies a major glyph of Qabalhistic lore known as The Tree of Life. ® 0 ® ® ® ® © © © © © ® © © © © Q Tetractys Tree of Life. For the Pythagorean Schools c.550 b c e through to the early Christian writers, numbers were held to be the principles and elements of all things 418 and composed the proportions of the whole world. Allow me to take a slight detour and consider the notion of proportion: 1. Rhythms are built up out of proportions. 2. Proportion literally translates as "for one's portion." 3. One's portion always has a direct relation to one's destiny. When sounding a proportion/rhythm, then, one is invoking a course of events, the intention of which varies with the particulars of the time and location of the particular ritual. These ritual properties, especially time and location, are most developed in the Indian musical system of the raga, which I will explore further. In respect to this notion of proportion then, it is the proportion ate difference between the relative magnitudes of the beats and the silences—between these beats—which comprise and give the power to any particular rhythm. For example: When X = beat and x = rest, and -(x)- = a longer rest, a particular rhythm could look Uke this: XxXxx-(x)-XXxxxXx-(x)(This "loops" as: XxXxx-(x)-XXxxxXx-(x)-XxXxx-(x)-XXxxxXx(x)-XxXxx-(x)- which would be repeated ad infinitum in a ritual setting). Through the intention of the drummer the particular rhythm notated here would be capable of enabling the manifestation of the energies corresponding to either the creator/creation, or the Forest, or the Lighting (i.e., the visual accompaniment to thunder). A 1• 1 1 1 • T 1 \0. Concept of Identity and Folk Concepts _I I . Apropos this, ethnopsychologist John .^ I ^ I Blacking^° relates a lascmatmg incident: of Self: A Venda Case Study m-. identity, A. Jacobson-Widding ed. "I remember an old, blind, Master Musician criticizing a performance on one of my tape recordings on the grounds that the drummers could not have been moving their shoulders and arms correctly." Intense, eh? That this Master could literally see what he was hear ing. And consider also the fact that even just the recording of the sound was actually conveying this information to one who knew how to access it. You can turn your back on a sight, but you carmot turn your back 419 metaphors, mythos and metaphonics z'ev to a sound. 11. I he Birth oj the bymbol M MUSK World of Music V. 16 in: Also, this anecdote related by M. •' Schneider^ "...considering the great importance ancient peoples placed on hearing. I had a concrete example of this many years ago when a Duala beat a rhythm for me that coordinated sea waves, herds coming down a hill and wind blowing through underbrush." So the Duala was varying his "intention" as he played, allowing Schneider the multiplicity of visualizations he was seeing, in his "mind seye", associated with the rhythmic sounds he was hearing. This reminds me of a conversation I had with a Senegalese musi cian I worked quite a bit with when I was living in Amsterdam. He told me that the Master of Masters of Senegalese drummers had awoken one night during a rain storm from a dream in which he had learned the "rhythms of the rain." Listen to the talking drummers who play with Senegalese singers Yousu N' Dour or Baba Maal, and you can hear this liquidity for yourself. The Pythagorean School used music in both its healing and metaphonic capacities. In their teachings, their belief was that seven "plane tary" spheres each corresponded to a different note of a cosmic musical scale. I put "planetary" in quotes because the seven included our Moon and the Sun along with the five inner planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The particular pitch depends on four basic parameters: planetary rotation and orbital period (time), and orbital circumference and diameter (space), just as the pitch of a lyre string depends on its material, length, thickness and the tension under which it is put. However, this "Music of the Spheres" was never a fixed system. There were as many such schemes, with differing values given to each "planet," as Philosophical Schools that dealt with it. Attributed to Socrates in Plato's Republic is the statement that, for the Pythagoreans, Music and Astronomy were sister sciences. Therefore, then, these ratios found through Sound were also appHed to Astronomy. The orbits of the planets and the vault of the stars were taken to correspond to these ratios. Consequentially then, these orbits should be emanating tones which would combine into a virtual symphony. If Humanity was not in tune with these harmonies, then that must 420 be because their Souls were out of tune and not vibrating in unison with the emanations of the kosmos. So this is what their notion of a "Music of the Spheres" was about. And, maybe not surprisingly, it refers to a "silent" "inner" Music. Pythagoras taught that this information was revealed to the Greeks through Orpheus, and for centuries revealed to initiates of his Mysteries. Just before these Mysteries began to degenerate, Pythagoras instituted their teachings into his School. For over some 1,000 years this notion of sonic tones being an inher ent property of astronomical entities and events has been considered a naïve fantasy of obviously "primitive" peoples. However, in the fall of 2003 the Chandra X-ray Observatory (in an elliptical orbit ranging from 6,200 to 86,800 miles above the Earth's radiation belts) produced images that allowed NASA scientists to confirm the presence of sound waves in the Perseus Galaxy, some 250 million light years from the Milky Way". The 11. Perseus galaxy. http://chandra.harvwd. sound's oressurc zones, which have remained edu/photo/2003/perseus/perseus_xray.)pg * roughly constant for approximately 2.5 bil lion years, pulse at a frequency of [approximately] 1 cycle per 300 million million seconds. This translates as a tone fifty-seven octaves below mid dle C. The [approximate] pitch of the tone would be B^ or ten notes above middle C. In the April 2006 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, a team led by Professor Adam Burrows reported that immediately preceding the explo sion of a supernova, which then becomes a black hole, the supernova "sings." Until this time scientists had assumed that the explosion was due to the star's outer shell bouncing back off the core. But Burrows' team has developed computer models that simulate the events from the collapse of the core of a dying start through to the supernova explosion. Their simula tions showed that about 500 milliseconds after the core collapses, the inner core begins to vibrate wildly. And after 600-800 milliseconds, this oscilla tion becomes so vigorous that it generates sound. In their simulations, it was the pressure of the sound that actually caused the star to explode. The researchers said that the typical sound frequencies in the inner core range from about 200 to 400 Hz.'^ , The most prominent of the Milky Way s ^ satellite galaxies are a pair called the Magellanic 421 12. And if you're counting, or listening. appx. 200Hz is F below Middle c and 400 Hz lies above Middle C, between G at appx. 392 Hz and a at appx. 440 Hz. Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS SdLllaÄÄc# Clouds«". During their rotation cycle around the galaxy, they create a warp in its galactic disk which has puzzled astronomers since its discovery in 1957. The warp, seen most clearly in the thin disk of hydrogen gas permeating the galaxy, extends across the entire 200,000-light year diameter of our Milky Way'v. In January 2006 UC Berkeley astrono mers Leo Blitz, Carl Heiles and Evan Levine rV. Galactic waip. http://berkeleyedii/news/ published an imageV which mathematically J M t 1 . . /• 1 I- http://www.valdezlink.com/ describes the warp as a combination of three pages/media/pineai.gif different types of vibration: a flapping of the disk's edge up and down, a sinusoidal vibration like that seen on a drum head, and a saddle-shaped oscillation. These three notes are about 3 million octaves below (maybe no surprise) middle C. Blitz, director of UC Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Laboratory, has said that his personal belief is that the three "notes" are "the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." And it s also worth noting that now that Astrophysics is listening, and not just looking, they are continuing to uncover other examples of this Music of the Spheres. So much for the macro-cosm; let's look at the microcosm for a bit: In his Life of Pythagoras, lamblichus repeats the statement of Plato that the study of Sonic Science "awakens that organ in the brain which the ancients described as the eye of wisdom.'" This eye of wisdom is now known to physiology as the pineal gland. And it is worth noting that this association with the eye is not purely metaphorical. In addition to being considered part of the endocrine (hormonal) system, it is also often includ ed as part of the visual sensory system. An ancient Taoist Alchemical text, translated by Charles Luk", places the position of the original cavity of the spirit in the center of the brain, behind the spot 13. Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality. between the eyes. And the Immortal Taoist Lao Xzu was referring to the pineal when he spoke of "the gateway to heaven and earth." In relation to this he urged people to "concentrate on the center in order to realize the oneness of all things." ^ VI. Pineal z. http://www.wwnorton.com/ coUegeAiistoi7/raiph/resource/24descar.htm In adults the pineal gland is the site of cal422 cified deposits of what is often called "brain sand." This is actually hydroxyapatite (Ca5(P04)30H), or what makes up 70% of the mineral composi tion of the cancellous and cortical bone structure. Very interestingly, hydroxyapatite is piezoelectric, which means that it responds to both electromagnetism and mechanical vibration. That is, if pressure is applied to it, it can produce an electrical charge—and if it receives an electromagnetic signal it can produce a mechanical vibration. This means that the pineal is sensitive to both the pressure waves exerted by the beating heart and to different levels of electromagnetic light, received via the optic nerve. And if that wasn't enough, being a gland, its first "language" of course is in the molecular fluidic/chemical mode of ligand releasing. The main job of the pineal gland is to transduce these mechanical and electromagnetic impulses into hormonal information, and vice versa, influencing daily, seasonal and annual rhythms such as sleep, temperature, reproduction and aging. Thus, the eye of wisdom. A J • ) 1 • £. And it s only trie size or a pea. r-r«i • 11 1 r 1 • illlS well sets tne stage tor a bit more - . I , 1 1 1 regarding the pineal gland: 14. And if this interests you, you can find Fiorenza's in-dep¿í treatment of Harmonic Signatures and Schumann Resonance, etc. at: www.lunarplanner.com/Harmontcs/ pianetary-harmonics.html "Harmonic Signature" researcher Nick Anthony Fiorenza" shares my opinion that, in his words, "The Earth is a spherical receiver of cosmic energy (evolutionary intelligence) which directs our biological process and spiritual evolutionary unfoldment. The Earth re-radiates the cosmic infor mation it receives from its core outward in complex long-wave signals." Fiorenza feels that we receive these "planetary musics" via the Schumann Resonance Field^'' through an antenna system composed of our spinal column VII.Schun)Mn.http://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Schumann_resonance_oi.png and cranium. While this notion of the spine as an , , ,, ^ VIII. Schumann, http://geomag.usgs.gov/ antenna could certainly be one part of the picture, lagaxiii/posters/mnjagaioos.pdf it is worth reiterating that as our entire body is inundated with these signals, the heart also receives and redirects them throughout our body as well. The field was first observed by Nikola Tesla, but it was not until 1952 that W.O. Schumann^® first calculated them at 7 0"^ Wv /,oJ nz. A l l * 1 T r And that is way way low. In tact most humans don't really hear below 20 Hz. Sounds 423 information on W.O. Schumann and Schumann Resonance see: http://www.hese-project.ore/hese-uk/en/ pa^ers/schlegeLsihumann.pdf z'ev metaphors, mythos and metaphonics down aroimd that range, and below, are usually felt only in a physical sense, if their volumes are high enough. So let s start delving into this Metaphonic process. The Brahmanas are considered to be among the oldest prose writings in any Indo-European language. Composed c. 600 bce, they contain explanations of, and commentaries on, the mantras, and describe the impor tance of prayers, sacrifices, and their correct observance. Perhaps the oldest Brahmana, the Aitareya Brahmana, states explicitly that the seat of the Brahman (the primordial sound) is located in the ear. This Brahman is the first sacrifice, and is interpreted as the first Creating act, occurring in the element Akasha (Air). This act, though inaudible, reveals itself after the birth of the element Air. Thus Brahman, the transcendent inaudible rhythm, appears through the Air and it becomes audible in order to create the primordial world. The first sound-sacrifice to unfold (the technical term used in the Brahmanic texts) was a chant of praise which brought an acoustical level/ reality to birth in the midst of the previously pervading "darkness." It was through rhythms, enfolded like the ripples in a pond, which unfolded the developing complexity of this, at first, monotonaly acoustical level/reality. Metaphorically speaking, the different rhythms in these Brahmanic acoustical levels/realities can be thought of as different pitches. And these emanations are coincident with the number of notes comprising the Vedic musical scales. (Such as the seven notes: "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti" of the Western scale). When interacting, these pitches enfolded harmonies which achieved the (again metaphoric) capacity of a choir, which, (again metaphor ically) called forth a dawn, for some of these sound-rhythms had turned into Light. In the Vedic tradition aU of the second Brahmanic phase, which is superimposed on the first, is the work of the god Indra, the supreme ruler of the gods. There are more hymns (approximately 250) in the Rig Veda dedicated to him than to any other god or goddess. Indra was the leader of the Devas, the god of war, a thunderbolt wielding god of thunder and storms, the greatest of all warriors, the strongest of all beings. (Remember these particular associations because they will return when we come to con sider Shiva and Dionysus). When this Lightening-Sounding Dawn "broke," superimposed on the two preceding, and never-ending, level/realities, and as these rhythms (or frequencies) enfolded and unfolded, they somehow/somewhy chose to be perceived as concrete, compact matter. From this choice resulted the liberation of the never-ending process of our physical universe. Thus, as explained by the Vedic tradition, this resulted in three distinct aspects which can be seen to correspond to Sleep, Dream and 424 425 In 1978 Dr. Robert Beck's'^ work on Extremely Low Frequency signals. Earth resonances and their effect on brain wave fre quencies was presented at a U.S. Psychotronic conference, and when published served to "pop ularize" this information. Beck reported that 16. R. BECK, http://www.scribd.com/doc/ 99-^ 389/Beck-Ri98oELF-Magnetic-Fieldsand-EEG-Entrainment-A-PsychotronicWarfare-PossibÌhty-20-p http://www.scribd.com/doc/9943404/BeckRi 98 5Subhmal-Warfare-ELF-ExtremelyLow-Frequency-Magnetic-Fields-9-p 7.83 Hz is also a brainwave frequency often detected when psychics are in their intuiting mode. Shades of Plutarch!!! (Who wrote c. 120 ce : "The Earth.. .sends up to human beings ... Trance.") When our brainwave and body rhythms are measured electromagnetically, they are found to occur prominently within this ELF spectrum. When the brain is given a stimulus, through the ears, eyes or other senses, it emits an electrical charge in response, called a Cortical Evoked IX. Cortical response. https://www.trans parentcorp.com/products/np/images/ evoked.jpg Response'^. These electrical responses travel throughout the brain to become what you hear, see, smell, touch, taste. When the brain is presented with a rhyth mic stimulus, such as a drum beat, the rhythm is reproduced in the brain in the form of these electrical impulses. If the rhythm remains consistent enough, the brain responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles (known as our "brainwaves") to the same rhythm. This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response [or FFR]'', first pointed out in the 1940s bv the Enelish ^ ^trainment. httpV/wwrcmind-machines. ^ o de/images/np2_brainwave_entrainment.gif neurophysiologist WG. Walter. In the West the aforementioned Vedic triune aspects of Creation are symbolically personified by their Triple Goddess in her three aspects of Crone, Mother and Virgin. She is also personified in Myth as Hecate, Demeter and Persephone, as the planets Saturn, Moon and Venus, and as the numbers 3, 9 and 7. Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS Wakefulness. Note that in some traditions these three aspects are sometimes also further subdivided into five, seven or nine minor emanations. More often than not these aspects/emanations are now represented in their Myths by a Tree of the World'^, sacrifi cial stake, column, stairway or some other '4 segmented something generally planted in "the midst of the waters." These branches/segments unfold in/as the sounds of the particular cultures" harmonic series. That is, in their representations, the amount of branches/segments would equal the amount of notes in their musical scale. Additionally, these aspects are often related as occupying the cen ter of the Multiverse and usually act as a mediator between God/desses or Inner Words and Humanity. During the archetypical times when Heaven and Earth, or the pri mordial world and our world, were still either united or differentiated, there was no need for a mediator. This is where Metaphonics relates to this com plex, because when these two (or more) regions differentiated, their reinte gration seems to have been effected primarily through Sound. That is, through sacrificial, supplicational, etc. chants, lamentations, and prayer. In the Vedic tradition their notion of an "Unfolding" of Creation is symbolized by the dance of Shiva. For Shiva is a dancer, in fact, as Nataraja-Shiva he is the Lord of the Dance^. He executes the Cosmic Dances—^the rhythms of his pounding feet throughout the Multiverse, which perpetuate the eternal Enfolding and Unfolding. As such, his Dances resonate both in and out of existence. The dance of Shiva also represents the five aspects of his name Pancha-anana (5 Faced)™: Shñshti (creation, evolution), Sthiti (preservation, support), Samhara (destruction, transformation), Tirobhava (illusion, madness), and Anugraha—(liberation, grace). Shiva's Being-in-Manifestation is meditated on as a River of 5 streams from 5 sources, because 5 is the sacred number of Shiva, although the total number of names or epithets attributed to him is 1,008. His body is said to be constituted of 5 mantras, composed of 5 syllables, which evoke his essence in the practitioner. Under the epithet Yogesvara, Shiva is the Teacher who, in silence, 426 expounds to the Sages the Laws of Music, Yoga, Gnosis, and all the other Arts and Sciences. Also note that this "silent-expounding" refers to trans missions by/through the Irmer Voice/Planes. The God who "transformed" in the scriptures over time into Shiva was Rudra, the Wild God, also known as The Howler. As the Red God, Rudra was intimately associated with Blood and Fire and the Powers of Life and Death. This identity with Rudra also coimects Shiva with the darkness of Night and the Underworld, symbolized by Black Shiva. Through this attribution of the Wild God, we can see the correspondence of Shiva to Dionysus^', the Wild God of the West who was ... , », • n -I also called Bacchus—"the mad one," Lusios— 18. Shwa and Dionysus, Alain Danielou (K.F. Hurry trans.) liberator" and Bromius—"the roaring XIII. Dioitysus. http://www.articleserver. info/MYTHiS/Goas/Dionvsus/original/ dionysus%.or-f%.cieopar<i.jpg XIV. Shivalingum in Nepal, httpt/zihi.ggpht com/_l-oYBWgi^FM/RyLyqVZrAi/ AAAAAAAAGND\s^3wgjKq5cU/IMG_ 2315.JPG XV. Dionysus at Deios. http://www.vroma. org/images/mcmanus_images/dionysus_ phalius.jpg ^Ä;ÄÄSpf XVII. Omn. http://members.tripod.com/ ~Yemoja7Logum.jpg One. »XIII tmvckd , to Greece wherc he . „ru YV J 1 became known as Dionysis-"*' **, and also . ,. ., made it to Atnca where his attnbutes were given the name Ogun'^' the Orisa of ° " Metals and Metal Working (the Smith), Minerals, Tools, War, Dogs, and Wdd Beasts. Ogun îs also the Orisa of SacHfice, being the owner of Steel and the blade that is used in making sacrifice to all other Orishas. In searching for images of Rudra I was coming up empty. Then, lo and behold, I came back to a book" that was given to me by the Way of Aaion Sufi group in Holland over twenty years ago when I used to xho^ drum accompaniments to their healing massage rituals. The book was the definitive study on the Rudra-Veena^", an instrument that has been mentioned in Indian lit„ , „ . „ j XVIII. Rudra Veena. http://www.mdierature for over 1,800 years. In fact, the entire sysanetzone.com/photos_galiery/i8/rudrave ' ' ena_i3405.)pg tem of the raga was developed by and through the Veena. (Note that the sitar is a much, much later instrument and quite "pop" in comparison). Some traditions hold that the Veena was "invented" by Shiva in tribute to his consort Parvati™ and diat the sound of the Veena recreates her rhythmie breathing. While the lingum is the primal and primary image of Shiva, the Sri 427 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS Yantra^'^ is also His, and from the permuta^ xx. Sri Ymtra. htm://aiu^.cse.ucsc.edu/ -mikel/snyantra/ Note: It you look at the tions of its structure are derived the actual proportional series that govern the Vedic musical, i.e., the notes of all the ragas and raginis. Rudra-Shiva then, is the totality of manifestation whose 8-Fold domain consists of the Vedic Five Elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space together with the two mea surers of Time: the Sun and the Moon. The process reaches completion with the addition of the Sacrificer or Initiate (the Brahman). And in the shape of the numeral 8, very coincidentally, you also have the image of Shiva's hourglass drum, the damaruP^-' When the vertical numeral 8 flips to Ar/osmos. horizontal mode as the symbol of Infinity, it is xxiax-rav photo of DNA. http://science ^«o mirroring an object knows as the Labrys™. blogs.coni/bioephemera/dna.jpg XXIb.Houreiassnebula.http://hubblesite. org/gallery7aIbum/nebuli collection/ pri996oo7a/ XXIc. Crab nebula, http://hubblesite.org/ gallery/aibum/nebula_collection/pri999o 32c/ ThlS forgCS i i* i i i*- i i i ,, i i the link between XXIL Minoan labrys. http://ww.hartzler. . 0rg/cc307/min0an/iniages/b4.)pg Shiva and that most ancient manifestation of the divine, namely, the ^ XXId. The red rectangle. http://hubblesite. GoddcSS, Labrys cultures represent the roots of xxie. Demise of a star. httpV/hubbiesite. org/gallery/album/nebula_coUection/pr2o o^oQQ^ ^^e Indo-European people as its image is found as r id.1 iUMC'JS. i do Paleolifhir X diev/iiLiiiv rave c-dvc tiai'ntino-c uaiiiLin^o (10,000-40,000 years ago). Minoan in origin, the word "Labrys" is from the same root as the later Latin labus: "lips." As a glyph for the female labia at the entrance of the womb and the butterfly, it is a symbol of both birth and rebirth. The two heads also sym bolized the waxing and waning Moons. It appears on matriarchal murals and mosaics, pottery, seals, and amulets throughout the Aegean region and into Africa as well. The matriarchal Cretans made the Labrys in all sizes, from delicate jewelry to nine foot tall specimens which stood at the ends of altars. Its image was also used to mark the entrance to their Goddess sanctuaries and Labyrinths, and it is worth remembering in this context that our Inner Ear is composed of not just one, but two Labyrinthine structures. Before we dip into some more Goddess lore, let's have one last nod to Pythagoras, or more specifically to his teacher Thaïes. Bertrand Russell wrote that, "Philosophy begins with Thaïes." Thaies is also regarded as the first scientist, in the Western sense of that word. 428 So, I would like to point out that Thaïes taught that water was the basic element of all Life. Not surprisingly, we now know that approximate ly 60% of the human body, including 70% of our brain, 83% of our blood and 90% of our lungs, is water. Water also covers approximately 60% of the Earth and is also the only substance that naturally appears in all three states; liquid, solid (ice), and gas (steam).^° Thaïes was a Greek-speaking Sage from 20. Water from Heaven^ Robert Kandel , . 1 A r T« 1 1 • 1 suhúútá: The Story of Water from the Big what IS now the Aegean coast OI Turkey, which Bang to ée Rise of CivUizatùmand Beyond. was then known as Anatolia. So perhaps it is no coincidence then that Anatolia was home to the most exceptional and ancient Metaphonic Goddess, Kybelle, the Great Mother of Çatylhôyûk, whose names then were also Kubaba and Zemelo.'™"'"'' Kybelle was known in the Greek world as early as 700 bce, and references to her appear XXIIIa. Kybelle c. 6500 bce. http://mythology.ourgardenpath.com/ in the Homeric Hymns. She is considered the wp-content/uploads/2oo8/o4/goddess i .jpg XXIIIb. Greek Cybele with drum. inventor of the Drum, as Pan is of the Pipes and http://www.somaluna.com/images/ products/STAoo9/portrait_sc.jpg Hermes the Lyre. According to traditions the ear liest entity-attendants of the Grecian Kybelle were the Korybantes or Galloi, (sometimes identified with the Dactyls), who worshiped her with drumming and dancing, and the wild ecstasy of their cult has been compared to tlie Maenads, the female followers of Dionysus.™^ The primary iconic-object of Kybelle was the meteorite'^, so no coincidence then that the sacred object in the Kaaba at Mecca^^ is also a meteorite called Al XXIV. Maenads and satyrs. hajar Al-aswad (the Holy Black Stone)'™"^. This http:// www.mlahanas.ae/Greeks/Dance/ Maenads2.jpg particular image of the mysteries of Kybelle^™^'' XXV. Goddess meteorite. http://imca. repetti.net/images/BlackStone.jpg echoes this fragment from an evocation from the XXVI. Mecca- http://www.arabiait/engUsh/ Elusian mysteries: islam/mecca2.jpg "I have eaten from a drum, I have drunk from a cymbal, I am an initiate of Attis." XXVII. Kaaba meteorite. http://www. a!-islam.org/gallery/photos/ha)raswd.gif XXVIII. Elusian mysteries. http://www. aztriad.com/angelhnn.htnil Around 200 b c e the Rites of Kybelle was brought to Rome and given a temple on the Palatine, which was an exceptional honor for a foreign Goddess. The worship of Kybelle was also one of the most obstinate antagonists of Christianity, disappearing only as late as approximately 400 c e . 429 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS Kybelle S Rites were celebrated to the Metaphonic accompaniment of cymbals, drums, castanets and tambourines^™^. And the celebrants chanted and danced themselves into a Trance and of timbrels, with the voice of flutes and the outcry of wolves and state.2i.xxx you in my song and to all goddesses as well!" —Homeric Hymn XIV to The circle/circling dance is perhaps the Trance Dance par-excellence. One of the earliest representations of it, from the British Library, is a Cyprian limestone figure of "Phoenician" dancers from approximately 1000 BCE.^™^ XXDC Maenads. http://www.fondazioneIevL org/ma/index/numDer2/restani/don4a.jpg XXX. Maenads dance. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17289/ i7289-h/images/oi2_l.jpg 21. Maenads trance. http://www.hermetic fellowship.org/Dionysion/Maenads.html XXXI. Phoenician dancers. http://www. gutenberg.org/files/17289/17289-h/images/ oo5-l-iPg The Circle Dance would also be the astral choreography alluded to in this fragment from a prayer of the Mevlevi order (the whirling dervishes) established on the teachings of the mystic poet Mevlana Jalaladdeen Rumi in the late 13th century: "by revolving as rapidly as lightning we become intoxicated...let us imitate those luminous bodies...let us revolve like the sun and the moon... let us turn like the planets...let us tum like the stars in the heavens...let us turn like the circle which has neither a beginning nor an end...."xxxn The circle alluded to here is perhaps xxxii. Sufi dancer. http://4.bp.biogspot. com/_pMqNaWEUTt8/Sc-9nKYCxBI/ also synonymous with the circle of compieAAAAAAAAB^AArmyNebtG4/s4oo/ Dervish+dance.jpg tion" atop the sacred ong symbol of Bali, where the indigenous word for "trance" translates as, "to become." Regarding the importance of the sound quality of the cymbal in Kybelle worship, the work of Marija Gimbutas^ is particularly germane. Her findings from and Go<k of Old Europe, Ancient European sites lead her to state that, "the epiphany of the Goddess is inseparable from the noise of howHng and clashing." Of the initiates of the Goddess, Gimbutas wrote, "they clash the cymbals of the Great Mother." And here are three more examples of this complex from Greek texts: "Wearing her turreted headdress, the great goddess Kybelle will clash her hoarse cymbals to accompany the Idean dance." —Propertius 3.17 "Brass-sounding, honored, Kronos' blessed queen, drum-beating, furyloving, of a splendid mien." —Orphic Hymn 14 to Rhea "I prithee, clear-voiced Mousa, daughter of mighty Zeus, sing of the Meter 430 (Mother) of all gods and men. She is well-pleased with the sound of rattles bright-eyed lions, with echoing hills and wooded coombes. And so hail to the Mother of the Gods Note that this hst of sounds mirrors the "Six Famihes of Noise" that Futurist musician Luis Russolo listed in his Art of Noises (1913), which Edgar Varese cited as an influence on his monumental work Ionisation (1933). These famihes also basically describe the pallet employed by the seminal Grindcore band Carcass (c. 1988-1996). Before we leave the Goddess let's head South and have a look at Hathor, Egypt's Metaphonic Goddess, who was the primary deity associat ed with music, the drum and dance. Hathor was held to be the incarnation of dance, whose hieroglyph was either a cow bearing the solar disk between its horns, or a woman crowned with the solar disk and horns.™^" Inspiration was also ruled by Hathor, and her followers would come to her temples to have their dreams explained or to beseech her for her aid in procreation, in much the same way that the Greeks invoked Hekate. The Biblical story of the forging and worshipping of the Golden Calf at Mount Sinai is based on aspects of her Cult as practiced in the south ern Sinai by Western Asiatic miners who were there working for the Egyptians. In the Old Kingdom era a hymn in her honor reads: "We play the drum for your spirit. We dance for your majesty. We uplift you to the skies." Another text from the Dendara crypts^™^ xxxrv. Hathor temple. . . ^ • 1 / 1 • 1 http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Cities/ implies orgiastic/ Irance ntuals/worship when wid/ooo85/ooo85e.jpg Hathor is described as: "leader of the choral dance, the bestower of the intoxication that knows no end." I don't know about you, but I'm down for that. To get back on track then: In its transformative power, Metaphonics resembles all that's best in the act of Worship. That is, when the energies of Sound and an expectancy of Transition are focused toward a common meaning and goal, then the potentials of Metaphonics and the Sacred (i.e. those all-possible holographic levels of reality) can achieve a synergy. This |. 431 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS synergy enables a synthesis that creates an intensification of experience that is greater than either Sound or "simple" expectancy might achieve on its ow^n. That is, Metaphonics can enhance, intensify and transform almost any experience into one which resonates with significance and dimension ality. It is at this point, and in this synthesis, that Metaphonics touches on the Mythic. And there are, for example, not only Myths of Music but also Musics of Myth. For in most cultures/religions throughout history. Myths have been embodied not only in/as written Uterature but also in/as musical per formance. That is, "religious texts" were sung long before they were ever, if ever, committed to writing. For example, the "drum lineage" songs of the pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bon Path evoke for the practitioner a link with the beginning of Time and center of the world. In many cultures/religions music is held to be not humanly, but rather, divinely patterned and is considered less an expressive "art" than a technology to produce practical results. For, in its performance. Music provides one of the most effective bridges between Myth and Ritual, that is: between behef and action. In the nada-Brahman or God-as-Sound of Hinduism, Music is considered to originate as a primordial divine power, exemplified as previ ously discussed, in the Drumming/Cosmic Dance of Shiva. This same dynamic can also be recognized as well in the widespread stories of god/desses who sing their creations and creatures into existence. And the Goddess is here included due to the many South Amerindian and Melanesian legends of the male's theft of sacred flutes from the women who originally possessed them. In Tibetan Buddhist tradition "Music" is a combination of the actually present music produced by the sound-making voices and instru ments and the internally produced music perceived and imagined by each and every listener. Differing results/experiences are considered to be due to each individual's evolution, which translates as expertise in their practice and in the power of their imagination. Mark Booth suggests that Music, and 23. The Experience of Songs, M. Booth. Song in particular, evokes primordial memories of the rhythms and vibrations experienced in the mother's womb, effects produced, in fact, by the mother's heart. For Booth though. Song offers "the experience of unity with what seems to lie apart 432 from ourselves." And he proposes that this experience is the result of the unity that occurs when Song affects the marriage of Music and Language. This same unity also occurs with the Drum and Drumming, but in this case the tonal quality of the Drum represents Music and the rhythm pattern. Language. Further, Metaphonic rhythms also form a link between Words, Music and Dance. Even if it's as a Song, the lyrics generally Rhyme. That is, the words conform to a Rhythmic scheme. Rhythms provide the cues of accent and patterning with which one coordinates the movements of their body in—and as—Dance. Traditions worldwide associate particular rhythms and cycles with specific ritual activities and/or to specific god/desses (i.e., states of con sciousness/levels of reality). These rhythms range in style and, through a variety of tempos from the very steady, almost monotonous beating used by both Amerindians and Shamanic Cultures worldwide, to the very fast, syncopated rhythms (fea turing sounds that fall between and overlap the beats) associated with African and Afro-Ameri-Carib possession rites, to the asymmetrical and extremely slow rhythms used in the Far East, with Tibetan Buddhist ritual dances and especially their Oracular Ritual being prime examples of these types of rhythms, with beat groupings extending into the hundreds to musi cally embody cosmological and other lineage related religious concepts. In Arabian classical musics there are numerous examples of long cycles still in use. The longest example known is called the "conquering rhythm" (Darb faTh), invented during the Ottoman period, measuring 176/4. To give a little demo of what this means, it just took me one minute to count to 176 at a reasonable tempo. In the pop song universe one verse of a song is typically eight measures long, so then one pop verse at 176/4 would take eight minutes. Another reason why Percussive patterns are an excellent vehicle for an Other aspect to manifest in the reality of our concrete world is because they are devoid of any concrete form or image that might be a distracting obstacle to the manifestation of any such Other aspects. Various traditions, in referring to the genesis of the World, relate that the externalization of the creative impulse/rhythm occurs through "the Word of God." Schneider delineates this process quite succinctly, and I'll draw here 433 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS on an analogy he drew which is excellent, albeit from a Christological point of view. In this analogy, the first step of this process would be the unfold ing of an inaudible rhythm. When this rhythm appears in a different reality (i.e., ours) it becomes sound by pronouncing itself. Thus his example, whereby the Christ-energy existed as a rhythm in the thought of the Father, but became the audible word (i.e., the Logos) when pronounced (i.e., brought into manifestation) by him. Returning for a last time to Vedic Meta-physics, in their system sound is divided into four specific qualities: Spho a: The creative principle of the Multiverse and the World of Pure Being. The eternal element of pure unmanifested sound that is beyond perception. N da: The unstruck and unstrikable sound. In the same way that you can't see colors in the dark, though they're there to be seen, without proper training you can't hear Nada, though it's there to be heard. An hata: "Unstruck," refers to sound potentially existing but not expressed. And remember this is the name for the Heart Chakra. It is the sound of thought on the verge of manifestation. Not to be confused with pure unmanifested sound. Ahata: "Struck," refers to sound produced by the physical action of one thing upon another. It includes the whole range of physical sound, whether audible to human ears or not (such as the sounds of insects etc.) Ahata is also divisible into four categories or stages: Spanda: the pulsing or quivering that just precedes manifestation Paryanti: the point from which the movement of sound commences Pashyanti: the reverberation before impact (i.e., hearing) is made Vaikhari: the sound that is actually heard. The common denominator between the Metaphonic Drum Drumming and its Voice Chanting has been most cogently dealt with by 434 anthropologist Donald Tuzin.^"* His bottom line IS 24. Miraculous Voices in: Current Anthrothat, in both cases, it is not so much what can be ^ heard as what can not. His "not heard" results from the sub-auditory sound pressures which can be propagated by both drums and the human voice. This is espe cially true when the voice is augmented and distorted by the use of a reso nant chamber developed to this end by various cultures. These range from the basilica of a church to the special barrel or tube-like resonating cham bers for singing into, which occur in many cultures. The didgeridoo is a good example of this sort of device, although the correct Yolnggu (Aboriginal) term is Yidaki. Tuzin went on to develop a hypothesis that this not-heard relies on infra-sound (sounds vibrating below the threshold of hearing). Other than the more commonly studied physical effects of infra-sound, it's known that the psychic/psychological effects of low levels of infra-sound include feelings of the super- and preter-natural, déjà vu and jamais vu. But, most especially, what Tuzin refers to as awe, he translates as feelings which are by-and-large indicative of what he terms "religious experience." The bull-roarer has been in continuous use since as far back as the Stone Age. It is found within the archaic civilizations of all five continents, and is probably the most widespread among all sacred instruments. Tuzin considers his most bold suggestion in the article to be that, "the special, pre-articulate feelings which validate religious belief by refer ring it to subjective experience are not primarily (if at all) creations of cul tural conditioning, but natural emanations or proclivities of the brain itself." Again I will point out that not only the brain, but our heart and every cell in our body also contributes to these "natural emanations." Auditory neurophysiologist. Dr. Alfred Tomatis^® has pointed out that the effect within the cochlea of the low fre quency percussive sound of drums (especially the 25. The Comdous Ear, a. A.Tomatis. single-headed "Shaman's drum") causes an exag gerated fluxion of the endolymphatic liquids in the cochlea (the inner ear) that can induce a loss of awareness of the body. This condition is fairly cru cial for many forms of Trance. Neurophysiological research obviously considers the specifically neural basis of emotions to be triggered in the set of sub cortical structures 435 Z'EV METAPHORS, MYTHOS AND METAPHONICS which comprise the Limbic System, a complex of forms and functions in the Temporal Lobe of the brain. Beyond this, though. Dr. Pert's research showed that the core limbic brain structures contained 85-95% of the various neuropeptide receptors that she had studied up to that point. The Limbic System is also involved with the perception and recognition of all sensory stimuli, involuntary bodily functions and those aspects of memory involved with facts and events (in a small section of the temporal lobe called the hippocampus). Electrical stimulation of certain parts of the temporal regions has resulted in the calling forth of not only vivid memory images (both audi tory and visual) but the emotions associated with these memories as well. In other words, in states of what I'd refer to as "intensified hear ing" other than the "normal" auditory input received from the upper brainstem (the thalamus), the temporal region also receives additional impulses from the heart and blood pumping with Dr. Pert's "molecules of emotion." This combined input is then interpreted as an experience compara ble to what are known as affect-laden memory images, (i.e., memories invested with a high emotional charge). Paul Maclean^', was the conceptualizer and popularizer of the metaphor of the "triune brain," which theorized that there are three layers to the human brain, representing different stages of humanities evolution: 1. The brainstem or reptilian brain, which is responsible for auto nomic functions: breathing, excretion, body temperature, etc. 2. The limbic system, which encircles the top of the brainstem and is the seat of emotions, and 3. The cerebral cortex, located in the forebrain, which is the seat of reason. CC 99 waking dreams, messages from god, even religious conversions." And did n't we just come across almost this same litany of states being produced by infra sound in Tuzin's work? One other point about the Limbic system concerns its relationship to the experience of Synesthesia; or (most simply put) when one sense evokes another. The most common form of synesthesia is referred to as audition coloree, or colored hearing, immortalized by the poet Rimbaud in his poem about the hues of colors entitled Les Voyelles. When neurologist Richard Cytowic^^ studied the brains of synesthetes during audition 27. Richard Cytowic. http://cytowic.net coloree experiences, he found that the blood flow decreased in the neocortex and increased in the Limbic system. Also, note that it is the heart that would be facilitating this increased blood flow, which would also be awash with the memory potential of specific neu ropeptides. Regarding the ramifications of this process Cytowic wrote, "The brain's higher information processing turns off in colored hearing. An older, more fundamental way of viewing the world...takes over." Considering that we are talking about Sound here, perhaps it's "an older, more fundamental way of Hearing (and thus remembering) the world" that Metaphonics triggers. When I came across the image of the Limbic System^^^"^, I was immediately XXXV. Limbic system. htm://www.nim. struck by the similarity of its shape [the nih.gov/medhneplus/ency/images/ency/ ^ fuUsize/i9244.jpg fomix] to that of the hooded cobra above the right shoulder of Yogesvara-Shiva.^™^ In the Con fucian classic Li Chi or the Book of Rites (c. 200 B c E ) it is related that "Music is intimately connected with the essential relations of being." He has also described the Limbic System as being "filled with ancestral lore and ancestral memories." In the 1940s he began to study the "limbic storms" suffered by patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. After that study he concluded, "All on its own, without the reality check of the neocortex, the Limbic system seemed to produce sensations of deja-vu or jamais-vu, sudden memories. Therefore, the mindset necessary for the production of Meta phonics is wholly dependent on the relationship between the composer/ performer and their sense of Being. This manifests by the direct association of a Metaphonic performance with an exercise of the Spirit/Soul. To be capable of serving Metaphonically, the values assigned to breath, sound, rhythm and ritual (i.e., techniques of performance) must be felt as concrete expressions of a living Spiritual intent. 436 437 z'ev metaphors, mythos and metaphonics When performed properly then, Metaphonic compositions are reciprocal. That is, they could just as well be said to be composing their composers/performers as well as their recipients. This "compositional" process would be analogous to the one in which the alchemical Worker/s were transmuted through their Work (using the Spiritual idiom of metallurgy). While there may be others. Emblem 59xxxvn fj-om The Hermetic Garden is xxxyii. Emblem 59 in Hermetic G^den the Only image I have Seen that presents the actuhttpy'/www.alchemywebsite.coni/emblems/ / o x emblo59.html ^ Work in a Tantoc context. In this sense too, Metaphonics is always a Working, always a Transformation, always a Reinvigorating of the various modalities of consciousness and awareness and attention. Metaphonics is thus imbued with the capacity of transmuting the wisdom and knowledge of Time and Place, and delivering these aspects not just "to light" but "to sound" as well. Metaphonics are always clarifying informations that were previ ously obscured by normal consciousness. They are always imparting to both the composer/performer and the recipient/s a new sense of the Whole. This sense of wholeness, of totality, of a physical feeling of soundness, is never vague. Rather, like an inundation with infra-sound or a limbic storm, it resonates the senses with a remembrance of deep truthful ness and cormection. Metaphonics articulates both Hieroglyphic and Symbolic forms, referents, images, tones, and visions. These are brought together not to cancel each other out, but to form the ground for new ways of hearing and feeling and being. In fact, Metaphonic performance can possess meaning and power only insofar as it connects both those involved with its creation and those who are receiving it, with, let's call them, "events" transpiring beyond the limited scope of its mundane performance. As mentioned before, Metaphonic performance will always include the experience of an Archetypal Time. In this respect, the Metaphonic performance resounds throughout the Multiverse and draws its power from the Time that transcends the mun dane present. This results in the Transitions that allow a "spherical" (not just 438 horizontal or just vertical) expansion of Human significance into new relationships with all the various Aspects and Emanations of the Holo graphic Creation. Sites Visual Listening. http://lewfh.blogspot.com/search?q=visuaI+listening Disk of the World, http://www.diskoftheworld.com/diskindex7.htni Shiva. http://www.kheper.net/topics/Tantra/Shiva.html Most heartfelt thanks to my cousin, Felice Catena (a goddess of the editing arts), for her help with putting this piece to bed. 439 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS WILLIAM BREEZE (b. Paris, 1955) is a violisi, guitarist, bassist, electronic musician, music theorist and improvisational composer. Since 1992 he has worked as a studio viohst and recorded and toured as a member of the bands Psychic TV (1994-1996), Coil (1997-2004) and Current 93 (2005-present). As a boy he won a scholarship to the Engel School of Music in Orlando to study viola, harmony and solfege under Anne Bartlett and Joseph Kreines, later studying with Alphonse Carlo at Rollins College and training as an orchestral and chamber violisi. He attended a series of colleges and universities before abandoning notated music for improvisation in the mid-1970s while a private student of North Indian musician Peter Row of New England Conservatory. He moved to New York in 1978 where he played with the percussionist Angus Maclise (Theater of Eternal Music, Velvet Underground) and the guitarist Mark Slivka. He was a bibliographer and archival assistant for the painter Larry Rivers in 1979 and 1980. In the early 1980s he was an executive at New York's oldest firm of advertising typographers, Cromwell, spinning off Cromwell Graphics Systems Corp. to market a successful universal disk and data translator of his design (cf. Seyhold Reports). In 1984 he provided startup financing for the arts label Mystic Fire Video and was its executive vice president until 1992. His design for the Bill Moyers series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (Mystic Fire) won a Benjamin Franklin Award for graphic design. As an indepen dent scholar of American experimental film he has been a guest lecturer at Prince ton University and international film festivals. In 1985 he became the international head of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), taking the religious name Hymenaeus Beta. He manages the Aleister Crowley literary estate, and has edited, William Breeze designed and published scholarly editions of many Crowley works. Gavin Bryars GAVIN BRYARS (b. Yorkshire, England, 1943), was first of all a jazz bassist and pioneer of free improvisation with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. He subsequently worked in the USA in the late 1960s with John Cage and in Britain as part of the experimental music community. His early iconic works The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), both enjoyed major recording success in various versions. He has written exten sively for the stage, including three full-length operas and dance works for, among others. Merce Cunningham, Edouard Lock, Carolyn Carlson, David Dawson and William Forsythe. He taught for a number of years in art colleges and has collab440 orated with many visual artists such as Bruce McLean, David Ward, Tim Head, James Hugonin, Bill Woodrow and Will Alsop (Valencia Architecture Biennale). In 2006 he was a guest speaker at the loth Alvar Aalto Architecture Symposium in Finland. He has made installations/performances for the Liverpool Tate Gallery, the Tate St. Ives, the Chateau d'Oiron, among others and worked closely with the late Juan Muñoz, notably on A Man in a Room, Gambling. He has a long list of instrumental, orchestral and vocal works to his credit, for artists such as the Hilliard Ensemble, Red Byrd, Trio Mediaeval, Latvian Radio Choir, Estonian National Male Choir, Opera North and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He has an hon orary doctorate from the University of Plymouth, was awarded a Fellowship of Bath Spa University and is a Regent of the Collège de 'Pataphysique. Gavin lives in Leicestershire and British Columbia and, as well as composing, performs interna tionally with his own ensemble. He has made many critically acclaimed recordings, most recently on his own label GB Records, www.gavinbryars.com STEVE COLEMAN began playing music at age fourteen in Chicago. After being influenced by various recordings of Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and others, Steve then began listening to the spontaneous improvisations of Chica go premier saxophonists Von Freeman and Bunky Green. After moving to NYC in 1978, Steve joined the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big Band and subsequently played with the Sam Rivers Big Band, Cecil Taylor's Big Band, Doug Hammond, the Dave Holland Quintet, and Abbey Lincoln. Of those he came into contact with, it was mainly tenor saxophonist Von Freeman who primarily influenced Coleman as an improviser, saxophonist Sam Rivers who influenced Steve compositionally, and drummer Doug Hammond who was especially important in Steve's conceptual thinking. In 1980 Steve and trumpeter Graham Haynes started the group that even tually became Steve Coleman and Five Elements. Over the next five years this group would develop its sound in clubs in Harlem and Brooklyn. Their ideas were based on how to create music from one's experiences. Eventually these ideas were referred to as M-Base. However, unlike what most critics wrote, this concept was philosophical; Coleman did not call the music itself M-Base. In 1993 Coleman embarked on the first of many research trips, going to Ghana to study the relation ship of language to music. This trip had a profound effect on Coleman's music and philosophy. However, the impact of the ideas that he was introduced to in Ghana would not be fully expressed in his work until late in 1994 after meeting the Kemetic philosopher Thomas Goodwin, whose influence on Steve's work was profound. Much of the activity from January 1996 on has been preserved in the form of a documentary produced by Eve-Marie Breglia entitled Elements of One (available at www.elementsofone.com). The film is based on Steve's music and the theme of cultural transference. Steve Coleman ALVIN CURRAN has realized a long and fruitful career as a composer/ Curran performer/installation artist, writer and teacher in the American experimental music tradition. Bom in Providence in 1938 he studied with Ron Nelson, Elliott Carter and Mel Powell, co-founded the group Musica Elettronica Viva in 1966 441 arcana v about the contributors in Rome where he currently resides. His music whether chamber works, radio-art, large-scale environmental theater or solo performance, embraces all sounds, all spaces and all people. For more information please see www.alvincurran.com FRANK DENYER (b. London, 1943). His earliest musical training was as a boy-cho rister at Canterbury Cathedral. Later he studied at the Guildhall School of Music, London. Subsequently, he formed the experimental ensemble Mouth of Hermes and through this group his own compositions started to be heard in public. They toured widely in Britain, Europe and Scandinavia during in the years 1966-1974 also giving premières of work by Feldman, Scelsi, Wolff, Takahashi and many oth ers. In 1974 he gave up performing for a time to pursue studies in ethnomusicology, first with fieldwork in North India and then as a PhD student at Wesleyan University, Conn. USA. Having found that life outside the western world's new music ghettos to be more conducive to freedom of thought in composition, he became a Research Fellow in African Music at the University of Nairobi. During this period he worked intensively with the music of the plains Pokot. Later there would be fieldwork research in other parts of the world as well. Resuming his concert career in Europe in 1981, he has been the featured composer at several international festivals, and CDs of his work have been released by Continuum, Etcetera, Tzadik, Mode and Orchid Records. The latest is Silenced Voices (2008) for Mode. In 1990 when he helped form the Amsterdam based experimental music group The Barton Workshop, which he co-directs with James Fulkerson. With this group he has recorded much solo and chamber music. He has also recorded the complete piano sonatas of Galina Ustvolskaya. He is presently Frank Denyer Professor of Composition at Dartington College. Jeremy Fogel JEREMY FOGEL (b. Antwerp, 1981) moved to Israel at the age of fifteen and left for England three years later. He studied philosophy at Cambridge, was awarded a BA in June 2002, after which he lived in Rome for six months, working in a youth hostel, guiding tourists, and trying to absorb beau ty and grace. He later taught English in Catalonia, before spending some time in China and moving to Paris, where he spent a year working as a night watchman at a hotel and spending plenty free time working on poetry, studying the oud and reading. After more time spent in China, Fogel came back to Israel in 2004, and started studying for a master's degree, focusing particularly on the philosophy of religion and mysticism and graduated in 2007 with a thesis on The Birth of Secular Religiosity from the Spirit of Modem Philosophy. In his time in Tel Aviv, Fogel worked, amongst others, as an ancient and rare books trader, secretary at a yoga and dance center and assistant to a Professor of African History. He also freelanced in Hebrew to English translation, particularly papers about Hassidic philosophy and Kabbalah. Fogel, throughout, tried hard to focus on soulful endeavors, work ing, amongst other projects, on as yet unpublished trashy pulp fiction which vehi cles genuine philosophical and spiritual insights, Hebrew poems and psycho-magical experiments. In 2005, Fogel started working with marimba illuminati Ravid Zigdon on a project which was eventually released by Tzadik—Eretz Hakodesh 442 (Holy Land), a deeply sexual and spiritual musical and poetic exploration of the Holy Land and a personal testimony of the quest for holiness in Israel and mod ern life. Fogel is currently working on a mystical novel and a radically alternative Judeo-Christian rock album. FRED FRITH is a songwriter, composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist best known for the reinvention of the electric guitar that began with Guitar Solos in 1974. He learned his craft as both improviser and composer playing in rock bands, notably Henry Cow, and creating music in the recording studio. Much of his com positional output has been commissioned by choreographers and filmmakers, but his work has also been performed by Ensemble Modern, Hieronymus Firebrain, Arditti Quartet, Ground Zero, Robert Wyatt, Bang on a Can All Stars, Concerto Köln, and Rova Sax Quartet, among many others. He continues to perform inter nationally, most recently with Evelyn Glennie, Chris Cutler, John Zorn, Eye to Ear—a septet performing selections from his film music—and his latest band, Cosa Brava. Fred's writing has appeared in New Musical Express, Let It Rock, EAR Magazine, Trouser Press, Poetics Journal, Jazzthetik, Fred Frith JazzMag, Arcana, and many other publications. Sharon Gannon SHARON GANNON is the co-creator with David Life of the Jivamukti Peter Garland Yoga Method, a path to enlightenment through compassion for all beings. A student of Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, Swami Nirmalananda, and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, she is a pioneer in teaching yoga as spiritual activism and is credited for making yoga cool and hip—relating ancient teachings of yoga to the modern world. Sharon is a musician and is a featured vocalist on many CDs. She has produced numerous yoga-related DVDs and is the author of several books, mduding Jivamukti Yoga, The Art of Yoga, Cats and Dogs are Peo ple Too!, and Yoga and Vegetarianism. Her writing has appeared in numerous pub lications, including Toward 2012, Semiotexte and Yoga Journal. She is a contributor to Reality Sandwich and writes a monthly essay called the Focus of the Month, which can be read at www.jivamuktiyoga.com PETER GARLAND was born in 1952 in Portland, Maine. 1970-1973: Part of the original class at Cal Arts. Studies with Harold Budd, James Tenney, Wolfgang Stoerchle, Clayton Eshleman. Exposure to and study of Javanese gamelan and shadow puppetry and other world musics (esp. India). Travels throughout California and the West Coast. 1975-1976: First residence in Mexico, in Oaxaca, and travels in southern Mexico and Guatemala. Friendships inthe 1970s with composers Lou Harrison, Dane Rudhyar, Gonion Nancarrow, Paul Bowles, Harry Partch and John Cage—which have a profound impact. 1978-1980: Second residence in Mexico, in Michoacán, with the family of Purépecha maskmaker Juan Horta, and further travels, including both Tikal and Copán. 1980-1991: Residence in New Mexico, and immersion in Native American and Hispanic musical traditions. 1991-1995: The Gone Walkabout years, residence and travel in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Bali, Java, Vanuatu, Germany, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, 443 ARCANA V ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Morocco, Turkey and Japan. 1995-1997: Return to New Mexico and deepening exposure to Hispanic traditions, especially through friendship with santero Luis Lujan. 1997-2005: Third residence in Mexico, in Puebla, Veracruz and Oaxaca. Immersion in Mexican traditional musics, especially jarocho music (1998-2001). Close friendship with the Band of Totontepec, Mixes (Oaxaca, 2002-2005). 2002: Four months of travel and research in the Philippines, including the islands of Luzon, Marinduque, Negros and Bohol. Return visit to Japan, including second visit to the Buddhist mountain sanctuary of Koya-san. 2005: Return to the USA, current residence in Maine. His scores are available through Frog Peak Music, Box 1052, Lebanon, NH 03766, USA. www.frogpeak.org MILFORD GRAVES (b. Jamaica, New York) started playing drums at three years old. Studies in African and Afro-Caribbean music/drumming began at eight years old. Milford started studying jazz in his early teens. In 1965, he studied North Indian Music/tabla drumming with the renowned Doctor Wasantha Singh, an Indian/ Buddhist musician-guru. He attended City College of New York, New York Com munity College, Eastern School for Physicians Aides (NY), and the Occidental Institute of Chinese Studies (Canada). He is listed in Who's Who in America, Groves Encyclopedia of Music, Encyclopedia ofJazz, as well as many interviews, articles, and featured stories in various international publications (newspapers, magazines, journals, and books). During the past forty-two years Milford has performed in many music events, and given countless lecture-demonstration/ workshops on medicine (herbology, acupuncture, nutrition, etc.) and bodymovement/martial arts on an international level, including the 1983 International Conference on World Medicine at the Waldorf Hotel in New York. From 1971-1973, he developed and conducted a clinical laboratory for a private animal hospital in New York. On July 1,1993, a special forty-five-minute documentary video, titled Legend Drummer Milford Graves, was televised throughout Japan on NHK-Television at a time called the Golden Hour. He is presently director of the International Center for Medicinal and Scientific Studies, co-director of the Insti tute of Percussive Studies, co-director of the George Washington Carver Botanical Garden in Jamaica, NY, and has been Professor of Music/Holistic Milford Graves Medicine at Bennington College in Vermont since 1973. third album Parplar was released October 2008. Larkin Grimm is a radical environ mentalist and opposes the War in Iraq. She has proclaimed that she is not affiliated with any political party, but considers herself an anarchist. TIM HODGKINSON is a composer/improviser. He studied social anthropology before switching to music: lap steel guitar with Konk Pack, ethnography in Siberia, bass clarinet and numerous recordings with lancu Dumitrescu's Hyperion Ensemble, compositions played at many European festivals including Huddersfield Contem porary Music, Infinity self-remixing CD with K-Space, solo clarinet performances. Sketch of Now CD on Mode. Past epics include keys and reeds in Henry Cow, electric alto with God, lap steel and vocals in The Work, Tadeusz Kantor-inspired suite Stop Mortal with Dagmar Krause, Pierre Schaeffer interview for Rer Quarterly, and many improvising encounters all over, including with Siberian musicians. Writings on shamanism, new technology, spectralism, musique concrète...semi nars, workshops, masterclasses, lectures, art schools, conservatories. "When I compose I write for sounds and then for instruments. I try to make something that is adequately eventful for our crazy time. I think I am writing for our time and the listeners who must authentically inhabit it. Real music happens when ideas are outrun by events." For more information please see Tim Hodgkinson www.timhodgkinson.co.uk Jerry Hunt JERRY HUNT (b. Waco, Texas, 1943) attended North Texas State Eyvind Kang University (aka University of North Texas). He worked as a pianist through 1969 performing in concerts of contemporary music. Since 1978, the focus of his artistic activity had been the production of a series of interre lated electronic, mechanic and social sound-sight interactive transactional system performances of his work alone, or with and for other performers and performance groups, and interactive participant array installations. His last series of works included musical and performance collaborations with performance artist Karen Finley, visual and conceptual artist Maria Blondeel, performer and composer James Fulkerson (Barton Workshop), visual and sound artist Paul Panhuysen and com poser and software designer Joel Ryan. He lived in a self-built house in east Texas until his death in 1993. songwriter and musician born in Memphis, Tennessee. She was born into a spiritual commune/cult called The Holy Order of MANS. Her father is a fiddler of German, Afro-Caribbean, and Sinti descent, and her mother is a hippie folk-singer of English, French, and Cree descent. After her parents left the cult, they relocated to Dahlonega, Georgia, where she grew up. She won a scholarship to study at Yale where she painted and sculpted. At twenty years old she dropped out of Yale, and moved to Alaska, where she hiked and began to experiment with singing. She later was convinced by a friend to return to Yale, where she began to record Harpoon, which was inspired by a love affair at that time. She then moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she has since produced another album called The Last Tree. Larkin's EYVIND KANG (b. Corvallis, Oregon, 1971). Eyvind Kang spent his youth moving around the Canadian prairies and Iceland before settling down in Seattle in 1991. There he met the violinist Michael White (who performed with the Fourth Way, Sun Ra Arkestra and Pharoah Sanders), who focused his attention on the achievements of the great jazz musicians, particularly John Coltrane. In 1998 he studied with violinist Dr. N. Rajam in India, which greatly influenced him. Since the mid-'90s he has per formed extensively with Bill Frisell, as a violinist in his Quartet, and currently as a violist in his 858 Quartet and in a trio with drummer Rudy Royston. He also per forms with Laurie Anderson, and has written arrangements for Blonde Redhead, Sunn O))), and many others. He has released many albums of original music, includ ing 7 Nades (1996, Tzadik), The Yelm Sessions (2007, Tzadik), and Athlantis (2007 444 445 Larlcin Grimm LARKIN GRIMM (b. September 18, 1981) is an American singer- arcana v about the contributors Ipecac), featuring Mike Patton and Jessika Kenney, a choral piece with text by Gior dano Bruno and Marbodius of Rennes. Since 2001, he has collaborated with Jessika Kenney, as a soloist in her pieces Atria and Her Sword, and in a duet CD Aestuarium (2005, Endless). the Garden of Love and Another Avenue-, two collections of short stories, Spheres and Rain Shapes', and his autobiography. The Gentle Giant, written in collabora tion with Herb Boyd. In recent years he has also exhibited his paintings at various art galleries. JESSIKA KENNEY (b. Spokane, Washington, 1976). Kenney's initial performances as a Grammy award winning composer-trumpeter-teacher FRANK LONDON is a mem ber of The Klezmatics, and leads his Klezmer Brass Allstars, whose CD Carnival Conspiracy was Rolling Stone's #1 Non-Enghsh recording of 2006. Critic Stephen Fruitman writes, "Frank London is new Jewish musics' heart, soul and yiddishe kop" and Seth Rogovoy calls A Night in the Old Marketplace "the best Jewish musical since Fiddler." His opera about the Soviet Yiddish theater. Green Violin, was performed in Amsterdam, St. Petersburg and at New York's Jewish Museum. He is Artistic Director of KlezFest London (no relation) and on the faculty at SUNY Purchase.Musicologist Joel Ruben called him "the person most responsible for pushing the klezmer revival in the world beat and fusion with rock and jazz." In addition to klezmer and Yiddish theater, London has explored Jewish jazz with Hasidic New Wave, cantorial music on Hazonos and Invocations, and mystical music on Nigunim and The Zmiros Project and most Frank London recently on his Tzadik release, tsuker-zis. vocalist were within the Spokane punk scene of the early '90s. Deeply inspired by the writings of Kathy Acker, she concentrated her studies on vocal sounds and poetry. In 1994 she moved to Seattle to study with jazz singer Jay Clayton at Cornish. In 1997 Kenney began to train in the traditional vocal arts during travels to Indonesia. Since 2004 Jessika has studied Classical Persian music, its radifs and poetry, with renowned ney player and vocalist Dr. Hossein Omoumi. She is currently a member of his per forming ensemble, and sings on the album Voices of Spring (2008, Haft Dastgah). She also works with composerJarrad Powell and Gamelan Pacifica. Together with Eyvind Kang, she recorded an album of voice and viola duets based around sacred text, Aestuarium (2005, Endless). Her compositions for voice, Jessika Kenney small ensembles, and gamelan orchestra include Atria and Her Sword. William J. Kiesel WILLIAM J. KIESEL is the publisher of Ouroboros Press as well as an independent scholar and member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. His practical experience and historical knowledge of occult literature and culture spans two decades and draws from such diverse areas as Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Qabalah, Thelema, Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Near Eastern Esotericism and Ceremonial Magic. Esoteric symbol systems in rehgion, mythology and folklore in historical and contemporary contexts are among his objects of continual study. He lectures in the United States and Europe. Yusef Lateef YUSEF LATEEF is a Grammy award-winning composer, performer, recording artist, author, visual artist, educator and philosopher who has been a major force on the international musical scene for more than six decades. In recognition of his many contributions to the world of music, he has been named an American Jazz Master for the year 2010 by the National Endowment for the Arts. Still very much active as a touring and recording artist, Yusef Lateef is universally acknowledged as one of the great living masters and innovators in the African American tradition of autophysiopsychic music—that which comes from one's spiritual, physical and emotional self. He is a virtuoso on a broad spectrum of reed instruments—tenor saxophone, flute, oboe, bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, argol, sarewa, and taiwan koto—and is considered a pioneer in what is known today as World Music. As a composer he has compiled a catalogue of works not only for the quartets and quin tets he has led, but for symphony and chamber orchestras, stage bands, small ensembles, vocahsts, choruses and solo pianists. He is an emeritus Five Colleges professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, from which he was awarded a Ph.D. in Education in 1975. In 2007 he was named University of Massa chusetts' "Artist of the Year." Yusef Lateef has published two novellas, A Night in 446 Dary John Mizelle DARYJOHN MIZELLE (b. Stillwater Oklahoma, Jime 14,1940) studied Meredith Monk trombone theory and composition in California (B .A. Sacramento State University, M.A. UC Davis, PhD UC San Diego). Mentors include: Larry Austin, Richard Swift, Jerome Rosen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, David Tudor, Roger Reynolds, Robert Erickson, Pauline Oliveros, and Kenneth Gaburo. A member of the New Music Ensemble at UC Davis (the first free group improvisation ensemble) and a founding member of SOURCE Music of the Avant Garde magazine, he has specialized in the sonic and structural aspects of contemporary compositional practice. He works with electronic/computer/ concrete materials, chamber, solo instrumental, large ensemble, choral, orchestra, opera and experimental combinations. He performs on the piano, trombone, trumpet, shakiihachi, voice, performance art, jazz and intermedia idioms, and conducts. A prohfic composer with over 450 works for all media, he is currently engaged in the SPANDA project, thirteen days of experimental music for all media with a coherent macrostructure. His works have been performed locally, nationally and internationally since the sixties. He has taught composition, orchestration, computer music, music theory, music history, and world music at University of South Florida, Oberlin College Conservatory, Sonavera Studio of Sonic Arts and Purchase College SUNY where he served as Chair of the composition program. He makes his home in Mount Vernon, New York. MEREDITH MONK is a composer, singer, and creator of new opera and music the ater works. A pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique," Monk has been hailed as "a magician of the voice," and "one of America's coolest com posers." During a career that spans more than forty years, she has been acclaimed 447 ARCANA V ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS by audiences and critics as a major creative force in the performing arts. She has received numerous awards including a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and in 2006 was named a USA Fellow and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the mid-'60s Monk began her innovative exploration of the voice as a multi-faceted instrument and subsequent ly composed and performed many solo pieces for unaccompanied voice and voice/keyboard. In 1978 she formed Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble to further expand her musical textures and forms. She has made over a dozen recordings, mostly on the ECM New Series label, including the 2008 Grammy nominated impermanence. Her music has been performed by numerous soloists and groups including Bang on a Can All Stars, Björk, Double Edge and Musica Sacra. She has been commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas/New World Symphony, and Kronos Quartet among others. Her music can also be heard in such films as La Nouvelle Vague by Jean-Luc Godard and The Big Lebowski by Joel and Ethan Coen. In October 1999 Monk performed a Vocal Offering for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama as part of the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles. In 2000, the Lincoln Center Festival celebrated Monk's music with a three-concert retro spective and in 2004, a four and a half hour marathon was presented at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. Another marathon, Meredith Monk Music @ The Whitney, was presented in 2009, followed by the site-specific Ascension Variations at the Guggenheim Museum. Tisziji MuÑoz is a unique creative genius with dozens of musical releases and written publications that continue to inspire, heal, shock and liberate the few. Tisziji's musical spirit emerged early on. By age three he was drumming ecstatically, and despite chronic nerve damage to his left wrist sustained shortly thereafter, he was brought into the Mongo Santa Maria circle of musicians as a drum prodigy in his teens. He taught himself how to play the ukulele and later joined a Doo-Wop singing group. The Arrogants, recording four songs in Hollywood, including Canadian Sunset. Following his service in the US Army 440th General's Band, in which he was featured as a percussionist, Tisziji focused on generating his own musical ideas while taking a leading role in the development of Toronto's underground music scene. He was a guitarist in the Hair and Godspell musicals, and met and inspired the now world-famous keyboard player, Paul Shaffer, who became Tisziji's primary accompanist from 1970 to 1972. Upon his return to the U.S., Tisziji met the great jazz saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders, and later toured with him for six years. After raising his children in New York City, Tisziji moved upstate and estabhshed Anami Music Productions to handle the ever-expanding demands of his music, and The Illumination Society to accommodate his writing and spiritual teaching functions. Knowing that most individuals would not have any direct contact with him, Tisziji has documented and published his views on a vast array of subjects, encouraging individuals to awaken and realize the Master within themselves; thus freeing himself from the burden of any formal or ritualistic teaching function. Through his works encom Tisziji Munoz 448 passing music, spirituality and time-mastery, his teaching activities, and his spiri tual approach to life, Tisziji continues to defy and transcend all schools of thought while validating the Spiritual Heart-Source of his catastrophic music, which he calls Heart-Fire Sound. Besides his alchemistical work with trash, MARK NAUSEEF has performed and/or recorded for more than forty years with many leading musicians of various genres from around the world. Areas of study and master artists he has studied with include, among others, Javanese Gamelan with K.R.T.Wasitodiningrat, Balinese Gamelan with I. Nyoman Wenten, North Indian Pakhawaj drumming with Pandit Taranath Rao, North Indian music theory with Pandit Amiya Dasgupta, Ghanaian drumming and dance with Kobla and Alfred Ladzekpo, Dzidzorgbe Lawluvi and C.K. Ganyo, and 20th century Western percussion techniques and hand drumming with John Bergamo. Mark also studied frame drum techniques of the Middle East, India and the Caucasus with Glen Velez. Nauseef has also worked as a producer. In addition to his own recordings, he has produced many records of various types of music including modern experimental as well as traditional forms. Traditional music productions include numerous recordings of Balinese and Javanese music such as the acclaimed and award winning CMP recordings. The Music of K.R. T. Wasitodiningrat, recorded in Java, also Gamelan Batel Wayang Ramayana and Gender Wayang Pemarwan, which were recorded in Bali. Current music activities include recording and performance as a member of The Kudsi Erguner Ensemble, led by the Turkish classical Sufi ney master and composer Kudsi Erguner. This ensemble, made up of mostly Turkish classical musicians, plays reworked composi tions of the Ottoman Empire as well as modern and classical repertoire. Nauseef is currently a faculty member at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Conservatory of Music) in Hamburg, Germany. Nausee! PAULINE OLIVEROS (1932) is a composer, performer, author and Pauline Oliveros philosopher and has influenced American music extensively through her works with improvisation, electronic music, teaching, myth, ritual and medita tion. She pioneered the concept of Deep Listening, an aesthetic based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation designed to inspire both trained and untrained performers to practice the art of listening and responding to environmental conditions in solo and ensemble situations. During the mid-'60s she served as the first director of the Tape Music Center at Mills College, aka Center for Contemporary Music followed by fourteen years as Professor of Music and three years as Director of the Center for Music Experiment at the University of California at San Diego. Since 2001 she has served as Distinguished Research Professor of Music in the Arts department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where she is engaged in research on a National Science Foundation CreativelT project. She also serves as Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College doing telepresence teaching and she is President of Deep Listening Institute, Ltd. where she leads projects in Adaptive Use, Deep Listening and Publications. For more information please see www.paulineoliveros.us and www.deeplistening.org 449 ARCANA V ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE first achieved recognition with the 1969 founding of COUM Transmissions, a confrontational performance collective heavily influenced by Dada, which was later transformed into the band Throbbing Gristle. (P-Orridge would, in 1981, found the ground-breaking band. Psychic TV.) In the early 1970s, P-Orridge met William S. Burroughs, who introduced h/er to Brion Gysin, marking the beginning of a seminal and influential collaborative rela tionship. The supremely Dadaist practice of the "cut-up" technique of the early 20th century Surrealists s/he learned from them would influence P-Orridge throughout h/er career and remains an integral element of h/er work. P-Orridge was an early participator in Fluxus and Mail Art, applying the theories of John Cage exchanging works with Ray Johnson among others. P-Orridge later began an occultist practice influenced by the theories of the artist Austin Osman Spare. The''sigils" they performed explored the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self through magical techniques such as automatic writing, drawing and actions. In the 1990s, P-Orridge began a collaboration with the performance artist Lady Jaye Breyer—deconstructing the fiction of self. Influenced again by "cut-up" techniques they appHed the strategy of "cutting-up" to their own bodies, in an effort to merge their two identities, through plastic surgery, hormone therapy, cross-dressing and altered behavior, into a single, "pandrogynous" character, "BREYER P-ORRIDGE." (Although Lady Jaye passed away in 2007, the project continues with Genesis embodying the entirety of March 2008. Terry played his first pipe organ concert to a sold out audience at Dis ney Hall in May of 2008, introducing The Universal Bridge, a work especially commissioned for that evening. He christened the gigantic Disney Hall pipe organ "Hurricane Mama." Adam Rudolph Californian TERRY RILEY, whose career has spanned five decades, is one of the most influential composers and performers in contempo rary music. His work In C changed the course of music after 1964. It introduced a new approach to tonality and new structural principles that project ed kaleidoscopic, psychedelic atmospheres, representing a striking departure from the then established musical direction of the mid-20th century. An imaginative improviser, his recordings such as A Rainbow in Curved Air and Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, with their driving kinetic rhythms, sent waves across the contemporary music world as well as into the territories of rock and jazz. His jazz inflected piano improvisations incorporate elements of western classical music as well various latin and world music flavors. Of particular note is his twenty-sbc year association with his music Guru, legendary Indian vocalist. Pandit Pran Nath. Riley appeared as accompanist in hundreds of concerts with the great Master and continues today to give concerts of Indian Classical Music as an adjunct to his own work in contemporary music. Terry has written for orchestra, choir, string quartet, saxophone quartet, guitar, piano and various chamber music combinations and his work has been performed on virtually every continent. Terry has collaborated with some of the great names of our era, including Chet Baker, La Monte Young, George Brooks, Zakir Hussein, Krishna Bhatt, Kronos Quartet, Michael McClure, Stefano Scodanibbio, John Gale and more recently his son, Gyan Riley. His most recent work, SolTierraLuna for two guitars, violin and Orchestra had its premiere in Born in 1955, handrummer, percussionist, composer, multi-instru mentalist and improviser ADAM RUDOLPH grew up in the Hyde Park area of the Southside of Chicago. From an early age he was exposed to the live music performances of the great artists who lived nearby. As a teenager, Rudolph started playing hand drum's in local streets and parks and soon apprenticed with elders of African American improvised music. He performed regularly in Chicago with Fred Anderson and in Detroit with the Contemporary Jazz Quintet. In 1973 Rudolph played on his first record date with Maulawi Nururdin and with the CJQ at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz festival. In 1977 he lived and studied in Ghana, where he experi enced trance ceremonies. In his travels throughout West Africa he saw how music can come from a cosmological grounding beyond music itself and can also be about some thing beyond music itself. In 1978 he lived in Don Cherry's house in the Swedish countryside. Cherry inspired him to start composing and showed him about Omette Coleman's concept and the connection of music to nature. Rudolph is known as one the early innovators of what is now called "World Music". In 1978 he and Gambian Kora player Jali Foday Musa Suso co-founded The Mandingo Griot Society, one of the first bands to combine African and American music. In 1988, he recorded the first fusion of American and Gnawa music with Sintir player and singer Hassan Hakmoun. Rudolph intensely studied North Indian tabla for over fifteen years with Pan dit Taranath Rao. He learned hundreds of drum compositions and about how music is a form of Yoga—the unity of mind, body and spirit. In 1988 Rudolph began his asso ciation with Yusef Lateef, with whom he has recorded over fifteen albums including several of their large ensemble collaborations. Lateef introduced Rudolph to the inspirational practice of Autophysiopsychic Music—"that which comes from one's spiritual, physical and emotional self". Rudolph still performs worldwide with Dr. Lateef in ensembles ranging from their acclaimed duo concerts to appearances as guest soloist with the Köln, Atlanta and Detroit symphony orchestras. Over the past twenty-five years Rudolph has developed a unique syncretic approach to hand drumming in creative collaborations with outstanding artists of cross-cultural and improvised music, including Jon Hassel, L. Shankar, Joseph Bowie, and Wadada Leo Smith among others. He has released over a dozen recordings on his own Meta Records label documenting his compositions for various size ensembles as well as his collaborations with artists such as Sam Rivers, Omar Sosa, and Pharaoh Sanders. Currently Rudolph composes for his groups Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures quartet and octet, Hu: Vibrational trio, and Go: Organic Orchestra, a fifteen to fiftypiece ensemble for which he has developed an original music notation and conducting system. He has taught and conducted hundreds of musicians in the Go: Organic Orchestra concept in both North America and Europe. Rudolph recently premiered his opera The Dreamer, based on the text of Friedreich Nietzsche's The Birth of 450 451 Genesis Breyer P-Orridge BREYER P-ORRIDGE.) Terry Riley ARCANA V ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Tragedy. He also performs as half of the Wildflowers Duo with Butoh dance innova tor Oguri. Rudolph has recently had his rhythm repository and methodology book, Pure Rhythm published by Advance Music, Germany. He has performed at festivals and concerts throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Japan, appeared on numerous albums and released over twenty recordings as a leader. He has received grants and compositional commissions from the Rockefeller Foundation, Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, Mary Flagler Gary Trust, the NEA, Arts International, Durfee Foundation and American Composers Forum. DAVID CHAIM SMITH 1964: born in Queens, NYC. 1980-1982: Philosophy and art history at Queens College. 1982-1986: BFA in drawing at Rhode Island School of Design. 1988-1989: MFA in drawing at Colombia University. 1990: Beginning of intensive study of alchemy and Western Esoteric Qabalah. 1990-1997: Ritual work and study with several western occult orders. 1997: Visual art suspended in favor of practical mysticism. 1997-1998: Residence at Crazy Cloud Hermitage. 1998-2006: Immersion in Chassidic mysticism and traditional Hebrew Kabbalah with several teachers. 2007: Innovation of a set of graphic keys based on the 13th century mystical text Maayin HaChochmah. With these symbolic constructs image making is resumed after a ten year hiaDavid Chaim Smith tus from visual art. Trey Spruance TREY SPRUANCE is a California based composer, multi-instrumen- DAVID TOOP is a musician/composer, author and curator. He studied fine art and graphic design, then in 1971—1972 took part in the first improvisation work shops led by jazz drummer John Stevens. Having played improvised music since the beginning of the 1970s with musicians such as Paul Burwell, Steve Beresford, Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Terry Day, Peter Cusack, Sally Potter and Loi Coxhill, he also recorded shamanistic ceremonies in Amazonas and appeared on Top Of The Pops with the Flying Lizards. Musicians he has worked with include Brian Eno, John Zorn, Prince Far I, Jon Hassell, Derek Bailey, Talvin Singh, Evan Parker, Scanner, Ivor Cutler, Akio Suzuki, Haco, Rhodri Davies,Jin Hi Kim and Alasdair Roberts, and collaborated with artists such as theatre director/actor Steven Berkoff, Japanese Butoh dancer Mitsutaka Ishii, sound poet Bob Cobbing and visual artist John Latham. His first album, New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments, was released on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975; since 1995 he has released eight solo albums, including Screen Ceremonies, Black Chamber and Sound Body. Four books have been published, currently translated into seven languages: Rap Attack, Ocean of Sound, Exotica (a winner of the 21st annual American Books Awards for 2000), and Haunted Weather. As a critic and essayist he has written for many pubhcations, including The Wire, The Face, The Times and Leonardo Music Journal. In 2000, he curated Sonic Boom, the UK's largest ever exhibition of sound art, at the Hayward Gallery, London, and in 2005 curated Playing John Cage for Arnolfini Bristol. His sound works have been exhibited in Beijing's Zhongshan Park, Tokyo ICC and the National Gallery, London. His most recent book Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the David Toop Listener—^will be published in summer 2010. He is currently com posing a chamber opera, Star-shaped Biscuit, for Aldeburgh Music. Greg Wall talist and producer, leader of Secret Chiefs 3, member of defunct Mr. Bungle. Nietzschean reactionary angst from exposure to redneck town of youth led to overzealous immersion in music and philosophy (and an aversion to western Christendom). Once in San Francisco in the beginning of the 1990s, appropriate psychic and social adjustments began. Education and participation in some of the more inscrutable elements of the SF underground at that time, with its mysterious and often humble but completely insane personages, inspired much creativity and soul searching. Truth-seeking (albeit disjointed and anarchistic) arrived in seed-form by 1993, and led to nearly two decades of deeply intensive studies in Hermetic and Islamic Philosophies. Eventually these studies began to crystallize into something substantial and musically apphcable. On embracing of non-ET tonality (not "microtonality" but modal concepts owing much to Hellenic musical Philosophy), and also non-subdivided rhythm, an unmistakable musical overlap with Philosophy resulted in a "synergy" that has maintained a steady direction and output. The music is often mistaken as avant garde, but is really just situated consistently in a tension between ancient and modern ideas, eastern and western concepts, etc. Moved to the mountains in 2000. For over a decade compo sitional goals have reflected a rigorous "home-schooled" kind of quasi-quadrivium {Book M, Book of Horizons, etc.) that walks the line of aforementioned tensions. Now entering third year of being an Eastern Orthodox Christian wannabe layper son, who at this point is just trying to not become the next Rasputin, Simon Magus or Judas. PETER LAMBORN WILSON (b. 1945) is an American political writer, essayist, and poet, known for first proposing the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), based on a historical review of pirate utopias. See Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology essays by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Christopher Bamford, Zia Inayat-Khan (Lindisfarne Bookes, 2008). 452 453 Rabbi GREG WALL is a saxophonist and composer who is equally Peter Lamborn Wilson fluent in both jazz and world music. He has performed and recorded with his own ensembles Later Prophets, Greg Wall Trio, Hasidic New Wave, The Wall/London Band and Greg Wall's Unity Orchestra as well as with Neshama Carlebach, the'Hi-Tops and many others. Greg has made many session appearances for record dates and film scores and performs his own music regularly at top venues and major festivals throughout North America and Europe. Since 1999 he has collaborated with the Carolyn Dorfman Dance company, resulting in many commissioned dance scores. Most recent projects include the Unity Orchestra, a pan cultural ensemble featuring eight musicians from five continents, and Ha'Orot, a musical setting of the mystical poetry of legendary Rabbi Rav Kook. Greg is the Rabbi of the 6th Street shul in New York's East Village. ARCANA V Z'EV text/sound artist, composer, sound sculptor, poet and mystic. He is perhaps best known for his performances of acoustic phenomena produced through catacoustic (reflected sound-based) percussion. In 1978 he met Haitian Hougun Rico Joves and was initiated into Vou-Dun drumming. Employed as a researcher for the Society for the Preservation of Occult Consciousness he received initiations into the Western Ceremonial Tradition. In 1979 he began his studies with Rabbi J. Winston, founder of the Jewish Meditation Society. His work is influenced by the Middle Eastern mystical system best known as Kabbalah (although not of the Jewish variety), as well as cultures and esoteric systems world-wide. After study ing at CalArts with Concrete poet Emmett Williams he concentrated on visual and sound poetries, and was included in the Second Generation show at the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco in 1975. In 1976, inspired by the Punk Movement, he re-entered the musical sphere and was one of the progenitors of the so-called "industrial" movement in the late '70s. Between the years 1978-1984 he, along with Neil Megson, was fairly responsible for delivering the "tribal" impulse and esthet ic into the Western cultural milieu. In 1992 his first book, Rhythmajik—Practical uses of Number, Rhythm and Sound was published by Temple Press UK. With some few exceptions he was retired from artistic endeavors between 1994 and 2003. In 2001 Tzadik released his work: The Sapphire Nature-, five translations of the pri mal Qabalhistic text known as the Sefer Yetzirah. While performing primarily as a soloist, since 2003 he has been concentrating on cooperative and collaborative composition and performance. He currently spends as much time as possible in Peckham, England in the company of Conceptual Artist Barbara *'ev Stevni, the mother of what is now called Socially Engaged Art. Drawing on his experience in a variety of genres, including jazz, rock, hardcore punk, classical, klezmer, film, cartoon, popular, and improvised music, JOHN ZORN has created an influential body of work that defies academic categories. A native of New York City, he has been a central figure in the downtown scene since 1975, incorporating a wide range of musicians in various compositional formats. He learned alchemical synthesis from Harry Smith, struc tural ontology with Richard Foreman, how to make art out of garbage with Jack Smith, cathartic expression at Sluggs, and hermetic intuition from Joseph Cornell. Early inspirations include American innovators Ives, Varèse, Cage, Carter, and Partch, the European tradition of Berg, Stravinsky, Ligeti, and Kagel, soundtrack composers Herrmann, Morricone, and StaUing, as well as avant garde theater, film, art, and hterature. John Zorn 454 1^, ARCANA ARCANA II Answering a need for critical attention towards experimental and avant-garde music, Arcana, is a Arcana II is the second in a groundbreaking series of volumes presented by John Zorn answering ground-breaking work—as far-ranging and dynamic as the current generation of musicians. a continuing need for critical attention toward avant-garde and experimental music. Thirty distin Through manifestoes, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, performer/composers address guished composer/performers illuminate and speculate upon method and practice in the process of composing, playing, improvising, teaching, and thinking in and through music. Rather than an making, experiencing, and thinking about music. Imaginatively elucidating through essays, scores, attempt to distill or define musicians' work, Aroma illuminates with personal vision and experience. manifestoes, and interviews both real and imaginary. Arcana II gives voice to a new generation of Arcana is a remarkable book—challenging and original—essential for composers, musicians, theo brave musical explorers living outside the mainstream academy who passionately and selflessly rists and fans alike. devote themselves to a search for the miraculous. Arcana is a vibrant testimony to the continuing vitality of new music. These exciting young composers are as idiosyncratic and eloquent with words as they are with music. —MEREDITH MONK Arcana, edited by John Zom, is filled with writings by musicians from all over the musi cal map. Interested in the sampling, deconstruction and reconstruction of pop hooks? The historical sociobiology of the downtown music scene? An American's reaction to the study of Gagaku? Extended contrabass techniques? A savvy take on earplugs, amplifier dis tortion and pain? This is the book you've been looking for. —STEVE REICH Colorful, urgent,idiosyncratic. Arcana Wis a manifesto for freedom and experimentation. It's also an exciting collection of stories by musicians about how and why they make music. Now that the music business has fractured, categories have loosened up too. Mainstream? Pop? Experimental? They mean completely different things these days. Arcana II lays the groundwork for revolutionizing what music can mean and be. —LAURIE ANDERSON The original and free spirited ideas in the essays contained in John Zom's collection Arcana II are always stunning, passionate,and truly thought-provoking. This book is the must-read pleasure for anyone with an interest in music—what it is—has been—could be. Bristling with ideas. Illuminating and redefining, —Lou REED contributors contributors CHRIS BROWN EYVIND KANG MIKE PATTON ANTHONY COLEMAN GUY KLUCEVSEK MARC RIBOT CHRISTOPHER ADLER TREVOR DUNN MARILYN CRISPELL JIM O'ROURKE GEORGE LEWIS DAVID ROSENBOOM MARK DRESSER STEPHEN DRURY MICK BARR JASON ECKARDT EVAN PARKER DAVID MAHLER JOHN SCHOTT ELLIOTT SHARP JEWLIA EISENBERG ANNIE GOSFIELD ZEENA PARKINS DAVID SHEA FRED FRITH MIYA MASAOKA MYRA MELFORD IKUE MORI BORAH BERGMAN LISA BIELAWA URI GAINE MILFORD GRAVES MARINA ROSENFELD FRANCES-MARIE UITTI PETER GARLAND STEVE COLEMAN CARLA KIHLSTEDT NED ROTHENBERG LARRY OCHS LOIS V VIERK GERRY HEMINGWAY LUKAS LIGETI TREY SPRUANCE BOB OSTERTAG SCOTT JOHNSON JOSÉ MACEDA J.G. THIRLWELL JOHN OSWALD Z'EV JOHN ZORN NOAH CRESHEVSKY SYLVIE COURVOISIER CHRIS DENCH ERNESTO MARTINEZ MATT WELCH DAVE DOUGLAS BUTCH MORRIS YAMATAKA EYE BILL FRISELL 456 457 MAJA RATKJE ARCANA III ARCANA IV The writings in the continuing Arcana series provide direct connections to the inner sanctums Now in its fourth installment, with a fifth in preparation, John Zom's acclaimed Arcana series pro of some of the most extraordinary musical thinkers of our time. Technical, philosophical and vides insight into the work and methodologies of some of the most creative musical minds of our mystical in nature, these essays reach out to the listener to illuminate the creative processes time. Rather than an attempt to distill or define a musician's work. Arcana IV iUuminates direcdy via and hidden stratagem of a music (and a community) largely misjudged and unappreciated by personal vision and experience through the undiluted words and thoughts of the practitioners them mainstream culture. Arcana provides welcome tools for digging into the underground and can selves. Elucidating through manifestoes, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, composer/per lead the creative mind toward an exciting world of possibiUties for artists, musicians, musical formers address composing, improvising, teaching, living, touring and thinking in and through music. theorists and curious listeners alike. —^from the preface The Arcana series will come to be viewed as the most vital source of relevant information on creative music in the transitional opening of the third millennium. In a time period Essential for composers, musicians, students and fans aUke, this remarkably challenging and original series has now become THE major source on new music theory and practice in the 21st century. where mundane reading sources permeate the publishing world, this body of writings provide welcome intellectual nourishment for serious engagement and learning about As musicians, we are at our best when fully engaged in the intensely personal processes of uncovering and revealing the things that we have each found to be true along the way. The pursuit of our own individual goals in sound and conception can offer insights that creative thinking. John 2om continues to lead by example in both his music and activist work, demonstating the kind of dedication and leadership that inspires real positive growth and world change. —ANTHONY BRAXTON transcend as we search to reconcile the impossible with the possible, the imagined gesture with the actual fact of music itself. With this fourth volume in the Arcana series, John 2om has again assembled broad testimony to the cause in an infinity of dialects, wildly This diverse group of contributors, living and writing in a deeply aware 2 ist century pro vides insights into the way musicians view their work and each other. One senses that diverse but unified with an intent on delivering a range of personal reports that ruminate not only the state of the art in music today, but offer an illuminating view into the deepest crevices of our culture on the move in this most interesting of times. —^PAT METHENY there is an unlimited way "to do it' and that musicians, who can delight with their magic spells, can speak with welcome clarity about how they attempt to get to that mysterious place. These writers point to their sources, their concerns, and at times their love and admiration for one another with originalthought. What you get with Arcana III is a sense We live in a time of musical illiteracy, but a volume like this, in its multiplicity, enthusi asm, and polemicism offers to anyone wanting to go beyond the tatters of contemporary musical criticism a fascinating look into the minds of a broad segment of living music- that there are no boundaries—the closing piece raised me right up out of my chair with a resounding "YES." —TERRY RILEY makers. Not every view is represented, but enough are, to show how much richer the reality is than the picture presented by the panderers. —CHARLES WUORINEN contributors contributors MARYANNE AMACHER JERRY HUNT KAFFE MATTHEWS DEREK BAILEY MAMORU FUJIEDA GORDON MUMMA DEREK BERMEL HENRY KAISER OLGA NEUWIRTH NELS CLINE KENNETH GABURO HANKUS NETSKY STEVEN BERNSTEIN HA-YANG KIM Buzz OSBOURNE CHRIS CUTLER STEVE GORN STEVE PETERS THEO BLECKMANN MAKIGAMI KOICHI WILLIAM PARKER PAUL DRESHER SHELLEY HIRSCH MATANA ROBERTS GAVIN BRYARS PAMELIA KURSTIN PAOLA PRESTINI ARNOLD DREYBLATT ROBIN HOLCOMB BRANDON ROSS GREG COHEN OKKYUNG LEE JAMIE SAFT TOBY DRIVER WAYNE HORVITZ URSEL SCHLICT JACQUES COURSIL SEAN LENNON ERIC SINGER DAVID DUNN VIJAY IYER DAVID SLUSSER MARIO DIAZ DE LEÓN FRANK LONDON WADADA LEO SMITH MARTY EHRLICH JOHN KING TYSHAWN SOREY TIME HARRIS BRAD LUBMAN LAETITIA SONAMI PETER EVANS ALEX LIPOWSKI KATHLEEN SUPOVÉ SCOTT HULL CHRISTIAN MARCLAY HAL WILLNER FAST FORWARD BOB LUDWIG DAVEY WILLIAMS JAMES FEI KEERIL MAKAN CAROLYN YARNELL MIGUEL FRASCONI BENEDICT MASON 458 459

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