This book describes a quest; a personal journey to follow the enchantment of sound. I’ll begin with a story. It is said that ancient Chinese emperors after they ascended to power would retune all the bells in the kingdom to reflect the particular qualities and values they wished fort heir people. Each new emperor literally retuned his kingdom and everybody in it. Today a new planetary tuning is being offered as our world transforms and recalibrates. Chaotic emotions now yearn to be harmonized. Awakening out of the chaos many of us are imagining a lighter, more graceful way of flowing with life. Each creature, flower, stone or planet has its tone of authenticity and would be honored for that in this new consciousness, worthy of protection and love. Old distortions are blowing away in the wind; connection is blossoming. Clarion calls already within us are flowing out like waves or searchlights longing to find others who feel the same way. No emperor is doing this to us. WE are the tuners of the world. A tuning metaphor makes perfect sense to me because the universe itself is resounding in ways we never thought possible. Stars make sounds, earth beats out rhythms; cells literally sing! So why wouldn’t we be tuners too – able to receive and broadcast whatever we want? I hope that by the end of this book a kind of ‘musical consciousness’ will arrive for you; a heightened awareness of sound above, below and within us.
Our reality constantly strives for flexible, imaginative harmony, for balance. There is so much sound around us if we could only perceive it. Our bodies vibrate in exquisite ways; we are music itself. Why have we not celebrated this? What have we been missing? Perhaps we are just too close to vibration, literally swimming in it like a fish that sees no separation between itself and the water. We are not perceiving the obvious. Fluttering and stumbling along we’ve forgotten how to play with resonance. Spiders could teach us a lot. Our confusion is painful:what is it all about? Where do I belong? The joyful news is that we are entwined with everything; all of it. If resonance is the language of the universe, then nothing, no one, is left out. It is one, grand song and each voice has a part in it.
As a composer, singer, instrumentalist, teacher, deep listener, presenter, and researcher it’s been a rich multidimensional path leading deeper and deeper into the ‘mysteries’ of our vibrating world. This book is a collection of stories, a little like a travelogue. Different topics arrive: our biosphere, science, mystical teachings, sacred symbols, and even history. But it is not an in-depth study of anything. I deeply honor past wisdoms and modern science alike. Time sometimes skips around; it can’t be helped. Links for listening are embedded in the text and there are lots of references for further study. Some parts are bit technical but you can skip them and still enjoy the stories.
My first remembered Shazam of enchantment with sound began with a whistle when I was almost five. Our family had just moved from Queens, NY to a little house in New Jersey. The house was pretty… a colonial style with a literal babbling brook in front and enormous oaks, elms, and beeches ripe for climbing. A small woods in the back protected lawns and flowers. The air was clean. It was quiet. After the dirty (and scary) apartment in New York, it was heaven! However – and a big however – we had only been able to afford it because the house itself was a wreck. My bedroom had a nasty hole in the wall left by the last occupant who put his fist through it. So…one sunny day my small self was exploring the backyard and saw a man dressed in white, up on a ladder painting the house. He was whistling. “Greensleeves” as I later realized. I was gobsmacked. Utterly ensorcelled by this gorgeous music floating to…FOR…me! What WAS this sound??? To this day if that painter walked past me on the street I would recognize him…the streaks of paint on his pants, his hat, his kind smile and happiness at being alive that lovely day. Whistling his joy. That joy rode on the music, streamed into my heart and melted me in love. With the painter I thought! But there was a bigger love to arrive, an awesome awareness that there exists a great tone river, a chalice of sound which protects and powers the Universe. This divine intelligence flows within and without us; in all things.
The Prelude begins in l974 (at age 31) and leads up to l986 when my imagination finally took flight with the project Sequencia: translating DNA frequencies into sound. Those early years were the hard ones; quests are not always strewn with roses. Later chapters describe collaborations with other artists as we researched things like black holes, the brain, body, and our Milky Way. I include references which I hope might inspire you to dig deeper. Many helped me along the way: scientists, friends, philosophers, healers, co-artists, musicians, teachers, family and wise souls everywhere and I want to honor them. As a beloved teacher once told me, “You live long enough, you meet people.” I hope you will enjoy meeting some of them too. Nobody ever gets there alone.
My wandering, as it turns out, has been a blessing, an adventure of surprises. There are many more questions in this book than answers and, of course, you will imagine your own. Happily we will never completely figure it all out. If we could hear this hidden sound world – the roar of our sun, or cells popping inside a tree – would we like nature’s jam sessions? Is the universe just going about its own vibrational business, or… is everything talking to everything else? And if so, so what? A musical consciousness could also help us break through the density and inertia that is choking our culture; music is creative and playful and we ARE that. So dust off that wand and find your inner Merlin, tuning the world as you go. You already do it of course, arranging furniture, finding just the right flavor for the soup, staying away from that person or moving closer. This playful fluidity feels like freedom; even love. Fellow travelers, antennas up! As we head towards more unity (I back that horse), why not listen hard, grab a wave and ride it? [Back]