Through Music to the Self: How to appreciate and experience music anew

Description

"What is Music? What does it do to us? What does it reveal to us? Today, due to our ability to record and reproduce sound mechanically, we hear a great deal of music. Are we losing the art of listening to it? Do we really benefit from it? Peter Hamel, born in 1947, studied music, psychology and sociology in Munich and Berlin, after which he spent three extensive periods in Asia studying Eastern traditions of music. Now a practising composer and musician, he has become convinced that through encounter with the ancient and unspoilt non-European disciplines it is possible to re-discover the natural laws and the magical powers of sound. In this practically-based book, he discusses the effects on the human psyche of Indian, Tibetan, Arabian and other Far Eastern techniques of vocal and instrumental improvisation, especially in the religious context. Relating the exoteric sound lore of these traditions with the rational Western tradition and its modern research into harmonics, the conformity of the harmonic series to natural law is seen as pertaining on the one hand to the level of mystical experience and on the other to scientifically demonstrable psychological effects. We therefore have the ability of chant, rhythm and melodic patterns to invoke the deeper levels of experience which transcend our subjective self-concern; at the same time these effects need not be arbitrary and accidental. Through experiment with sound, even those without musical training can awaken to a new consciousness of its powers and derive renewed strength for everyday living. There are sections dealing with modern group music, psychedelic music and drugs, mantra, relationship of vowels to parts of the body, meditation, music therapy, breath and voice, singing and "one's own sound". This is a book for those who suspect that music is more than entertainment or an obligatory cultural activity and who with to explore its powers as a tool for self-development." Through Music to the Self Contents Introduction 1 Old and New Paths in Western Music On Contemporary Musical Awareness Approaches to Composition European Musical Culture American Composers Bartok and Orff Music as a Mirror of Angst Messiaen and Stockhausen Group-Improvisation and Intuitive Music Making Experimental Music Improvisation Models Psychedelic Music The Drug Fraud 2 Encounter with Non-European Music Indian Classical Music Raga Rasa Tala Indian Musical Studies A Singing Sadhu on the Ganges Tibetan Ritual Music The Instruments Chanting Music of Magical Consciousness The Drum of the Shamans The Significance of the Drum Ecstatic Chant in Persia and Mongolia The Instruments of the Islamic Calling Indonesian Gamelan Music Music in China and Japan Rhythmic Aspects 3 The Esoteric World of Sound and Research into Harmonics On the Knowledge of the Ancients Experiments with the Monochord The Harmonic Series The Formants Electronic Sound-production Harmonics and Science The Meaning of Mantra Syllables and Words The Human Organism and its Acoustic Laws Analogies between Man and the World of Sounds Tone-Colour as the Vehicle of the Spiritual 4 Music Between the Worlds Musical Meditation in the West Spiritual Jazz The Meditative Wave Meditation and Electronics ‘Periodic Music’ and ‘Minimal Music’ Terry Riley American ‘minimal music’ Concentric and Integral Music (Author’s Compositions) Dharana Dhyana Samma Samadhi Ananda Hari Om Tat Sat Continuous Creation Diaphainon Maitreya 5 Social Practice and Exercise Methods The Healing Effect of Music Music versus Drug Addiction Music for Relaxation The Power of Breath and Voice Exercises in Breathing Sounded Breathing: Vowel-Improvization Finding Your Own Note Mandra-Sadhana Nada-Yoga The Technique of Nada-Yoga according to Swami Satyananda Experimental Theatre and Collective Self-Experience Collective Self-Experience Individual exercises for all to practise together Exercises with partner The whole group in a circle Group-exercises Prospect Appendices Texts The Spring and Autumn of Lü Bu Ve Hazrat Inayat Khan: On Music Musical Examples and Illustrations Bibliography Selection of Recorded Music