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Introducing Sound Possibilities
This web site is about how music and sound have been, are being, and can be used in the world. If we wish to restore harmony in the world, what better place to look for harmonic principles than music? If there is such a thing as a ‘natural order of the universe’, might not music hold keys to understanding that order? We tell stories with songs, we paint pictures with symphonies, we heal with sound.
Ancient Vedic texts from India describe the universe as vibratory in nature. Over the past century the physical sciences have arrived at similar conclusions about the nature of matter and energy. When we produce music we utilize vibrations of sound much as a painter uses wavelengths of light which we perceive as various colors. (In fact, as we will see in these pages, music and color have a long and intriguing history together.)
Music and language also have much in common. These forms of expression have been with us from the beginning. Poetry, songs and stories speak to the human condition. What better way to understand consciousness and the mind than to study the forms that spring from it?
Then there is the purely abstract language of mathematics which also has an age-old relationship with music. Rhythm, proportion, intervals in space and time. From the sacred geometry of Pythagoras and the ancients, Kepler’s astronomical Harmony of the Spheres and the classical architectonics of Vitruvius, through systems of just intonation and Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, on to modern set theory and fractal music, mathematics has been used to map out the intervals, count the time and even act as composer with the aid of the computer.
But while mathematics has proven to be a reliable and accurate tool, it is in the end a chart, a map. Whatever culture or period we choose to consider, the most effective music usually has some elusive element that does not chart so easily, some quality that eludes quantification. So when we speak of the sound possibilities that music offers, we really must consider a whole range of subjects; psychoacoustics; the neuroscience of music and meditation; mathematical influences and the principles of sacred geometry and number theory; anthropology; ethnomusicology; the origins of music and its relation to language, the soundscape, environmental and architectural applications for music and sound; as well as the many ways music can interact with other creative arts; the healing power of music. All of these things and more are the sound possibilities that music offers. At different times, in various places music has been practiced as magic, used as a tool for healing, a medium for the transmission of sacred teachings, the spreading of news, even as a political tool or agent for social change.
Character and identity are established through music and song in ways that define us as human. Music is a mysterious and powerful force that can bring us more in tune with ourselves, with one another and with the world as a whole.Here are some of the subjects coming soon to the Sound Possibilities web site;
Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky used musical ideas in his painting, taking art from the medium of time and applying it to the medium of space. Architecture has been described as “frozen music”, and music as “fluid architecture”. Is this confusing the temporal quality of time with the physical nature of space? Perhaps, but in quantum physics and cosmology we have the notion of space-time. By looking at the synergy of combined media we begin to get a sense of how something can be more than just the sum of its parts.
We will explore the electromagnetic spectrum and learn about the similarities and differences between light and sound, waves and particles, frequencies, wavelengths, music and color.
Through stories, poetry and folk music, we will re-discover magic and learn how knowledge and wisdom are transmitted across time and space in the lore of legends and the deep truths embedded in ancient mythologies.How are language and music related? We can see that the rich complexity of human language has been instrumental in the development of complex societies and diverse cultures, but is music not every bit as important? Could music perhaps be as necessary for our very survival? And if it is, are we using it appropriately, or are we endangering ourselves, our children and our future by dismissing music as nothing more than a casual diversion?
We refer to the musical applications presented here as sound possibilities not only because they involve the audible nature of sound, but also because these are ideas that resonate soundly within us as making sense. (Interesting that the word sound has these two meanings.) There is much about music that we feel intuitively but are only beginning to really understand. The emotional power of music is self-evident. But as we explore the workings of this phenomenon we find a highly complex set of processes working on many levels simultaneously. According to studies done on brain activity it turns out that some musical tasks use more areas of the brain than nearly anything else we do. It’s no wonder then that involving young children in music can enhance their ability to learn other subjects. As we investigate the neuroscience of musical activity in the brain we find that the musical experience may in fact transcend the physical realm altogether and engage the higher workings of mind itself.
We know that music alters consciousness in all kinds of ways and is used to do so everywhere from offices and elevators to religious services and the theater. Music is present in nearly everything we do. We have no earlids. How is all this music and sound we are exposed to, consciously or unconsciously, affecting us? Certainly there are many positive influences, but is there a dark side as well? How can we tune ourselves and our world to make sure we always use music and sound in a spirit of ahimsa? [ahimsa - Late 19th century. Sanskrit, from a- “without” + himsa- “injury”.]
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