Through music to the self - how to appreciate and experience music anew PDF
Preview Through music to the self - how to appreciate and experience music anew
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 los- ing 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 tech- niques of vocal and instrumental im- provisation, especially in the religious context. Relating the esoteric sound lore of these traditions with the rational Western tradition and its modern re- search 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 demon- strable 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. (continued on back flap) THROUGH MUSIC TO THE SELF Peter Michael Hamel THROUGH MUSIC TO THE SELF How to appreciate and experience music anew TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY PETER LEMESURIER COMPTON PRESS An Element Book First published in 1976 by Scherz Verlag, Berne, Munich & Vienna English translation © Peter Lemesurier 1978 First printed and published in Great Britain by The Compton Press Ltd The Old Brewery, Tisbury, Wiltshire Designed by Humphrey Stone Cover design by Robert Tilleard All rights of reproduction reserved, including radio, television, sound reproduction of any kind and reprinting of extracts isbn 0 900193 53 0 To My Parents Contents INTRODUCTION 1 1 OLD AND NEW PATHS IN WESTERN MUSIC 5 On Contemporary Musical Awareness 5 Approaches to Composition 11 European Musical Culture – American Composers – Bartók and Orff – Music as a Mirror of Angst – Messiaen and Stockhausen Group-Improvisation and Intuitive Music Making 26 Experimental Music – Improvisation Models Psychedelic Music 34 The Drug Fraud 2 ENCOUNTER WITH NON-EUROPEAN MUSIC 43 Indian Classical Music 46 Raga – Rasa – Tala – Indian Musical Studies – A Singing Sadhu on the Ganges Tibetan Ritual Music 70 The Instruments – Chanting Music of Magical Consciousness 76 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 viii Through Music to the Self 3 THE ESOTERIC WORLD OF SOUND AND RESEARCH INTO HARMONICS 92 On the Knowledge of the Ancients 92 Experiments with the Monochord The Harmonic Series 100 The Formants – Electronic Sound-production – Harmonics and Science The Meaning of Mantra 109 Syllables and Words The Human Organism and its Acoustic Laws 120 Analogies between Man and the World of Sounds Tone-Colour as the Vehicle of the Spiritual 127 4 MUSIC BETWEEN THE WORLDS 131 Musical Meditation in the West 131 Spiritual Jazz – The Meditative Wave – Meditation and Electronics ‘Periodic Music’ and ‘Minimal Music’ 142 Terry Riley – American ‘minimal music’ Concentric and Integral Music (Author’s Compositions) 154 Dharana – Dhyana – Samma Samadhi – Ananda – Hari Om Tat Sat – Continuous Creation – Diaphainon – Maitreya 5 SOCIAL PRACTICE AND EXERCISE METHODS 165 The Healing Effect of Music 165 Music versus Drug Addiction – Music for Relaxation Contents ix The Power of Breath and Voice 175 Exercises in Breathing – Sounded Breathing: Vowel-Improvisation Finding Your Own Note 186 Mandra-Sadhana – Nada-Yoga – The Technique of Nada-Yoga according to Swami Satyananda Experimental Theatre and Collective Self-Experience 194 Collective Self-Experience – Individual exercises for all to practise together – Exercises with partner – The whole group in a circle – Group-exercises PROSPECT 207 APPENDICES 209 Texts 209 The Spring and Autumn of Lü Bu Ve – Hazrat Inayat Khan: On Music Musical Examples and Illustrations 216 BIBLIOGRAPHY 223 SELECTION OF RECORDED MUSIC 227
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