21st Century Musical Healer Series--Fred Clarke Alvarez
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| Fred Clarke Alvarez |
I met the multimedia artist and sound healer Fred Clarke Alvarez on my Linked In group, Musical Healers. His work with healers, musicians, and teachers from the Andes possesses both a compassionate and adventurous patina. Fred builds instruments that hail to further back than the Incan Empire. They include a variety of flutes, lutes, and percussion instruments that most westerners, at least in pop culture, have never encountered.
Fred's approach is to heal others in a more or less shamanic-conscious way that blends the healing power of sound with frequencies found in the natural world. Prior to venturing into music and sound healing, Fred's background is in photography and film making. I personally believe that visual as well as, musical expression have the power to transform society when used correctly and with conscious intention of healing.
With no further ado, here's my e-mail interview with Fred, who at the time was on route in California.
Whole Music Exp: In your biography on your website you mention that you started out as a photographer and filmmaker and then you discovered Native Peruvian healers and medicine in 1998. When you discovered this medicine, did you also discover sound healing practices related to it?
Fred Clarke Alvarez: I discovered Wachuma (Echinopsis
Pachanoi) native medicine from Peru, when I was in
the school. But in 1998, I had my first deep experience, which started to
change my life in meaningful ways. After that experience by myself, I decided
to go further. I lived in the jungle and Andes. During that time I met and
learnt through different healing traditions and healers their sound/music
healing practices in different rituals and sessions through chants, flutes,
drums, rattles, and shells, among other instruments. After that experience I
understood the relation sound as medicine = sound healing.
WME: You also mention that you rebuilt instruments based on
ancient Peruvian instruments. When you say ancient, how far back are you
going—the the Incan Empire? What sparked your journey with these instruments?
FCA: I went further. I started to explore with Pre-Incan
instruments, from cultures like Nasca, Chavin, Mochica, Chincha, Ischma, Inca,
among others. I started to explore making flutes and antaras (pan flutes) with
bamboo, bones, and feathers. That spark came to me during my early years
working with native medicines and healers in the jungle, as wildlife as well. I
experienced the magic and healing power of sound and music working in myself,
in my life path. A simple flute took me into another step of the spiral,
reaching a new understanding, and consciousness about sound healing and
Peruvian ancient healing sound traditions. After that I started my
sound-healing path, searching about different Peruvian ancient instruments and
healing techniques. Meetings with different native healers, musicologists,
archeologists, and sound healers inspired my work and research in deep ways.
WME: You have four
recordings featured on your website. I am especially interested in Paqarina
(instrumental with nature sounds) and Willka Una al Agua (a studio album) which
you play flutes and on the second album a type of lute. What are the main
medicine features of these two albums? (I did find them relaxing).
FCA: Both albums are related and inspired by the water.
Paqarina and Willka Unu are in Runasimi language, native tongue of the Andes.
Paqarina means a source of life. In the Andean culture it could be a spring, a
lake, a river, the ocean--where life can emerge. Willka Unu means sacred
(willka) water (unu)-- so both of them are working with the water element as a
conductor for healing and connection. I like to work with nature sounds as part
of the healing process, so I have recorded from jungle, Andes and coast from
Peru, rivers, creeks, ocean, birds, rain, storms, blending them with the
ancient instruments. In Willka Unu, the nature sounds goes through jungle, Andes
and coast doing the circular dynamic of water from the sky to the ocean, giving
an “end” with a poem to the water written and spoken in Runasimi language (mistakenly
known as Quechua language).
In Paqarina I used different nature sounds and instruments as
well. I used Nasca pan flutes with the sound of waves, as Nasca people are
deeply connected to the ocean, pelican quills flute, eagle bone flute, double
flute, among others. The charango is a string instrument from the Andes,
inspired by the Spanish guitar. There weren’t string instruments in ancient
Peru. This instrument became a profound musical symbol of the Peruvian Andes,
which I started to work with in my sound healing sessions and in the next
albums.
WME: You also mention
that you co-founded a sustainable intentional community, Chirapa Menta
Ecolodge. Is this eco-village based around sound healing and music therapy?
FCA: At the beginning of 2005, I was part of a sustainable
intentional community effort, which we were trying to put in practice and learn
from nature and each other to live in harmony, respect and consciousness. Years
later, two of my dear friends continued living there and created Chirapa Manta Eco
lodge, a center for healings arts, ecology, sustainability, intercultural
exchange, and healthy nutrition. I will offer this year, probably in OCT/NOV
2015, a workshop about sound healing/sacred connection with nature through
meditation, sound of nature, walks, energy work among other activities up there
in the high jungle/Tarapoto, in Chirapa Manta Eco Lodge.
WME: With your
background in music, energy medicine and visual arts, have you ever combined
all of that in a healing practice? And how do you feel about movie soundtrack
composers who don’t use music mindfully? I ask this since music has the power
not only to sway our emotions (manipulation in some instances), but we entrain
to it.
FCA: Not yet. I have started to do some short documentaries
about inspiring stories of people who work and keep creating a better ways to
live in harmony with nature and ourselves, like animal assistance therapy
(dogs, llamas, and horses), ethnomusicology, ancient weaving tradition from
Peru, sustainability, healthy food, among others topics. I am using my music as
well for editing the video. So my intention to combine video and music as a healing
tool is to share and open mind/hearts into a new awareness and consciousness--to
inspire. One of the next video projects I have in mind is to talk about sound
and its healing approaches through different healers and perspectives.
About the movie soundtrack composers they are musicians doing “their work”. They don’t have any sound healing background and consciousness about it, something that for me is a waste of energy or ignorance/manipulation that in music schools or in most of the educational pedagogies, don’t see and teach music and sound as a healing tool in itself with awareness and responsibility to use it in “better” ways, understanding the huge power and effects of sound and music on people and our whole environment. A huge part of the music and film industry is using music and sound to persuade and manipulate emotions, “to entertain”, to sell and get more material power. It’s an unfortunate reality, but we are changing and trying to bring that harmony, as nature does, finding harmony between chaos and order.
https://vimeo.com/
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