The Whole Music Experience

Wikipedia When did my love affair with music begin? Was it while I swam in the waters of my mother's womb when she played old jazz standards and Broadway tunes for me? Was it during my first music class in elementary school? Was it after John Lennon's untimely death when I played Beatles albums back to back and cried quietly in the background? Or was it during my college radio show when I discovered alternative rock and folk-rock music? Or was it the first time I heard one of Astor Piazzolla's tangos sizzle on my stereo? With a human-to-human love affair we know when we first taste love on the lips of another or see it in the eyes of another as he or she gazes at us from across a room. But what is it about music that has some of us going gaga or giggling behind a veil of indifference? And what is music anyway? It's intangible and we can't hold it in our hands? We can't really embrace something intangible, but our emotions can. I happen to believe that the ...

For this post I'm pulling an excerpt from my book Whole Music (Soul Food for the Mind Body Spirit) and including runo-song examples I found on YouTube.  If you look at "Finnish Runo-Song" on YouTube, you will pull up a collection of wonderful videos.  In fact, you could easily spend an entire afternoon listening to those wonderful Karelian songs. Finnish painting of scene from The Kalevala, Wikipedia Magical Chants While these chants felt strange to my ears at first, I felt attracted to their primal qualities.   In my adult years, music has acted as the vehicle that has brought me closer to the world’s cultures.   Besides, it didn’t hurt that Nordic music had enjoyed its days in the spotlight, thanks to small American labels such as North Side Records in Minneapolis, who also booked US tours for Nordic acts.   True, trends come and go, but in this case, I delved further into the shamanic roots of the runo-song.   Imagine that in ancient time...