The Whole Music Experience

Lisa Spector and Sanchez Feed Your Mind with Whole Music  Originally published in the Natural Inquirer (Skagit Valley Food Coop) What if your shopping list looked something like: Organic broccoli, organic carrots, organic soy milk, and acoustic music CDs? It might if you think of music as an energetic substance that your body absorbs and digests.   Current research shows it does. According to psychoacoustic experts (researches the effects of sound/music on the nervous system) music entrains our minds and bodies.   Every cell in our bodies responds to musical vibration and while some types of music lifts our moods and immune responses, some music can lead us into a black hole of depression and low immune responses (think heavy metal).    While many of us recall Don Campbell’s 1997 book, The Mozart Effect , not everyone prefers classical music. We can still reap the benefits of music by listening to other genres including world...

photo by Patricia Herlevi Ever so often I wake up with an idea for a new blog post for working with sound and music.  Today while meditating, I started paying attention to how my body responded to the songbirds outside my window.  Then I pondered the question, what constitutes music? Since I have listened to music from around the world in a variety of modes, scales, and structures, I understand that when even 3-notes are repeated in a pattern, this constitutes music.  Since all of this music came from humans there was no question as to its status as music.  But when we deal with nature do we consider the frog and bird songs actual music? And what about the frequencies contained in these nature songs, how do they affect our health and well-being? Do you ever wonder? To indigenous musicians and people this is a no-brainer.  To them of course nature provides music and healing frequencies.  Indigenous people the ancients believe that the world is made...

photo by Patricia Herlevi I was unable to round up enough students for my class Exploring Music with Ecological Themes, but I still think it's important for us to connect to nature through sound vibration.  So I'm including a short list of practices you can learn to do on your own.  I feel as humans in the modern world we have lost contact with the natural world.  We have given animals human personalities, treated the earth as a resource rather than a living being, and have forgotten how to communicate musically with the natural world or to truly hear its music. Those are the reasons why I created the class.  Too bad only one student signed up for it. 1) Sit in a natural setting (yes, outdoors), and focus on birds singing or another nature-based sound.  Meditate on this sound for at least 10 minutes.  Follow your body's rhythms and pulses as you listen to this natural sound.  Do you start hearing a melody in it? Harmony? How do you feel?  ...

I'm not writing about a new topic.   I write this essay in preparation for two workshops I plan on teaching this winter.  I adapted my course Exploring Music with Ecological Themes into a 2-hour workshop where I feature 5 songs hailing from diverse traditions.  We will explore the Finnish runo-song (sadly a fading tradition), indigenous music (haven't selected the tradition yet), the "wild bird jazz" of David Rothenberg and the sound healing-jazz of the late Marjorie De Muynck.  The exploration reads like a shamanic adventure, but my workshop also focuses on lost healing arts. Sadly as a planet, we have mostly lost touch with the natural world and the purposes of music.  I feel that disconnected from nature and intentional music leads to dis-ease and destruction of the planet. If we perform ignorantly music with ill intentions then we lead ourselves further into dis-ease.  I cannot stress this enough.I see music used purposefully by advertisers who sell...

I received the sad news today that Energy Healer/Musician/Animal Advocate/Sound Healer/Author Marjorie de Muynck died from her battle with cancer in January.  I don't have an exact date or any information except for what Marjorie shared with me in the last e-mail she sent me.  At that point she was paralyzed from the waist down and battling cancer for the third time, this time she had a tumor on her lower spine and kidneys. If you were a student in one of my healing music workshops, you will know about Marjorie and what a dear soul and healer she was and still is because I think she's sticking around for all of us, and she's definitely sticking around for the non-humans who she dearly loved and supported in their plight on Mother Earth. I received so many passionate e-mails from Marjorie, who also hooked me up with a few animal advocacy groups, kept me informed on petitions, etc...Meanwhile, she was obtaining her Masters in Acupuncture/Chinese Medicine.  And pr...

Marjorie de Muynck Vibrational Healing Music Sounds True When it comes to psycho-acoustics and sound healing integrity, healer-musician-composer Marjorie de Muynck is at the top of the list. Her recording, In the Key of Earth (Sounds True), proved time again, to lift vibrations from my home environment. And de Muynck does so by recording only acoustic instruments, including overtones from those instruments. Her latest recording, Vibrational Healing Music represents another pioneering effort. The recording offers a fabulous marriage between nature spirits (not just the sound of waves and birds chirping), and acoustic instruments. But de Muynck takes this musical venture even further by setting moods that she experienced as a child in the Midwest and Oklahoma. We can be thankful then, that de Muynck’s Native American grandparents did not own a television set and they would sit on the porch with their granddaughter in the evening listening to the music of the natural world. ...

Staying in Tune--Marjorie de Muynck Sound Healer and musician Marjorie de Muynck ( pronounced Monk) recently published Sound Healing (Vibrational Healing with Ohm Tuning Forks ). I have found this book to be user-friendly and easy to follow. The book is loaded with a wealth of vibrational and sound information and it comes with an instructional DVD. The following conversation took place via e-mail. WME: You are performing fascinating healing work with tuning forks based on musical concepts and vibration. What were the main turning points in your life that led you to exploring healing musical vibrations and working with tuning forks? MM: I’ve been fascinated with tuning forks since I was a kid. My father gave me my first tuning fork back in 1963 to tune my guitar and being an explorative child I sounded the tuning fork on my body. This was before modern tuning forks were used in this manner so it was clearly explorative. Over the last few decades there have been findings t...

A few weeks ago I received a powerful recording in the mail by sound healer and musician Marjorie de Muynck. In The Key Of Earth features overtones of several acoustic instruments, revolving around the earth tone, Ohm. I have been playing this CD on a daily basis and I have noticed a difference in my physical and emotional being. I am calmer and more centered than usual. I am feeling more present in the moment and more connected to the earth in which I walk upon. Not only that, I have noticed more birds and non-human creatures showing up for the duration of the recording. Most important, Marjorie's atmospheric earth sounds reminds me of the vast musical experience we encounter on a daily basis. It reflects on the nature of sounds that we normally take for granted and also the earth which we als o take for granted. In an era of global warming and the loss of a great number of species, we must become more aware of our carbon and I would add, sound footprint on the planet. We m...

Marjorie de Muynck In The Key Of Earth Sounds True Diana Rogers Love Reigns (Kirtan Chants) Sounds True In the liner notes of her CD, In The Key Of Earth , sound healer and musician, Marjorie de Muynck (de monk), tells us that "Ohm" is the vibration of the earth. She cites, "Ohm (aum), exists in the harmonically rich valley between the musical notes of C and C sharp, an alternative, or "cosmic," tuning that predates keyboards or modern Western music. Ohm is felt in nature, in the cycles and rhythms of the Earth, and the movement of the cosmos." Marjorie de Muynck combines her background as a jazz performer, (Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet), with an MA in music education, and her own therapeutic work, (she is the creator of Ohm Therapeutics ™). Her lifelong journey with the earth's sounds, music, and vibrations began at an early age and her life story presented briefly in the liner notes proves immensely fascinating to me. In T...