The Whole Music Experience

Perhaps having Neptune transiting in my second astrological house led to a dissolution of my work with music consciousness. For ten years, I researched music from around the world as a journalist and as a musician. Dr. Emoto's work with water crystals and discovering the power of classical music sparked this work.  However, in recent years, I needed to find other ways to make a living, I found myself living between homes and my stress levels reached a crescendo so I lost the thread of my original work. On top of all that, my book, Whole Music ended up taking a different route than I originally intended. The first publishing with a small hybrid publisher was a fiasco. Then, I found an agent to represent the book, but she was unable to find an editor to publish it. This caused me grief. And I wasn't sure where to go with music research. I wasn't earning any money from the work that ate up 40+ hours a week of my time. I ended up homeless and hopeless. Even my Go Fund Me...

Photo by Patricia Herlevi, All Rights Reserved When I was 18 years old, I returned to my parent's house for college spring break and I shuffled through my mother's classical records. I found a recording of Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun. The title intrigued me so I listened to the composition. I immediately fell into a trance. Musical trances weren't new to me at that time as I had fallen under musical trances as a child numerous times. But I found myself swooning to Claude Debussy's impressionistic music. I followed the different instruments as they rose and descended then hid behind other instruments such as harps, French horns, oboes, and flutes. Then, years later, I felt a craving for French Impressionist music. I bought recordings of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. And again, I swooned when I heard Debussy's prelude. I spent a summer exploring French Impressionist recordings in my music lab that I created in my Seattle apart...

In our sped up world, we don't often take the time to deeply listen to music. I remember taking a music appreciation class at college in 1982 where the professor played a recording of Bach's Fugue in G minor every day for the entire quarter. We learned every nuance of that fugue, even if I didn't seriously listen to Bach' s music several decades later. So, for this practice get out your headphones and your music diary. Then listen to Kate Bush's "Man with a Child in His Eyes" which I'm including below. But first, I'm going to give you my impression of the song. Usually, when I review music, I review an entire album and I don't meditate on a single song. However, for this exercise, I have listened to this song several times through headphones. I've also heard the song many times in my adult life because I'm a fan of Kate Bush's work. It's important that you hear the song as opposed to just listening to it with your ears and...

I began my journey into the world of music as a young child. And my passion for music waxed and waned over the decades. When it was ebbing, I began a new journey into music consciousness. And one of the concepts that struck me early on was a comparison between a food diet and a music diet. And here's the thing, just like we can overconsume food and wreak havoc on our digestive and other systems, overconsuming music can also, I believe, confuse our cells and body rhythms. We don't eat food continuously all day and into the night. Most of us eat perhaps three or four meals a day and allow our stomach to do its job the rest of the day. Of course, some people are binge eaters or snack throughout the day which never gives the body a rest. After the portable tape players, then portable compact disc players, and now MP3 players came on the market, the music suddenly was immediately accessible. People started doing everything with music playing in either the foreground or the bac...

While I went out walking today I wondered what topic I would write about next to build music consciousness. Then I saw the lyrics to Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" written out with colorful chalk on a log. Thus began my brief exploration of happy songs. There appears to be two camps when it comes to using happy songs to change a mood. In one camp, you change an angry or sad mood gradually by introducing songs that have slightly more uplifting moods than the previous one and work your way towards happy. The second camp believes that we can choose to be happy now since happiness is just a state of mind controlled by our thoughts. In that case, we can change our mood swiftly by singing or listening to a happy song. I guess it depends on the individual and the deepness of their particular funk. Meaning, if someone suffers from chronic depression or anger management problems, then it would be the equivalent to plastering a band aid on a gaping wound to expe...

Long before Don Campbell published his acclaimed book, The Mozart Effect in 1997, sound healing tools and music therapy entered the realm of conventional medicine. In fact, music therapy as we know it today began in the late 18th century and in the US, developed during the 20th century, starting with a discovery that occurred with musicians entertaining wounded soldiers... While many of us probably have conventional or alternative doctors who haven't embraced sound and music therapies yet, we also know family members, friends, or colleagues who have experienced sound healing or music therapy in the form of adjunct to massage and energy healing or while staying in a hospital and experiencing the healing effects of a trained bedside musician. Some of you have probably used music or seen it used with hospice care as the music prepares the patient to crossover to the other side, peacefully. And yet, I was surprised during a visit to my local library where I came across an entire ...

Ayurvedic humors, Wikipedia For those of you familiar with the Ayurvedic medical tradition of India, you will know about the three doshas--Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. You'll probably even have a handle on which dosha(s) fits your body and personality type. But did you know, that your dosha also determines the best type of music for you for healing your unique mind body spirit? For instance, I'm a Vata-Pitta and during the windy and cold fall months, I experience an imbalance of the Vata energy which rules air and space. This causes me to feel more irritable, shaky and spaced out when the wind is blowing. The cold and dampness brings on a Kapha imbalance which rules water and cold despite my Vata predominance, yet I'm not likely to catch a cold, more likely to suffer from head aches, sore throats, and trembling. I've tries listening to nostalgic rock songs of my past and while my mind enjoys dancing down memory lane, my nerves scream at me in pain. So right now I...

For the past two months I experienced re-set on my life.  And during this phase, I have relied heavily on frequency and Solfeggio scales featured on YouTube.  I have found the scales, tones and frequencies of sound healing videos extremely healthy.  And in fact, I have spent more time listening to the scales than actual music.   Here are some of my favorites. The following music videos are no longer available. Miracle of Frequencies 528 Hz (This is a short documentary) Here is an enchanting piece of music featuring Archangel Raphael I have also listened to music by Sabra Sibrena off her recordings,   Reiki Master Susan Wilbanks also uses beautiful music with her healings Finally, Ki Kaz provides frequency transformation videos with sound healing tones

Ana Alcaide (Photo in Google Images) Where Swedish, Spanish and Jewish Cultures Meet  In 2012, I discovered Sephardic (Jewish) songs of Toledo via Ana Alcaide, a Spanish traditional musician.  After watching Alcaide's stunning YouTube videos in which she plays the Swedish keyed fiddle (nyckelharpa) and sings Ladino (Spanish Jewish culture) songs, I thought of interviewing the musician for this blog. I encourage anyone reading this to check out Ana Alcaide's videos on YouTube because you will learn a lot from this fascinating woman who bridges the scientific world with the musical one.  I caught up with Ana via e-mail and I'm honored to include her on this blog of musical healers. WME: How do your biology studies wed with your musical explorations? I ask this question because some musicians have taken music into the natural realm or have found musical aspiration from nature. Ana Alcaide: Right! In fact, nature is one of my great sources of insp...

Mural at Boulevard Park, Bellingham, Washington Perhaps I take for granted my multimedia approach to artistic projects.  Art involves all the senses, even the 6th sense to such a degree that it seems foolish not to play music in the foreground or background when in the throes of making art. For instance, some writers prefer silence or the birds in trees or wind flowing through an open window while other writers play their favorite music to get them into the flow.  So let's look at the musical benefits for writers, both fiction and non-fiction. As we know music creates flow and works different parts of our brain with some music bridging the gap between the left and right hemispheres. For writers who are also musicians, taking a music break.  Playing an instrument or singing enhances our creative problem-solving abilities while engaging us deeper into the flow.  Certain types of music also uplift us, put us in a good mood, and help us to rel...

Wikipedia Soulful lions Often we feel empty and we look to food to satisfy our craving or we escape into another type of addiction. Sometimes we feel disconnected from the life around us or we lose our connection to our Divine Source, whatever name you want to call it.  During those times, I recommend indulging in soul music, a term that came about in the 1960s or 1970s that categorized songs of African-American musicians. Roots for soul music vary going all the way back to the Mandinka and other ancient African kingdoms or most recently to the African-American Church or "Black Church" while finding inspiration from African-American spirituals, blues, jazz, and gospel (not be confused with spirituals).  Some of the favorite artists to come from the genre include Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Earth Wind and Fire, the Commodors, Bill Withers... The songs reached deep into our souls allowing us to feel an array of emoti...

By Patricia Herlevi Every song we've ever heard has a memory or memories attached to it.  Some songs remind us of first loves, choosing a partner to dance with at a middle school sock hop, or college graduation.  Some songs remind us of weddings we attended or scenes from favorite movies, while other songs cause our hearts to ache with the memories that surface. As to be expected, we gravitate towards songs with happier memories or that relax us some way or lull us into daydreams.  But, the songs with painful memories attached claim treasures too.  In fact, they act as a treasure map to our wounded places where we shed new light if we choose.  When we head over to these wounds, we give ourselves the opportunity to clear away old beliefs, patterns and the root of grief and depression.  Perhaps, these songs lead us to the releasing of repressed anger or sadness. I recommend working with a music therapist when dealing with deep wounds or deeply repress...

The Beatles, Wikipedia, All You Need is Love If you practice metaphysics or consider yourself new age then you are familiar with the power of words.  Similar to music, words contain vibrations and those vibrations shape our perceptions of reality.  I have also noticed that when you listen to a particular song, you carry the vibration of that song in your body, not to mention the effects are amplified each time your brain repeats the melody and words of the song. Some people don't care about the "reality" they create and they also don't wish to take responsibility for what they create with their words, thoughts, emotions and perceptions.  I'm not addressing that crowd.  I prefer to address those of you who are on the road to mastership of co-creating and prefer to empower yourself with words, music, and sound vibrations.  Most of us may never reach mastership, but why not take the journey anyway and grow more conscious each day on the journey? As a musici...

Mary Poppins movie, Wikipedia We have many tools to deal with stress when it comes to musical vibration.  One way to deal with stress is to temporary distract ourselves by allowing us some playtime.  As adults we are usually bent out of shape by matters of consequence and matters of no consequence as the Little Prince character once told us.  And recently,  intuitive life coach Sonia Choquette and her daughter reminded us of how important fun and play are for our lives (in a e-newsletter). So with all that in mind, I'm bringing you some childhood music gems from bygone eras.  By the way, you can listen to this music with adults, alone or with children.  You can sing along, whistle or dance to the songs if you prefer.  Whatever you decide, engage with the music beyond just listening to the songs.  And then when you have had your fun listening session that will no doubt keep you surfing YouTube for a good plus hour, write down the physical, em...