The Whole Music Experience

Explorers of Music via Nature During my years of listening to hundreds of recordings, including field recordings of indigenous musical traditions, I discovered a few musical traditions that still amaze me today.   While these traditions range from the didgeridoo ritualistic music from Australian aboriginals to the hula tradition of Native Hawaiians to folk songs of the Okinawan people of Japan, I’m focusing on three groups for this essay including the Wulu Bunun (Taiwan), the Saami (Nordic countries & Russia), and the Baka pygmies of the Congo/Cameroon and Gabon.   We enjoy a myriad of ways of connecting to the natural world through the sound vibration.   We whistle at birds, sing like birds, perform trance music (drums) that connect us to the heartbeat of the earth or we can perform a vocal tradition that connects us to people, places, and creatures, as in the case with the Saami’s spiritual chant, the yoik.   As modern human beings we often look at in...

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...

This image is of an 18th century engraving found on the Wikipedia site. WM Why Birds & Saami Sing: Conversation with David Rothenberg In this blog conversation with David Rothenberg, a connection between birds, the natural world, the Karelian and Saami people are explored. Recently during a radio interview for KSVR-Mount Vernon, Finnish and Saami magical yoiks, and music came into the conversation. While this topic did not fit into the actual radio interview, I thought that the conversation could continue on this music consciousness blog. If you enjoy this conversation, please tell your friends. Also the Saami music article on this site has attracted some traffic, so those readers will enjoy this article as well. Life is magic and music can lead us all on that path of enchantment if we choose the right songs, and the right fork in the road. In other words, learn to think outside of the musical box. WME: When I first listened to your CD Why Birds Sing, I thought of exp...