The Whole Music Experience

peaceful photo by Patricia Herlevi With the holidays upon us and the year winding down, most people deal with stress overload. Add to that dealing with holiday crowds in shopping malls, traffic on the highways, and calamities that occur around the planet which I think has to do with all this stress rippling out. So unwind and relax to music. I'm going to get you started with suggestions from diverse music genres: Classical I suggest staying away from the wild Romantic Era composers with the exception of Tchaikovsky and listen to his ballets and sacred music (Rachmaninoff also has sacred recordings). For the most part, stick with chamber music such as string quartets, slower Mozart, Debussy , Ravel , Satie, Grie g , Sibelius, Aaron Copeland, and solo harp or cello recordings. Classical holiday music will either bring peace or strife depending on the person so use discernment and listen in to your feelings. Also try Renaissance polyphony such as Anonymous 4 or Stile Ant...

Does Wonder Woman have Power Songs? Wikipedia The phrase "save it for a rainy day" comes up when I think of Power Song kits.  This phrase refers to putting extra money in the bank, but it can also refer to having a list of songs to fall back on when a bad mood strikes. I actually came up with the idea of creating a Power Song kit post 9-11 when I had trouble sleeping at night.  Like many others, I wasn't just dealing with my fears, but all the fears around me which I soaked up like a sponge.  At that time, I found myself reaching for particular recordings, usually featuring world music and usually featuring women vocalists, but not always.  From these recordings I put together a list of songs to listen to during stressful times. On the list, I included Sharon Burch, Monica Salmaso, Arianna Savall, R. Carlos Nakai, Nawang Khechog and others.  Oddly, Mozart hadn't appeared on my radar yet so classical wasn't on my original list.  That list transformed...

Not everyone likes to meditate or has time to say affirmations.  For these folks, affirmative songs come to the rescue. Launch your day with these five songs. Many of today's metaphysical teachers such as Esther Hicks (Abraham), Sonia Choquette and Sandra Anne Taylor tell us to start our days on a positive vibe.  These teachers have their various methods involving affirmations, or talking ourselves into a better mood by making general statements.   Sound healers invite us to use sound healing tools such as flutes, Tibetan and crystal bowls or toning with our voice. However, most people I know will say that they don't have time to explore sound healing or practice meditation.  And it's like pulling teeth to get colleagues to say affirmations when they wake up each morning.  Fortunately, many musicians and music composers have written affirmative songs (uplifting melodies with affirmative statements) that anyone can find on YouTube.  Or we could learn t...

While we normally make the connection between virtuoso musicians and classical music, we find virtuosos in a variety of musical genres.  We could explore the lives of virtuosos and delve into the character traits and intelligence of virtuosos, but I have a better idea. Often when I feel depressed or in a deep funk, I head over to YouTube and watch a virtuoso performance. Usually, I watch a soloist performing a concerto with a symphony orchestra, but sometimes, I tune into folkloric or jazz virtuosos in which there are many to choose.  Ever watched a virtuoso Colombian or Venezuelan harpist perform?  As I watch these performances, often times holding my breath, I lose myself in the performance and by the time the video ends, I forgot my worries and fears.  I walk away feeling elated (and a bit envious of the talented performer that wowed an audience). To get you started, I'm including five videos representing five different genres in which we witness a virtuoso ...

Heads up, this coming April promises a lot of stress.  We'll need to pull back, gather our senses and find ways to relax.  Why not create a power music kit in the same way as a medicine chest or cabinet? Basically a power music kit provides us with a go-to music library during a crisis, a stressful experience or just for the sake of pleasure. I recommend including a variety of genres and music of higher frequency that raise vibration of minds, bodies and hearts.  The higher our frequency, the more centered we become and when we feel centered, world events don't devastate us. Below I'm including inspiration in the form of genre lists and some artists I have found helpful in my life.  I will list the music by moods or actions needed. Invigorate, uplift, help move tension out of the body through movement such as dance: Latin Music from the Caribbean, Mexico, South America, Central America, and the American Southwest such as Tex-Mex and Native American Chicken ...

A lesson I've learned over the years researching music revolves around intention verses consciousness.  Of course, a musician or music listener could align consciousness with intention, but usually I witness one or the other.  For instance, promoters of sporting events tend to blast loud rock music to invigorate athletes and rouse the attendees.  However, loud rock music also can cause hearing loss, weaken the immune system (when the body goes into fight or flight) and interrupt the body's natural rhythms.  So in this case, we have intention minus consciousness. On the other hand, we could have consciousness in the form of music produced for specific purposes such as a sleep aid, a digestion aid or to boost energy, but the person listening to the music doesn't pay attention to the original intention of the music.  So if someone listens to a recording for relaxation while driving a car, he or she might find themselves losing alertness and in a worst case scen...

When I first started researching music for healing and consciousness purposes, I worried too much about the frequency or vibration of music.   While there are still some musical styles I still find offensive to my nervous and immune systems, I felt like I was limiting myself when it came to popular music genres, such as 1960s pop.   While research has revealed that the rock n’ roll beat has ill effects on the heart because of the way our bodies entrain to dominant beats and rhythms, on emotional and mental levels, listening to rock or pop music from our past brings a different type of healing. I thought I could live in an ivory tower of Bach and Mozart along with field recordings, but then I started slipping on visits to YouTube and I had to hear music from my early childhood, my teen and young adult years.   When I listened to these songs, memories were triggered and I could work through the hardships from those times in my life, clear garbage out of m...

Django Reinhardt, Wikipedia (This excerpt comes from chapter 12, "Catching the Coletrane" of Whole Music Soul Food for the Mind Body Spirit ) Jazz Medicine  The story of jazz contains just as many tragedies as it does moments of elation.  Jazz musicians in general have personal history and early African-American jazz players in particular, carried the added weight of injustice, racism, illness, and addiction in the competitive music industry.  Societies in the west color any genre of music hailing from Africa with prejudices.  Early jazz as it emerged in the US and arrived in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was viewed as a novelty in some cases, and primal in other cases giving listeners the license to adopt destructive practices (consumption of alcohol, loosening of sexual morals and exploring the seedier side) as portrayed in Jeffrey H. Jackson’s book, Making Jazz French . However, even local-grown European musicians harn...

Since I haven't been able to travel long-distance due to finances and health reasons, I learned about the world by exploring musical traditions from other cultures.  But I didn't stop there, I also watch anthropology videos and read books on the topic.  Since I was a child, I have pursued my interests in other cultures with my earliest efforts involving pen pals in German, France and Japan.  Once the internet came available I jumped on board ditto for world music via compact discs and concerts.  However, one of my favorite books in my collection is Mickey Hart's Song Catchers published with National Geographic. This book delves into the works of famous ethnomusicologists (anthropologist who study music-related culture).   But I've already reviewed the book for this blog and I would rather pursue the topic of exploring music via headphones (or not) and YouTube.  So what kind of videos can we find on YouTube and how do we know what to search for? Since...

Photo by Patricia Herlevi In the past two years I have noticed an acceleration of healing coming from following threads of old songs deep into my subconscious mind via memory.  I have a feeling that I'm not alone on this healing journey and that many of you are encountering songs from your past with no real understanding of why those songs are coming to you now. I've explored this phenomenon through writing in my journal and other avenues such as following the threads to see where they lead.  And I have found at least two ways in which these songs return to us now so we can heal and clear old wounds.  The first way is we remember a certain song out of the blue as it just pops in our head.  Then certain feelings come up with the song which might be dread, panic or joy.  Or maybe we experience a mix of emotions that we haven't encountered in a long while because we stuffed those emotions deep into our subconscious to move forward with our lives.  These ...