The Whole Music Experience

The Pleasures of Indian Ragas My introduction to Indian classical ragas was a humbling experience. It was 2003, I had just started discovering music from around the world as a music journalist (making a transition from alternative rock to world music) and I attended my first Indian classical recital. Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma (santoor) and Zakir Hussain (tabla) headlined at the King Cat Theatre in Seattle. A few thousand Indians filled the theatre to the brim, and only a handful of Anglo-Americans were in attendance. I sat next to one, who thankfully was an expert on Indian classical music. I received a comp to attend the recital if I reviewed it for World Music Central and my own website at the time Cranky Crow World Music . So I sat down waiting for the recital to begin. The musicians tuned their instruments on a carpeted-covered platform on the stage and then dove into the Alap section of the raga. Only I couldn’t tell when the tuning of t...

Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys Grand Isle Self-Release/Independent The oil-crusted bird that appears on the cover of Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys’ latest recording, Grand Isle is that picture that tells a story of 1,000 words. The image of the bird’s feathers smothered in oil as it stands in a puddle of petroleum mirrors the “survivor joy” that the Cajun band peppers throughout its press notes. But if you’re expecting Louisiana-style laments you won’t find many on this recording that sounds swampy while blending honky-tonk with 2-stepping Cajun fare. The band closes the recording with melancholy fiddle and vocals on the song, Au revoir (and that's the extent of sadness on the recording). According to the press notes, the Mamou Playboys took a small and intimate route with this recording, and the tracks were recorded at several locations with both modern and vintage audio and production coming into the mix. While this music might sound celebratory on the s...

Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble The Tide Has Changed World Village Israeli Jewish multi-instrumentalist Gilad Atzmon and The Orient House Ensemble wake the senses with the album The Tide Has Changed . On the opening track I expected Liza Minnelli to appear working up a rendition of Cabaret . But this cabaret feel is short lived as the band launches into the saxophone-lead titular track. And Atzmon’s saxophone, like so many saxophones these days, raises John Coltrane’s spirit from the dead. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since Coltrane delved into the Far East exotic even performing Arabic modes on his horn and the UK-based OHE marries Middle Eastern music with American-style jazz. The Tide Has Changed reminds me of saxophone Anat Cohen’s work, she also combines Coltrane-esque saxophone with Jewish musical motifs and tosses in Afro-Latin jazz. I’m not sure what to call this musical mosaic, but let me coin the phrase, “world jazz”. OHE combines sax, clarinet, acco...

Mamadou Diabate Courage World Village The old year has barely turned over and already the stunning fifth recording, Courage by Malian kora master Mamadou Diabate, arrived on the scene. Following his Grammy Award winning Douga Mansa (2009), the new recording leans towards a fuller more contemporary sound. The kora pairs up with ngoni (Malian banjo), balaphone, calabash and djembe. The playing here is fiery one minute with rapid notes of the kora glimmering over the top of the other instruments, and ethereal on some tracks. Yet, even those ethereal moments find themselves locked in a West African groove.  A West African griot, Diabate walks the talk, and though the songs are instrumental, the musician punctuates his liner notes with morality lessons and tributes. On the track Bogna , Diabate offers these wise words about music in general, “Respect is the healing medicine of peace. Peace is the healing medicine of love. Love is the healing medicine of life. Life is the h...

Kids Got the Groove: LaVenture Middle School Music Programs Offer Students Opportunities Originally published on World Music Central, 2010.  Whole Music Experience supports music for early childhood development and K-12.  In this support you will find more article reprints and reviews with this focus on this blog. Although society benefits from a high-tech world, many K-12 school districts in the US have placed a greater emphasis on math and science skills, than on the arts and music so that students will be able to compete in the high-tech work environment. Some of the smaller school districts lack music programs and other schools that do provide musical programs, do so with a tight and shaky budget in the current economy. Research presented in books by Neurologist Daniel Levitan (This is Your Brain on Music), and Don Campbell’s 1997 book, The Mozart Effect that musical training in early childhood improves learning skills, especially in math and language. Introdu...

Vibration Series: PT Three—Tuning in to Your Musical Self The way it works with Whole Music is that I need to experience concepts of music in my life before presenting them on the blog. I also wait for information to either crop up in my subconscious (including nightly dreams), or through synchronicity (I receive an album in the mail, or find the information I need on the internet). The latest information for this 3-part series focuses on tuning into yourself and asking yourself what your musical needs are at any given moment. Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot of anger and powerlessness. I realize I’m not alone in feeling this way, but anger, especially the kind that rumble like a volcano ready to erupt, frightens me. Here I am talking about spiritual concepts to others and going on about world peace, when I feel this darkness inside my body. I have felt bombarded with bad news from every front which has also left me with a feeling of hopelessness. So having felt this way, I deci...

I read an article on Canadian songster Sarah McLachlan in a back issue of Yoga Journal and learned about Sarah's music outreach program. Here is the website http://sarahmclachlanmusicoutreach.com/ I applaud these sorts of efforts.  Music also saved my life and I would have never survived my childhood without music lessons and music.

Distinguishing Low from High Vibrations PT 2 So now that you've unblocked your chakras, you'll want to hang out in a higher vibrational environment... I know that I’m in sync with the world when a CD that arrives in the mail matches exactly my energy level and vibration. This happened to me recently when an advance copy of Mamadou Diabate’s “Courage” arrived in the mail (I’ll review this CD in February). And since I was contemplating my essay on vibration (high and low), I thought that the recording came at the perfect time. Not only that, I enjoy griot morality lessons. Not long ago, I thought of vibration in a dualistic way. You have high vibration which equates to love and low vibration which equates to fear. Now, when I talk about low and high vibration, I’m not talking about bass and piccolo. I’m talking more or less about negative and positive energy, but again, I’ve learned that there’s a lot more to it than raising your vibration by showing up in a high vibr...

Lifti ng Vibra tio ns (Series) The 7 Chakras I decided last night at 2:00 a.m. to write a three-part series on lifting the body’s vibration through the use of music and sound. Granted, I’m not a sound healer so if you wish to delve further into clearing chakras and balancing your aura with sound, I recommend visiting a sound healer who will teach you self-healing and balancing chants and use vibratory instruments such as tuning forks to clear stuck energy from your chakras. In the first essay of the series I will discuss the 7-chakra system of the West, the only one I’m familiar with and comfortable mentioning. It’s also the simplest to understand because it only involves 7 energy centers starting at the base of the spine (root chakra) and stopping just slightly above the head (crown chakra). The first 3 chakras refer to the material realm (root, sacral, and solar plexus), the heart and throat chakras refer to the bridge between the material and spirit realms, and the thir...

Mamma Mia! Mozart and other Goodies A Musician Rediscovers Classical Music “I played all types of music for all three of you when you were children,” boasts my mother, “even the highbrow music.” And it’s true, up until about the age of 10, when I rebelled and would listen to nothing but rock and pop, I had heard jazz, Latin music, classical music, Broadway show tunes and children’s songs. At school, though our district had little funds, we still experienced a solid music program. And I took pride in naming instruments correctly when the teacher would play samples from each of them. I relished the idea of orchestras filled with so many unique voices and how they all fit together. But by the time I was in high school I had forgotten all about classical music in the favor of rock music. I was familiar with Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and all the big name composers, but I knew so little about them. I didn’t realize then, that they weren’t just historical figures placed on a pedes...

Aurelio Laru Beya Next Ambiance I had not heard of the Garifuna people until 2007 when Andy Palacio made an international splash with his efforts to preserve Garifuna culture including language and music. Unfortunately, Palacio’s life was cut short in 2008, right at the time when his star ascended. A Garifuna women’s recording project followed the death of Palacio and then the music seeped out of my life, as music tends to do. Now, Aurelio Martinez, a 39-year old Garifuna musician hailing from Honduras, rekindles the sparks of the Garifuna legacy that Palacio left in his wake. His album, Laru Beya distributed in North America by Subpop’s African arm Next Ambiance, promises to entice a few hips. In 2007 I was in no position to describe Garifuna music with its perfect blend of African polyphonic rhythms and rattle and roll of Latin American indigenous people. And I’m no closer to untangling these roots now. The history of the Garifuna people, former African slaves that fir...

Wikipedia Not all Beethoven compositions are created equal, ditto for Chopin’s repertoire and fill in the blank with a composer’s name. To say that all of Mozart’s music increases IQ levels is an overstatement and a false assumption. I feel sad for anyone who only listens to Mozart to increase their IQ because then they miss out on the holistic experience of Mozart’s music. And I doubt any of these composers with the exception of Mozart (after he joined his local chapter of the Freemasons), composed with any healing or energetic intentions. Most classical composers during their time, composed for commissions from the church or an elite patron. After music publishing arrived, the composers earned money through publication of their compositions, which in order to earn their keep, had to appeal to music audiences, as well as, amateur and professional musicians. So we need to keep this in mind when working with music for healing purposes. Classical music goes a long way in heali...