The Whole Music Experience

If circumstances allow try adding selections of music to your meals.  Invigorating music with breakfast, baroque with the heaviest meal of the day (since baroque music helps with digestion) and relaxing music with your last meal of the day. Personally, I prefer bossa nova, baroque, Parisian cafe, and jazz standards with my meals.

My "Naturally Acoustic" article was published in my food coop newsletter. The article features interviews with Dan Storper of Putumayo World Music, Lisa Spector, Through A Dog's Ear series and sound healer/musician Marjorie de Muynck. Here is the link to the newsletter page http://www.skagitfoodcoop.com/newsletters.html   click on the icon for June 2010.  I believe the article is on pages 6 and 13.

Use slow, low (tones) and simple music (preferably played on one instrument or voice) to calm anxiety in humans and dogs.  Slow, low, warming, and simple music also works for balancing the Vata dosha of Ayurvedic medicine.  The low tones discharge the nervous system, the simple melody or music gives the brain a rest (it doesn't have to decipher a complex pattern or rhythms) and the slow tempo slows the heartbeat and pulse.

When you listen to a piece of music or a song that you love, savor the song after it ends and let it resonate with your entire body.  Absorb the silence after the song ends and refrain from either listening to the song again right away or immediately listening to a new musical selection. Your mind and body need time to digest the music.

Gershwin by Grofè Lincoln Mayorga/Al Gallodoro/Harmony Ensemble Conductor Steven Richman Harmonia Mundi The Pacific Northwest sky opens up and rain falls like shards of glass onto the deck outside my window while a small creek forms in the garden. As this is happening, I’m listening to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the rain has decided to join the percussion section of the orchestra. And if I forget that summer is only two weeks away, this disc, Gershwin by Grofè also features Summertime , originally composed for Gershwin’s jazz opera, Porgy and Bess . But if you’re like me, you’ve heard many versions of this jazz classic. Many people know George Gershwin’s music from watching classical Hollywood musicals, and in fact, I just watched the DVD of Funny Face featuring Gershwin’s Hollywood movie songs. But what some people don’t know is that Gershwin also composed classical music and built a bridge between the new African-American jazz of the turn-of-the-last cent...

J.S. Bach Les Six Concerts Brandebourgeois Le Concert des Nations/Jordi Savall Aliavox Heritage/Harmonia Mundi I’m certainly not a Bach scholar by any stretch, but I’ve been listening to J.S. Bach’s work during the past few years simply because I find the composer’s music healing. In my research, I have read many references to the perfect architecture of the baroque composer’s sacred and secular compositions. As a freelance music composer living during an era of patrons (church and aristocracy), much of the composer’s work was for hire. Virtuoso musicians, church officials, and members of the elite class would commission works, not just of Bach, but his contemporaries too. It’s not as if we live in an era void of musicians-for-hire because musical works are still commissioned and composers still make a living off of commissioned work. However, most of us non-classical, (outside of theatrical and film soundtrack work), musicians have a difficult time conceiving of writing m...

Salif Keita La diffèrence Decca/emarcy Imagine coming from a long lineage of West African aristocracy, but experiencing ostracism from parents, the community, teachers, and aristocracy. Imagine your father disowning you because you are different. And imagine if you had a musical talent handed down to you through your lineage that you are forbidden to express because of you are different, and then you would come close to describing Malian griot musician Salif Keita’s life story. Keita was born to 2 black Malian parents, but is white because Keita was born albino. Albinism is seen as an omen by Malians and albinos experience their share of prejudice and injustice based on the lack of pigmentation in their skin. While albinism caused Keita to suffer through his childhood and beyond, his determination and passion for music lead him to a successful music career (which he pursued outside of Mali) and his pursuit of justice for albinos (so that they can acquire education and h...