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The historical longevity of many Eastern cultures gives support to the lasting power of their musical traditions and their capacity to resist significant influence from Western forms. Generations have come andgone under the watchful melodies and rhythms of the songs and chants. The music is transformative as it is really other dimensional, inviting the listener, especially the Westerner, to lay down structure and surrender to the vibrational flow.
Musicians themselves are often among the most spiritual of the populace.
“The great musicians were not just singers or performers, but also, great yogis, whose minds had complete control over their bodies. They knew all the secrets of Tantra, hatha yoga, and different forms of occult power, and they were pure, ascetic, and saintly persons.” My Music, My Life p.26 Ravi Shankar
The drone, a repeating combination of one to three tonal frequencies, is the mesmerizer, the magic carpet to getting out of one’s own way. It is this very hypnotic tone that opens one up to higher inner and outer realms that also is perceived, by the Westerner, as monotony. It challenges the Western ear that has been trained to expect changing melodies and songs of timed duration.
It is a wise sound healer who knows all the tools of the trade. And, Eastern music, as we shall learn over this course, has a significant number of instruments and techniques that quickly alter one’s vibrations, clearing away energetic debris in the client, elevating them into pure places of remembering underneath experience.
Listen now to a sampling of drones, allowing yourself to surrender to the river of peace that beckons.
Eastern music is intimately linked with a spiritual experience, one that brings the inner and the outer into harmony. It leads one to the wonder of simply being...a powerful alchemical remedy for anyone resonating below their true frequency of balance.
As we explore specific Eastern cultures in the next section we shall experience a complementary assortment of audio samples.
Western music has by no means remained static. Just as western attitudes and cultures are about doing and moving and creating and analyzing, so, too, the music has followed a parallel path. The mathematical structure of music has been explored to the degree that the music has become technically perfect but, often, lacking heart and feeling. Since so much focus was on creating music for entertainment the artificiality of the product is prominent and identifiable, especially when compared side by side with music from the east.
It is not to say that this is a bad thing, it is what it is. And, yes, there is room for all forms of music and times for each. One does not usually reach for contemporary music to create an inner, meditative state of reflection, though current blendings of world music that gave birth to New Age genres are more and more able to do so. And, the further application of sound principles, clearer vibrations in the composers, and awareness of higher states and dimensions in the listener will result in music that bridges the worlds, allowing the listener and the performer to immerse into the realms of the magnificent.
The path of Western music had roots in Atlantis where science and analysis were at their most extreme. The long life and tragic collapse of that civilization gave rise to the first Mystery Schools, secret societies born from the ashes of a massively decaying connection with Source. Those who retained connection organized to create vehicles for those who proved dedicated and worthy to be taught the knowledge of the all that is. Descendents of that culture found themselves spread throughout the continents of what are now Europe, Asia, and Africa. The greatest concentration of adepts found themselves in the area now known as the Middle East, particularly in Egypt and planted the seeds of humanity’s hope with the establishment and perpetuation of the schools that could keep alive in the hearts and souls, the true knowings of the vibratory nature of the cosmos.
Over time the adepts graduated from the schools, relocated, and continued the traditions. Generations carried the truth from one to the other. And so it was that throughout the Western world there were pockets of knowing that were present enough to keep ideas circulating among the masses.
Manifestations of music in Ancient Egypt are are sparsely documented, but it appears that it was used as a vehicle to govern human emotions and purify the souls of the people. Additionally, it was used as incantations to specific deities calling upon their powers for specific purpose. Interestingly, these are clear uses of sound and music as a healing tool in current times.
The music of the ancient Hebrews reveals significant reference of music as a form of therapy. Current day applications of the Kabala show each element aligned with frequencies utilized for certain healing purpose. In fact, I have and use often a set of tuning forks set to the Kabala that have been very powerful.
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The rise of music in Greece brought forth a mental and spiritual synthesis through the work of Pythagoras and those in his Mystery Schools. Music of this time was based on specific melodic intervals with little accompaniment and no harmony.
Click to access Sound Healing History, part 3, page 3
LEARNING BLOCKS Sound and Vibration l Voice l Chakras l Energy l Singing l Sound Healing Tools l Color l Senses
Music Therapy l Resources l Sound Healing Sessions l Applications
Sound Healing History l Contemporary Sound Healers l Physics of Sound l Esoterics of Sound l Cymatics l Sacred Geometry l Vibration l
Frequency and Pitch l Intervals l Scales and Keys l Hearing and Listening