The Importance of Music

[CLPM]

I've been thinking recently about the importance of music in daily life. The importance of listening and understanding the scientific effects it has over the mind and mood.

 

For me, there is also importance in playing. Closing your eyes and playing away for me has always had very similar effects to meditation.

 

Music has always been a way of conveying emotions more powerful than words. Words aren't always specific and powerful enough, but music notes are.

 

At the same time, the crappy repetitive music most people listen to now days is very unhealthy. It's simplicity allows for people to play it 24x7 a day and not give their mind any quiet to think.

 

I don't think there's any specific point I'm trying to make, just observations.

[voidisyinyang]

I've been thinking recently about the importance of music in daily life. The importance of listening and understanding the scientific effects it has over the mind and mood.

 

For me, there is also importance in playing. Closing your eyes and playing away for me has always had very similar effects to meditation.

 

Music has always been a way of conveying emotions more powerful than words. Words aren't always specific and powerful enough, but music notes are.

 

At the same time, the crappy repetitive music most people listen to now days is very unhealthy. It's simplicity allows for people to play it 24x7 a day and not give their mind any quiet to think.

 

I don't think there's any specific point I'm trying to make, just observations.

 

http://www.filejumbo.com/Download/E87E698A59E79E6F

 

Here's my 674 page (plus more than 725 scholarly footnotes) book on the importance of music in Taoist qigong training. Free download, of course.

[CLPM]

Thanks for that

[ngs24]

Couldn't agree more CLPM, good post. I'm a musician/songwriter and I don't think I would know myself to the extent that I do if it wasn't for music. I'd say I'm often reliant on music to tell me exactly how I feel. It sounds weird but the way I write is to completely blank out my mind and play guitar and sing. What usually comes out are very coherent spontaneous thoughts that usually suprise me. I've worked through many issues this way. I know a lot of songwriters that will sit down and have a predetermined subject to write about (you hear this in modern country a lot) but I think the best music that exists was written spontaneously.

 

Of course, after the initial outburst there's usually a lot the left brain has to do to make it into a coherent song that can be recorded but I try to let the right brain go for as long as it can.

 

-Nick

[julianlaboy]

I've been thinking recently about the importance of music in daily life. The importance of listening and understanding the scientific effects it has over the mind and mood.

 

For me, there is also importance in playing. Closing your eyes and playing away for me has always had very similar effects to meditation.

 

Music has always been a way of conveying emotions more powerful than words. Words aren't always specific and powerful enough, but music notes are.

 

At the same time, the crappy repetitive music most people listen to now days is very unhealthy. It's simplicity allows for people to play it 24x7 a day and not give their mind any quiet to think.

 

I don't think there's any specific point I'm trying to make, just observations.

 

Music is wonderful, indeed. Its effects go from mind to body, and viceversa, since they are interrelated. And that's a relatively new science in the West, since the majority of people believed that a function of the mind could not change any part of the body. But it really does! A neuroscientist, by the name of Alvaro Pascual Leone, in 1995, did a series of studies with two groups of people: one group would practice a piano exercise with their hands, and another group would merely think about playing the piano exercise with their hands. Both groups created new neurological maps on their brains related to the exercise and music! So, thinking, and especially a very focused kind of thinking,can create changes in the body. And music, since it affects the mind, also changes the body. An explanation of that research can be found in Jeffrey Schwartz, a psychiatrist, and Sharon Begley's, a science journalist, book titled "The mind and the brain: Neuroplasticity and the power

of mental force" (2002).

 

 

What I wonder is whether repetitive music has a different effect on people than "more complex" musical melodies. I believe that that depends on the effect of that kind of music on a particular individual. I think that musical simplicity or complexity alone does not directly correlates with some kind of mind-body change. Focused attention, what a person enjoys most, and other environmental and individual factors have to be in a kind of harmony so a to change the physical and mental health of a person. That of course is my opinion and what certain western and eastern scientists and thinkers believe.

 

Very interesting!

 

This just in! http://www.lafayette.edu/about/news/2011/11/28/the-neuroscience-of-music-course-explores-how-song-can-help-heal-the-brain/

News about this topic!

Edited November 28, 2011 by julianlaboy

[Samuel]

I agree, music is fundamentally important! Music is one of the most important things for me, personally, because it's the closest I come to no-self-ness; when you're really grooving and singing and going fast with the fast bits, slow with the slow bits, quiet with the quiet bits and really yowling with the louds bits, well, that is the best bit of music for me. 'Cause it doesn't matter if it's off key or outta tune, or awkward jerky movements, or hell, even if you don't know the words; so long as you're really feeling it, and there's no tomorrow or yesterday, or dishes, or assignments or people to worry you, only the singing and dancing and the music. Anyone else enjoy music like that?

Edited November 28, 2011 by Samuel

[voidisyinyang]

I agree, music is fundamentally important! Music is one of the most important things for me, personally, because it's the closest I come to no-self-ness; when you're really grooving and singing and going fast with the fast bits, slow with the slow bits, quiet with the quiet bits and really yowling with the louds bits, well, that is the best bit of music for me. 'Cause it doesn't matter if it's off key or outta tune, or awkward jerky movements, or hell, even if you don't know the words; so long as you're really feeling it, and there's no tomorrow or yesterday, or dishes, or assignments or people to worry you, only the singing and dancing and the music. Anyone else enjoy music like that?

 

 

O.K. this is what I sight read - way slower and with tons of wrong notes. haha.

[joeblast]

My hands itch to play like... The energyexpression comes straight from the core.

[voidisyinyang]

My hands itch to play like... The energyexpression comes straight from the core.

 

Yeah last week I listened to this lady doing "toning" and then I had this dream where I was singing deep from my heart -- it was a powerful toning experience.

 

Then last night on cable they had the documentary playing "The Story of the Weeping Camel"

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6668096176688447819

 

my niece and my mom had been playing piano but I had previously told my mom about this documentary so I said it was on. So then they watched the ending == you all have to see it. It's amazing. How the music is used to heal the camel and the camel is crying for cathersis. It gets me every time.

[buscon]

Have a look here:

 

http://deeplistening.org/site/

[voidisyinyang]

Have a look here:

 

http://deeplistening.org/site/

 

http://t.co/k0G7bz5v

 

This lady does awesome sound healing toning.

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9DbOQVJ3us&feature=related

 

I just sight read the first movement of this Beethoven Sonata Op. 3, No. 2. Yeah I hacked it up and played it real slow -- but still got a lot of the feeling and kept it moving. haha. Never played it before of course.

[DalTheJigsaw123]

http://www.filejumbo.com/Download/E87E698A59E79E6F

 

Here's my 674 page (plus more than 725 scholarly footnotes) book on the importance of music in Taoist qigong training. Free download, of course.

 

Thank you so much! YOu are too kind!

[suninmyeyes]

A very interesting book I have read by sufi Hazarat Inayat Khan :'Mysticism of sound and music'

Following is just some parts of the book:

http://www.sufimessage.com/mysticism-of-sound/index.html

[voidisyinyang]

 

This used to be one of my favs to listen to -- Rachmaninoff performing his third piano concerto. I used to listen to this while walking around in the desert in New Mexico where Georgia O'Keefe did her painting. haha.

[9th]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii3kwwry6Lg&feature=related

[taooneusa]

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

the device at the very beginning of this video is interesting -the video above

 

 

Edited December 15, 2011 by taooneusa

[taooneusa]

I've been musing about and waiting for inspiration to translate the heart sutra-diamond sutra from their origin in the 1/64th scale

for play on guitar..

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ZltcnTVlgRw

 

this video at 5:38

Edited December 15, 2011 by taooneusa

[voidisyinyang]

I've been musing about and waiting for inspiration to translate the heart sutra-diamond sutra from their origin in the 1/64th scale

for play on guitar..

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ZltcnTVlgRw

 

this video at 5:38

 

Leonard Horowitz is propagating FAKE Pythagorean harmonics - as I expose in my book, read chapter two!!

 

http://naturalresonancerevolution.blogspot.com for the free download -- 725 scholarly footnotes.

 

http://www.ubu.com/film/nath_notes.html

[voidisyinyang]

 

Throat Singing Tutorial. This vid takes a bit of patience as the suspense builds for the actual demonstrations of throat singing. But he has some key crucial info -- mainly to rely on reverse breathing and diaphgram flexing.

 

So I watched this with my brother-in-law tonight and I was in full lotus and then I tried it -- sure enough --- nice deep throat singing using the reverse breathing. He says when you lose the force from the reverse breathing then your real voice will break through. So again the reverse breathing is key.

 

But sitting in full lotus helps a ton. Anyway last xmas I was doing this for the family whenever people got too wild. haha. Nothing like nice deep throat singing to bring people back to attention -- I did it from full lotus....

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.realitysandwich.com/video/spiritual_technology

 

Not really a techno rave fan but still I find the rhythm trance energy dance deal plus all the psychedelic rainbow colors to be cool.

 

I think this is a good stepping stone to some serious microcosmic orbit small universe practice! haha.

[taooneusa]

.probably gatherings like this is where it will all start -a small group of women spontaneously like the Wu dancers. Hm, Hu-man Wu-man must be another base tone""Ancient oracle bone inscriptions

..use wu most frequently in relation to spirit sacrifices and for calls to “bring the wu.” One Shang oracle bone was inscribed, “divination, the wu proclaims…” Another mentions a group of nine wu who did a ritual dance before sacrifices."

(9) This is the Ogdoad -a 1/8 scale, just shows that these things always occur spontaneously like Phoenix rising the Egyptian scale returns.

""Ancient oracle bone inscriptions use wu most frequently in relation to spirit sacrifices and for calls to “bring the wu.” One Shang oracle bone was inscribed, “divination, the wu proclaims…” Another mentions a group of nine wu who did a ritual dance before sacrifice ""The oldest Chinese dictionary, Shuowen Jiezi, equates wu with zhu, a ritual invocator, and with ling, “spiritual, divine.” It underlines the female signification of wu: “wu is a (invoker or priest), a woman who is able to render [herself] invisible, and with dance to invoke gods to come down. The character symbolizes the appearance of a person dancing with two sleeves.” . Another translation of this passage runs, “An Invoker. A woman who can serve the invisible, and by posturing bring down the spirits. Depicts a person with two sleeves posturing". The Shouwen also refers to “an inspired shaman serving the spirits with jade.” Another word with the sound wu (but written with a different character) means “to dance. Wu: female shamans in ancient China

 

in cursive Japanese Kanji "love"

..and in ancient Seal Script that Kanji was derived from:

this image to me looks like the heart sutra and the expression of full lotus as the connection between stem cells at the perineum and crown or shushumna/katika/aida -fire air and water channels connecting at mid brain.

Edited December 21, 2011 by taooneusa

[taooneusa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Nb36e_3oo&feature=related

overtone between instrument heart, heart and stone