The Tao of Music

[Spectrum]

Lots of dialog around here lately. I've always been more inclined to listen to a good tune together then to separate thoughts through definitions and categorizing.

 

I have grown up around music and have always gravitated towards music from a young age. I'm reminded how music effects us by my niece who as a wonderful 1.5 yr old gladly jumps up and down uninhibited laughing and bouncing w/ the music whenever she hears a tune! I love seeing her jam like that!

 

Of particular interest to me is the theory, philosophy, and consciousness studies around music and sound. Sifu has always emphasized music and how the human is like music playing when we move and express. Even the proportions are the same.

 

No time like now to start something new. There is always another instrument to learn how to play.

 

Spectrum

Edited April 14, 2007 by Spectrum

[Japhy Ryder]

I hear and feel you, Spectrum. I've played alto saxophone and guitar and love to sing, and for me music has always implied movement. Once, when Pete Townshend was discussing music with his dad, Pete's dad is reputed to have said "I don't care what you call it, as long as it swings." If my body starts moving while I'm listening to it, it swings.

 

The connection between music and movement is on my mind today because last night my wife and I watched the movie Happy Feet, in which a tap-dancing penguin is ostracized because he can't sing a sonorous heart-song. In time, he learns that his tap-dancing IS his heart-song, and his community survives because its previously movement-mute members come to realize that movement and music go together.

 

Happy Feet is amazing, particularly for its juxtapositions of familiar (for me) pop/rock songs (by Prince, Queen, Elvis Presley, and many others) and movement. This may sound corny, but watching animated adolescent penguins (who'd just graduated from school) swim while singing the Beach Boys' "In My Room" gave me chills. Some real genius there.

[MatthewQi]

Of particular interest to me is the theory, philosophy, and consciousness studies around music and sound.

 

Spectrum,

 

You might like the book "The World is Sound - Nada Brahma" by Joachim-Ernst Berendt.

 

Regards,

 

Matt

[Wayfarer64]

I am so very happy this came up. YES YES YES! The inner reality we all share has the most readily available connection through Music. My dog loved Miles Davis and would bound over to sit in front of the speaker whenever I played the Kind of Blue album...(Yes album as in 33 &1/3 on a turntable... I am that old!)

He really perked up when Miles' horn would came on, with his head cocked and an attentive wide-eyed expression as if he was learning some magical knowledge.

 

The YiJings Enthusiasm (16) - is all about music and the uniting influence we share through it.

 

As a semi-pro musician -I know that when I am playing and the music is just flowing through me I am never closer to being one with all...From the unity of the band and the audience being with us in spirit, to the transcendent feel of the musical ideas that prompt me to hit notes or shift tones etc...It feels like a larger spirit than my own takes-over my being and I am just a tool for my muse to use as she will...That is the good stuff -and it can't be touched by anything other than making love - for granting me some cosmic unity and bliss...

[lotusbud]

I'm really surprised this topic doesn't arise more often. Certainly some of my most influential musical mentors have been very clued into the spiritual nature of our craft.

Does anyone have any more references to taoist music or musical theory? Most of my most recent inspiring music lessons involved teachers helping me with my breathing and balance and the psychology of performance.

 

Tai chi seems to me to be an essentially musical endeavour. We speak of "listening" to our partner. Our own awareness of our balance is centered in the ear. The ear forms first in the womb and from what I've heard is the last sense to stop functioning. Related to the kidneys and all that.

 

Why does music seem somewhere behind calligraphy in taoist training? Is this a correct perception?

[corpathina]

i wish that i knew more about taoism in relation to music, but i'm afraid all that i know is what i feel. music has always touched the deepest parts of me. i often feel as if music allows me to release and become the medium through which a higher form of expression flows. music can both cleanse and cultivate. often, it is inexplicable. sometimes i'm not sure that i could go on without it. thank goodness it is always within us.