Healing as a whole-body musical experience

About 17 years ago, I started a new and very challenging job helping the Anglican Church promote healing and reconciliation for the damage done in residential schools for Aboriginal people. At the same time, my colleague and very good friend, Shirley, was diagnosed with cancer. Within weeks of starting work, I was totally stressed. I remember someone commenting that my upper back and neck were as hard as cement.


One day, driving down a country road in the privacy of my pick-up truck, I was feeling so stressed I opened my mouth and let rip a deep-throated roar of frustration and anxiety.


Immediately I felt release. I tried it again, and again, and each time there was more release. 


Perhaps because I’d just been at events with Aboriginal drummers and singers, I found my unfocused scream turning into a chant, just a little bit similar in style to some of the falsetto-type singing I’d been hearing.


I went with it, repeating the chant again and again, letting it evolve and change shape, adding rhythmic emphasis by banging on the dashboard.


What a healing experience.


It became a regular practice for me over several years. Late at night I would go out in the woods behind our house, along a path that was familiar enough to walk in the dark. In the remote centre of this small woods, there was a clearing with one, small tree I would dance around while chanting. 


That dancing chant became a form of prayer that eventually developed words of thanksgiving. It included all those elements of music and spirituality that I talk about in the book.


1) Rhythm and metre. I found my chant matching the intensity of my feeling and expression, speeding up or slowing down, getting louder or quieter. 


2) A melody of sorts, simple and repetitive, but still there. 


3) Singing — and because I repeated it many times over many nights — under many moons — I began experimenting with the sounds and the ways they would make my whole body vibrate. 


The higher pitched sounds resonated in my forehead and nasal passages. Others buzzed right in my throat, and still others rumbled deep in my chest. I found myself breathing more deeply, expanding my lungs to enlarge the resonance cavity, and feeling that vibration move up and down my spine, releasing muscular tissue as well as mind and soul.


4) Dance. I stamped my feet, hopped up and down, shook my hips, and swung my arms in time to my prayer song. It all helped me shed anxiety, loosen up my body, and become more grounded in my physical self.


5) Lyrics. Well, at first they were non-lyrics (I believe ethnomusicologists call them vocables; Van Morrison calls them the inarticulate cries of the heart). The real words came later as statements of thanksgiving addressed to my Creator for my healing — and for all the gifts of my life.


As I sang, I felt myself held and borne up by the Creator, and that I could deal with whatever came my way, because of that connection. 


As my singing-teacher friend Sue Smith explained to me (it's in the book), when you sing words, you inhabit them longer and in a different way than when you just speak them. You stretch out syllables, emphasize beginnings and endings differently, and change pitch, so the meanings evolve and deepen. And you repeat phrases that would normally go by just once in conversation, writing, or even in prayer.


Singing, dancing, and playing music are also practices that can help ground you in the moment, which Eckhardt Tolle calls “the eternal now.”


At a karate school I once saw a saying on the wall: “The master makes a ceremony of every action.” That’s what music is, a ceremony. Whether you are singing, playing an instrument, dancing, or just listening, it’s a ceremony, a ritual that brings you into the sacred space and time of the eternal now. And it heals you.


That healing chant that was given to me as a gift from the cosmos and its Creator changed my life. It brought physical healing to the back pain I had developed from my tension. It brought me tremendous relief from mental anxiety, much better than any counselling or tranquilizer. And it deepened my prayer life and my connection with my Creator.


I still carry the echoes of those experiences with me today.


Blessings all,

John

A Word Cloud of The Spirituality of Music

Have you heard of the website www.wordle.net. The website describes it as "a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes." As a writer, I find it a fascinating piece of software because if you plug a piece of your own writing into Wordle, it will give you a graphic picture of what you have written. One more way, and a nice one, to get a sense of a piece you have written.

To try Wordle for yourself, just go to www.wordle.net.

To see a word cloud of the book excerpts from my previous post, click on this link:

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A few of my favourite (musical) things

This isn't going to be your standard blog. It will probably only have two posts (although I reserve the right to change my mind about that), and this post, which will be edited and added to regularly, is the heart of it. Read on.

What follows is a list of some of my favourite pieces of recorded music (in alphabetical order by performer). It's starting with the list I included in my book The Spirituality of Music, due out in October. Most (but not quite all) of the tunes, by the way, are available online through itunes.

But of course, as soon as the pages had been sent to the printer I began to think of other pieces of music I would like to add. For example, how did I ever leave off at least one version of Little Liza Jane, perhaps by Bob Wills, or by Nina Simone

I'm also hoping that you folks out there will add your favourites to the list--by adding comments to the post. Because of course, this is totally personal, and therefore totally limited to my own experience and interests. So please make it your list too. We can all benefit by being introduced to new music by one another.

And I, too, will come back here occasionally to add new selections (like the ones noted above), and to gradually add annotations for those more obscure songs.

Cheers,
John

The List:

Jerry Alfred & The Medicine Beat - Salaw
Jerry Alfred & The Medicine Beat - The Grandfather Song/Etsi Shon
ADD: Jerry Alfred is a First Nations singer/songwriter/musician from the Northern Tuchtone nation in Canada's Yukon Territory. His music mixes some elements of aboriginal drumming and chanting with what I would call a country rock sound, and his themes are definitely both spiritual and related to healing and recovery of tradition. These two are definitely among his standout songs.

Louis Armstrong - La Vie en Rose
ADD: This is a lushly romantic song, made famous by French chanteuse Edith Piaf. I first heard this version, sung by the inimitable Louis A., on my first trip to Europe when I was 21 (so nearly 35 years ago), on my honeymoon for my first marriage. We were staying in a kind of run-down hotel on the cobble-stone market square in a little Belgian market town, and this was on the jukebox. I played it once, then again and again, I liked it so much. Years later, for the wedding for my second marriage, we asked my brother and sister-in-law to perform it for us as part of the service. Louis' version is still my favourite, such joy in his voice.

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 'Pastoral'
ADD: My mother bought a recording of this symphony from a grocery store special collection offering when I was a teenager, and I listened to it over and over on the family stereo while lying on the living room rug and reading the extensive liner notes. It has remained one of my favourite classical pieces ever since, perhaps partly because of the nature themes, and because part of it is based on a folk dance.

Jorge Ben - Errare Humanum Est
ADD: One raw January evening in Toronto about 30 years ago, I went to a theatre to see the Brazilian film, Bye-bye Brazil, by Carlos Diegues. It warmed me right up and I came out of the theatre dancing. I went right to Sam the Record Man to see if I could buy the soundtrack. Alas, I don't think it was ever released. Instead, while browsing the smallish Brazilian music collection I came across an album by Jorge Ben. Something about the look of it appealed to me, and I bought it. I'm not sure what the style is called; it's more hard driving than bossa nova, probably related to samba, but is mostly powered by rhythmic strumming on an acoustic guitar and a nice conga and bongo drum groove. Another song that has had a long life as one of my favourites. I don't speak or understand Portuguese--and this title might actually be in Latin (help, someone)--but I get the point, to err is human.

Rory Block - Walk in Jerusalem
ADD: I first heard Rory Block about 12 years ago on U of T's radio station, CIUT, while driving in Toronto. I rushed off to Sam the Record Man (alas no longer with us, I see--and I mean the store; Sam, himself, is even longer gone I believe) to see if I could find a CD by her. I was astounded to discover that she was/is white; she sounded so like a black woman on the radio. I couldn't find a recording of the piece I'd heard (and I can't remember what it was now, but bought another cassette tape that had this gospel number on it). It's very moving and powerful, not least because her son joins her well into the song, and its sense of yearning is so strong and palpable. I'd like this one played at my funeral--and not just the song, but this recording.

Choir Of Westminster Abbey, Ely Cathedral & Gerald Gifford - Brother James' Air
ADD: Just a beautiful version of a beautiful piece of choral music. Don't recall anymore where or when I first became aware of it.

Bruce Cockburn - Wondering Where the Lions Are
ADD: Bruce is a marvellous musician and composer, a Canadian treasure. Love his Goin' To The Country and Lovers In a Dangerous Time, among others, but this is definitely my favourite song of his. I especially like the reggae-esque feel, but mainly it seems to capture that sensation of religious euphoria I have occasionally experienced in the natural world.

Manitoba Hal - Line and Pole

Harmonizing 4 - Wade In the Water

Stéphane Grappelli & Django Reinhardt - Swing 42

James Hill - Down Rideau Canal

John Lee Hooker - It Serves You Right to Suffer

The Isley Brothers - Summer Breeze

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole - Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World

The Klezmatics with Joshua Nelson and Kathryn Farmer - Elijah Rock

Yungchen Lhamo - Happiness Is...

Gordon Lightfoot - Pussywillows, Cat-Tails
ADD:This song probably goes back the furthest for me, to my early teens. Gordon Lightfoot was a Canadian folksinging legend in the 1960s and for decades to follow. He was from Orillia, just up the highway from where I grew up, and not only is it a tender love song, but the seasonal imagery takes me right back home to my southern Ontario childhood. High romance. From the same singer/songwriter, I would recommend the classics, If You Could Read My Mind, and Did She Mention My Name.

The Lovin' Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic?

Taj Mahal - Freight Train

Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau (with Israel Kamakawiwo’ole) - Star of Gladness

Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata

Mississippi Fred McDowell - You Got to Move

Sergio Mendes - Waters of March

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Van Morrison - Listen to the Lion (live version from album, It's Too Late to Stop Now)
Van Morrison & The Chieftains - She Moved Through The Fair

Nightingale - Tickle Cove Pond/Over the Ice/Culfadda

Anders Osborne - Stuck On My Baby

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - The Ecstasy of Dancing Fleas
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Air A Danser

The Rascals - Groovin'

Bob Stewart - Fishin' Blues (Featuring Taj Mahal)
ADD:This old song, first written and performed by Texas African-American performer Henry Thomas, has been a favourite of mine since I heard it performed by Taj Mahal as a teenager (and it's still my favourite Taj song). I like this version because Bob Stewart adds a funky tuba to Taj's standard singing to to his grooving, as always, guitar accompaniment. I only recently heard the original, recorded by Henry Thomas back before1930, which Harry Smith included on his famous and influential six-record Anthology of American Folk Music, originally released in 1952, and what do you know, it's available on itunes too.

Tamarack - Shoals of Herring

Ralph Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending, Romance for Violin and Orchestra

Doc Watson - Cotton Eyed Joe
Doc Watson - Shady Grove

Paul Winter - Common Ground
Paul Winter - Ancient Voices (Nhmamusasa)
Paul Winter - Icarus

And here are some music-related films that I really like too. Please add your own to this list too.

Paul Balmer - Stéphane Grappelli: A Life in the Jazz Century
Les Blank - J’ai Été au Bal/I went to the Dance
Les Blank - Puamana
The Cowboy Junkies - Long Journey Home
Gregory Coyes - How the Fiddle Flows
Jean Doumanian and Barbara Kopple - Wild Man Blues
Edward Gillan - Desperate Man Blues
Martin Scorsese - The Last Waltz
Martin Scorsese - The Blues
The Mountain Apple Company - IZ: The Man and His Music; Island Music, Island Hearts

And some music-related books:

Beattie, Mac. This Ottawa Valley of Mine. Arnprior, Ont.: Beattie Music Inc., 1982.

Beloff, Jim. The Ukulele: A Visual History (Revised & Expanded). San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003.

Campbell, Don. The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power or Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind and Unlock the Creative Spirit. New York: Avon Books, 1997.

Cannel, Ward and Mrax, Fred. How to Play the Piano Despite Years of Lessons: What Music is and How to Make it at Home. Paterson, N.J.: Crown & Bridge Publishers, 1976.

Handy, W.C. Father of the Blues: An Autobiography. New York: Collier, 1970 (first published 1941).

Hart, Mickey and Stevens, Jay. Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.

Hodgkinson, Will. Guitar Man: A Six-string Odyssey. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006.

Mahal, Taj and Foehr, Stephen. Taj Mahal: Autobiography of a Bluesman. London: Sanctuary, 2002.

Mezzrow, Mezz, and Wolfe, Bernard, Really the Blues. New York: Dell, 1946.

Reck, David. Music of the Whole Earth. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977.

Young, Peter. Let’s Dance: A Celebration of Ontario’s Dance Halls and Summer Dance Pavilions. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 2002.

This Everflowing River of Music

Here are a couple of excerpts from the Introduction to The Spirituality of Music, just to give you some sense of the flavour of the book, and why I wanted to write it. Of course, it's the photos (and they're not mine) that really make it sing.

This Everflowing River of Music

Music accompanies us throughout our lives, from our very first moments to our very last, bringing meaning and heightened emotional awareness to so many of the important occasions and experiences that mark our journey on this earth.

We are conceived in the pulsing rhythms of the sex act, and our life in the womb is nurtured by the comforting throb of our mother’s beating heart.

Each year, we mark our birthday with a simple song that renews our sense of personhood and identity within a community of friends and family.

We dance at weddings, to celebrate a friend’s or a relative’s commitment to enter a new life in holy and sacred partnership with his or her beloved.

We worship the God of our understanding by singing hymns at church, temple, or synagogue.

And when our time comes to leave this world, we hope that friends and family will come together to sing us out of it, to celebrate our lives and to wish us godspeed.

But even then, the rhythm and the music will play on.

* * *

Everything has a Rhythm

So we carry music with us – and it carries us – through our most significant moments as well as through the most mundane activities of our daily lives. We awake to the latest pop or country songs on the clock radio. We sing in the shower. We play CDs in the car during our daily commute, and sport MP3 players while doing aerobics at the gym, or while out running or walking.

We even whistle while we work, whether it be digging a ditch, preparing a report, folding laundry, making dinner, or weeding the garden. As an incidental character in John Sayles’ film Honeydripper puts it, “Everything in life got a rhythm – even pickin’ cotton.”

And of course, we use music to help us access our emotional lives, or more precisely, to help us connect our intellect, our so-called rational mind, with our emotions, our bodies, our souls; and to share feelings with one another.

A father’s lullaby in the dark of night can send us drifting into “Slumberland,” secure in the faith that we are loved, cared for, and protected. I remember my own father lying beside me like a gentle giant in my child’s single bed, as I snuggled deeper under the covers, bathed, scrubbed, brushed, combed, and poised on the edge of sleep. His smooth, comforting tenor voice would spin tales for me of cattle drives and of life in the bush, as he gently crooned work songs from his New Brunswick childhood – songs such as the lumber-camp lament “Peter Emberly”; or the cowboy ballads of Wilf Carter, “Streets of Laredo” and “Strawberry Roan.”

My mother shared songs from her Welsh childhood. She would hold me close and sing humorous tunes in a strange, wild language that told me we drew part of our family heritage from a more ancient culture than the popular one I knew through commercial radio. Her songs ran the gamut from Church of Wales hymns such as “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” to humourous ditties such as “Sospan Fach” (Little Saucepan) and “Hen Fenyw Fach Cydweli” (The Little Old Lady from Kidwelly).

I also remember my mother and father holding one another tight, drifting across the kitchen floor in a tender, shuffling dance that spoke volumes to my closely watching brother and I about their devotion to one another. They would gaze deeply into each other’s eyes, and sing together the romantic pop songs of their Second-World-War youth – songs of hope from amid war and separation: “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover” or “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

I will always cherish those moments in the kitchen, when music offered me a glimpse into another aspect of my parents’ strong and mutual love – and another lesson about the joys of love.

* * *

The Human Beat

So begins our journey in music, and so begins the musical journey of this book. Someone once said that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture – it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.” It’s such a great quote that (as Allan P. Scott documents extensively on his webpage) it has been variously attributed to as diverse a cast of characters as Elvis Costello, Martin Mull, Clara Schumann, Igor Stravinsky, David Byrne, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thelonious Monk, Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, Steve Martin, William S. Burroughs, Charles Mingus, Nick Lowe, Miles Davis, George Carlin and/or John Cage. Take your pick.

Regardless of who said it first, it’s a great statement because it gets to the heart of the matter: music is meant to be experienced directly. Music deals with meanings and emotions that often can’t be put into words.

Aaron Copland, one of my favourite American composers, expressed itanother way, as reported on the website, quotesandpoem.com: “The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, ‘Is there a meaning to music?’ My answer would be, ‘Yes.’ And ‘Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?’ My answer to that would be, ‘No.’” The same source also tells us that Copland said: “If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.”

Nevertheless, when we’re not experiencing music – and even while we are – we continue to talk about it. And I’m going to continue to try to write about it. Because it’s important. And because, in case it’s not obvious already, I love music. I love to listen to it, to watch people play it. I love to dance to it, meditate to it, and particularly I love to play it myself – and especially to play it with other people.

“Everybody has a heart,” Juan Opitz told me. “To follow your heart – literally – just put your hand on your heart and repeat it with your other hand with a drum or a stick. That’s you. That’s your rhythm. Your rhythm is not in your face, your body, your physical appearance. The colour of your skin can be totally different than mine. Your heart is the same. It’s only one beat, and that’s the human beat – and if you want to go farther, the universal beat.”

Welcome to the universal beat of music.