The
purpose of this writing is to present to you what I call the
potentials and possibilities of music and sound. We have long
known of the power of sound and music to affect our emotions
and moods and ultimately our physical bodies. Tribal music, ceremonial
music, devotional music and spiritual chanting are a few well-known
examples of how sound can be used to create change. Intense use
of ritual chanting can create altered states so powerful that
humans in India allow themselves to be intentionally bit by cobras
and do not become ill, and the fire dancers of Java can immerse
themselves in huge fires and not be injured. Prisoners of war
have endured incredible situations such as starvation, isolation
and physical punishment by humming and singing whenever possible
to maintain their sense of self and ultimately keep themselves
alive.
Sound has long been used as a communication tool - since the
beginning of time. Native Americans sent messages by drum beats.
They developed ritual songs and dances for rain, war, hunting,
good harvest, marriages and so on.
LIFE IS GUIDED BY SOUND, RHYTHM AND MUSIC
There are a number of researchers currently working with sound
looking to affect a change in the physical body and/or the etheric
field. There are many sound healing concepts such as: using "missing"
frequencies in the person's voice; using the voice in a harmonic
toning way; human energy center (chakra) correlation, and the
use of brain/body synchronization frequencies - to name a few.
Harmonic Resonance is a way to restore balance, harmony and vitality
by offering music and sounds that resonate with you in such a
way as to present a musical model of you in your optimal, vibrational,
and resonant state. As our society becomes more information oriented,
we are looking for more validation of these phenomenons. What
I hope to give you are the tools for you to formulate your own
set of guidelines about how to use music in a positive way and,
to use sound and music in a way that can restore balance and
harmony into all aspects of your life. This ultimately can result
in improved health, vitality, emotional stability, and a heightened
state of consciousness and awareness. This is an opportunity
to truly be "in the present." This comes through clearing
the "emotional baggage," the old wounds (fear, guilt,
self-doubt, anger, shame, rage, obsessions and so on) that many
of us seem to carry around from time to time. Sometimes it becomes
such a deep part of our personalities that it runs us rather
than "us" being totally free to be who we truly are.
WHAT SOUND IS, HOW SOUND WORKS
A sound wave basically causes changes in air pressure as it moves
through the air. Our ears respond to this information and our
brains process it into sound information. Stand in front of a
good speaker playing low bass or hold your hand under a large
drum being played and you'll feel the air currents moving. We
also receive sound information from our whole bodies. Our skin
is very tactile and responds to sound waves quite readily.
I refer to sound and music separately. I think of sound as
being just that - a sound. It may or may not have a pitch (specific
frequency) or a pure waveform or a temporal (rhythmic) pattern
but if it's audible or perceptible we call it a sound. Music
is a combining of elements that typically incorporates these
sounds into a lyrical blend of pitch, melody and rhythm and progresses/modulates
from one chord to another in an emotional fashion. Combinations
of pitches/chords/intervals that are perceived as being harmonious
and pleasant are described as being consonant. Harsh combinations
are called dissonant.
At this point I would like to say that it is often very important
and appropriate to use dissonance of varying degrees in healing
music. If you are stuck, sometimes you need a bit of a push to
move on, and if the musical environment is kept too sweet and
cheery then you don't have much incentive to journey forward.
Generally, major keys are perceived as being light and uplifting.
Minor keys are felt as being more serious, reverent, and mysterious.
HARMONIC RESONANCE - SYMPATHETIC VIBRATION
I began piano study at the age of five. One of the first things
I noticed was that certain notes on the piano would make certain
objects in the room buzz consistently. One note made the tea
cups on the shelf buzz, another would make the picture frame
over the sofa buzz, another made the storm windows rattle. This
was my first exposure to resonance; technically called sympathetic
vibration (I call it Harmonic Resonance TM). Gently depressing
and holding the middle C key on the piano without making the
hammer hit the string (thus making the string vibrate) and then
sharply hitting the C below middle C would make the middle C
string vibrate.
I later saw some pictures that were in a book called Cymatics
by Dr. Hans Jeny. Basically, Dr. Jeny took a speaker or transducer
and attached it to either a membrane or thin plate of steel and
covered this with a variety of substances such as iron filings,
silica powder, milk, and water. Smoke-filled chambers were also
used. He then played a specific frequency into the speaker or
transducer and photographed the results. The particles formed
incredible patterns with remarkable similarities to naturally
occurring patterns. They ranged from moonscape-like images to
mandalas (complex symbols used in Buddhist meditation) to stalagmite
looking forms. As the frequency was changed, the forms and patterns
changed. I thought that the human body must respond this way
as well. We are about 90% water (fluid), our bones are great
conductors of vibration and we have a variety of densities provided
by tissue mass, fat, muscle, organs and bones (skeletal system).
Given how profoundly sound affects these material substances,
it is easy to understand how our body and spirit takes on the
patterns of music.
I feel that the use of low bass in music is extremely important.
Bass acts as a carrier wave for the higher frequencies and creates
a pathway for the healing, life force energy to enter. If you
view an oscilloscope showing a low bass note alone, it will be
a long S on its side. Playing a high frequency tone alone will
give a close together a wave pattern. Play the high and low tones
simultaneously and you will see the high frequency tone actually
tracks/piggybacks along the bass note. This is basically how
the military transmits radio frequency waves to submarines under
the polar ice cap. They set up an ELF (extremely low frequency)
carrier wave and broadcast the radio frequencies simultaneously.
The ELF's strength penetrates the ice easily and carries the
radio frequency waves along with it. If you wish to further explore
ELF then I suggest reading about Nikola Tesla. He was a brilliant
inventor that shortly after the turn of this century gave us
particle beam physics, neon lights, and DC electricity. He thought
Edison to be a tinkerer. Tesla was a true master of "harmonic
resonance." He could bring down a tall building with a hand-held
jigger (a mechanical device that produces a reciprocating motion)
set to the building's resonant frequency and located in the basement
on a structural beam. Our "earthquake-proof" buildings
of today are designed with unequal distances between floors.
This disrupts the resonant frequency of the building.
This is the same principle as the singer breaking the glass
with her voice. You find the resonant frequency of the glass
and sing that pitch at high volume (amplitude) and the glass
breaks. There is too much energy/molecular activity. This is
also how the medical community is treating a great number of
cases of kidney stones. Ultrasound is used to break up the stone
so it can be passed out of the body without surgery.
Tesla had a concept to prevent earthquakes. His idea was to
put Tele-Geo-Dynamic machines (giant jiggers) along the fault
lines and this would keep them in a state of flexure thus preventing
the buildup of tectonic plate stress that eventually "lets
go" and causes breaks in the faults which causes earthquakes.
In Los Alamos, NM, at a national laboratory known for its
atomic energy research activity, they are exploring the function
of the brain with a technique called tone mapping. According
to their studies, specific bundles of neurons in the cerebral
cortex of the brain are activated by specific frequencies. This
is observed and measured by Neuro-Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging,
similar to a CAT scan.
Here's a fun experiment I often do in workshops which illustrates
the vibrational "pull" of sound. You face a partner,
put your ears together (one person's left ear to the other's
right ear). Use your hands to cover the other ears. Give the
"A" person a tone to hum and the "B" person
a different (dissonant interval) tone to hum. It is almost impossible
for most people - even trained singers - to maintain this dissonant
sound for long. In a matter of 1-2 minutes most every "A"
& "B" were humming each other's tones and within
3-5 minutes everyone in the room begins humming the same tone.
It is in our nature to be in harmony with our environment. We
may challenge it for a while but in the end a resolution occurs.
If not, then what happens? You guessed it - "DIS-EASE."
It is quite unavoidable. Our body/beings want to be in harmony
with their environments and most importantly with each other.
The unification of Body, Mind and Spirit is essential.
VIBRATIONAL HEALING SOUNDS AND MUSIC
While pondering the nature of the universe and the essence of
life, I came to the conclusion that everything is vibrational
in nature. In matter, there is an atomic structure with a nucleus
with electrons and protons circling in a specific, "harmonic-resonant"
pattern. Thinking of disease I reasoned that disease is "dis-ease,"
"dis-harmony," "dis-stress," "dis-torsion,"
"dis-sonance," "dis-illusion," "dis-connection"
(fragmentation of the psyche). They are synonymous for the same
thing - not being whole, connected and integrated. I did considerable
research with a number of massage and alternative health practitioners.
Using Kinesiology, acupuncture pulses, and other testing methods,
a capable practitioner can do an assessment of everything from
metabolic function to emotional involvement. We then find the
specific frequency (pitch) and waveform (instrument) which when
played, will restore balance to the area affected. Muscles which
tested very weak before the music treatment - a little finger
can sometimes push down the entire arm or leg - often show remarkable
changes in strength and muscle reflex response. They become so
strong that while the tones are playing and you can lift yourself
off the ground using the same previously weak muscles. This tells
you that the sound is doing something very profound. I then compose
a 30 - 45 minute long piece of music based on the specific frequencies
and waveforms that demonstrate the balancing and vitalizing responses.
The specific sounds address the specific areas, but the combination
of the sounds into "music" is what gets the emotions
involved. Allowing for an emotional and soul level healing creates
the opportunity for a complete physical body healing.
The client receives a CD or tape of their custom music to
play for themselves regularly for ongoing benefits. One client
was scheduled for a series of root canal procedures in two teeth.
He was so sensitive to the analgesic drugs typically used to
manage the pain that he was duly concerned. I said I'd make him
a tape of sounds and music that would numb his tooth and displace
the pain. We found the frequencies of the affected teeth and
then found the frequencies of certain acupuncture points that
provided an outlet for the pain. It worked and we were on to
something.
Another client was an insulin dependant diabetic. She brought
her blood glucose testing device over. After fasting that day,
she had a blood glucose level of 192. She took no insulin that
day, and drank a 12-ounce glass of sweet, carrot juice just prior
to the session. After the session her blood glucose level was
measured at 120. (The "normal" zone is between 60 and
160). According to her past experiences, without insulin her
glucose level would usually have gone into the 300 range. Experiments
showed that we respond to sounds that we cannot hear. We put
the selected sounds exclusively into a pair of headphones and
put them on person's ankles. They responded to the sound even
though their ears could not "hear" the sound. Once
you vibrate a part of the body the blood cells carry this resonance
to the whole body very quickly. Research done with deaf children
also showed that the children could identify different sounds
and instruments by laying on a giant membrane and having the
sounds played through it.
HOW TO BEST USE THESE RECORDINGS BY JIM OLIVER
When you listen to this music be aware of where the sounds resonate
in the body. Be aware of how the "music" affects your
emotions and moods. I think that we select the music we need
on a subconscious level just as we select the clothes we wear
with consideration given to their colors and textures. Music
too is comprised of color (frequency) and textures (waveforms).
The resonance builds with each experience. Allow yourself
a quiet place to listen to this music - no distractions (phone,
TV, etc.). Turn your stereo up to a good, solid volume level
that vibrates you thoroughly (don't over do it and injure your
ears and speakers). Adjust the bass so it is deep and full, set
the treble so that the higher frequencies are clear and crisp.
I prefer speakers to the "personal portable walk-type"
headphone systems. Listen to each 30-minute piece without interruption.
You can listen to only one side of the tape or the 1st half of
the CD (track 1) if you don't have the time for both pieces.
Each side is a complete journey. I suggest listening five days
a week, one or more times per day and then having two days off
for processing and integration. Allow yourself to stay grounded
and resonate with the earth's core as you discover your soul's
path. This is music created to help you to discover and clear
the blocks that are in the way. Breathe the music in. Sometimes
there are passages that "dances." This creates movement
along a sonic pathway for the energy to ultimately clear. Some
passages have a slightly offset rhythm to help to loosen fixed
patterns. Other passages are majestic and profound. This is your
initiation to yourself - your coronation - your celebration of
being alive. Allow your self to receive. There are choirs of
voices that welcome you home.
The music weaves between major and minor keys - lofty to deep.
There are sections of intertwined repeating patterns which you
could imagine to be like re-patterning DNA and restructuring
areas of cellular disruption. The stereo image is very wide in
places and narrower in others to give a variety of perspectives.
I often slightly detune a synthesizer's oscillators 5 - 20 cents
to give a warm chorusing effect which also creates beat frequencies
which help you to relax more quickly and completely. Some sections
are very melodic and others are more open. This openness allows
you space to make up your own "song" within this music.
Please sing or hum along with the music if you wish. Get up and
move and flow with the healing sounds. Give yourself permission
to participate in life fully. One of the things I strive for
is to create enough space for the listeners/participants to feel
welcomed into my music. It becomes truly interactive. Acknowledge
your emotions as you flow with the music. Sing, dance, laugh,
cry . . . fill yourself with as sense of your self. I feel that
our bodies generate the sounds they need but sometimes they get
too run down to do it without help.
This is like a musical jump-start.
People often ask me, "Does the music change on the tape?
I have listened to this tape daily for weeks and it sounds different
each time." My explanation for this is that I feel that
our attention is often drawn to areas of resistance and as this
resistance is lessened and eliminated through the healing process
our focus then shifts to other areas of resistance that the music
then works at releasing and so on. This leaves you feeling empowered,
revitalized and centered.
SOME NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF JIM'S MUSIC
As previously mentioned there is a generous amount of low bass
in Jim's music. A great deal of consideration went into the harmonic
content of Jim's music. Harmonics are basically the subdivisions
of a string. If a string was 10' long, the first subdivision
would be in half - the octave at 5'. These 5' halves then subdivide
at 2 *' and so on. In the waveform department I use three basic
groups: Sine/triangle waves (flute type sounds) have no overtones;
square waves (woodwinds) have odd overtones (1, 3, 5, 7, etc.);
and sawtooth waves (brass) have odd and even harmonics.
One reason that I like to use synthesizers in this work is
that you can control the harmonics by changing waveforms - an
easy thing to do on the older analog synths. The Mini Moogs are
excellent for this. They have three independent oscillators for
which you can choose the frequencies and waveforms independently.
In my studio I have a balance of analog and digital synthesizers
as well as a digital sampler. The analog synths are very warm
and full, the digital synths have a bright, crisp and very complex
sound structure and the sampler enables me to digitally record
a person's voice and then play a choir of their own voice - in
pitch and when and where appropriate.
We often get caught up with regrets about the past and have
great anxiety about the future. Music can help heal the separation
this creates and allows us to truly live in the present.
Learning to flow is a good use of energy. It's hard to dance
the foxtrot when the band is playing a waltz.
Thank you for allowing me to share some of my ideas about
music and sound with you. I am most grateful for the opportunity
to create the accompanying music. It was and continues to be
a truly magical experience. Best wishes always.
In Harmony,
Jim Oliver
|
Sound has long been used as a communication tool - since the beginning of time. Native Americans sent messages by drum beats. They developed ritual songs and dances for rain, war, hunting, good harvest, marriages and so on. LIFE IS GUIDED BY SOUND, RHYTHM AND MUSIC WHAT SOUND IS, HOW SOUND WORKS I refer to sound and music separately. I think of sound as being just that - a sound. It may or may not have a pitch (specific frequency) or a pure waveform or a temporal (rhythmic) pattern but if it's audible or perceptible we call it a sound. Music is a combining of elements that typically incorporates these sounds into a lyrical blend of pitch, melody and rhythm and progresses/modulates from one chord to another in an emotional fashion. Combinations of pitches/chords/intervals that are perceived as being harmonious and pleasant are described as being consonant. Harsh combinations are called dissonant. At this point I would like to say that it is often very important and appropriate to use dissonance of varying degrees in healing music. If you are stuck, sometimes you need a bit of a push to move on, and if the musical environment is kept too sweet and cheery then you don't have much incentive to journey forward. Generally, major keys are perceived as being light and uplifting. Minor keys are felt as being more serious, reverent, and mysterious. HARMONIC RESONANCE - SYMPATHETIC VIBRATION I later saw some pictures that were in a book called Cymatics by Dr. Hans Jeny. Basically, Dr. Jeny took a speaker or transducer and attached it to either a membrane or thin plate of steel and covered this with a variety of substances such as iron filings, silica powder, milk, and water. Smoke-filled chambers were also used. He then played a specific frequency into the speaker or transducer and photographed the results. The particles formed incredible patterns with remarkable similarities to naturally occurring patterns. They ranged from moonscape-like images to mandalas (complex symbols used in Buddhist meditation) to stalagmite looking forms. As the frequency was changed, the forms and patterns changed. I thought that the human body must respond this way as well. We are about 90% water (fluid), our bones are great conductors of vibration and we have a variety of densities provided by tissue mass, fat, muscle, organs and bones (skeletal system). Given how profoundly sound affects these material substances, it is easy to understand how our body and spirit takes on the patterns of music. I feel that the use of low bass in music is extremely important. Bass acts as a carrier wave for the higher frequencies and creates a pathway for the healing, life force energy to enter. If you view an oscilloscope showing a low bass note alone, it will be a long S on its side. Playing a high frequency tone alone will give a close together a wave pattern. Play the high and low tones simultaneously and you will see the high frequency tone actually tracks/piggybacks along the bass note. This is basically how the military transmits radio frequency waves to submarines under the polar ice cap. They set up an ELF (extremely low frequency) carrier wave and broadcast the radio frequencies simultaneously. The ELF's strength penetrates the ice easily and carries the radio frequency waves along with it. If you wish to further explore ELF then I suggest reading about Nikola Tesla. He was a brilliant inventor that shortly after the turn of this century gave us particle beam physics, neon lights, and DC electricity. He thought Edison to be a tinkerer. Tesla was a true master of "harmonic resonance." He could bring down a tall building with a hand-held jigger (a mechanical device that produces a reciprocating motion) set to the building's resonant frequency and located in the basement on a structural beam. Our "earthquake-proof" buildings of today are designed with unequal distances between floors. This disrupts the resonant frequency of the building. This is the same principle as the singer breaking the glass with her voice. You find the resonant frequency of the glass and sing that pitch at high volume (amplitude) and the glass breaks. There is too much energy/molecular activity. This is also how the medical community is treating a great number of cases of kidney stones. Ultrasound is used to break up the stone so it can be passed out of the body without surgery. Tesla had a concept to prevent earthquakes. His idea was to put Tele-Geo-Dynamic machines (giant jiggers) along the fault lines and this would keep them in a state of flexure thus preventing the buildup of tectonic plate stress that eventually "lets go" and causes breaks in the faults which causes earthquakes. In Los Alamos, NM, at a national laboratory known for its atomic energy research activity, they are exploring the function of the brain with a technique called tone mapping. According to their studies, specific bundles of neurons in the cerebral cortex of the brain are activated by specific frequencies. This is observed and measured by Neuro-Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging, similar to a CAT scan. Here's a fun experiment I often do in workshops which illustrates the vibrational "pull" of sound. You face a partner, put your ears together (one person's left ear to the other's right ear). Use your hands to cover the other ears. Give the "A" person a tone to hum and the "B" person a different (dissonant interval) tone to hum. It is almost impossible for most people - even trained singers - to maintain this dissonant sound for long. In a matter of 1-2 minutes most every "A" & "B" were humming each other's tones and within 3-5 minutes everyone in the room begins humming the same tone. It is in our nature to be in harmony with our environment. We may challenge it for a while but in the end a resolution occurs. If not, then what happens? You guessed it - "DIS-EASE." It is quite unavoidable. Our body/beings want to be in harmony with their environments and most importantly with each other. The unification of Body, Mind and Spirit is essential. VIBRATIONAL HEALING SOUNDS AND MUSIC The client receives a CD or tape of their custom music to play for themselves regularly for ongoing benefits. One client was scheduled for a series of root canal procedures in two teeth. He was so sensitive to the analgesic drugs typically used to manage the pain that he was duly concerned. I said I'd make him a tape of sounds and music that would numb his tooth and displace the pain. We found the frequencies of the affected teeth and then found the frequencies of certain acupuncture points that provided an outlet for the pain. It worked and we were on to something. Another client was an insulin dependant diabetic. She brought her blood glucose testing device over. After fasting that day, she had a blood glucose level of 192. She took no insulin that day, and drank a 12-ounce glass of sweet, carrot juice just prior to the session. After the session her blood glucose level was measured at 120. (The "normal" zone is between 60 and 160). According to her past experiences, without insulin her glucose level would usually have gone into the 300 range. Experiments showed that we respond to sounds that we cannot hear. We put the selected sounds exclusively into a pair of headphones and put them on person's ankles. They responded to the sound even though their ears could not "hear" the sound. Once you vibrate a part of the body the blood cells carry this resonance to the whole body very quickly. Research done with deaf children also showed that the children could identify different sounds and instruments by laying on a giant membrane and having the sounds played through it. HOW TO BEST USE THESE RECORDINGS BY JIM OLIVER The resonance builds with each experience. Allow yourself a quiet place to listen to this music - no distractions (phone, TV, etc.). Turn your stereo up to a good, solid volume level that vibrates you thoroughly (don't over do it and injure your ears and speakers). Adjust the bass so it is deep and full, set the treble so that the higher frequencies are clear and crisp. I prefer speakers to the "personal portable walk-type" headphone systems. Listen to each 30-minute piece without interruption. You can listen to only one side of the tape or the 1st half of the CD (track 1) if you don't have the time for both pieces. Each side is a complete journey. I suggest listening five days a week, one or more times per day and then having two days off for processing and integration. Allow yourself to stay grounded and resonate with the earth's core as you discover your soul's path. This is music created to help you to discover and clear the blocks that are in the way. Breathe the music in. Sometimes there are passages that "dances." This creates movement along a sonic pathway for the energy to ultimately clear. Some passages have a slightly offset rhythm to help to loosen fixed patterns. Other passages are majestic and profound. This is your initiation to yourself - your coronation - your celebration of being alive. Allow your self to receive. There are choirs of voices that welcome you home. The music weaves between major and minor keys - lofty to deep. There are sections of intertwined repeating patterns which you could imagine to be like re-patterning DNA and restructuring areas of cellular disruption. The stereo image is very wide in places and narrower in others to give a variety of perspectives. I often slightly detune a synthesizer's oscillators 5 - 20 cents to give a warm chorusing effect which also creates beat frequencies which help you to relax more quickly and completely. Some sections are very melodic and others are more open. This openness allows you space to make up your own "song" within this music. Please sing or hum along with the music if you wish. Get up and move and flow with the healing sounds. Give yourself permission to participate in life fully. One of the things I strive for is to create enough space for the listeners/participants to feel welcomed into my music. It becomes truly interactive. Acknowledge your emotions as you flow with the music. Sing, dance, laugh, cry . . . fill yourself with as sense of your self. I feel that our bodies generate the sounds they need but sometimes they get too run down to do it without help. This is like a musical jump-start. People often ask me, "Does the music change on the tape? I have listened to this tape daily for weeks and it sounds different each time." My explanation for this is that I feel that our attention is often drawn to areas of resistance and as this resistance is lessened and eliminated through the healing process our focus then shifts to other areas of resistance that the music then works at releasing and so on. This leaves you feeling empowered, revitalized and centered. SOME NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF JIM'S MUSIC One reason that I like to use synthesizers in this work is that you can control the harmonics by changing waveforms - an easy thing to do on the older analog synths. The Mini Moogs are excellent for this. They have three independent oscillators for which you can choose the frequencies and waveforms independently. In my studio I have a balance of analog and digital synthesizers as well as a digital sampler. The analog synths are very warm and full, the digital synths have a bright, crisp and very complex sound structure and the sampler enables me to digitally record a person's voice and then play a choir of their own voice - in pitch and when and where appropriate. We often get caught up with regrets about the past and have great anxiety about the future. Music can help heal the separation this creates and allows us to truly live in the present. Learning to flow is a good use of energy. It's hard to dance the foxtrot when the band is playing a waltz. Thank you for allowing me to share some of my ideas about music and sound with you. I am most grateful for the opportunity to create the accompanying music. It was and continues to be a truly magical experience. Best wishes always. In Harmony, |
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