I am pleased to announce that through Dr Gabriella Day’s invitation, the National Homeopathic Magazine have released my article about sound therapy, sonoluminescence and homeopathy.
You can find the whole article here: Simile Educational Materials | Faculty of Homeopathy
It’s a good rag to sign up to (I might be slightly biased) if you are interested in Homeopathy and how it works.
However, news just in is that I have recently been asked to speak at a beautiful retreat centre known as HOME | The Herdman Healing Sanctuary | Petersfield | Reiki | Sound Healing | Yoga | Gong Baths
I am very excited about this forthcoming weekend as I shall be joining the retreat on the 1st day for a few hours to speak about sound. I thought I would share a few points about my talk with you.
To the place where things are not.
Helen Sheppard
A few words about falling in between the cracks of the piano keys….
What is a mode or a scale?
Sa ri ga ma pa da ni Sa / Doh re mi far sol la ti doh
What notes are we used to hearing and do we ever feel like we have heard a song before because we know where it is probably going and how it is going to resolve or end?
In music, there are formulae – and most of the time, these endings or cadenzas set up an expectation causing your hairs to stand on end, piloerection, opening the dopamine pathway – especially when the ‘resolve’ eventually comes rewarding your expectation.
Musicians like Miles Davis would get as far away from the ‘resolve’ for as long as possible to create tension and then release. However, no matter how far away you go from the root note or the resolve, in Western scales the number of notes is limited to 12 with a few blue (or bent) notes thrown in to make the sound bluesy, soulful, Jazzy or stylish.
In Eastern scales, there are about 60 notes to a scale and many more subtleties within their acoustic palette. To our Western ears it can sound a bit uncomfortable or discordant owing to something we understand as equal temperament.
Training the ear in music is essential in order to create so called ‘acceptable’ harmonic vistas and sonic landscapes which are pleasing to the ear and even if there is dissonance, it always returns to the consonance – the resolve because that is what is expected especially in our western modality. A good example of this was the song I wrote as a joke which hit the top 40 in the mid 80s. The record company loved it and I certainly did not.
The ‘good guy’ always wins in the end. The cadenza of expectation.
In fact, it could be said that popular conventional Western harmony is a bit of a dopamine fix as we associate ‘happy’ with major chords and ‘sad’ with minor chords (Will give live example) and most popular music is based on sonata form whether it’s Beethoven or ACDC. . (eg: Intro, theme, exposition of the theme return to theme 1 or, verse bridge chorus mid 8 chorus to end).
This also limits our emotional expression to ‘happy, sad, angry’ as a rule which is the emotional quotient of a 12 year old
Why? Could the music we have come to understand be that limiting?
Well, we know the history of the organisation of music and we don’t need to give it any more energy than the last 1000 years or so.
So, I will cut to the chase.
Equal temperament is how the piano is tuned. It fits very neatly into particular geometric shapes and forms from fractals to Fibonacci, from the measurement of an organ to 3 dimensional, neatly boxed, ordered frequencies which are palatable to the ‘entrained’ human ear. It fits neatly with the way sound creates form and shape and corresponds to our audible, organised visible spectrum. All nice and neatly packaged.
But Wait!!!!!! What’s that I hear?
Harmonics? Overtones? Harmonics of harmonics of microtones which don’t exist in the modes? There are microtones and notes that fall between the cracks of the keys of the piano?
There most certainly are and these notes are the harmonics that you hear when a gong is resounding, in the resonance of a particular space. Now all acoustic instruments have the same harmonic series but once again, the microtones have been left out of the measurements.
Paul Newham in his book ‘The Singing Cure’ could tell the intelligence of a baby through it’s span of notes that it gurgled. If the span was very small – there was usually an extra chromosome. However, this is simplistic and one can not necessary measure intelligence in that way in the grand scheme of things. We only have to examine the spiritual gifts of labelled autistic people to see that ultimately, intelligence cannot be quantified or limited to one type of perception.
Another example: The digitization of sound has removed the harmonics from music and when it is recorded – has turned it into 0000’s and 111111’s. Analogue sound has a much wider acoustic spectrum allowing for the notes that fall between the cracks… the overtones, undertones and harmonics.
Whale-song may sound disorganised and dissonant to some owing to the fact that the sounds are out of our usual modality or melodic comprehension. The whale sings notes that can not be quantified and yet, it is said that their effect purifies the water they are living in and heals the human mind, body and biofield as we remember that we are 75% water.
The sound of so-called silence is the place we need to look to find all the notes and frequencies that can not be quantified by our limited measurements of perception. In that space, the ‘out-of-our-audible-spectrum’ resounds with notes, microtones, frequencies and vibrations that have no name, occupy no space and live in the place where things are not.
The Gongs stimulate the atoms and cells of our bodies through stochastic resonance, building a bridge between that which is not and that which is coming into being as sound is the carrier wave for intention, consciousness and so much more we have yet to discover as our expansion and comprehension of ourselves continues in relation to that which is brought into being and that which is yet to arrive and just because we can not hear it doesn’t mean it is not there. Also, it could be said that ALL sound and light can be harmonised and attuned through the art of observation, like a conductor holding time and space for an orchestra. The orchestra is our mind, body and spirit.
Subtle sounds eg: tuning forks and Gongs, bowls etc create movement in the cells of a body as they have been seen to respond through stochastic resonance and raise the voltage of the cell which then returns to its natural state, shape and frequency. Healing occurs. Tuning. Harmony.
Sound turns to light when it reaches over 20Kh eg: even the shrimp who live on the ocean floor create light through the snapping of their claws, the dawn chorus opens the stomata on the leaves of trees and shrubs and it could be said that we, as electromagnetic beings, create light through our thoughts and consciousness and, as my Mum used to say: ‘thoughts are faster than the speed of light’. I would like to say that the words for this observation have not been invented or commonly investigated yet, but she had a point.
As we listen, whether we can hear audibly or not, these frequencies of sound and light are continually penetrating our consciousness and unconsciousness.
Solar flares, light codes, transmissions, channelling, breathing in the light and sound of creation… and through observation, we ‘notice’ and create our reality according to the parameters of our perception or lens.
We, with our unique blood-song, are divine instruments, resonating, beaming, emoting, harmonising (or not) with the all that is.
However…..
In the same way that frequencies can heal, without observation, they can kill for example – micro-waves etc. Note the use of the word micro.
Repetitive negative thoughts can create a sonic cage of frustration and lack as habitual processes entrain the neurons to fire in a destructive way. Another example would be an addiction to feeling sorry for oneself. This creates a hormonal response (rather like a negative dopamine reaction) and the illusion of ‘safety’ or a state which has been created as a known refuge.
It’s a bit like loosh.
One of the circuit breakers is sound.
The sound of a Tibetan bowl, your voice, a gong or in fact any resonant instrument can create a tuning.
What is tuning?
Your heart beat synchs to any external rhythm it hears.
Your hearts synch when you sing together.
Your waters and your blood respond in a cymatic way and the resonance of your blood is returned to its natural state which is known as PERFECT TEMPERAMENT.
Whales sing in perfect temperament.
On a quantum level, wherever we focus attention atoms ‘appear’ as Dana Zohar said in her book ‘The Quantum Self’. And attention itself has a note or frequency, as does faith, hope, love and all the other good stuff.
And we know that through unbiased observation (just noticing) things change and change is also a frequency or resonance.
So as we listen, observe and harmonise with each other, just for a moment, a microsecond in eternity, may we fall into the spaces, the melody hiding in between the cracks, in the apparency of darkness to the placeless place… where things….. are not.
Thank you for reading my blog
love
Helen
One Response
Helen, this is absolutely lovely and incredibly informative. Becky and I found it very insightful—I learned so much, and even the things I was already aware of now feel much clearer with deeper understanding. The people attending this retreat will be truly blessed to hear you speak. Wishing you all the very best!