Music as energy

[It is I, Leclerc]

It's certainly food for thought and no mistake. I've had related lines of thought over the years, for example what constitutes music and what is stimulated by playing it. Is it a physical reaction, emotional or intellectual? Perhaps it's all three.

Some can pick up the sheet music for a piece and "hear" it in their mind with no actual sound at all. To some extent we all experience something similar when we "play" some music, that we know very well, in our heads. We do the same when physically listening to a familiar piece and anticipate certain sounds a little before they are actually played. It's our mental "reference copy" and we instantly know if the one we're listening to is too fast, too slow or is otherwise not quite the same.

Listening to live music, or the same on a half decent hifi, is a whole different experience to reading it from a sheet. Our bodies are responding to physical stimuli which can only exist with live sound. Opinion is divided, as we know, as to what is actually being experienced. Certainly we're hearing the sounds within our range of hearing, the well known 20Hz-20KHz ish of a young healthy adult, somewhat less for most of us though. Beyond this I can certain go way below that by "feeling", a not unpleasant experience in itself. Above the range, getting into the world of supertweeters, (in my uneducated opinion) there is room for investigation. I haven't any supers to play with at the moment but those I have heard HAVE had an effect on the sound but in my case it's always been a bad effect! So there's something going on but my personal mental jury is still out on that subject for now.

Although I listen quite a bit on 'phones I must confess to finding the music to be missing something that can only be found with the full strength experience (nothing to do with Capstan).

Strangely I think part of our emotional experience relies on familiarity. Not only do we have favourite pieces/songs, I think we also have favourite sounds from the instruments we're used to hearing in our culture. To suddenly change to unfamiliar (for most) sounds like Peking Opera, extended citar pieces or Mongolian throat singing takes us out of our comfort zone and many may even respond quite negatively even to amazing performances.

Is it energy? I think,at least, we have to agree that it can make changes to the thought process and elicit emotional responses. But... enough waffle from me for now.

[Toontrev]

Thanks Doc for a very interesting article which I’ve found both thought provoking and proposed a point of view I’d not previously considered.
I’ve read this article several times and it’s left me questioning why the piece hasn’t motivated more responses from the regular contributors?
I’m still considering the many aspects raised and my own interpretation of how music translates itself as energy and the reaction to this of the inner-self (can’t think of a better word).
The last paragraph got me thinking. I’d say I probably spend time listening to music during car journeys almost as much as I listen to it at home. For sure the fidelity is poorer but emotionally and for sheer enjoyment, I derive as much pleasure as I do listening in my car or on my Sonos in the kitchen for example. I can appreciate the improvements better hi-fi brings. The bake-offs I’ve recently attended are a great example of how the emotional reaction can change significantly with the same piece of music simply by plugging in a different item of kit. If its affordable then I’ve usually gone for it but I don’t believe it takes a great hi-fi system to love and enjoy what music can do for the soul.
Perhaps not quite on topic but as it linked to energy perhaps it is. I’m puzzles me why, whenever you ask anyone if they enjoy music the reply will always be yes. Why is it that myself and I’m sure pretty much everyone who reads this forum seem to need it more than others?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I can get very controversial if you want. For me music is therapeutic and healing, or it is motivation to action, they are different qualities of different music. So listening to music is energetic meditation, or a form of Qigong (Chi-Kung). The major Energetic Art I taught was Qigong (simplest translation is energy work), it covers many different schools and practices. I wrote this about 15 years ago.

How Qigong Works
A basic purpose of these activities is to impose a disciplined and rhythmic pattern on one's body. We impose willed control over breathing, normally an involuntary function of the parasympathetic nervous system. Doing so helps bring the body into phase with the larger rhythms of daily life, the cycles of the days and the seasons. Most diseases are irregularities and dysfunctions. Put the body into phase and flow with the universe, and the qi will flow more freely. Freely flowing qi can eliminate irregularities and dysfunctions. Qigong permits a person to gain some control over autonomic functions. The exercises produce 'autonomic learning' that modulates and rectifies the flow of the life force. This form of biofeedback does not require machines. We have lost the ancient way of living in quiescence and tranquillity.

Qigong helps to bring this back. Beyond the basic imagination exercises, when we have a fever we think of the sea, bamboo leaves, or the cool forest floor. If we are restless we think of the blue sky, cool and serene moonlight, etc. Being in phase with the cosmic environment greatly strengthens the body, and it helps to produce a correct attitude toward life. Central to the philosophy of Qigong is the understanding that we must cultivate moral and physical strength together to prolong life, and develop our human potential. A cardinal rule of Qigong is to treat others with compassion and respect until they no longer deserve it, correct energy will never allow you to be used and abused. Often when one family member practices Qigong, the others benefit. The regulation of thoughts, breathing and posture all help to reduce the mind/body's neural activity. Qigong practice strengthens the body's electrical and biochemical signals, and the structure and sensitivity of the receptor cells. This quieting of the body permits physiological and biochemical functions to regain their healthy flows. This cures specific ailments, but it also strengthens one's overall biological field or bio energy, drastically cuts down the number of free radicals and minimises their damage at the cellular level. That prolongs life.

Qigong meditation works best by far in the company of a group. While one must regularly practice alone at home, this is not enough. When people come together to practice qigong, they put their biological fields in proximity. These fields begin to resonate with one another, and so to multiply the benefits of practice for each person. For this to happen requires two things. First, ill people must truly want to get rid of their diseases. Second, they must cultivate the positive, open and optimistic attitude necessary for resonating in harmony with the field.

Sceptical Westerners sometimes mistake this openness to change for a placebo effect.' In a placebo-effect situation, the subject is fooled into thinking a therapeutic treatment is happening when it is not. The open optimism necessary for success in qigong is much different. In the case of the placebo effect, belief produces a consequence, a self-fulfilling prophecy or at least the mistaken perception of improvement. When people doing qigong agree to resonate in harmony, this is a prerequisite to success. Good, real and lasting effects follow. It does help to play a trick with one's mind when doing qigong to treat some specific problem. So long as one's mind is focused on a specific problem of ill health or concern it is not possible to enter fully into the deep qigong state in which lasting healing can occur. One must therefore learn to forget about the problem and look only for general benefits.

This has helped me survive 7 years from being told I had terminal lung cancer and was unlikely see out a year, and I still show no signs of it returning, even though I take a drug for it, I believe in all options to help oneself.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

More

To understand the way energy works is to understand the laws of opposites, and how it creates energy.

The philosophy
In the beginning there was Wuji - nothingness with the potential to be something.
Then Taiji (the supreme ultimate) happened - what science now calls the big bang.
This energy was an expression of opposites - Yin and Yang, positive and negative forces always trying to cancel each other out to create balance, the way to balance is the Tao (the way) which created Taoism as a philosophy.
From yin and yang all things in the universe were created, for example yin energy - yang material, each can morph into the other looking for balance (to cease to exist). Everything is looking to return to Wuji (Wu-Chi).

Nothing can exist if it doesn't have a degree of opposite, would the word bad exist if there was only good (just an example), you wouldn't need a word, this is true of all things, even life can only be created by Yin - female and Yang - male coming together.

So it is the conflict and co-operations of opposite energies that creates everything in our existence, and music is an expression of this energy and it can have both yin and yang motivations, exampled by heavy metal for example v easy listening. Different energies are given and motivated in you.