Sound, Voice & Music in Healing;
Dimensions of Form & Expression
By Silvia Nakkach,M.A.,MMT
“The capacity to connect with energy that can liberate us is inherent in each of us” Steven Goodman
Sound as vibration is in the beginning of all manifestations. Sound through breath and the voice connects us with our vibrational field of energy that is central to the awareness of our emotional disposition, and opens us to the appreciation of the mystical experience, expanding our ordinary auditory perceptual potential as one becomes familiar with the experience of the sacred.
Music is organized sound in time, and has the capacity to communicate emotions, meaning, and the passage of time. Music interpretation and any level of music participation, just by listening, or playing an instrument becomes as well a mirror of our energetic and psychological disposition. The inclusion of one’s voice adds the element of human expression. The healing approach to music composition aims for a mystical and transpersonal minimalism as a quality of the music that we offer to support therapeutic processes and transform consciousness. To capture the affective power of music, we attend to the economy, or the way we use the musical elements of: melody, rhythm, mood, and harmony. We share this awareness with our clients/patients through the careful architecture of the music we create, intending to accomplish the main goals of music as therapy: to quiet the mind, to convey positive feelings, to lesser pain and suffering, and to enhance spiritual insight. The sophistication in the conscious treatment of the musical form is indeed a metaphor for the sound practitioner’s development on the path.
In addition to the Western approach to classical, sacred, and folk music, the musical forms described in this outline and that comprise our repertoire, merge with diverse yet universal traditions: sound yoga systems, music shamanism, and world spiritual traditions that use music for healing, ceremony, artistic expression, and wellness, including Sufism, Buddhism and Hinduism. All these ancient systems emphasize the importance of unifying with the divine at the moment of chanting, playing, and healing with music, as one moves beyond ordinary consciousness and the material world.
It is also my intent to highlight that the student/practitioner may reach a deeper understanding of the relationship between the architecture of the music and its potential to shift emotions, transform states of consciousness, and lessen pain. The musical concepts of rasa, spiritual melodicism, mystical minimalism, and changeless harmonies, will be described, with special attention given to the texture of the voice and the quality of the melodic, rhythmic, and instrumental arrangement of the music. A closer examination of these structural musical concepts may refine one’s auditory sensitivity, thereby increasing one’s concentration and creativity, while also encouraging the use of culturally diverse styles.
In Healing with Sound, Voice and Music we work towards a delicate balance between:
Being instead of Doing
Offering instead of Performing
Listening before Playing
We reflect on How we Listen - Self-assessment & Self- Observation
Who do we Listen to ~ Population , Culture
What do we Listen to ~ Relationship/ interaction dynamics/ musical forms/
How do we select our musical offering ~ Repertoire development & styles
How do we create a healing environment with music~ Skill/ Method/Combined Modalities
Through the Interplay and Integration of:
Personal: Intention ~ Information ~ Inspiration ~ Sound Tools ~ Expression ~ Insight
Inte-rpersonal: Pre-assessment ~ Assessment ~ Sound Treatment Modalities ~ Results & Evaluation ~ Integration
Pre-assessment
Relates to observing and modifying, if necessary, the state of the sound clinician’s own body/mind/spirit of the, as preparation for being with the client/patient. We pre-assess ourselves in order to offer a presence that is delicate, intimate, open, and simple. This state is grounded in the observation of one’s own thoughts and emotions before entering the presence of the patient. A regular session starts after my own pre-assessment, chanting sacred seed sounds and meditation session, so I can approach the patient with a serene and “transpersonal” presence. Sound therapists may visualize themselves establishing a connection with the patient even before they are in their presence, towards a relaxed presence, and discreet and gradient musical interventions.
The basic therapeutic attitude of being with client/patient challenges us to move away from our own needs and wants to create an environment for the patient that is inviting but not invasive. Exchanges with the client/patient are meant to facilitate relaxation, confidence, creativity, and spiritual insight, whether these involve music, words, movement, or fertile silence. Thus, the quality of mindfulness becomes a core value in this process. Mindfulness is the skill and art of living in the present, without judging, reflecting or thinking. It is simply observing, with each breath, the moment in which one finds one’s self. Therapeutic energy is generated by learning how to match and tune in and dwell with the patient in the same emotional frequency. It is a quality of receptiveness that involves surrendering to a force larger than one’s self.
Through attention to breath, tone quality, chanting, singing over a drone, and sometimes using soft pulsing rhythmic accompaniment, one may facilitate what in the Buddhist tradition is the basic technique for relaxation and healing: resting in the nature of mind. This state is one of clarity, radiance and emptiness. The primary intention of musical exchange is to facilitate relaxation.
Dimensions of the experience of Being rather than Doing
Listening rather than assuming
Compassion rather than judgment
Respect rather than invasion
Inviting rather than imposing
Acceptance rather than intruding
Building confidence rather than uncertainty
Accessing inner wisdom rather than confusion
Slowing down rather than speeding up
Letting go rather than worrying
Transporting a confined mind state into expanded consciousness
Transmitting positive energy through humility
Transforming conditional time into timelessness
Smoothing the sense of loss into the truth of impermanence
Cultivating devotion by trusting the experience and the process
Being aware of our own agitation and relax it
Assessment
Assessment of the patient involves gathering information related to his or her medical status, mood, coping ability, prior musical experience, especially with regard to singing and chanting; cultural and social background, spiritual orientation, and religious affiliation. It is important to discover how the patient led his or her life to acquire a better understanding of how he or she wants to die. This can be gathered through reading their medical records, and talking to the clinical doctor and family members while being in the patient’s home or clinic, as well as talking to the patient him/herself. It is not necessary to share the same spiritual orientation with the patient, as therapy is based on unconditional compassion that goes beyond spiritual and cultural factors.
Treatment
During the session itself one also aims for a higher appreciation of the function of breath, sound, touch, body language and culture. We relax our therapeutic expectations and continually reevaluate the impact of our sound and singing clinical interventions. The goal is to create a meaningful and positive relationship.
Through clinical assessment, we create a singular music and sound therapy approach that is appropriate for the patient’s needs; this is modified according to changes in the patient’s condition. It is important to remain open to the variety of ways that the therapist and patient may engage in the musical and sound experience, for example, actively (through actual co-performance), or passively (through listening).
Sound Therapy Natural Practices
Prayer
Listening to a familiar piece of music the brings immediate inner serenity
Breathing softly & Humming
Chanting a long tone accompanied or not by a drone
Chanting a repetitive melody, or a mantra
Composing music together
Drumming
Using Therapeutic Sound Instruments, as tuning forks, sound tables, and bells
Reading poetry
Creating visualizations with background music
Meditating in silence, or accompanied by background music
Simple Yoga exercises
Sand-tray & Art design
Offering objects to create a simple shrine
Walking in Nature
Sharing Stories
Sharing Medicine Melodies
Sounding and gentle Movement
Architectural Approach of Musical Form and Structure
Form; shape, contour, the variation of some attribute of a thing in time and space.
Structure; the disposition of the parts of the thing, relations of one part to another, and to the whole. In music, form is the result of changes in time of some treatment of sound, while structure has to be with various relations between sound and sound configurations and parameters. Form and structure imply two hierarchical level of organization and perception: a whole and its relation with the parts.
As sound therapists, it is essential to consider how best to structure the music offered to clients and patients. One may question: What are the musical and non-musical elements that contribute to music’s emotional impact? How is effective music structured? How do musical parameters such as density of notes, pace, volume, and timbre, relate to the various uses of music throughout the treatment process?
In the domain of healing with music we benefit when we embrace, combine and integrate sonorities from non-Western musical traditions and ancient systems of music, including modes and Indian scales and ragas, as well as Middle Eastern, Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese pentatonic melodies.
In the Western tradition, the main components of music are considered to be melody, harmony and rhythm. In the music of India, however, harmony is not part of the musical structure, rather is conceived of as the relation between the performer and the music. Thus, great importance is placed on melody and rhythm, with rasa or “mood” as an essential element of musical structure. Understanding the ancient concept of rasa may shed new light on the therapeutic significance of musical structure. Mindful attention to mood in the music that is offered can evoke powerful emotional reactions, including the release of repressed pain and fear, and subsequently move these in the direction of inner serenity, gratefulness and joy. The voice as a fabric of breath, tone and expression has the capacity to convey and release emotions like no other instrument.
In exploring how the music that seems to resonate best is constructed, the significance of the conscious use of melody, rhythm, harmony and mood cannot be underestimated. The conscious examination, and some times intuitive sense of the movement, and the delicate balance of all the different variables at play will determine whether or not the music and the therapist can meet the complex needs of the client/patient. The music becomes a mediator to match the state of being of the patient, and the sense of entrainment (brain/intellect) and resonance (feelings/energy) with the state of the client/patient is the sign that we are together in the therapeutic process.
Structural Elements & Practices
Sound/ Instrumentation ~Practice of spontaneous and open (any) sounds with any instrument
Tone/Duration ~Practice focusing on one sustained seed-sound ~ long sounds ~ humming
Drones ~ Listen to the drone and breath with it ~ match the drone ~ move slow up and down
Melody ~ modality and modulation. Practice: vocal meditation ~ play scales, learn the ragas
Harmony ~ chords progression ~ sonority and color ~ Practice: harmonic toning in groups
Rhythm ~ slow/medium/fast ~ Practice: conscious entrainment and pulse to rhythms
Mood/Rasa ~the expressive quality of all music and sound ~ Practice: song and feeling
Variables (to be conscious of…):
Quality of Touch or the Attack of any voice/instrument (first touch)
Timbre, Texture and Color of the voice/instrument
Harmonics & Overtones/ different notes at the same time
Volume/ when volume changes feeling changes and attention increases
Range and Register (high-middle-low frequencies)
Pulse/ sense of vibration (energy, intensity)
Duration and Pace/ Time as Space Ending/ Silence
Ornamentation, varieties of relations between the notes
Density, Dynamic Sonority, quantity of simultaneous or alternated voices
Space in between the notes and the elements (pauses y silence)
Clarity of the Intent
Style & Cultural Identity
Repetition
Development of the form: introduction, central theme, variations, back to theme, ending
Thematic idea, meaning and conceptual line
Sonorous Yogic exercises:
Preliminary practices that experiment with sound and consciousness – states of attention and auditory awareness – without attachment to any melody or fixed song.
Sonorous yogic exercises include:1) Humming – sounding with the lips closed like the sound of “Hummm;” 2) Toning – chanting one specific frequency with attention to the embouchure used and duration of the sound; 3) Droning – dwelling in one or no more than three different tones over a drone; 4) Meending – microtonal movement of tone up and down over a drone, pausing in between, known in the Western tradition as glissando for strings, and portamento for other instruments 5) Toning with Seed-Sounds – the use of long tones in chanting a meaningful seed syllable like RAM; 6) Toning over a Pulse – short and long tones accompanied with a soft and deep drum pulse; 7) Sonic Meditation – contemplative attention strategies that use sound to sharpen auditory awareness; and 8) Vocal Meditation – toning, droning, and microtonal movement over a chosen scale or raga (the focus is on the movement of tone within a scale, not on creating melody and songs).
The Drone
The French word for drone is bourdon or seam, meaning that which weaves together and holds together. The drone comprises a delicate combination of fundamental, partial and overtones. Acoustic drones are more effective than synthesized ones, as they provide more resonance. The key or tonic is quite important, and keys from A- flat to D seem to be suitable for both female and male voices. Drones have a paradoxical transporting and grounding quality that carries the voice, the music and the mind into synergy and wholeness. I treat the drone as a throne for the voice, as it is the most effective accompaniment for vocal improvisation. Arpeggio-like drones can be created with a harp, a dulcimer, a guitar or a piano; they can also be created by sustaining one or two notes on stringed instruments, like in an Indian tamboura, or accordions, harmoniums, and good quality portable keyboards. Acoustic pianos (using one or two sustained notes within the chosen tonality) are ideal but not always accessible in clinical settings.
Droning, the Practice of Singing with a Drone
We called this practice droning, it involves slow singing over a sustained pitch, slowly connecting micro-tonally with neighboring notes. Singing with a drone is an ancient practice that helps to precisely tune the voice as a musical instrument, while relaxing the mind. Droning can change one’s affect immediately by releasing tensions and helping the mind to focus on sound instead of fear or pain. Droning is an easy practice to share with the patient.
Melody Carries the Emotions
“When you listen, you exist” (Baschet).
Melody is defined as a tonal configuration with movement that unfolds in relation to time, in accordance with given cultural conventions and constraints. In early Western music, the treatment of melody was organized around modes, and it has always been a means to express meaning and feeling.
The term mode and modal music has been used to define classes of scales and melodies, Modes involve the internal relationship of notes within a scale and the predominance of one of them over the others as a tonic or resting point. Modes and modality are intrinsic to the structure of many musical cultures, such as the Chinese tyao, the Arabian and Turkish maqam, the ancient Greek, Gregorian and Medieval chant, and the Indian raga mentioned earlier.
For vocal improvisations constructed over a drone, the Greek modes, in particular, the Dorian, Mixolydian, Phrygian and Aeolian are recommended. These modes have a strong correspondence with ancient Indian ragas used specifically for healing. The practice of vocal meditation (slow tonal and microtonal ascending and descending melodic patterns) is a good way to become familiar with the flavor of each of these modes. Melodies constructed with simplicity and minimalism, and involving a great deal of repetition most effectively convey the “rasa,” the emotional taste of the music. It is helpful as one begins to create chant-like songs with these modes, and to recognize the modes used in familiar songs and to vocalize with these as well. The chants that are in pentatonic scales have strong healing qualities in both major and minor keys. Nearly 70 percent of the sacred and ancient healing chants, mourning songs and prayers from many parts of the world are constructed in minor modes and pentatonic scales. (For more information refer to “Music and the Power of Sound”, A. Danielou, chapters 2-5)
A sound therapist must rely on his or her/his “listening” experience and clinical intuition, selecting the modality that is appropriate for each situation and setting, and this influences the patient’s emotional and consciousness states. I refer to this treatment of melody as spiritual melodicism - the mindful use of melody in perfect synergy with ethereal harmonies and textural rhythms. The melody leads the emotion and becomes a metaphor to evoke meaning, aid memory, hold, embrace, and comfort, improving the ability to cope with stress and fear, beyond personal issues. We are tapping on the universal and spiritual power of music, beyond personality and the individual’s emotions.
Chanting as Meditation;
A Contemplative Vocal Practice to Promote and Support Healing
The following are general guidelines for sound therapists interested in the practice of vocal meditation leading to chanting. Before starting, find a comfortable space where you can commit to being without distractions for at least 21 minutes, which is the actual time needed to concentrate the mind on a specific activity, and to attain a good balance between the activity of the left and right brain hemispheres.
Keeping in mind:
Seat in a comfortable position
Sensing your mood and state of being
Beginning in a relaxed state
Focusing the attention on breath
Breathing peacefully
Sounding freely
Choosing one tone
Dwelling peacefully in one tone as a home
Moving slowly approaching up and down neighboring notes
Chanting each note as a mantra
Bending the pitch sensibly
Always returning to the root drone
Tuning and listening to the drone as much as possible
Flowing softly within the intervals
Finding resonating timbres
Deeply listening to pace, pause, texture, and silence
Aligning melodic imagination with a particular mode or scale
Exploring simple movements of melody (variations)
Finding simple and smoothing medicine melodies
Repeating the melodic patterns as often as possible
Empowering melodies with simple words of wisdom and beauty
Remembering lullabies, indigenous prayers, and mantras
Chanting old and new melodies from the heart
Deeply listening to pace, pause, texture, and breath
Deeply breathing
Dwelling in Silence
Harmony
While melody is horizontal, harmony is the vertical relation among pitches.
Music, when assisting healing, doesn’t always need to “go somewhere” harmonically.
Through simple and slow cadences and ethereal sonorities, we offer music that features resonant harmonic progressions, with a transporting timeless quality in their motion. These harmonies may convey changelessness and a calm passage of time. When using pre-recorded music, musically sophisticated patients might request pre-composed classical music, and that is to be expected. In the Western tradition, the music of Mahler may be especially suitable if patients feel comfortable with creative tension and intensity. The cello suites by J. S. Bach and the music of Arvo Part are also very suitable, as well as the choral early music of Hildegard von Bingen and Montserrat Figueras and her ensemble Hesperion XX.
Singing in harmony slow and sustained long tones with our clients can have a very powerful affective quality, and as it develops can be combined with meaningful lyrics, and rounds to convey memories and clear emotional tension. Original music made in collaboration with the client has always more effect than familiar songs.
Rhythm
Rhythm is an essential element of the harmonic and melodic treatment of a composition; these elements move as a whole, and it is not an easy task to isolate them within the structure of a piece. The use of repetitive slow rhythms creates a cyclic quality, helping to generate a sense of hovering time, aiming for a synergy of motion, pace, and tempo. We implement music that has the power to suspend one’s ordinary sense of time’s passage towards a consciousness of the eternal moment. I highly recommend the music of the Turkish music therapist Oruc Guvenc that rhythmically is based on the movement of breath and the motion of the elements that are part of our body.
Repertoire Development
The sound practitioner repertoire is best when conveys a conscious architectural musical construction, including attention to all the variables exposed in this chapter. The confidence of having and memorizing a solid and mature repertoire of all kinds of sounds, chants and music, gives the practitioners a sense of self-reliance and skill that protects and nurtures his/her therapeutic ability. We recommend gathering a 60min minimum cross-cultural repertoire (musical selection of sounds, chants, and strategies for improvisation), cultivating familiarity with it, and sing and play the songs in tune.
The repertoire’s list that the practitioner gathers and becomes familiar with may addresses different categories such as: artistic-performance, wellness clients (body-mind fitness work), temporarily ill, elderly, children’s music, educational, chronically ill, critically ill, post-traumatic, dying, ambient, soul retrieval, ritual and shamanic healing, community building, education, providing it is culturally diverse, continuously updated, and represents various musical styles.
(Adapted from Joshua Leeds The Power of SoundJ
Think of music and sound as self-help for the nervous system.
Compile your own lists based on personal preference and the intention of the application –
For example:
Music & Babies
Music to care for Teenagers
Music to care for Seniors
Music and Early Education
Music to induce Focus, Concentration, and Learning
Music in Wellness, Fitness and Athletics
Music & Bodywork
Music in a Therapeutic Circle
Music to start Improvisations
Music &Yoga practice
Music & Mourning
Music in the Workplace
Music in the Home
Music in the Hospital
Music in Hospice
Music in the Community
Music in the Ceremony
Music in the Sacred Space
The Role of the Music
We use music in the following ways:
To accompany and offer comfort
To transform feelings and energy states
To facilitate emotional expression
To decrease feelings of isolation and fear
To journey through states of emotion and consciousness
To create a safe environment
To evoke memories
To generate intimacy, compassion and friendliness
To share the moment and spend quality time together
To unveil joy
To stabilize physiological functions
To inspire and enhance the creative process
To build community
To direct the mind away from physical pain and depression
To promote relaxation and contemplative mind states
To aid pain management
To induce sleep
To experience richness of spirit and core spirituality
To create an intimate auditory shrine or sanctuary
For remembrance of God and the Divine
(The student is encouraged to continuously update this list with their own experience of using music as a therapeutic aid.)
Assignments to Build a Practice
The private house temple and the Portable Temple.
• We recommends having a place at home, which is always ready for singing and connecting with sound as healing energy
• Review regularly the repertoire of chants, sacred syllables, and mantras you have learned
• Become familiar with your own (protective & purifying) mantra
Practice mantra singing till the mantra gets your energy going, and grooves in your mind
Be aware of your sound, your tone, your voice, your breath, and discover the voices of your voice.
• Select to memorize/learn/combine consciously:
A Mantra
A People’s Chant
A Sacred Word
Seed Syllables
A Prayer
An Invocation
Medicine Melodies
A Vocal Meditation
A Scale
A Raga
All the practices benefit from the understanding and experience that we are working with our energy. We are transforming energy through sound by following these aspects of the movement of sound, breath and energy (prana: life force) they are conceived as one experience that embraces sound and consciousness by means of the voice.
The Movement of Sound in Consciousness:
dwelling – the practice of being and abiding in sound, non change
vibrating – non interruption
moving – non stopping, moving through the whole chackra-body-mind-spirit system
transforming – energy through sounds, colors, emotions, and consciousness states
liberating – flow free of energy, through the experience of the Self that is non-confined
• The Practice of the continuous, Unbroken Sound
SA, A , NA , RI , NUM , OUM
OUM : A + A+ O+ AU+ NG + M
We vocalize these sounds clearly in one long and relax exhalation with continuous awareness in the dimension of sound, as the shape of the lips-opening shifts slightly and slowly with the different syllables. Reserve air for the final consonant “m” to resonate deeply in the body. Repeat as many times as possible for 7 to 21min.
The ideal time for this practice is before dawn.
The unbroken quality of sounding in the Akanda Swara practice has the benefit of stabilizing the mind. Within that sense of continuous awakening through sacred sound, we don’t deny, we don’t accept or reject, all experience feels completed and spacious as the nature of mind, at the same time we become more sensitive to whatever arises, and we become familiar with divine energy and auspicious thoughts.
• RESONATING with each SEED SYLLABLE
Example; we select the syllable RAM
We feel through the body where this sound resonates the most, keeping the right balance between the intonation of the vowel (RA), which connects with the female and receptive aspect of the seed syllable, and the consonant (Mmmm), which connects to the male, penetrating, and active aspect of the transformation through sound.
Practice that explore the relation of sound and awareness through
Adding a Sacred Word before or after the seed sound,
OM NAMA, JAY, HARI, Sri, AOM in the beginning of the seed-sound
NAMA NAMAHA at the end of the seed-sound
Examples:
Om Nama Ram
Sri-Ram
Jay Ram, Jay Ma
Ram, Ram, Ram, Nama Namaha
Jaya Ma
~ Practice including the INTENTION
Connecting the seed syllable with a purpose
Example: for enhancing compassion, healing, devotion, strength, inner confidence, inner serenity, loving kindness.
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