Effect of the Musician on the Audience

Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit.  – Beethoven “We surrender to music when we listen to it – we allow ourselves to trust the composer and musician with a part of our hearts and our spirits. We let the music take us somewhere outside ourselves. The power of music is that it can connect us to one another, and to larger truths about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human. That is how we are moved by music, ”  writes Daniel J. Levitin in

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Your Brain On Music

“Music gives such pleasure that human nature cannot live without it, ” said Confucius. Music is essential says Victor Hugo because “ it expresses what cannot be put into words and what cannot remain silent.” The acclaimed neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist and musician  Daniel Levitin  explores the mystery of music and how music affects our brains, thoughts and our spirit.  He says : The moods that music creates are part of its mystery. What most of us turn to music for is an emotional experience. Because music has the power to induce a certain emotion that will bring back a certain

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Feeling of the Eternal

The friendship between Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland at the turn of the 20th century, and how it sparked the interior voyage and the spiritual realization of Rolland The French Nobel laureate writer Romain Rolland (1866-1944), foresaw the power of Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) analytical assessments at the turn of the century in 1909, long before Europe recognized his seminal work on the human psyche. He regarded Freud as “a fellow pilgrim on this black continent, courageous and genius navigator. ” Intrigued by his work, Rolland visited Freud and his daughter Anna Freud (1895-1982) in their apartment in Vienna in 1924.

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The Art of Ostad Elahi

A master musician, an influential thinker and jurist, Ostad Elahi ( 11 September 1895 – 19 October 1974) said : “Music has countless properties, most of which have yet to be discovered.”   Born in a small remote village in Iran, he grew up in a spiritual milieu where mystical traditions reigned everyday life. He was devoted to music very early on in his quest for meaning, self-knowledge, and transcendence. By the age of nine he was recognized as “ a peerless master of the tanbur ”,  yet he only played it for himself. Occasionally, his relatives and visitors would

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Music of the Planets

  There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres. Pythagoras (circa 570 BC), the wise philosopher and polymath put forth that the universe as a whole was composed of harmony and numbers. The planets and stars move according to mathematical equations, their movements correspond to musical notes and that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum based on their orbital revolving. Their orbital resonance generates an inaudible symphony which he called Musica Universalis —music of the universe.   The seventeenth century astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), inspired and intrigued

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Pythagoras and the Music of the Solar System

There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres. Pythagoras (circa 570 BC), the sage philosopher and polymath was born on the Greek island of Samos. Renown by his fundamental theory of mathematics and his studies on the pre-existing link between music and mathematics, he demystified the music of the planets of our solar system which he defined as musica universalis – the music of the spheres. Attesting to the fact that the planets and stars move according to mathematical equations, their movement correspond to musical notes and each emit their

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Echoes in the Heart

Lyrics: Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves The echo of a distant tide Comes willowing across the sand And everything is green and submarine And no one showed us to the land And no one knows the whereas or whys But something stirs and something tries And starts to climb towards the light Strangers passing in the street By chance two separate glances meet And I am you and what I see is me And do I take you by the hand And lead you through the

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Your Brain on Improvisation

Dr. Charles Limb, a surgeon, neuroscientist, hearing specialist and musician sets forth, “ music is the most complicated sound the brain can process. ” Improvisation flows in spontaneous creative modes. The musician prepares to execute unplanned ideas in a spontaneous context as if they are projected fast forward on a screen somewhere out there and the musician simultaneously processes them in a feed-forward fashion and brings them to play up on his instrument. A true miracle of inspiration !    

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