Through music to the self - how to appreciate and experience music anew

238 Pages·1978·1.941 MB·English

by  Hamel, Peter Michael

What is music?
What does it do to us?
What does it reveal to us?
Today, due to our ability to record
and reproduce sound mechanically, we
hear a great deal of music. Are we los-
ing the art of listening to it? Do we
really benefit from it?
Peter Hamel, born in 1947, studied
music, psychology and sociology in
Munich and Berlin, after which he
spent three extensive periods in Asia
studying Eastern traditions of music.
Now a practising composer and
musician, he has become convinced
that through encounter with the
ancient and unspoilt non-European
disciplines it is possible to re-discover
the natural laws and the magical
powers of sound. In this practically-
based book, he discusses the effects on
the human psyche of Indian, Tibetan,
Arabian and other Far Eastern tech-
niques of vocal and instrumental im-
provisation, especially in the religious
context.
Relating the esoteric sound lore of
these traditions with the rational
Western tradition and its modern re-
search into harmonics, the conformity
of the harmonic series to natural law is
seen as pertaining on the one hand to
the level of mystical experience and on
the other to scientifically demon-
strable psychological effects.
We therefore have the ability of
chant, rhythm and melodic patterns to
invoke the deeper levels of experience
which transcend our subjective self-
concern; at the same time these effects
need not be arbitrary and accidental.
(continued on back flap)

THROUGH MUSIC TO THE SELF
Peter Michael Hamel
THROUGH MUSIC
TO THE SELF
How to appreciate and experience music anew
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
PETER LEMESURIER
COMPTON PRESS
An Element Book
First published in 1976 by Scherz Verlag,
Berne, Munich & Vienna
English translation © Peter Lemesurier 1978
First printed and published in Great Britain by
The Compton Press Ltd
The Old Brewery, Tisbury, Wiltshire
Designed by Humphrey Stone
Cover design by Robert Tilleard
All rights of reproduction reserved, including
radio, television, sound reproduction of any
kind and reprinting of extracts
isbn 0 900193 53 0
To My Parents
Contents
INTRODUCTION 1
1 OLD AND NEW PATHS IN WESTERN MUSIC 5
On Contemporary Musical Awareness
5
Approaches to Composition 11
European Musical Culture – American Composers –
Bartók and Orff – Music as a Mirror of Angst – Messiaen
and Stockhausen
Group-Improvisation and Intuitive Music Making 26
Experimental Music – Improvisation Models
Psychedelic Music
34
The Drug Fraud
2 ENCOUNTER WITH NON-EUROPEAN MUSIC 43
Indian Classical Music 46
Raga – Rasa – Tala – Indian Musical Studies –
A Singing Sadhu on the Ganges
Tibetan Ritual Music
70
The Instruments – Chanting
Music of Magical Consciousness
76
The Drum of the Shamans – The Significance of the Drum
– Ecstatic Chant in Persia and Mongolia – The Instruments
of the Islamic Calling – Indonesian Gamelan Music –
Music in China and Japan – Rhythmic Aspects
viii Through Music to the Self
3 THE ESOTERIC WORLD OF SOUND AND RESEARCH
INTO HARMONICS 92
On the Knowledge of the Ancients
92
Experiments with the Monochord
The Harmonic Series 100
The Formants – Electronic Sound-production –
Harmonics and Science
The Meaning of Mantra 109
Syllables and Words
The Human Organism and its Acoustic Laws 120
Analogies between Man and the World of Sounds
Tone-Colour as the Vehicle of the Spiritual 127
4 MUSIC BETWEEN THE WORLDS 131
Musical Meditation in the West
131
Spiritual Jazz – The Meditative Wave – Meditation
and Electronics
‘Periodic Music’ and ‘Minimal Music’
142
Terry Riley – American ‘minimal music’
Concentric and Integral Music (Author’s Compositions)
154
Dharana – Dhyana – Samma Samadhi – Ananda – Hari
Om Tat Sat – Continuous Creation – Diaphainon –
Maitreya
5 SOCIAL PRACTICE AND EXERCISE METHODS 165
The Healing Effect of Music
165
Music versus Drug Addiction – Music for Relaxation
Contents ix
The Power of Breath and Voice
175
Exercises in Breathing – Sounded Breathing:
Vowel-Improvisation
Finding Your Own Note 186
Mandra-Sadhana – Nada-Yoga – The Technique of
Nada-Yoga according to Swami Satyananda
Experimental Theatre and Collective Self-Experience 194
Collective Self-Experience – Individual exercises for all
to practise together – Exercises with partner – The
whole group in a circle – Group-exercises
PROSPECT 207
APPENDICES 209
Texts 209
The Spring and Autumn of Lü Bu Ve –
Hazrat Inayat Khan: On Music
Musical Examples and Illustrations 216
BIBLIOGRAPHY 223
SELECTION OF RECORDED MUSIC 227