Category: Mythology

The Healing Powers of Sound

Posted on by Frances Livings

 

“A heartbeat. This most fundamental of sounds carries great meaning and deep-seated emotion. From it comes the most basic sign of life. Through its rhythm, sound assumes a foundational role in our development.” – Lloyd Minor, MD

I recently had a very rich and soothing experience – a sound bath! Rather, a sound bath massage! Have you ever had one? I was lucky and a dear friend gave me my second hour-long session yesterday! It was heaven! The first time, a few weeks ago, I was still in awe by the sounds, created by the vibrations of the bowls – whether it’s a deep gong-like tone or lightly ringing, bell-like sounds with all of their overtones. It varies according to the size and thickness of the bronze vessels – after all, they are called Tibetan “singing bowls”. This experience made me think about the healing powers of sound.

 

The Principle of Faraday Waves

Having a sound bath is deeply soothing, in parts but also – like the heart bowl – softly invigorating! Yesterday, during my second session, I was able to focus more on the actual vibrations the bowls make when placed on my body and struck with a mallet. This is due to the principle of Faraday waves, named after Michael Faraday (1791–1867). He first described them in an appendix to an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1831.

An article in the online magazine by Stanford Medicine offers a very easy-to-understand definition:

“Faraday waves, which result from a physical perturbation at the interface of liquid and air – if you’ve ever flown in a turbulent plane with a beverage; you’ve witnessed Faraday waves in your plastic cup! The waves cause ripples in the liquid, and anything floating in the liquid sloshes around too.”

That’s exactly what you see when a sound bath bowl is filled with water and struck with a felt mallet. And those are the waves that basically penetrate the soft tissues of the body. After all, we are made up of 70% water…

So if you get the chance, go!

 

Acoustically Choreographed Heart Cells?

Research has even shown, how heart cells can be choreographed acoustically, as described in the following:

Heart cells are among the most densely packed in the body — about 100 million fit into a space the size of a sugar cube. The compact structure crams the cells so close together that they can communicate with one another and beat as one lump. For tissue engineers, however, it poses a tricky hurdle: Pack the cells too tightly and some won’t get proper nutrients; too loosely and they can’t coordinate a beat.

Have a look at this amazing video below. Latest experiments have revealed that acoustics can create a form of new tissue that resembles natural cardiac tissue to replace parts of damaged hearts (even broken ones…?) Acoustics can be used in reconstructing other organ tissue and blood vessels.

And here’s another lovely, spiritual playlist on Spotify, which features my song Aganjú. 7 Wonders: Vision was compiled by Deva Munay, founder of Sacred Sound & Wonder. She also helps people who are struggling with anxiety, depression, overwhelm, or stress to find relief through the healing power of sound.

Aganjú’s Portuguese lyrics are really hard to translate. But the essence of the song and the name “Aganjú” is that of the African deity of volcanoes and deserts, who spreads magic and protection from Brazil… [read more about the song in my blog here]

Pablo-Picasso-Girl-Before-A Mirror-1932-Aganju

Aganjú ~ Music and Spirituality

Posted on by Frances Livings

 

Pablo-Picasso-Girl-Before-A Mirror-1932-Aganju
Pablo Picasso, Girl Before A Mirror, 1932

Aganjú was the last song I worked on yesterday in the studio for my new album Ipanema Lounge. I had actually gone through a bit a of a crisis with it and I think this was our third studio session working on the song.

The rhythm section, Sandro Feliciano (percussion) and Isaias Elpes (electric bass), both from Brazil, had created some amazing grooves and my vocal track was in a complementary, nicely contrasting sultry style. I was aiming for a similar style like on In The Still of the Night, a groovy nujazz version of the Cole Porter classic, which features my voice.

But I still thought Aganjú was – how can I say – ummm, boring. And that we didn’t “own” the song.

 

I was actually close to taking Aganjú song off the record…

I had first heard the song Aganjú on Bebel Gilberto’s album Tanto Tempo. It was written by the Brazilian musician, songwriter and record producer Carlinhos Brown, whose musical style blends tropicália, reggae, and traditional Brazilian percussion. Later, especially the Latin remix by Thievery Corporation, caught my attention. It expresses my love of a Brazilian and European Nu jazz style that never quite took a foothold in America the way it did in Europe. It was a movement derived from drum & bass that started in the early 1990’s.

Always seeking new material and ideas, I thought Aganjú would be a nice tune to play live, which we still do. Even with a very sparse instrumentation as a trio; with voice, bass and guitar, it works very well as a groovy, atmospheric lounge style song.

When it comes to recording a song that has already been recorded before, you have to make it your own. I absolutely did not want it to sound like a cover version. Or, like Billie Holiday said,

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

I had already contemplated horn arrangements but thought it would be too costly and time-consuming. But then I thought of simply asking one of my favourite saxophone and flute players to add some movement and interest with some horn tracks in a very last recording session. I booked a three-hour session, which was supposed to give us enough time for recording horns, an additional vocal track, some last mixes, and mastering. I admit I did wonder whether it was a bit daunting with so little time…

 

Veteran Jazz Musicians

Robert Kyle, a multi-instrumentalist and composer, who also just released a new album himself, came in to the studio. I was thrilled with my co-producer’s idea of creating some friction and dissonances, which was ultimately the direction in which I had planned on going with the vocals. Robert played and improvised multiple amazing tracks on tenor and soprano saxophone and some beautiful and haunting parts on the alto flute that you will recognize in the intro of the song. I added another vocal track, the mix was done – et voilà! The track became a wonderful conversation between the vocals and the woodwinds over a very infectious Nu jazz groove.

Listen and download the track here:

This is exactly where not only excellent players, who can sight-read and improvise on the spot, but a production team like Greg and Nolan Shaheed are crucial for any record to sound as good as Ipanema Lounge simply does. Nolan, whose studio I have been recording in for years, is a veteran trumpet player. He has toured with greats like Stevie Wonder and recorded with many others. You can hear him on two songs of the album too. He played Flügelhorn on One Note Samba and on Sway you can hear his sassy trumpet ad-libs that add a flair very reminiscent of Cuban Mambo bands of the 1950’s.

 

Magical Connections

Suddenly, sitting there in the studio, while the end mix was being done, my thoughts started to drift. I think the fact that Nolan is also a world-class, medal-winning runner made me think of the current 2016 summer Olympics. They were being held in Rio de Janeiro – the very place the song Aganjú stems from. Athletes, like any performer, won’t survive if he or she is not dedicated to their craft by striving for continuous improvement and stamina. It occurred to me that this was occurring at the same time we were recording those last fragments. It all seemed magically connected and suddenly I realized, that’s exactly what the song is about.

The Portuguese lyrics are really hard to translate. But the essence of the song and the name “Aganjú” is that of the African deity of volcanoes and deserts. They are believed to spread magic and protection over Brazil, whose religious culture was originally brought to the country by the African slaves.

In an interview Bebel Gilberto, said about the phrase:

‘Aganjú’ ‘Aganjú’ is everywhere, in San Francisco, in New York. People get so hypnotized by this song, so maybe that is a good thing, they see the religion in my music.

Music has always had a place in the history and practice of all religions of the world through the meditative use of chant and hymns during liturgical celebrations. In his book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, the British neurologist Oliver Sacks underscores the power of music to console, nourish and even save us from despair. Both Aganjú’s lyrics and in its trance-like mood – which was ultimately, what I was looking to reinterpret – are expressed as devotion to the saints for protection, good health, and a better life.

aganju

I suddenly remembered another interesting link. The origins of the Olympic games in ancient Greece are deeply rooted in mythology and attributed to the gods. The athletes believed their training honoured these gods, and that victory was a sign of favour from a deity.

 

Musical Dedication & Inspiration

I finally felt it was all coming together but not only musically. I was suddenly so aware of the principle of dedication and inspiration. Of how deeply connected they are. That one doesn’t exist without the other.

While Olympians were performing at their highest skill level in Rio de Janeiro, after decades of practice, determination, and sacrifice, we as musicians were the same way. And during that very recording session, the god Aganjú seems to have blessed us with that magical spark – that can even, when the most virtuous musicians record or play together, sometimes be missing.

For Aganjú we were able to create that magical spark, the essence of spirituality – that very link that connects us, humans, to music and something larger, divinity.

 

DOWNLOAD your copy of Aganjú here

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Creative Influences ~ Poetry. The Sun at Midnight

Posted on by Frances Livings

 

I had first come across the sonnet The Sun at Midnight a few years ago. It was around the time of the first studio recording of my song Mr. Moon, a jazz tune, which is centered around the various characteristics of the moon with its magical and comforting but also seductive elements. I had been singing Mr. Moon a lot live but on one tranquil Sunday afternoon, I just became curious to read other poems on the moon, I started doing some research. That’s when I came across Joseph Mary Plunkett’s The Sun at Midnight. It’s a two-versed sonnet, which is known as a deep meditation on the love of God.

BLOOD Moon

The Irish poet, journalist, and author of Sun At Midnight, Joseph Mary Plunkett (1879-1916) was born in Dublin and educated at Catholic University School, Belvedere College, and Stonyhurst College. His study of the mystics, John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, and Francis de Sales was discernible in his poetry. However, as one of the signers of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, he was imprisoned by the English army and executed in 1916 at the age of only 28. His sonnet, I Saw the Sun at Midnight, Rising Red, which is the original title, was published in Plunkett’s first poetry volume The Circle and the Sword in 1911.  A year after his death Sun at Midnight was also included in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, by D. H. S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee, The Clarendon Press, Oxford 1917.

I actually felt inspired – by what I perceived as a very beautiful and mystical poem – to add my own verse. So I freely swapped out his last verse [1] with mine, changing the whole direction from God to a loved one. I was going through a very difficult separation at the time so I took the blood-red moon as a metaphor for deep but very intense, painful, and sometimes inexplicable feelings. Besides, love, whether towards a mortal being or a heavenly figure, like a God, will always stay a quite mystical phenomenon.

 

Sun at Midnight

by Joseph Mary Plunkett [1] and Frances Livings [2] 

I saw the sun at midnight, rising red,
Deep-hued yet glowing, heavy with the stain
Of blood-compassion, and I saw it gain
Swiftly in size and growing till It spread
Over the stars; the heavens bowed their head
As from its heart slow dripped a crimson rain,
Then a great tremor shook it, as of pain—
The night fell, moaning, as It hung there dead. [1]

Before the day could claim me
I had awoken from this dream
limbs heavy from humidity, languid from this scene
as pearls of sweat trickled like raindrops from my brow
the earth creaked and ached, again the heavens bowed
and from my heart slow dripped a crimson rain
A great tremor shook me – in agony, in pain—
from my sun at midnight bled the last drop of you.

(The night fell, moaning, and life claimed me back again)

 

The Mysterious Allure of the Moon

The mysterious allure of the moon goes back to the beginning of human history. And despite man- and womankind having now even set foot on it, it still has that effect. I personally find its transitions most wondrous. The moon can change so vastly in size and shape, growing from the slightest sliver of a crescent moon – with as little as 1% of its surface illuminated – to a full round globe. Take a look at this great website with an array of interesting information on the moon, created by The Royal Observatory, the home of Greenwich Mean Time!

Depending on the light, its colour and texture can also dramatically vary. A low-hanging, fat harvest moon will look welcoming and generous when in October – when it takes on a golden, orangey-yellow glow. In the winter, a small bluish-silvery moon can seem like a distant reminder of magical, outer-worldly spheres, unknown and intangible, so far away in the sky. No wonder, so many artists have not only written poems about this celestial body but also hundreds of jazz songs – whether Moon Over Bourbon Street by Sting, Sarah Vaughan’s Midnight Sun – or my piece Mr. Moon…

 

April’s Pink Moon Turning Into a Blood Moon

April’s full moon is traditionally known as the “Pink Moon” in northern Native American culture, named after a species of early wildflowers common to the area. I had written this post in April, after sitting out in the garden, letting the pictures of a wonderful weekend glide by, and simply enjoying the mild night. Quite mindlessly, I was gazing into the sky when I spotted the full moon – the pink moon.
I suddenly remembered that we were approaching a total lunar eclipse which made it even more special. Later I learned, that it was the first in more than three years to be visible and uninterrupted by sunrise. When a total lunar eclipse occurs, dispersed light from all the Earth’s sunrises and sunsets fall on the face of the moon at mid-eclipse. This is what gives it a reddish hue and has coined the name “blood moon”. So a few nights ago, the moon had yet again undergone a transformation when after midnight it turned into an amazing, coppery red blood moon.

The moon will glow red three more times in the next 18 months, scientists say. It’s part of a lunar eclipse “tetrad”; a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses that happen at about six-month intervals. The moon passes into the Earth’s shadow and will begin to appear bright orange or red because of the way sunlight bends through the Earth’s atmosphere. The sunset hue can last up to an hour.

After revisiting The Sun at Midnight, I was sure that if I found a moon calendar from the late 19th or early 20th century, Plunkett’s night of inspiration, his sighting of a blood moon could be pinpointed. I find that quite amazing and symbolic manifests that:

The cosmos – all elements of nature – will autonomously and relentlessly pursue their cycles. Whether in the past, present, or future – when we are all stardust.

This shows yet again, in a very beautiful and haunting way that on earth we are all just visitors. On the other hand, for thousands of years, men- and womenfolk have made these very same experiences. They have been in awe or threatened by nature’s moods and spectacles, gazed at the same moon, sun, and stars. This means we are all connected which makes the poem and that night indeed a very spiritual one.

_________________

[2] Plunkett’s last verse is: O Sun, O Christ, O bleeding Heart of flame! / Thou givest Thine agony as our life’s worth, / And makest it infinite, lest we have dearth / Of rights wherewith to call upon Thy Name; / Thou pawnest Heaven as a pledge for Earth / And for our glory sufferest all shame.

*

Listen to Jazzy Moon Songs in This Playlist:

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The Mystery of Unicorns

Posted on by Frances Livings

One of my latest findings on a day trip to the wildlife and holiday resort Catalina Island, California, was a long spiraling sea shell. It felt somehow magical when I weighed it in the palm of my hand. Its spiraling shape, the shimmering tones of cream, redbrown and white somehow reminded me of unicorn horns.

As a child I had been an avid reader of the Narnia Chronicles by the novelist C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963), in which unicorns were characterized as both beautiful and very noble and honorable creatures.

The unicorn is a powerful symbol of good in early pagan mythology. Almost all images of unicorns depict a white horse of slender build, with a single large, pointed and spiraling horn projecting from their forehead.

I asked myself how contemporary artists were exploring this topic, whether this magical creature is still associated with fairytales and the mystical landscapes of King Arthur in Britain and Cornwall…

 

Damien Hirst, The Dream, 2008.

Damien Hirst first shot to fame with his “shark tank”. But the image of the beloved mystical figure, the unicorn (he used a real white foal) in formaldehyde is somewhat sad.

Damien Hirst, The Dream, 2008

“The Dream” belonged to a highly publicized (and criticized) auction of 233 works by the contemporary artist Damien Hirst in 2008. Nearly 20,000 people visited Sotheby’s New Bond Street premises to see what looked like a polished retrospective. With the Sotheby auction called “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” the artist sidestepped the traditional gallery system to sell works directly through an auction house for the second time.

Ben Hopper, Unicorn Girl (from the series Naked Girls with Masks), 2010

Ben Hopper is an Israel-born London-based commercial and fine art photographer. His work includes scenery, movement, and mood. He primarily photographs conceptual fashion, portraits of dancers, circus artists, musicians, and risqué nudes. His latest series, Naked Girls with Masks, falls squarely into the last category. Naked Girls with Masks, the series from which this photograph stems, was previewed at the underground London group art exhibition ACT ART 8 in July 2010.

Camomile Hixon, Missing Unicorn, New York 2010