LIFE IS GUIDED BY SOUND, RHYTHM, AND MUSIC
There are a number of researchers currently working with sound looking to affect a change in the physical body and/or the etheric field. There are many sound healing concepts such as: using "missing" frequencies in the person’s voice; using the voice in a harmonic toning way; human energy center (chakra) correlation, and the use of brain/body synchronization frequencies - to name a few. Harmonic Resonance is a way to restore balance, harmony and vitality by offering music and sounds that resonate with you in such a way as to present a musical model of you in your optimal, vibrational, and resonant state.

As our society becomes more information oriented, we are looking for more validation of these phenomenon. What I hope to give you are the tools for you to formulate your own set of guidelines about how to use music in a positive way and, to use sound and music in a way that can restore balance and harmony into all aspects of your life. This ultimately can result in improved health, vitality, emotional stability, and a heightened state of consciousness and awareness. This is an opportunity to truly be "in the present." This comes through clearing the "emotional baggage," the old wounds (fear, guilt, self-doubt, anger, shame, rage, obsessions and so on) that many of us seem to carry around from time to time. Sometimes it becomes such a deep part of our personalities that it runs us rather than "us" being totally free to be who we truly are.

WHAT SOUND IS, HOW SOUND WORKS
A sound wave basically causes changes in air pressure as it moves through the air. Our ears respond to this information and our brains process it into sound information. Stand in front of a good speaker playing low bass or hold your hand under a large drum being played and you'll feel the air currents moving. We also receive sound information from our whole bodies. Our skin is very tactile and responds to sound waves quite readily.

I refer to sound and music separately. I think of sound as being just that - a sound. It may or may not have a pitch (specific frequency) or a pure waveform or a temporal (rhythmic) pattern but if it's audible or perceptible we call it a sound. Music is a combining of elements that typically incorporates these sounds into a lyrical blend of pitch, melody and rhythm and progresses/modulates from one chord to another in an emotional fashion. Combinations of pitches/chords/intervals that are perceived as being harmonious and pleasant are described as being consonant. Harsh combinations are called dissonant.

 At this point I would like to say that it is often very important and appropriate to use dissonance of varying degrees in healing music. If you are stuck, sometimes you need a bit of a push to move on, and if the musical environment is kept too sweet and cheery then you don't have much incentive to journey forward. Generally, major keys are perceived as being light and uplifting. Minor keys are felt as being more serious, reverent, and mysterious

HARMONIC RESONANCE - Sympathetic Vibration
I began piano study at the age of five. One of the first things I noticed was that certain notes on the piano would make certain objects in the room buzz consistently. One note made the tea cups on the shelf buzz, another would make the picture frame over the sofa buzz, another made the storm windows rattle. This was my first exposure to resonance; technically called sympathetic vibration (I call it Harmonic Resonance). Gently depressing and holding the middle C key on the piano without making the hammer hit the string (thus making the string vibrate) and then sharply hitting the C below middle C would make the middle C string vibrate.

I later saw some pictures that were in a book called Cymatics by Dr. Hans Jeny. Basically Dr. Jeny took a speaker or transducer and attached it to either a membrane or thin plate of steel and covered this with a variety of substances such as iron filings, silica powder, milk, and water. Smoke filled chambers were also used. He then played a specific frequency into the speaker or transducer and photographed the results. The particles formed incredible patterns with remarkable similarities to naturally occurring patterns. They ranged from moonscape-like images to mandalas (complex symbols used in Buddhist meditation) to stalagmite looking forms. As the frequency was changed, the forms and patterns changed. I feel that the human body must respond this way as well. We are about 90% water (fluid), our bones are great conductors of vibration and we have a variety of densities provided by tissue mass, fat, muscle, organs and bones (skeletal system). Given how profoundly sound affects these material substances, it is easy to understand how our body and spirit takes on the patterns of music.

I feel that the use of low bass in music is extremely important. Bass acts as a carrier wave for the higher frequencies and creates a pathway for the healing, life force energy to enter. If you view an oscilloscope showing a low bass note alone, it will be a long S on its side. Playing a high frequency tone alone will give a close together a wave pattern. Play the high and low tones simultaneously and you will see the high frequency tone actually tracks/piggybacks along the bass note. This is basically how the military transmits radio frequency waves to submarines under the polar ice cap. They set up an ELF (extremely low frequency) carrier wave and broadcast the radio frequencies simultaneously. The ELF's strength penetrates the ice easily and carries the radio frequency waves along with it.

If you wish to further explore ELF then I suggest reading about Nikola Tesla. He was a brilliant inventor that shortly after the turn of this century gave us particle beam physics, neon lights, and DC electricity - he thought Edison to be a tinkerer. Tesla was a true master of "harmonic resonance." He could bring down a tall building with a hand held jigger (a mechanical device that produces a reciprocating motion) set to the building’s resonant frequency and located in the basement on a structural beam. Our "earthquake-proof" buildings of today are designed with unequal distances between floors. This disrupts the resonant frequency of the building.

This is the same principle as the singer breaking the glass with her voice. You find the resonant frequency of the glass and sing that pitch at high volume (amplitude) and the glass breaks. There is too much energy/molecular activity. This is also how the medical community is treating a great number of cases of kidney stones. Ultrasound is used to break up the stone so it can be passed out of the body without surgery.

Tesla had a concept to prevent earthquakes. His idea was to put Tele-Geo-Dynamic machines (giant jiggers) along the fault lines and this would keep them in a state of flexure thus preventing the buildup of tectonic plate stress that eventually "lets go" and causes breaks in the faults which causes earthquakes.

In Los Alamos, NM, at a national laboratory known for its atomic energy research activity, they are exploring the function of the brain with a technique called tone mapping. According to their studies, specific bundles of neurons in the cerebral cortex of the brain are activated by specific frequencies. This is observed and measured by Neuro-Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging, similar to a CAT scan.

Here's a fun experiment I often do in workshops, which illustrates the vibrational "pull" of sound. You face a partner, put your ears together (one person's left ear to the other's right ear). Use your hands to cover the other ears. Give the "A" person a tone to hum and the "B" person a different (dissonant interval) tone to hum. It is almost impossible for most people - even trained singers - to maintain this dissonant sound for long. In a matter of 1-2 minutes most every "A" & "B" were humming each other's tones and within 3-5 minutes everyone in the room begins humming the same tone. It is in our nature to be in harmony with our environment. We may challenge it for a while but in the end a resolution occurs. If not, then what happens? You guessed it - "DIS-EASE." It is quite unavoidable. Our body/beings want to be in harmony with their environments and most importantly with each other. The unification of Body, Mind, Spirit and Emotions is essential.

SYNPHONICS
Shortly after I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1981, I met Dr. Govindha McRostie, OMD, ND, LAc. Govindha and I became friends quickly and early on began our ongoing series of wonderful philosophical conversations. While pondering the nature of the universe and the essence of life, we came to the conclusion that everything is vibrational in nature. In matter, there is an atomic structure with a nucleus with electrons and protons circling in a specific, "harmonic-resonant" pattern. Thinking of disease I reasoned that disease is "dis-ease," "dis-harmony," "dis-stress," "dis-torsion," "dis-sonance," "dis-illusion," "dis-connection" (fragmentation of the psyche). They are synonymous for the same thing - not being whole, connected and integrated.

Dr. McRostie was scheduled for a series of root canal procedures in two teeth. He was so sensitive to the analgesic drugs typically used to manage the pain that he was duly concerned. I said I’d make him a tape of sounds and music that would numb his tooth and displace the pain. Using a practice known as "muscle reflex testing" or kinesiology we found the frequencies of the affected teeth and then found the frequencies of certain acupuncture points that provided an outlet for the pain. It worked and we were on to something. To this day Govindha has not heard this piece of music in its entirety. He goes "out" in a matter of minutes.

In 1982, Dr. McRostie and I developed a process we call "Synphonics". Using kinesiology, acupuncture pulses, and other testing methods, Dr. McRostie does an assessment of everything from metabolic function to emotional involvement. We then find the specific frequency (pitch) and waveform (instrument) that when played, will restore balance to the area affected. Muscles which tested very weak before the Synphonics treatment (a little finger can sometimes push down the entire arm or leg) often show remarkable changes in strength and muscle reflex response. This tells you that the sound is doing something very profound. The specific sounds address the specific areas but the combination of the sounds into "music" is what gets the emotions involved. Without emotional and soul level healing there cannot be a complete physical body healing.

One client was an insulin dependant diabetic. She brought her blood glucose testing device over. After fasting that day, she had a blood glucose level of 192. She took no insulin that day, and drank a 12-ounce glass of sweet, carrot juice just prior to the session. After the session her blood glucose level was measured at 120. (The "normal" zone is between 60 and 160). According to her past experiences, without insulin her glucose level would usually have gone into the 300 range.

Experiments done by Dr. McRostie and myself showed that we respond to sounds that we cannot hear. We put the selected sounds exclusively into a pair of headphones and put them on our client’s ankles. They responded to the sound even though their ears could not "hear" the sound. Once you vibrate a part of the body the blood cells carry this resonance to the whole body very quickly. Research done with deaf children also showed that the children could identify different sounds and instruments by lying on a giant membrane and having the sounds played through it.