HOW TO BEST USE THESE RECORDINGS BY JIM OLIVER
When you listen to this music be aware of where the sounds resonate in the body. Be aware of how the "music" affects your emotions and moods. I think that we select the music we need on a subconscious level just as we select the clothes we wear with consideration given to their colors and textures. Music too is comprised of color (frequency) and textures (waveforms).

The resonance builds with each experience. Allow yourself a quiet place to listen to this music - no distractions (phone, TV, etc.). Turn your stereo up to a good, solid volume level that vibrates you thoroughly (don’t over do it and injure your ears and speakers). Adjust the bass so it is deep and full, set the treble so that the higher frequencies are clear and crisp. I prefer speakers to the "personal portable walk-type" headphone systems. Listen to each 30-minute piece without interruption. You can listen to only one side of the tape or the 1st half of the CD (track 1) if you don't have the time for both pieces. Each side is a complete journey. I suggest listening five days a week, one or more times per day and then having two days off for processing and integration. Allow yourself to stay grounded and resonate with the earth’s core as you discover your soul’s path.

This is music created to help you to discover and clear the blocks that are in the way. Breathe the music in. Sometimes there are passages that "dances." This creates movement along a sonic pathway for the energy to ultimately clear. Some passages have a slightly offset rhythm to help to loosen fixed patterns. Other passages are majestic and profound. This is your initiation to yourself - your coronation - your celebration of being alive. Allow your self to receive. There are choirs of voices that welcome you home.

The music weaves between major and minor keys - lofty to deep. There are sections of intertwined repeating patterns, which you could imagine to be like re-patterning DNA and restructuring areas of cellular disruption. The stereo image is very wide in places and narrower in others to give a variety of perspectives. I often slightly detune a synthesizer’s oscillators 5 - 20 cents to give a warm chorusing effect which also creates beat frequencies which help you to relax more quickly and completely. Some sections are very melodic and others are more open. This openness allows you space to make up your own "song" within this music. Please sing or hum along with the music if you wish. Get up and move and flow with the healing sounds. Give yourself permission to participate in life fully. One of the things I strive for is to create enough space for the listeners/participants to feel welcomed into my music. It becomes truly interactive. Acknowledge your emotions as you flow with the music. Sing, dance, laugh, cry . . . fill yourself with as sense of your self. I feel that our bodies generate the sounds they need but sometimes they get too run down to do it without help. This is like a musical jump-start.

People often ask me, "Does the music change on the tape? I have listened to this tape daily for weeks and it sounds different each time." My explanation for this is that I feel that our attention is often drawn to areas of resistance and as this resistance is lessened and eliminated through the healing process our focus then shifts to other areas of resistance that the music then works at releasing and so on.

SOME NOTES ON THE STRUCTURE OF JIM’S MUSIC
As previously mentioned there is a generous amount of low bass in Jim’s music.

A great deal of consideration went into the harmonic content of Jim’s music. Harmonics are basically the subdivisions of a string. If a string were 10' long, the first subdivision would be in half - the octave at 5'. These 5' halves then subdivide at 2-1/2' and so on. In the waveform department I use three basic groups:

Sine/triangle waves (flute type sounds) have no overtones, square waves (woodwinds) have odd overtones (1, 3, 5, 7, etc.), sawtooth waves (brass) have odd and even harmonics.

One reason that I like to use synthesizers in this work is that you can control the harmonics by changing waveforms - an easy thing to do on the older analog synths. The Minimoogs are excellent for this. They have three independent oscillators for which you can choose the frequencies and waveforms independently.

In my studio I have a balance of analog and digital synthesizers as well as a digital sampler. The analog synths are very warm and full, the digital synths have a bright, crisp and very complex sound structure and the sampler enables me to digitally record a person’s voice and then play a choir of their own voice - in pitch and when and where appropriate.

We often get caught up with regrets about the past and have great anxiety about the future. Music can help heal the separation this creates and allows us to truly live in the present.

Learning to flow is a good use of energy. It’s hard to dance the foxtrot when the band is playing a waltz. 

Thank you for allowing me to share some of my ideas about music and sound with you. I am most grateful for the opportunity to create the accompanying music. It was and continues to be a truly magical experience. 

Best wishes always.

In Harmony, 

Jim Oliver 

Our appreciation to Jim Oliver for providing us with this very informative information.

You may visit his web site at:
http://www.jimolivermusic.com
Be sure to visit the products pages for music samples and to purchase his wonderful recordings. 

Other sites of interest:
Music Therapy -  www.harptherapy.com