The Beginning of the End.
Dara Blumenthal
N12358939
Rationale - Fall 2006
Advisor: Lori Antonacci
Music, Metaphysics, and Consciousness
Over the past summer I was lucky enough to attend the largest music festival in the United States which is called Bonnaroo. I spent a week, including driving time from Manhattan, NY to Manchester, TN and back, involved with the festival, which boasts over 80,000 attendees. I was able to be there as a volunteer and had access to many special privileges, the largest being that I didn’t have to pay to attend. Moreover, despite the array of perks I was given that ultimately separated me in a physical way from the mass of 80,000+ people there, the most impacting and intense moments I experienced were when I was a part of the huge crowds. One of these moments was attending a three-hour outdoor concert by one of my all time favorite bands, the Pink Floyd of my generation, Radiohead. Seeing this very visceral band, who uses sound and light in a spectacular way, with over 80,000 people was by far one of the most spiritual and powerful experiences of my life. The energy was astounding.
Let me backtrack a bit. Throughout high school I danced professionally, wrote music reviews and entertainment articles for my hometown’s website, and pursued the visual arts as a painter. I attended Drexel University for a year studying graphic design and ultimately left because I knew my potential wasn’t going to be reached in that program. When I transferred to NYU as a sophomore, I knew Gallatin was the place for me and I knew I wanted to be involved in the music industry. What I didn’t know at the time, though it makes sense in retrospect (considering my background) is how into bodywork I would become. Furthermore, throughout my studies here I have been able to recognize and develop my connection with sound and music, the body, and ultimately, a visceral way of learning which makes the most sense for me. I did this mostly through conversations with my peers, classroom experiences, and self-reflection. I also knew that I loved music, movement, and rhythm and needed a way to keep it in my life. Now, knowing that and being able to articulate it, I have been able to open myself to new interests, new people and new experiences that are simply priceless. Having developed a higher awareness through bodywork, I am able to use my body to access and influence my consciousness through sound and movement; this is something I am able to make use of in my daily experience.
For my colloquium topic I am interested in exploring the way that music and sound have a metaphysical impact on the body and the consciousness. I have spent most of my time at NYU studying music business and bodywork separately, with interdisciplinary seminars to connect the two in both practical and intellectual ways. For instance, I have taken Sound and Sense, which connects sound, poetry, and philosophy, and I am currently taking Bodily Fictions, which looks at the body throughout history in literature and society. I understand that preparing for and participating in my colloquium is a way to look closely at and experience the way in which music and sound effect/affect the consciousness in a metaphysical or spiritual way. As I understand my own experiences, the more balanced I am between my mind and body the greater chances I have in experiencing such a phenomenon physically, mentally, and ultimately impacting my consciousness. It is important to note that when I speak about the consciousness and metaphysics I do not mean a purely internal or non-physical experience. I mean to focus on the central branch of metaphysics, which is ontology. That is the investigation into categories of things in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. I’m interested in connections. I believe that mind and body are connected on every level and you can’t have a physical experience without an emotional or mental experience as well, and vice versa. Additionally, I am interested in the popular as opposed to academic, metaphysical idea of mysticism. This is referring to experiences of unity with the Ultimate; this is often interpreted as the ‘God who is love’. For me this is the more spiritual aspect of metaphysics.
I have found that people, at least in this country, tend to be very much in their heads. They stay in their minds and seek a logical and practical existence. I see this existence as employing so little of what our experience in life can be. I also feel if more people were less in their minds and more in their bodies, artistic endeavors such as listening to music (produced of the same value) would be approached and made use of in a very different way. If this were to happen, people might be able to recognize and reap the intellectual and emotional benefits of art and expression of this kind. In developing the preceding ideas I have conversed with my incredibly intelligent peers, read thoroughly and reflected upon my own ideas and those I have encountered along the way, exhaustively. Additionally, it is not easy for me to articulate my ideas in a written format such as this paper, because I experience and emote mostly through my body and I feel that it is important for me to communicate with people face to face to really understand what I am trying to convey. I would like to discuss the readings that have provided a foundation for these thoughts, and those that I have sought out in order to develop my ideas.
Initially, reading Aristotle’s Poetics and On Music a year ago truly served as the foundation to my now much more developed ideas concerning the place for music in society. In Poetics I am most interested in how Aristotle both defines art and offers criteria for determining the quality of a given artwork. I do not feel that all music and sound have the ability to have a metaphysical or profound effect on someone, so there is a clear parallel here in the importance of defining such work. Additionally, there is strong support for my ideas in the fact that Aristotle tends to look for “empirical evidence,” which for him was sensory proof through observation, that art is both good and useful unequivocally.
In Aristotle’s Politics he gives music a great deal of attention, and I wish to focus on the On Music section. He explains that music is important for education because it is a noble means of using leisure time and through hearing its harmony music actually makes the student appreciate the harmonious blend of sounds that is music and then leads the soul to balance the spirit and appetites in accordance with reason. This is almost exactly what I am getting at in a contemporary way; I wish to revisit these ancient ideas in an effort to implement them in a way that makes sense in our world today and that people can be an active participant in throughout their lives. To continue, I think that Nietzsche’s The Case of Wagner, subtitled; A Musicians Problem is an interesting look at a specific artist and how that artist’s work has been so closely associated with the Völkisch movement and anti-Semitism. I’m interested in how that affects the experiences of those who listen to Wagner and how this can be looked at as part of the collective or global consciousness. In addition, I like that way that Nietzsche explains how Wagner’s music no longer represents a possible "philosophical affect" and what exactly he means by that.
In developing this foundation I realized I was interested in more connections I could make with my interests and turned to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Some key points that stand out for me in this text and will help me connect all of my ideas are as follows. In Book I, Aristotle explains that as human beings we desire to know; we delight in the senses apart from any value their use gives us. We delight most especially in sight, which he says is the greatest source of knowledge. Additionally, human beings have the ability to act systematically in pursuit of an end ("art") and reason, which allows us to have a "connected experience." Furthermore, he says that the hierarchy of wisdom, is this: someone with mere perception, then someone with experience, then the master of a practical art, and finally the person whose knowledge is purely theoretical, directed at truth itself, rather than toward practical ends. In experiencing and using music and sound in a way to access consciousness all of these steps in Aristotle’s idea of wisdom are imperative and the further up the ladder you extend the more impressive your experience can be.
Another text that approaches similar ideas in a more modern and abstract way is Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. For Huxley his drug experience was a mind opening experience. He suggests that the brain operates as a vast reducing valve, "shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful." He says that this reducing valve is constantly inundated by the raging tides of Mind-at-Large, which is Huxley’s version of the unconscious and the ego/superego. What is exciting for me regarding my colloquium is that for Huxley this reducing valve is not watertight. Huxley says, “As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. In some cases there may be extra-sensory perceptions. Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence.... In the final stage of egolessness there is an 'obscure knowledge' that All is in all-that All is actually each." This is such a beautiful metaphor for what I believe can be experienced through music and sound. We can use these tools to push past the reducing valve of our practical, logical thoughts and experience our bodies and minds in a superior way.
I have also supplemented my core readings, mostly from classes that I have taken, with predominately newer texts that deal more specifically with my area of concentration. Those include books on metaphysics, non-verbal communication, the body, the consciousness, the power of music on a spiritual level and the way music is used in our world. I have also paid considerable attention to both specific musical artists and their bodies of work, as well as visual imagery in conjunction with music in the form of listening to music and viewing specific films.
There is a plethora of ‘new age’ material regarding music, sound and their power. I selected texts that stood out for me and covered both a theoretical side and a pragmatic side. These include Khan’s The Mysticism of Sound and Music, Daniélou’s Music and the Power of Sound, Berendt’s The World Is Sound - Nada Brahma, Stewart’s The Spiritual Dimensions of Music, and Anshen’s The Mystery of Consciousness. I have not finished reading all of these texts so I will briefly touch on the basic ideas of each one.
First, Khan speaks about music and Sufi traditions. The book explains how Sufi teachings view music a small expression of the overwhelming and perfect harmony of the whole universe-and that is the secret of its ability to move us. The Daniélou text, subtitled; The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness, takes a similar approach. Alain Daniélou is a Hindu scholar who looks to the harmonic ratios of ancient China, India and Greece as he explores the power of music to speak to our higher consciousness. This text is very interesting and I value that fact that it uses scientific reasoning as well as ancient traditions. I feel it will play a large part in developing my ideas further.
Next is the Berendt text, it is subtitled, Music and the Landscape of Consciousness. Like the previous texts, this book provides ideas and teachings from other cultures and includes scientific analysis. The author explores the diverse cultures and musical traditions of Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America with the pretense that the world is sound, rhythm, and vibration. Ultimately, Berendt suggests that hearing, opposed to seeing, is the key to a more spiritual experience of consciousness. He discusses sound in relation to mathematics, logic, sacred geometry, myth, and sexuality in a practical and theoretical way and offers techniques for developing the ear as an organ of spiritual perception. This text is so on par for what I am interested in relaying it is exciting! The Stewart book subtitled. Altering Consciousness for Inner Development offers different techniques for developing hearing in an active way. Stewart focuses on how chanting, harmonics, and sustained notes in certain relationships can cause measurable changes in emotions and vitality. He uses many visual diagrams and mystical teachings to explain his ideas, which are, at times, confusing to me.
Lastly is the Anshen text, subtitled; A Prescription for Human Survival. This text is rooted in the wisdom of Greeks and Hebrews. It reads as a polemic against “our pitiful modern society” and calls for universal social democracy and peace. Its generative principles are reason and metaphysics. I did not find this text to be very challenging but with some good ideas that I agree with, and I believe using the consciousness in the way I’m interested in can speak to these ideas directly.
Overall, I still have a great deal of reading, reflecting and experiencing to do but I believe my ideas are solid and I hope they are somewhat well articulated here. Ultimately, I want to explore how music and sound can be used to experience the consciousness in a more spiritual or metaphysical way. I believe that everything is I can discover, develop, and make these connections stronger with music and sound through the body.