23 Comments

.."At some point I may write about my correspondence with Neher and how he viewed the pros and cons of his research some decades later."... That would be awesome.

Also, I am reading Harmonic Experience by Mathieu. I got a Udu ( Meinl Igo drum) for viscerally explore some concepts. It would be definitely a treat if you would touch at some point in the future some of the concepts, deconstructed for the enthusiastic simpletons.

A contextual continuation of Healing Songs while considering commercially available rhythmic and droning and resonant instruments? It's fascinating to read, but my lack of exhaustive understanding ( I am from a medical research and clinical background) precludes me to purposely and mindfully apply the reading.

I am , as always, in awe .

Thanks for getting through the writing process to structure the scattered bits, opaque narratives for the rest of us

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I post healing songs every Tuesday and Friday at Musings of a Sound Medicine Woman. Come on over.

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You make some really great points about rhythm. Even Genghis Kahn used rhyme schemes for his commanders to issue orders to his troops. They found that giving orders in rhyme greatly reduced confusion and problems due to miscommunication.

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As a teacher of singing, I note that the range typically given for a normal respiration rate is 12-20 breaths per minute. Here's a physiological origin for the 3-second phrase length!

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This by itself is pretty mind expanding. It will require multiple readings over the next few weeks.

Amazing!

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Plainly , great read .

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Glad we have Sir Gioia as our conductor/ guide!!

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Ted, I have come to believe that the “shot length” of movies and TV have decreased quite a bit in recent years. You site recent blockbusters but I wonder how long shot lengths have been historically? Of course there are some famous “long takes” directed by folks such as Orson Wells and Robert Altman.

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Enjoyed this chapter. But re: your discussion of ~3 seconds as the universal period of music, storytelling, etc., the average shot length in movies actually used to be much longer (12 seconds in 1930), and has been steadily decreasing over time. Here's an article with a chart and links to a few studies https://www.wired.com/2014/09/cinema-is-evolving/

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A wonderful chapter in a fascinating book, thank you! I reread this chapter this morning (in preparation of speaking with a conductor friend of mine) and decided to dig a bit deeper into your following reference:

"This image of paradise-with-a-beat also has Biblical validation. In Ezekiel 28:13, for example, we learn that the tambourine was played in Eden."

I could not find such a reference in Ezekiel or anywhere else in the Bible, even with a word search of timbrel instead of tambourine. Can you help me? The Old Testament is full of references to harps and tambourines / timbrels, but I cannot find any connection of drums of any sort to Eden. Perhaps when Adam named the Beatles, Eagles or Monkees? Or when Eve worked for Apple Records?

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Check out this Twitter thread, where I responded to this same question: https://twitter.com/tedgioia/status/1615193310410248193?s=46&t=e1B5ynvthKQm_wglXA-DYA

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Thanks Ted for the prompt and informative response. Not being on any social media, I missed your prior answer. Sorry to have troubled you ! Again, loving the book and thrilled to be a subscriber.

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Fascinating. I teach music as a language. I used to annually ask a friend of mine, a prominent linguist who used to work with Noam Chomsky, whether any linguists have attempted to study the language of music yet. He would always answer, "nope."

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This looks like a fascinating book on a marvelous topic that I want to read in its entirety. However, I note you cite Neher's 1962 study about ritual drumming inducing trance states. Have you read Gilbert Rouget's Music and Trance (1985)? He debunks Neher's scientific claims, as I did myself in a 1984 presentation at the Ethnomusicology Society Conference.

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I’ve addressed Rouget’s deeply flawed book on a number of occasions. If you want more details, my book Healing Songs (2006) is a good place to start. The cumulative clinical data since that time only makes this point all the more clear. At some point I may write about my correspondence with Neher and how he viewed the pros and cons of his research some decades later.

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Are you aware of Giorgio Colli's reading of presocratic Greek philosophy? He basically tries to re-read everything in a Nietzschean-dyonisiac mysterian light. For some reasons or other I think it might resonate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Colli

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In his book Breathe, James Nestor talks about a recommended and powerful daily breathing exercise that essentially mimics the cadence of prayers (which happen across all religions). I haven't done the correlation to what Ted talks about here but I'm willing to bet a nickel it's similar to these poetic carences.

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Ted! You are speaking my language here! I have said for years that songwriting and spell casting are the same job. The combination of rhythm, melody, and rhyme when added to intention, can change things huge and tiny. I'm so excited to be reading this book! Thank you a thousand times for writing this on Substack!

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The most archaic Hebrew in the Torah/ Bible, Exodus 15, is The Song at the Sea, or Miriam's Song.

In it, Miriam took up her tambourine/ timbrel and led the escaping Hebrews in triumphal song and dance.

This makes sense. Is there anything more conducive to grab eyes than a woman dancing, a woman singing -- a woman exulting?

Moses sometimes gets the credit for this song, but careful analysis of the text show that Miriam led the music.

Moses definitely deserves the credit for holding the conductor's baton in battle: whenever his arm drooped, his Army flagged; whenever he held it high (assisted or not), they triumphed (Exodus 17:11-13).

Con + duct: from the Proto-Indo-European for "to lead [others] together"

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Glad for the photo of Bernstein: what a shvitzer. Such a tiny shtik.

But for those with authentic vulnerability, such as Rilke wrote of Orpheus, that truly commands attention:

Da stieg ein Baum. O reine Übersteigüng!

O Orpheus singt! O hoher Baum im Ohr!

Und alles schwieg. Doch selbst in der Verschweigung

ging neuer Anfang, Wink und Wandlung vor.

Tiere aus Stille drangen aus dem klaren

gelösten Wald von Lager und Genist;

und da ergab sich, daß sie nicht aus List

und nicht aus Angst in sich so leise waren,

sondern aus Hören ....

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