On The New Music - Part Three

June 2005

"Music expresses that which cannot be said

and on which it is impossible to be silent"

Victor Hugo

As a frequent and intensive reading of Savitri can lead us to feel the overhead influence in the work of other poets, so too a deep and concentrated listening to music can sometimes reveal strains of the descent of the New Music.

What we have done in the OM Choir in the Ashram and in Auroville these past years is follow Mother's guidance to me and Anie. Through one of Her secretaries She conveyed to us the approach we should take and the way to open to the new music. I quote the following passages of an email letter from Anie:

"Way back in the early 70's She told some of us to form a choir. The first to sing in it were Narad, myself, Mohan Mistry, Lisa Uberle (who started Aurosarjan) and I can't remember the others. Anyway, Mother said "There is a new music, just above the head, waiting to come down and it is looking for the right Instruments (meaning people) to bring it down". She told us to begin singing but with no preconceived ideas about how it would manifest. She also asked us not to use any instruments - just voices. We would sit in a circle, there were no words, just syllables. One person would start singing, another would add something and so forth. We experimented like this for a long time . . ."

Anie also writes: It is a very wonderful thing that you have revived this activity that was encouraged so strongly by the Mother more than 30 years back. As far as I can recall Mother's statements came from a secretary. I don't remember any written comments and I don't think we ever went to her as a group. It is my impression that perhaps the messages came to you directly through a secretary or to Mohan, maybe."

"Amrita Banerji is in charge of chanting [At the East-West Cultural Center] but I took over for her while she was in Auroville for 1 year. Often when we are chanting we have birds that come to the sliding screen door and sing with us? It is quite beautiful."

We had a lovely and profound experience with the OM Choir in Auroville when a bird flew into the hall and sang with such sweetness it seemed his heart would burst from joy. I wrote the following afterwards: "Words seem such an inadequate medium to express the experience of the OM Choir in Auroville last night. I felt the Divine Presence filling the atmosphere, charging it with love and light. There was a special sweetness and an indescribable beauty in every voice, a sincere call to the Mother for the New Music and the New World for which we aspire so intensely. When the music swelled in moments of power, it was the power of One. I have never experienced a more profound and moving expression of the human soul in song. I would also like to thank the Divine Messenger who came in feathered form and sang so beautifully, joining us and blessing us with his song until day went down to dusk and he returned to his home.

The difficulty, as often is the case, is in the mind. No matter how high the inspiration of the greatest composers of earlier times, be it Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, we must take great care not to allow the mind to fall into already established patterns and repeat the music of the past but open to that which is seeking to descend and establish itself on earth and in us.

Music is the vernacular of the human soul.

Geoffrey Latham

The tendency toward harmonic resolution is very strong and may be a greater sign of the aspiration for human unity than the thousands of books and treatises written on the subject in all the long history of humanity. We have heard on many occasions, even when the OM Choir had nearly fifty people in attendance, that all dissonances beautiful though they might be, tended towards harmonic resolution, a collective soaring of note building upon note, chord upon chord, not unlike the architecture of the temples of India. Yet, even in the dissonances there was an underlying harmony.

Composed music is fixed unless improvisation is indicated. The music of the OM Choir is fluid, ever changing, as voice after voice opens to the divine melodies and harmonies above the head. Especially moving are the voices of the young adults with their purity of tone blending with the richness of the sound of older sadhaks and sadhikas, many of whom sang to Mother many years ago and continue their music today.

Often I have been asked if the OM Choir could give a performance, but how can 'prayer' be performed? And yet, I understand that others (singers and non-singers alike) would wish to meditate in an atmosphere of the higher music. Is it possible? If so, I believe the Divine will indicate the approach and the way.

"It's such an extraordinary thing, music. It is how we speak to God finally - or how we don't. Even if we're ignoring God. It's the language of the spirit. If you believe that we contain within our skin and bones a spirit that might last longer than your time breathing in and out - if there is a spirit, music is the thing that wakes it up. And it certainly woke up mine. And it seems to be how we communicate on another level."

Bono

There are other groups in the world opening to the sound of the new music. Here is a message from Baird Hersey and Prana, an overtone choir in New York who welcomed me to sit in on their rehearsals as well as their recent performance at the Tibet House in New York City.

OM FOR PEACE

"It's a simple idea: gather people together and sing a continuous OM as a meditation for peace. On Easter Sunday March 27th at 6:00 PM EST, people who want to give expression to their wish for peace will gather in groups to join in the sound of many voices singing as one in an extended OM.

Each person, as a meditation on peace, sings their own note at their own rate guided by their breath. Within the group this builds an exquisitely beautiful, rising and falling, subtly changing, continuous chord. Many voices resonating together in one sound.

How to do this? Set a place to gather; yoga studio, mediation center, dance studio, theater, or living room. Spread the word and invite as many people as you can. Begin at 6:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time, and sing OM as long as the sound wants to go on, hopefully for at least an hour. Even if you can't get together with other people sing on your own knowing that people in other places are singing with you.

People of all faiths and beliefs are welcome. No musical experience is necessary only the willingness to add your voice for peace to the sound of OM.

This is our third year. Last year I heard from people all over the country who had participated. Please forward this to anyone who might be interested or your mailing list. And PLEASE let us know how it goes."

Baird

"Music deepens the emotions and harmonises them with each other. Between them music, art and poetry are a perfect education for the soul; they make and keep its movements purified, self-controlled, deep and harmonious."

Sri Aurobindo

"Now imagine the same vital power of expression joined to the inspiration coming from above, say, the highest possible inspiration when the entire heaven seems to open out, then it is music indeed! Some things in César Franck, some in Beethoven, some in Bach, some in some others possess this sovereignty."

The Mother

"One can truly listen if one can be totally silent, silent and attentive, simply as if one were a registering instrument: one does not move and one is nothing but ears. Then the music enters one; and it is only after a while that one perceives the effect or what the music means or the impression that it creates.

The best way of hearing is to be like a mirror, immobile and concentrated, quite silent. I have seen musicians - that is, composers and players - hearing music: people, like them, who really love music still themselves completely. All has to be a stillness - and if one can stop thinking, that is all to the good, one can get then the full profit.

Music is one of the means of inner opening, one of the most powerful means.

The Mother

"We need music to restore the human spirit"

Leonard Slatkin