SOUND WISDOM
Sound - as music, word, frequency and silence - informs and supports our ability to make conscious, authentic and compassionate choices about how we live our lives. This wisdom enables us to be in harmonic resonance with ourselves, each other and the Earth, for the good of all.
My approach to the path of sound wisdom marries three related fields:
- Ancient & Modern Sound Medicine
- Sacred Music of East & West
- Poetry & Myth as Language of the Soul
ANCIENT & MODERN SOUND MEDICINE
The aim of Sound Healing and of Therapeutic Music is to bring the listener back to their original state of health and wholeness. Sound Healing approaches this through the intentional application of frequency. Therapeutic Music, as performed by a Certified Healthcare Musician, approaches this through expertly selected compositions and improvised melody, harmony and rhythm.
I use both modalities as needed in my work with individual clients. When playing for audiences, I draw upon the same time-honed skills and intuitive ability to create an offering that is similarly soothing, uplifting and restorative.
SACRED MUSIC OF EAST & WEST
Although I knew I was privileged to have a career as a performing musician, I longed to experience more fulfilment in the music I was playing. I began to search for meaning in other musical traditions and study different vocal practices and musical instruments.
Some of these instruments were intrinsically connected to a specific spiritual lineage, such as the sacred sound wisdom of Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Sufism. Playing them taught me how to be a ‘hollow reed’ in connection with the heart and the flow of nature. Meanwhile, the esoteric musical teachings of Ancient Greece and Northern Europe taught me about accessing transformative visionary consciousness with sound.
I had played the Celtic harp for years before I came to understand the rich depths of its tradition. The harp was the instrument of the bard, a semi-mythic figure who used music, poetry, myth and lore to bring the inner worlds alive for their audience. Inspired by the bard, I began to devise my own Words and Music Concerts, incorporating spoken word into my musical performances.
POETRY & MYTH AS THE LANGUAGE OF THE SOUL
Just as music is audible sound, so is the language of song lyrics, spoken poetry and storytelling.
But language can also be wordless. Birds and beasts, seasons and weather, stars and planets all speak in vibratory patterns that are inaudible to the ear, but heard by the soul. Indeed, the soul may respond in kind to these communications, once it remembers how. Many of us now have souls that need a little help to converse with the other-than-human and receive the guidance and wisdom that is always there for us.
It is myth and true poetry - that is, poetry brought back from a place beyond the intellect - that can remind the soul of its own language. That is why I include poetry and story in my concerts, as well as certain song lyrics. It is also why I write the songs that I do.
SOUND MEDICINE, SACRED MUSIC & SOUL LANGUAGE
“In sound we are born, in sound we are healed.”
Mehtab Benton
This, then, is my approach to sound as a path of wisdom.
The words and music I offer in performance, healing and teaching are rooted within sound-based wisdom traditions from around the world. These are traditions that carry the knowledge of how sound, word and music transform body, mind and soul to give rise to the living harmony that is our true birthright.