A Sonic Treasure

Julian Treasure is my great discovery of the day! I stumbled across this video online today and was so grateful for this man's understanding of sound, how powerful it is, how it can affect us both negatively and positively- and the clarity of his expression. He talks about ways in which we can use sound to enrich our lives and things to be aware of to lessen the potential damage of certain sounds and modern technology.

One of the things I loved that he talks about is how we are developing a sort of dissociation (he calls it "dislocation") between what we see and what we hear- ex. being overuse of telephones. We are constantly "inviting into our lives the voices of people who are not present with us"- we take this for granted and in fact many people today are really addicted to their cell phones.
Makes me think of a song by Greg Brown.


I also found the information about the compression of sound through the use of digital recording, mp3 players, etc. very interesting- that compressed sound makes us tired and cranky because our brain has to work so hard to fill in so much of the sound. Fascinating, and of course it makes perfect sense, given how incredibly nurturing the "right" kind of sound and/or music can be, whether it is natural ambient sound from water, birds and insects to a live concert in a hall acoustically designed for optimal music appreciation.

The right kinds of sound and music feed our brain and nourish our whole being.

Adrian Belew Interview

This is an extremely interesting interview with Adrian Belew, the brilliant guitarist who has played with some of my absolute favorite bands of all time- King Crimson, Dave Bowie, Frank Zappa and the Talking Heads- and no doubt many many more. I love this though because he talks about all these bands that were part of my formative musical background. And all of this music had such a huge influence on me, literally a lifeline during really tumultuous times.

Before I went away to boarding school my brother gave me a KLH stereo and every day I would come home, or go to my dorm in school and lay down on the floor with my head between the speakers and let the music take me away. That music was so full, so rich, so subtle and so powerful and I see how much I have taken from it in my Sound Journeys- the ability to combine sounds that take the listener to a different realm. I really never thought about it in that way until tonight.

Gethsemane Sunset (Cymatics).wmv

This is just incredibly beautiful. Can you even begin to imagine what is happening inside of our bodies, our brain, when we listen to music?

And isn't it interesting how many of the formations from the disc on the left actually look like the brain?

Who is Tingsha Bobo?

Tingsha Bobo has been a rare but most welcome visitor in my life. I have experienced the gift of his wonderful ability to touch people's hearts and tickle their funny bones only twice in my life. The first time was on my 50th birthday several years ago ("several" is more than 3 but probably less than 10, yes?). Last Saturday he reappeared as if by magic while a few family members and I were in the midst of a celebration for my mother's 90th birthday.

I decided to write about him in this blog because sound is one of the vehicles he uses to transport people into his world of magic. His recent visit was quite short- no more than 7 minutes altogether- but during that time he played a small didgeridoo which he pulled out of his knapsack as well as a set of Tibetan tingshas (presumably where he gets his name) and a small rattle. When he appeared at my birthday he brought out a long haunting flute and quickly brought a group of 50 or so people under its spell. Both times he has combined the gifts of music and laughter, two of the best medicines known to man. We also discovered that he has a marvelous voice when he unabashedly serenaded my mother with her favorite birthday song! Anyone who has ever had a birthday in her presence has heard her sing that song. How did he know???

I have been looking on line for a derivation of the word "Bobo" which seems to be a fairly commonly used name for a clown. So far this is the most interesting and seemingly relevant bit of information I have come up with:"Who is Boo-Boo the Fool? A listener wonders if this African-American character has any relation the Puerto Rican fool, Juan Bobo. Martha draws a connection to the Spanish term bobo, meaning “fool,” and its Latin root balbus, meaning “stammerer”. Grant notes that the name Bobo has been extremely common for clowns since at least the 1940s, and the bobo/clown/jester character is prevalent in most all cultural folklores, be they African, South American, or Anglo-European."

So, if anyone were to ask me "Who is Tingsha Bobo?" (which they occasionally do since we have an extra line for him on our phone just in case someone needs to reach him for some laughter and song- hopefully we could call him in through the ethers) from my brief introductions to him my answer would be that he is a clown, a very sweet clown, who uses music as his medium- although I suspect he has some other tricks up his sleeve (or in his knapsack) that have yet to be revealed.

Enjoy!