'Scientific form of Music' or "Saasthreeya Sangeetham"

From: Rajesh Sulabha
Date: Fri Mar 14, 2003

To: Macemates <macemates@yahoogroups.com>

CC: macebangalore@yahoogroups.com, computers97@yahoogroups.com

Subject: If you can walk you can dance, If you can talk you can sing...!

Dear All,
The motivation for writing this is some of the fun debates with my x-colleagues, and some great learning, on the topic during 2002-03:

Carnatic classical music and the healing positive powers of “saasthreeya sangeetham" or 'scientific form of music' or Carnatic classical music. And about the effectiveness, with which it can build positive mental discipline, eliminate negative mental habits and help to focus and organize thoughts.

First of all,
I love to share the highlights of the thought sharing (in my ex-colleagues’s E-group) of one of our talented musician, Manasan Parassini, who is a senior IT professional working in UK for last some years. His, the below pasted, thoughts is the motivation and inspiration for this column.

If I share my thankful appreciation about thoughts of Manasan on classical music, I would say, "some of his points I would not have come to know in my whole lifetime".

-----By Manasan Parassini (March’2003)-----
Many people hesitate to admit the fact that music is a science. Music/Sound has many powers and we all experience how a good tune can alleviate our tensions. Once more I am quoting  Sankaracharya, he says in Yoga Taaravali, “By one who is desirous of attaining perfection in Yoga, 'Nada' alone has got to be closely heard, having abandoned all thoughts and with a calm mind.”

There are very convincing theories about music/sound in "Nada Yoga" and "Nada Bindu Upanishad", sound can give negative effects as well as positive effects, the mantras like “hreeeeem hraaaam” it doesn’t have any meaning, but it can create certain vibrations in our body and cure or create some problems, how is it possible? Because sound can potentially rearrange molecular structure within the body and it is a proven fact.

Not only in India, music has played a significant role in the healing of humankind. Music and healing were communal activities that were natural to everyone.

In ancient Greece, Apollo was both the god of music and medicine. Ancient Greeks said, "Music is an art imbued with power to penetrate into the very depths of the soul. These beliefs were shared through their doctrine of Ethos. In the mystery schools of Egypt and Greece, healing and sound were considered a highly developed sacred science.

And in India until about a thousand years ago there was no such thing as `concerts' in the Indian
tradition. There was no `performance' of music or dance or singing. Music was attached or confined to the temples for sacred ceremonies and rituals. They were not entertainment forms of music, but very potent sound formulas. They are like different elements; you put them together and you get a certain effect.

So these sound formulas were used in ancient times to bring tranquility and peace to agitated minds and tired bodies, as well as to change and transform the listener. On the one hand it had a therapeutic effect; to heal disease, to heal sickness. On the other hand its aim was to focus the attention of people who came to the temple – towards one-pointedness.

When we are centered and one-pointed our lives take on a different meaning. When, on the other hand, our minds are scattered, the way we experience things is also influenced. So in order to achieve that focus, music was instrumental.
------------------------------------------------------

- What they Say...

Ludwig van Beethoven:
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.

Albert Einstein:
It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception. (When asked about his theory of relativity).

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (on DEC. 15, 2002), the President of India.
"Music can bring peace and harmony in the universe as it unifies minds and hearts of people transcending all geographical boundaries”. “Music had a divine power that could generate peace, happiness and harmony and he had the confidence that it could provide a permanent solution to various problems the mankind faced today".

William Shakespeare:
If music be the food of love, play on: give me excess of it.

Plato:
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.

Pythagoras:
There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to the healthy ear.

Benjamin Britten:
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.

Arthur Winter:
Music is a readily available, highly effective tool that you use to improve both your cognitive and physical abilities.

Henri Frederic Amiel:
Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both. Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.

Ludwig Van Beethoven:
Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

George Eliot (1819-80), [Mary Ann Evans] British writer:
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.

Charlie Parker:
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

James Taylor:
I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it.

George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), [Lord Byron] English romantic poet.
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

Truman Capote (1924-84), American novelist, short-story writer, Breakfast at Tiffany's:
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.

Eric Anderson:
It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit—enable them to see visions and dream dreams.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.

Samuel Butler (1612-80), English poet, author
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.

i). What is Carnatic Music? and Why?
http://www.carnatic.com/

ii) CMANA, Carnatic Music Association of North America Established in 1976, is a Tax-Exempt, Non-profit organization registered in New York and New Jersey. The objective of CMANA is to promote learning and understanding of Carnatic music and related fine arts in North America.
http://www.cmana.org/

Enjoy your music…!

regards,
Rajesh Sulabha