#002: The Interplay of Consciousness and Healing Soundscapes with Zan Moore

#002 - Musicians, healers, mystics, and sound enthusiasts unite! Geo and the Sound Medicine Podcast team is on a mission to inspire and uplift through the power of songs, chants, storytelling, music and incredible interviews. Experience a transformation through Sound as Medicine for the Soul.

In this episode we explore the meaning role and interplay of sound and healing and consciousness. Our guest is the incredible, eloquent musical genius Zan Moore. Zan is a navigator of diverse soundscapes and a connoisseur of vibrational aesthetics. In his world travels, he's cultivated a breadth of musical interests including finger style guitar, sound healing, western classical, Andean, folk music, mantra didgeridoo and Indian raga. He can uplift spirits, inspire us , make a smile, connects us to each other and bring us more fully into the moment with the instrument of music. He begins and rounds out our podcast today with some awe-inspiring live music.

If you would like to get the links and show notes for this episode, head to:

http://www.MantrasAndMusic.com

Transcript

Welcome to sound medicine, mantras and music Podcast, where you will hear from various healers, musicians, visionaries, and educators. Get ready to experience transformational and inspiring storytelling, songs, chants and interviews that will uplift your spirits mood and health. Hello everyone, I am your host Geo. In this episode we explore the meaning role and interplay of sound and healing and consciousness. Our guest is the incredible, eloquent musical genius Zan Moore. Those are my words. I don't know that he would ever say that about himself, but that's how I feel about him. In his own words, he's "a navigator of diverse soundscapes and a connoisseur of vibrational aesthetics." In his world travels, he's cultivated a breadth of musical interests including fingerstyle guitar, sound healing, western classical, Andean, folk music, mantra didgeridoo and Indian raga. He can uplift spirits, inspire us , make a smile, connects us to each other and bring us more fully into the moment with the instrument of music. And he has offered kindly to begin and round out our podcast today with some live music. So here's Zan Beautiful Thank you Is that a songs and that you that you've written yeah That's kind of a newer song, it's just, that's the expedited instrumental version of thing is usually a little bit moremeticulously developed, let's say, and has some lyrics that are associated. Zan I'm really excited to chat with you now and I've known you for a few years now and, and just have lots of respect for you as a human being and as just a carrier of light and a musician and just thank you for, for agreeing to be on this podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Our friendship has been really mutually rewarding. It's been a pleasure exploring all kinds of really meaningful conversation that led up to this and I think it's really wonderful suggestion that we get together and have a little talk. Yeah, so II know there are many people that would benefit from hearing what you I have to say especially on the topic of music, so kind of see where this conversation leads us. Whenever I see you I usually have a guitar around somewhere near by or another instrument and I know this is music and art is and song is a part of you at least what I can witness and you freely share what you know with others and always and musics included in that and as I listen to you play right there. I can't help but think wow, like what does it take to to reach that kind of level of playing for for those of us that are musicians or aspiring musicians? What What has been your path and what suggestions would you have for those of us that are just interested in kind of yearning for what you have to share teach? Sure, absolutely. Well, I'll say first off that you know, you often see me with a guitar because instruments make really good companions, both in the sense of friends, and the more we can kind of personify them and even those made of wood, there is an element of them that it truly was and is alive. And they also make good companions in that. Everywhere I go, it offers me a way to connect to people, even if we don't speak the same language, per se. So we can connect through music and melody and rhythm. And so I find that they travel well, because they seem to unpack infinitely, so you can carry a lot while you carry a little. And that's regards to your question, what does it take to get here? or How could... How does one develop musical aptitude? Studies have repeatedly shown that no one is born with innate talent beyond a very minor degree of perhaps learning faster than average. But otherwise no one is a musical genius. From birth and that it comes down to how much time you put in. And there's a little caveat which is the time has to be meaningfully dedicated. You can't just noodle on your instrument while you watch TV all day and they say, Well, I put in all these hours, how come I'm not amazing?..... focused time. But my recommendation would be if you really aspire to music or ultimately to any craft, doing a little bit each day is better than a lot once a week to make it a regular part of what you do, even if what you have to dedicate is 10 minutes or 30 minutes to take that time and to apply yourself and you will not be able to resist making progress if you do it in an appropriate way, which would mostly be in alignment with finding a resource of knowledge that exceeds your own. For example, a teacher Or a good book or video, and then applying the methodology that they suggest. And you know, for a period of perhaps a couple of years, not thinking too much about exactly how you want to express yourself or your own thing, but just developing the foundation of a craft and then putting in that time, overall will, will pay off. That's great words of wisdom.Well, as I as I, as I listened to you, again, playing, especially right here, right now, I'm thinking to myself, you know, one of your favorite questions to ask your friends is, "What's it like to be you? So i have to think to ask, what does it like to be Zan Moore as a musician and then wearing that hat? Well, it is a very rich playground. I would say, As I have developed as a musician, I suppose I've been playing music haven't counted exactly and there were some fits and starts at the beginning, but probably 20 years or so maybe a little more. The more I have learned about music, the more I have realized that there is to know. It's not like I am approaching a final destination in that one, say, wrap up a couple of little things, I will have it all down really has been the opposite, that the further I go, the broader I understand that the field really is and the more things that I would like to learn about. And so well, of course, some people listen to me and they say, well, your music is very, who knows what, it's beautiful or it's advanced or you're an accomplished musician, whatever they might say. say, well, from my vantage, there's so much more now that I want to practice than ever. It seems to and expand infinitely. So that's what I mean by a rich field. But it's it is better than ever a tool of expression. Now that I have some understanding and aptitude in, in a limited sense, but in one that exceeds most, let's say hobbyist musicians, there's a lot that I can do with it. And each, each tone kind of has developed its own personality in a way, like let's say, you know, of the 12 semitones that make up a chromatic scale, the relation of each and its characteristic, the feeling and the sound, it's almost like a, like a play of characters. Sometimes I feel like that each one can enter the story into say their part and then as you switch between them over the relations between them are very much telling a story perhaps You know different metaphorical ways of approaching and sometimes I feel like they're almost like cosmic spheres each different tone or frequency and that I can call them out almost like a like a magical conjuring act and float them around the space so that they may have their effect. I mean, these are just sort of playful mental metaphors what it's like to make music but there was a musician who said, I can think and I can play but I can't do both at the same time. So to some extent, the the best experience of music and the best output the best result of music seems to come from a flow state when that is not that I'm thinking really hard about trying to perform well and you know, as watching my hands or premeditating what's coming, but Just sort of immersed in the flow and the exchange of whoever or whatever is around sometimes that exchange comes from playing in a natural setting or natural area and observing how the leaves move in the wind or patterns left on the ground by tracks of animals, whatever it is these things to convey that sense of aesthetic harmony, but especially playing for other people, the social environment, we are, say commonly more tuned into the energy that we give and receive with other humans. And so if I'm playing and people are responding, then it causes me to do more of that it sort of enlivens me and in turn them or conversely, if I'm playing and no one is responding, then it can shift what's happening and so there is a bit of a tuning into the moment not only of the actual tuning of the instrument, but of aligning my thoughts and therefore vibrational emanations through the field of sound, air compaction and rarification, with exactly what is working to impart my intention or my thoughts onto other people, if I want them to be happy or to be contemplative, or to be dancing, all these things have equivalents in the language of music, and associated techniques, you know, more rhythm leads to more dancing. So it's being able to play that language is to play the language of emotion. That's what is so deeply encoded in music. Why? When music exceeds being simply mathematics, because it encapsulates so much more of the human soul and thoughts and dreams and so what is written between the notes So sheet music and comes out in the interpretation of an artist is really that emotive quality and that expressive nature. That was really beautiful. And you hit on a lot of topics there that I want to, I each one, we could go down an amazing rabbit hole, the course of many, many podcasts. One that struck me waspointing out was the emotion you know, there's the mechanics of playing, and whatever the rhythm is, or their how you're moving your mouth or playing a chord. But it's so much more than that the emotion that you're tuning into. And I remember reading this book by Candace pert called molecules of emotion. And she discovered that each emotion we have in our body has a corresponding molecular neuropeptide that's released. So there's actually a physical molecule that's released with the equivalent of an emotion. So the most of sadness is gonna have a very different chemical reaction in the body than the emotion of joy, let's say. And I want to kind of get delve into this field with you of music as medicine. And it was striking to me as you're talking that perhaps one of the ways that music is medicine is the emotion that is felt through the music within the listener, if you will, or the person that is playing, facilitating, and those emotions have a physical representation. And I'll just coming to me, I don't know if you had any thoughts on that subject in general with music and emotion and medicine. Kind of interesting, something I just wanted to share with you. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to dive into that a little. You mentioned the physical causes of emotion through neuro peptides. And while that isn't research that I've personally done I certainly believe you. But it also strikes me that we are sort of impinged upon excessively by the common paradigm of science and medicine, which, for all of its benefits also has a couple of drawbacks. And that statement seems to come from the idea that that the physical world has primacy. And therefore anything that we seek to explain outside of the physical world should have physical causes. And therefore, to give validity to emotion, we need to actually track down something that is happening that has actual mass that has physical substance. And while that isn't necessarily wrong, when we tease it out logically like that, it seems very cumbersome, because emotions are something that we all have and actually the activity of mind have heart doesn't stop with emotions. So we could come out really convoluted explanations for all of the things we feel. But those things change much more rapidly than can those explanations. And so while I very much buy into critical thinking, and logical process, and even the scientific method, just want to open up the possibility that we could, for my sake, we could expand beyond that into a broader range of assumptions relatively quickly, in that think that the activity of mind is indeed a real thing. And that mind and body are two aspects of the same phenomena. And we can't, I don't know that we have ever experienced one without the other, even with our experimentation and artificial intelligence and in offering new life forms. So the human being has both aspects that are completely intertwined. So instead of saying, well, the release of these neural peptides causes us to feel blank or saying, I was enraged, and therefore these neuro peptides were released, since the two are always occurring together than they are simply two aspects of the same phenomena. Yeah, that makes total sense. And so it starts to weave us in a little deeper, I think, to kind of get that stuff out of the way and say, Well, what are the effects of music on the body and mind, both together? We'll just call it body- mind? Yeah. You know. It's pretty clearly evidenced when you look at the behavior of the audience at concerts of different types of music. I mean, it's a pretty easy, empirical way to start because there's also a broad swath of evidence among lots of people recurring among lots of situations, you know, how different is it to watch an audience of opera, or of rock music or of punk music or of gospel music? These things are having very different effects both on individuals and on social groups. And so even in that sense, it's hard to tease out causality, you know, was it the music that caused those people? Or is it the people getting together? And as I described the feedback loop of musicians, were they creating a field of desire, expectation and so forth, that caused musicians to perform in such a way that the appropriate parts of their body mind would be excited? And you know, it's kind of a fascinating world of hypothesis. But ultimately, it just brings me to think, well, what, what effect do I want to have on people and what type of music would cause that because while I am a very curious person and I seek to know as much as possible and my time here is finite, not I don't mean this podcast, I mean my time on this earth, and so to some extent have chosen to, and have tuned my own dial the frequency toward what I like to experience and what I like to create in others. It's a beautiful way to think about it and to live. I do play some upbeat music I'd say faster tempo and more rhythm and because I want to make people joyously dance, and I do play some more slow music because I want people to be very relaxed and calm and contemplative meditative even. And those are kind of generally the realms I tend toward. People say, What kind of music do you play? The answer isn't particularly easy, but I seem to gravitate towards this idea. Well, I try to be right in the middle of my three favorite kinds of music, world music, classical music, and spiritually oriented music. So I want to play music with a variety of instruments and tone colors, the world music, I want to play music with a high degree of aesthetic harmony and forethought and technical requirements since the classical piece. And I want to play music that evokes a feeling of spirit by whatever name whenever means the idea that we are potentially more than a sack of meat and bones and cells. There might be a glimmering of deeper possibilities, greater levels of connection, some layer of meaning. Or a reality that transcends the individual. And so that's where I try to direct my music. And that's why we know each other. Yeah, that's because we have a similar interest in that type of thing. You know, absolutely music that appeals to your sensibility as well. And some people will listen to music and say, Well, I don't like that. I don't care. I don't care for the way it makes me feel. I want music that makes me feel more. You know, rock music is so vastly popular because it's solid rhythmic statement just kind of makes you makes you like pulse makes you want to move makes you like gives you the energy to kind of get up and, you know, I I do some construction work too. And every construction site I go to pretty much it seems like they're playing like the local classic rock radio station. It really makes you want to kind of like get the job done. Also, whatever you gotta do, it's like, Alright, let's get it you know, and so there's that people even If they can't articulate it, everyone understands the power of music. Yeah. And to different degrees, we all have the ability to use music to manipulate our internal and external environment. We can change our mood if we want to, you know, feel a little sad, we turn on sort of sad music or email or something. If you want to feel like really upbeat, transmit, maybe it's reggae for you, maybe it's pop music, whatever it is. So we can all sort of be our DJ. And the beauty of being a musician is that you kind of you have your own portable jukebox. In a way you can even play all the songs that you love the most and therefore you are committed to learning. Yeah, carry that with you and share that with others. Yeah, when I think of anybody thinks about it. We can all relate to a song or music that touched us in some way and affected our mood and You know, this podcast is around the topic of healing in general and to keep the energy of this conversation moving towards the concept of music and healing I was. You know, you and I have had a lot of conversations in the past, in general around philosophizing, General around the subject, but I was just curious. In your mind, we've talked about defining healing, what is healing? What What is your approach? Or what is your thought process around the healing? And then how does music play a role in that construct? Yeah, that seems like if we're going to talk about healing, with sounds good place is to sort of definitionally say, why do we even mean by that? If we are saying, well, you are healed when you're in a state of health, what is what does that look like? Right. Because, you know, in a broad colloquial sense, I think in the Western world, healing is loosely thought of as the absence of illness. That's what we were taught in med school, you know? Yeah, the definition. So all you have to do is get rid of the bad symptoms, and then you did it. But even now, that just doesn't really playing out very well for us. You know, we have all time high levels of variety of chronic illnesses and conditions and depressive tendencies and mental health issues. Clearly, we're not really looking at the whole picture. So we started to think about what if we could redefine where the bar is, you know, how high of a standard could we set for health? You know, there's something that said that sometimes design is limited only by the designers imagination. So maybe we just haven't been very proactive or creative about trying to figure out how good it could be. And I've had the experience several times. of meeting someone who seems to be in an optimal state of health. And what that looks like, is not just that they are not sneezing or coughing or have any limps or ailments. But health, as I've seen reflected in these examples are people who are living a life of purpose they feel when they wake up that they have a reason to be, and that they are offering their gifts to the world in a way that is reciprocated, that they not only are harnessing all of their skills and creativity in order to create a meaningful work and relationship with Earth and with society, but that that is also supporting them that they are receiving respect, possibly financial remuneration, whatever it might be, and then they are in touch With their aspects of not only physical health, including the ability to have a highly functioning, let's say, muscular cardiovascular system, immune system, but also their mental health, that is their ability to regulate their mood, which doesn't mean to not feel bad things - it means to have a meaningful relationship with joy and with sadness and with grief, and to not fear these things, let them flow through. And also to have a spiritual connection, something that I see is a common thread for these people. And they again, I mentioned it in a broad way, it doesn't mean that they follow a specific doctrine, belief or religion, but that it seems to go hand in hand with a life of purpose. Find the true sense of meaning in your life. Seems to me that you're probably believing something more broadly than born and so I have to eat to stay on And then when I stop eating, then I will die kind of thing. Yeah. And so what an optimal state of health can be I don't think we often think about these things of Do you have bountiful loving connections in your life? Are you respected by your friends and community? Do you feel like you have something valuable to offer to the world? You know, these are crucial elements to me of what health can be. And it doesn't take much to imagine. What would it be like if more people or if a majority of people felt that way they felt attuned to their internal state and that at the same time, the path of their life was in alignment with a greater unfolding when they're at the level of the human endeavor, or at the level of life on planet Earth. Hugely difference different society and experience, I think, majority of people felt on purpose and experiencing health another, and we're not at the whim of their moods and emotions were not overcome uncontrollably by anger, or by sadness or by jealousy, but could have a meaningful relationship with these things in which they could be present but not be allowed to drive the bus, so to speak. Yeah. And so as that relates to sound and music, then it becomes easier than in the really sort of limited medical context of what can sound do to alleviate symptoms of illness, which is still a meaningful topic with actual evidence based solutions to how to bring people lower levels of stress and created an environment that's more conducive to healing such as music, in hospitals and so on, but now, to speak more broadly, how can sound and music, create those, those broader states of health. And in this sense, it doesn't seem like such a leap, because many people take solace in music at a time of difficulty or of sadness. And that lyrics of a song especially in you know, in the language, you know, you hear a song and it and it touches you in a place you resonate with that you feel like what that artist was expressing is meaningful to you. And in that sense, there's a forging of connection across time and space, where you feel that someone understands you and you feel feel seen and heard in a way that perhaps the people around you were unable to do or you didn't reach out for their assistance. And that can come in a very pronounced way just as a wave of relief and well being. Of course we can trace fidget physiological effects maybe there's a slowing of regulation of heart rate and respiration and other related But you don't have to measure it that way. You can look at someone who is feeling well, and you can look at someone who's feeling not well, anybody can tell those two people. And so that's what I mean by health in general is just like, is a person in harmonious alignment at all levels. And of course, all levels is sort of vague at this point, but we're talking body mind, spirit, purpose work, relationship, love, you know, what can we optimize a harmonious balance of all of those. And music has great potential to assist in that process. Not only in kind of like, regulation or moods, you know, someone swings too far to one side. It's like a lopsided wheel that doesn't roll very well. And so if you have too much like introverted sand depressive inability to wake up and create something they might benefit from having some sort of music that isn't, you know, a complete swing until like, let's say 130 BPM house music or something, but something a little bit more activated than they are talking about this person needs some energy, maybe they have some, let's say list from this. Well, if you just just crank that knob up a little bit, that knob of, of tempo or flavor of color or of rhythm, it will kind of activate that person. And so we can use music to a tune to people's specific circumstance and needs like that. Or of course, in the situation of a concert, to a tune a broad variety of people to a similar state of being. Yeah, whether that is aesthetic rapture or, you know, release of pent up aggression. mosh pit or whatever it might be. Yeah, so you so you're talking about basically an integrated way of looking at health which I am completely on board with and integrating body mind spirit and I can't imagine looking at, at it through any other lens. And we're talking about really, how how music plays its role and its inspiration, activation, alignment, attunement and getting more and more of a sense of wholeness feeling more of a sense of more whole right is really how we could help. I think health and wholeness are a related word by a similar origin. You know, there was a movie I watched, gosh, the name is escaping me. It was about Individuals who had dementia. And when, when the music therapists were playing, they found out what they went to their families and they asked what their favorite music was. And they were going up and they were younger before while they still had their memory. And so they they were playing this music for them that they used to enjoy. And literally almost all of the people that you played there, the music would snap out, it literally changed their state of awareness. And their conscious, they were more alert, they were walking better, they're more joyful. It was incredible to see this and I'm gonna find the name of the movie and I'll place it at the end of the credits here but what it hits me is the effect of music on consciousness literally. You can have different states of consciousness based on on sound And my parents experienced this when they went to a place called the Monroe Institute where they wear these headphones for a week. And they go no meditation you play what combiner or beats a one wave pattern, one air another wave pattern, another peer and the wave pattern would end up in a certain hertz or certain frequency that would instill a certain state of consciousness some of that awareness brought them to really almost out of body states. My dad found himself in Peru like looking down from above like from the sky and found themselves talking to past the loved ones it was all pretty out there. But it was it was real. And the reason I bring this up this is why I would like to hear your perspective on sound and as medicine but really sound as changing states of conscious awareness and consciousness given any thoughts on that, or experiences that you'd like to share, and it's just me for me, it's a really interesting topic. Absolutely. It I mean, to my experiential point of view, it is absolute truth. I mean, it is where every time I play music is changing my state of consciousness. And, and there's something interesting that I think I read from Hazrat Inayat Khan, who's a brilliant Sufi philosopher and wrote mysticism of sound and music among other texts. And he was saying that, to him music is the ultimate art form because it is the only form of art that does not I'll preface this by saying he's talking about instrumental music. It does not by its nature, lead to a specific picture in someone's mind versus visual media painting, drawing, storytelling theater. Are these other types of human expression, you're kind of you're kind of putting something in for them. And you say, I would like you to perceive this. With music, if you close your eyes, there's no limitation on where you can go. And there might be similar themes among people who listen to similar pieces. But ultimately, you know, I might listen to something and it would remind me of my father and you would picture yourself as an eagle soaring over a canyon. And so, the music itself doesn't dictate that it is it is an invitation into a broader realm, a theater of imagination and possibility. And so many times I've played for people who felt like they have been on some kind of journey, and that is a little bit up to me, but I feel like it is more up to them. The more that you pay Attention, do you really tune in to the music that is being made, the greater ability, you will have to experience those types of effects. Because I've played in a lot of different places. One of the best places I find to play is yoga classes, yoga studios, because everybody's in there, doing a practice of awareness. And nobody's saying anything. And at the end, everybody says, Wow, that was so beautiful. Thank you for the music. Whereas I've also played at places like farmers markets, and there is people come there to shop a little bit mostly where I was going to come to kind of socialize with each other. So it's, it's background music, and you know, I can play some incredible stuff. I can play some music that I've had to rehearse for a long time. It was brilliantly composed from different places around the world. And it just kind of floating by doing nothing. And then I can play you know, one hotel California cover everybody stops with their doing and sings along thing that's incredible, you know, and that's, that's kind of why I stopped playing that sort of show. It's not the effect I'm trying to write really, right. But what I'm what I'm pointing out is that it is, the key to the door is in the hands of the listener, you are given the possibility to be the master of your own consciousness. And the music can be a tool, it can be a catalyst for that ability to journey to put it in a loose sense. Now whether that is actually has a visual component, like you see yourself different places or just a journey of feeling. You know, you listen to a Bach Cello Suite. They are replete with incredible details and twists and turns through his use of chromaticism that bring you up and down in sideways and in and out of love and terror and just despair. It's it's fantastic music and so you Take the time to really stop what you're doing. And to tune into a piece of music, you can get a lot more into the heart of what has been created. And what starts to come through more and more is, to some degree, the intention of the person who composed or performed it. That's at least what I start to pick up on. Because it's a really, really brilliant musical teacher of mine once said, he said, the more I learned about music, and he certainly more accomplished than I am, the more I learn about music, the more I see music is transparent. Whenever I hear music, all I can hear is who the person is who made it. There's no way to hide what you're trying to do when you make music. Just as people say, when you look in someone's eyes, you can't hide if they're, they're being shifty or if they're being loving or if they're being honest or here in the same sort of way. When you know all the tricks and tools And devices of music. When you hear it, you can't help but see through the devices and see who made this and what were they thinking or feeling at that time. And unfortunately, the majority of music that is commonly available, let's say contemporary and popular music, most of it seems to be made in the cultural wave of capitalism with the idea that someone would like to have recognition and financial gain, it has a selfish motive at some level, even if it is beautiful music or if it's well composed, even if this person is very skilled. What were they trying to do when it was created, that really starts to come through? Yeah, that makes really, really good points. And in really how to listen how to be an effective listener how to truly be present with with the moment and when I think about No, and I was taught meditation I was taught, you know, you connect with the witness. And then there's if you have a witness, you have something that the witness is witnessing. So and then you have the process of that. So you have three components there and this was music. So give a listener something that's being listened to, and maybe the process you want to call it that the connection of the two and as you're talking I was thinking about them. The movie interview saw it but there's a phrase and white men can't jump it was a Woody Harrelson movie, but there's one part in the movie where he was told, you know, you're you can you're hearing you hear Jimmy but you're not listening to Jimmy you know, so Jimi Hendrix and saying you know you're not really here you hear the the superficial stuff. But what you're talking about zand is you're at the heart of it and really so much so to get to the the truth of it, if you want to call it that or the essence of the music and the song and it brings up two questions I have for you. One is Where does that essence come from? Is it truly the person that wrote it down? Is that is when you write a song, is that was the song already in existence? And you tuned in and that came through you? Or is that something that's? It's just kind of a picture that I'm getting? Or was it? Where does that song? Where does it live? Where is it is there? What is the process of creation? In the music? it? Are we truly as individuals creating anything or is already in the unified field that we're tapping into? And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And then also, the other part of that is how to listen how to really listen. Sure, well, so the first question you've posed is about, "What is the nature of the creative process?" And you know, that is pretty speculative at this point, I mean, that's one of those sort of things. You list a dozen or two big questions that humanity has always grappled with, for example, you know that what is the meaning of life and that one has been asked for generations and not clearly resolved. So you've posed a couple of hypotheticals including, it's all out there and we take it down, or I am the one who made this, this is my thing for you to see. And to know, another one that used to be in vogue some time ago was the idea of being visited by a muse. So in this age of in our culture, we've dramatically stressed individuality and people really do think that that is a real level of being because they've been raised that way. You know, many of us grew up with our own bedroom, their own door that we could close and say, my space is closed, my space is open, you know, people in other cultures sometimes grow up a family or to to a single large room or, you know, in a variety of circumstances. And with this idea of the individual has come, I think a lot of pressure for songwriters, because everything you make as artists, everything you make is some kind of could be a judgment on your whole character. Like, Oh, I didn't like your song, I don't like you, you know, there's this all this pressure, like, where at the time of the muse, the idea was you were visited by a muse, and what came through, sort of came through, but it's like, well, this this came about and you can like it or not, but that isn't, I'm not identifying with that and say, This work is me. And I like that one a little better. Whether it's already out there. I mean, I think the discussion immediately gets too broad for this context, because we have to touch into temporality. What is the nature of of time is there a real before and after or if it's out there, we're talking about a coexistent, multi dimensional co present eternity And you know, that might also be the case. But again, speculative. Sure, I can't tell you the answer to the new two, but I you may have the one answer Zan. At times, you know, I have another friend who is a musician, also a real character. Someone said to him, Well, how do you write a song? I mean, I play the guitar. I'm gonna write some songs. You play the guitar Reall Well, you write songs. How do you do it? Well, get your guitar, get a piece of paper and pencil. Sit down. I mean, that's kind of what it takes. Like, no, no, that answer is really not satisfying. Like, I tell me how you do it........ That's pretty much how I do it. Iystarts with the intention. That's what we were talking about, you know, with what comes through is why are you writing a song? Because that will infuse the very essence of what you create.....I'm writing the song to exercise my self development. I'm writing songs to further my music skills. I'm writing this song to express my sense of unrequited love or am I missing my mother? I'm writing a song because I want people to know that I'm really good musician, you know all of that even if it is a multitude in various parts, it all gets put in there, like, Oh, well, it's really trying to show off use too much ornamentation, it's like a little bit too flourishing like that. It's beyond the level of what is beautiful and aesthetically pleasing into the level of like, it's just over the top. Yeah, so that that's what I mean by like, the use of the tools and devices comes through to reflect what is what is the who's they're doing it because the something I've noticed about music is that really all forms of art exhibit the same properties of aesthetic harmony and proportion. And so notes that sound pleasing with each other isn't No different than lines have different links that look good next to each other. And so visual art and music and you know, even poetry and meter and all these things. aesthetic proportion is sort of the meta category that allows these things to conspire and to condense into single works of art. And so what we find in music are the same things that are functional in other places, in very short terms. Beauty is beauty. And some of it is in the eye of the beholder. But there are basic principles of order and composition, that allow us to even exist in a world without these principles, forms of life as advanced as our own that allow for the consciousness and cognition to perceive would not be possible. And so we have these underpinning principles like hey, you know, when oxygen molecule to hydrogen molecules mean they make A certain shape, right, and they are certain sizes relative to each other. And that in a way sort of ripples up through all of creation, as we see from a set of, let's say, initial rules or properties and fundamental building blocks. The rest has fractaled out into the multitude of forms that we see today. And those forms include and not only human culture and social organization, but the artistic expressions of those cultures at different time periods. But what we can see is a continuous stream through them is what are the fundamental properties that underlie harmonic proportion or beauty, in expression, and that's why while the traditions of World Music have a tremendous variety of scales, and rhythms and styles and all these things, advanced musicians of any culture could play with advanced musicians of any other because Well, you know, in the West, we've been a little bit more quantized and rigid about it and we're like 12 tones period, everybody tune the same, we're doing 12 tones, and but Indian music and only had a limited study of it, but I enjoy it greatly. While there are more than 12 tones by using the semitones and the micro tones and kind of in between, ultimately you have approximately the same palette of 12 tones. And often, you know, in a heptatonic scale, and some of them can be either sharp or flatted. But it is not so vastly different as you might think of something so there are 30 something different notes or some some parts of Arabic or Persian music and we use quarter tones as well. But what I'm getting at is that we discovered the same mathematical formulations that underpin all the music, to see you've got the single unit of whatever frequency you choose, and twice that frequency. will be the octave. And then the relationship of two to one. And the relationship of two to three will create the fifth. And so basic ratio comparisons of integers, whole numbers is what create all of the tones that we use. And so music is just kind of really exquisite icing on the cake. We're really it's not, it's not a very good description, because it's kind of boring. What it is, is really the fractal and rainbow architecture of light and imagination. And that's the difference between music and math is that you take the math in order to create the building blocks and how they get assembled, is a work of, of mystery and of spirit and of passion. Yeah, and these are things that are not easily pinned down by specific numbers or ratios or even advanced mathematic Six or even the most cutting edge science we have, as has difficulty in explaining, even if they can say, if they could measure and describe when a person is feeling great passion, that still won't actually tell you what it is or what it is like or how that person will behave, or what type of music they would write in that state. Right. And so that is where I actually I studied pure mathematics, and I got a degree in it. And to some extent, I've left it behind because it leaves those types of important questions entirely unanswered. Yeah. And while it still has value, again, I have a finite time on this earth I have to follow the pole of my excitement. And it just seems that the incredible mystery and intrigue of the creative process just draws me much more strongly, especially when they can see the effects that that music has on people. Yeah, if I A, for the most part. A dedicate all of my free time and energy to music and have resisted to a large extent, doing it for money. Because I had other things that I did before that I was really passionate about. And I said, I'll use this to make a business or something. And it really sucks the life out of it. And you know, some people that really beautiful balance of business and art, but it's a challenging thing to do. Yeah. And so by not having to think I told you the farmers market story, right Hotel California, if that were my gig, and I needed to be good at it and people to like me, and to have me back to do it again. Right, I would have to play music that they like, right. And so I have made maybe four different albums now. And not one of them has actually paid for its production costs. But that's actually it's kind of a beautiful thing. What I really wanted people to do is to listen to the music, hopefully, and maybe to enjoy it. But ultimately, I made the music because I wanted to create something beautiful. Yeah. And that might not be beautiful to all people. But the process itself was not about the idea that I don't want to be a famous musician or a touring musician. I don't. I don't envy the lifestyle that must be led to be successful in that vein. And so I have been able to keep it just in my own sort of terms and definition a little bit more pure unclouded by those motives. And that, of course, limits me tremendously in the reach that I will ever have, you know, nobody on your podcast will ever have known who I am, and maybe some of them will go listen to music, maybe some won't. But that'll be like, you know, the number of people who listen will be in the hundreds, right versus to a music on Spotify to even get a penny back on Spotify. You need some X number of 10s of thousands of listens to receive a penny. I mean, it's not a very equitable arrangement. I'm giving the music away, essentially. exactly but, but I'm not complaining. I think that is design. I do it because I love it. Yeah. And because it brings me not only joy, I mean, brings me all the emotions, but it brings me is depth and meaning to life. Yeah, music is a just a perfect and unlimited microcosm of the world in general. We're using the same alignments and principles and ratios as in the world itself. But we can do it in little scales. We can like make these play worlds in which we interact. We say, Whoa, what's it like if we have more tension than resolution? Oh, that's an interesting world. What is it like if we have only harmony with no notes of tens ion? Well, that world is actually quite boring. Hmm. It's not actually the world we want to live in. It is the moments of tension that create the beauty in the moments of release and it is this, you know, it sort of takes some of the bite out of the idea of darkness and lightness, will the lightness wind or some kind of, no, that's not really even possible. Question and my frame of reference in the world of music, but ultimately, they not only come into existence together, but potentiate each other. And so it is through the dissonance, that we find the consonance. So, I guess it's just a it's a kind of a perfect microcosm to help us. At a high level, if we really get into music to help us mature emotionally and mentally, and to develop our consciousness, we're talking about the effect of music on consciousness, the effect of being able to play music on consciousness, I would venture to guess is dramatically more. And I know there have been some of the brain scan studies done not only for music, but on people playing music, and the way that music lights up your brain or if you're if you're jumping into a Bach violin partita not only the, you know the synaptic memory that it takes to execute some of those And tricky passages. Ultimately, in order to be able to play that music, you have to understand a lot about the way that it shifts and how there are relations between different chords and structures and shifts and keys and rhythms. And you are by understanding a single piece of music, broadly developing your understanding of the entire composition of the universe. And that's the the beauty in some of those pieces. I would say that Bach.... JS Bach is my favorite composer of all time. Now, I don't only listen to classical music, but I love his music. I have two kids and got a lot going on in my life as we all do. So sometimes at home and you know, houses in mess and it's like dishes stacked up and I got a million things on my list, and they just turn on some Bach music. And in the midst of all of the disorder, I find this not a cognitive knowing order. I find a deep sea Did like body physical knowing of the perfection of order in the cosmos, and they can go about my cleaning tasks and I can put everything in its right place just like I'm playing a note on the harpsichord or something. It's like, yes, bring everything back to a state of graceful elegance and equilibrium. That is the purpose. You know, and so the effect on me versus like, Oh, I'm so stressed out. I mean, you know, I don't want to watch this. I think it's a mass I got to be up all night taking care of it. Just coming into a place of like, this is the work of art that is our life As humans, we have the potential to exude our essence through our gifts and as things enter our field, to bring them into vibrational alignment with our intention and imagination. And so that music can have that effect on me and it might be different music for different people. But to me it is the music is so exquisitely composed at so many levels. And the the counterpoint and the harmonic relation, and it's just the more you learn about it, the more levels you find. And so just to hear it and you know, to listen to some of the Bach fugues, where there's so much going on at once that you only have the ability to track either a single piece or the effect of the whole, it's just....it just does something to me. Yeah. And I think I can best describe it by being... having a deep knowing and an immediate experience of the perfect order. The beautiful surrounds us. So that I mean, from a first person perspective, that is one of the most profound examples I can give of the effect of music on consciousness, took what could have been a really unpleasant moment and turned it into a joyous devotional celebration. And that's, I mean, that's what what Bach probably would have said, if he was here. It's like, music is a gift from God for us To use in his worship, you know, Bach lived in a time that is sort of how religion was phrased, but to bring it into our own time, or in terms of take out the word his and make some other adjustments, but music is a divine gift. And it is a tool to link us up to that higher potential and whether our higher potential is just a state of holistic health, which is, it's a fairly politically correct thing to talk about. Or if you want to take it to the level of music as a tool for us to reach divine connection or to realize, to say that in other word, to realize how we are connected to all things, and how we are all interwoven into an infinite tapestry of beings with no beginning or end. It's all we're seeing the same thing in different words here. Music is, in fact, the thing that is allowing us to transcend the distinctions of these words, to reach a commonality of experience, that is ineffable that can't actually be described by our Language. I'm speechless. I'm just gonna let that sink in and I'm gonna listen to this podcast myself over and over again Really Zan that is beautiful. I've heard you talk about what it is to live a life of passion and in terms of just the intention of beautifying the world making the world a more beautiful place and I just really want to express my sincere thanks for for your example of living this, this your example of what it is to not go for all the money because you could you could be out there making a lot of money playing music as you do and doing the hotel california thing you know, you've taken this road and it's it's such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful life that you lead, I really do see that. And I know and I hope sincerely that hundreds of thousands of people listen to this and hear you and connect. And because, you know, there's just about anybody that I talked to, that listens to and spends time with you, in a musical sense is inspired to pick up an instrument themselves. And I think that says a lot, really. Just to have that, that passion, that desire to reach for the states that you're talking about, in communion with a higher state of God awareness or spiritual connection through music. It's to inspire that is what you do is what I see and and way more than that, but I just, I just want to express that to you. Thank you and I'd like to ask you, when you go get home into your home, I too, would you mind maybe forwarding some music for our listeners that fall in the categories that you'd mentioned a world music and spiritual music and classical music that and think we may like show you from your own musical background or what you've played or others and they do. share that. I know you've your guitar here, would you mind rounding and kind of bringing this to a beautiful , if you will, or that's not the right word with some music that's kind of that's inspired through your talk, whatever is coming through right now. Sure. Just grab my guitar and get it set up. Hear that I mentioned, my understanding is that your podcast is about sound as medicine. And We have certainly talked about that in a specific way. But we've talked more about how music is life. Just to kind of tie it in a little bit, that sound.. medicine. There are certainly ways our conversation could have taken a bend that is, of course about sound itself, and how it was vibration, and that vibration can affect our vibratory nature. But all that we've taken the leap is to say, a succession of sounds that are pieced together in a way that is harmonious. That that's how you get to music pretty immediately. And so what the medicine can be, I think we made the leap to say How good could it? get like what is the best possible life we could lead? And how can these successions of well proportioned sounds? assist us in that aid? Hmm. So we're kind of down in like a little niche, but I think that's how it might tie in. I think that's beautifully put. And for those that do want to connect with you in some way, listening to more of your music, and that sense, how would they, how would they find you looking up Zan Moore I know you play in a group band called RagaNova on it. Yeah, so anything about that? I'll list a couple in any of these would pretty much take you there. You could go to Zan sounds.com and that would link you into a couple of my solo records. Or you could go to raga nova.com. And that will take you into some of this collaborative world fusion project. I have going love the new album button. Thanks, that was really fun to put together. And both of those you can find in all of the places where music is found. However, if you're looking up just My name is Nan, on for example, Spotify, it might be 15 other artists with that name, so it would help if you also searched at the same time for the title of the most recent release, which is "Essence". So if you type in Zan essence and do a music search engine that should help tune you into that there aren't too many other Raganova out there. Because something that sounds like electronic music you're definitely in the wrong place. But if you get to the rock and over that sounds like you know Brazilian Samba, Latin Indian sitar fusion kind of thing then you definitely .....that's us. Well, it's been a pleasure talking with you. And I wish for everyone who is listening, all of the best things, joy and abundance and fulfillment. And that your interest in this path may bring not only deeper meaning to your life, but great health to all whom you encounter and share with your knowledge, whether it is through your actions or your words, or the sounds that you create. And sow the seeds of harmony, where we walk to bring things into greater alignment for the good of all. Amen. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you for joining us. Sound medicine, mantras and music. If you are enjoying the podcasts, click subscribe. To access other episodes, more interviews and music, please visit our website at www.mantrasandmusic.com. Join us next Thursday for the release of our newest episode. Thanks again for your support. See you next week. Transcribed by https://otter.ai