Sound goes through you!
The fundamental sound of a musical instrument will affect your body as its sound goes through you. The instrument’s specific set of overtones affect the auric layers of the biofield around your body.
The right instrument for you provides nourishment for your body and nervous system like nothing else!
Generally, every instrument is a combination of many sounds called the fundamental and the overtones. The fundamental is the loudest sound the instrument makes. The overtones are higher sounds related mathematically to the fundamental. It is the overtones that make a violin sound differently from a flute. Or a trumpet sound differently from a piano.
Without the overtones, all instruments would sound exactly the same. In fact, without the overtones, your voice will sound exactly the same as my voice.
When I attend concerts performed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, I love to listen with my whole body. I can feel the tuba and bassoon deep in my belly. The huge drums vibrate up through the floor into my feet and legs. The cello and the harp warm my heart and ribcage. The high notes of the flute buzz around in my head.
Food for Your Body
Kay Gardner, in one of my favorite books, Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music as Medicine, includes a long list of instruments and where they are likely to affect the listener’s body and particularly the chakras. As a composer, musician and sound healing pioneer, she used this information in her own music.
1. Root, sacral and abdominal chakras:
This area includes the belly, diaphragm, emotional and psychic (gut feeling) centre. Instruments that directly affect this lower part of the body are drums, cello, trombone, tuba, bassoon, bass guitar and other low instruments.
2. The Heart chakra involves our experience of compassion and love.
Instruments that affect the heart area are: string orchestra (think heartstrings), English horn, viola, French horn, and the high range of the cello.
3. The Throat chakra involves communication and creative expression.
Instruments that affect the throat area are clarinet, oboe and violin.
4. The third eye chakra is the home of insight and perception.
Instruments that affect this area include flute, oboe and trumpet.
5. The Crown chakra is where we experience bliss and spiritual connection.
Instruments that affect the crown chakra are tinkling bells, crystal bowls and high-pitched sounds.
6. Instruments that affect the entire body have the widest range of sounds.
Instruments that affect the whole body are concert harp, guitar, piano, carefully voiced synthesizers and the symphony orchestra.
The harp has the purest tone because of way strings are set with one note per string. This instrument vibrates whole human organism. It also creates perfect overtones.
The classical guitar resonates the body from the belly to the crown, especially the belly, solar plexus and heart.
The piano affects the entire body because of its range. Because of thickness and tautness of its strings and its altered tuning, the piano does not create perfect harmonics like the harp.
There are three instruments that are held in front of the heart: the guitar, the cello and the harp.
The next time you are listening to your favorite music or at a concert, I invite you to become more aware of how your body listens.
Super Food for Your Soul
Sound is food for your soul. In fact, sound is food for every part of you. Just like food, there is junk sound, like traffic noise; good sound, like nature sounds; and super sound, like singing bowls.
A sound bath provides super food that
- creates relaxation,
- calms the nervous system,
- quiets the mind,
- stimulates hormones that heal and
- opens the door to your heart and soul.
Every month, I offer an online sound bath experience in The Wellness Universe Lounge online platform. The next Food for Your Soul Sound Bath is on Thursday, December 5 at 10am MT.
Click below to register:
In Health and Harmony,
