The universe sounds in every drop of its existence. Everything around us, and everything within us, is filled with sound. It is impossible to escape sound, even in a soundproof room – the beating of the heart, the movement of air as we breathe, and the ringing in our ears will always accompany us on this beautiful journey called life.
The first thing we do when we come into the world is announce to everything around us that we are. Our voice may sound like a cry, but that is only at first glance. In truth, it is the first note of a great musical composition performed by life itself. Throughout our entire life, we perform this piece, and each of us has our own personal orchestra. Each person is both a composer and a performer. These orchestras sound, filling the manifested Universe with meaning. Each of these individual orchestras brings forth the music of an even greater orchestra that spans all of humanity.
Every note of the human orchestra sounds and occupies its own important and unique place.
Every musician plays their part flawlessly, for the conductor of all this is the greatest conductor in the world – Nature. Nature does not single anyone out or bestow special privileges or statuses. Where nature is present, love is present; there we experience a special feeling that fills the soul with nectar.
Music has existed for a very long time. Even gods and celestial beings engage with music. In the history of civilization, music has played a significant role. Yet music also became a means of earning money for those involved in commerce. Countless musical styles and genres have emerged. Commercial music strives to impress the listener and capture their attention.
It is not easy to recognize genuine musical gems in today’s information flow. Even good musicians fall into the traps created by the mind. Take the metronome, for example. Its use has become widespread. The device itself has value and has its place, but it cannot serve as the foundation upon which an entire musical work is built. Music is something living and pulsating, not the mechanical clicking of a metronome. Music played to a metronome is a product of modernity. What living pulsation can we speak of here? Such music is artificial and unnatural; there is no life in it – only imitation.
Music is a living pulsation, much like the beating of our heart. The heart never lies and never misses a beat; it faithfully plays the music of our life from the first to the last note. In the rhythm of the heart there are both slowings and accelerations, and this emotional musical agogics creates the uniqueness of each moment of our lives. The heart does not pulsate like a metronome. When there is pulsation in music that comes from the very depths, the music cannot be unrhythmic. Playing with a metronome is always arrhythmic. Yet the metronome is a good training tool for mastering a musical instrument.
There is another restless and unrestrained activity of the mind – music competitions. In them, as in sports, a winner is chosen. If one of the main purposes of music is to convey what cannot be expressed in words, then what is the basis of competition? By what criteria are prizes awarded?
There are many such tricks of the mind. All of this creates a certain field – an egregore – with its own ranks, titles, and statuses. And this entire stream of sound, like a radioactive avalanche, irradiates our brain and ears, creating a grand illusion of significance, importance, and fullness.
One can hear music only when we become natural, when we are like children, when we cast aside everything we know. This is at once very simple and very difficult. To hear music, one must follow one’s own path, and one’s own path is inevitably narrow – wide roads always lead nowhere.
Music sounds in every cell of our body. Music can tell of the most intimate and hidden things within us. Music can connect us with our soul.
To hear music is to hear God, to touch the unknown, and to experience unity. There is no difference between the composer, the performer, and the one who listens and hears. In truth, no one invents music – it exists eternally. The composer, like a radio receiver, reads it and records it in the form of notes or in some other way. Therefore, the one who is able to hear is no less significant than the author or performer. The listener co-creates together with the author and performer. All three – the author, the performer, and the listener – create a complete cosmic cycle. Hearing and receiving music is an art just like hearing and writing it down, hearing and performing it. To do this, one must become empty and full at the same time, like the cosmos.
For sound to resonate, there must be emptiness. These are the empty spaces within the body and within the mind. But this emptiness is not only physical – it is also psychological. The heart and the mind must be empty. Music is the art of being empty. Music is not only harmony, melody, meter, or tempo; it is something more. Music is, first and foremost, the emptiness in which it sounds. Without emptiness, there is no music. Music conveys emotion and experience from the very depth of the soul. Music becomes complete only when, having cast aside all that is unnecessary, it becomes an instrument of the Absolute – simple and majestic at the same time, like inhalation and exhalation.
The human voice is a perfect musical instrument.
Mastery of the voice lies in simplicity, sincerity, and openness. The truthfulness of the voice is, first of all, truthfulness toward oneself. When the voice is truthful, others can hear that truth. Such a truthful voice can penetrate the hearts of listeners regardless of the theme of the work being performed.
It often happens that singers simply have nothing to say. Sometimes vocal technique can mask this, but the heart can always recognize a falsehood wrapped in beauty. If a person sings about faithful love and even displays emotion, but their life demonstrates the opposite, then the voice will reveal – not what the vocalist wants, but what they truly are on a subtle level.
Mastery of singing and vocal performance is the ability to generate a certain energy and emotional state.
There is a sound that resonates within the singer’s body and another that vibrates in the space around them. The body never lies, and if the body is unprepared, the sound will reflect that. The body is nature, and it is always truthful – unlike the mind, which is cunning, calculating, and self-reflective. When singing is natural, truth and genuine emotion emerge from the depths of our being. When singing is driven by the mind, there is a desire to please, to assert oneself, to be recognized.
The nature of perceiving the human voice is such that we perceive it not only with our ears and eardrums, but also with our body and through the microvibrations of the vocal folds (the listener’s vocal folds vibrate together with those of the singer or speaker). Therefore, singing is, in a sense, even nourishment. It is no coincidence that Christ said of himself: “I am what I speak” and “I am the food.”
Words can save, heal, give hope, and can also kill. A person who respects themselves is mindful of what they put into their mouth. The same is true with music. One must be attentive and develop taste so as not to be poisoned by a low-quality product. With ordinary food, one can cleanse the stomach and intestines, but with subtle matter such as music, one can poison an entire life.
To hear music is to hear oneself, and it does not matter what piece we are listening to, for our life is music, and the music in our life is a fragment of that life. Hearing music is a talent like any other. One must be sensitive and attentive, and then the incredible world will open its doors. Anyone can receive this gift; everyone has the same opportunities – only each person uses their divine gift in their own way.
Music is music and has value only when it contains the invisible and the non-acoustic, which we perceive as emotional and psychological. True music is always lived and felt by the composer, the performer, and the listener. To hear music, one must have a Heart. To hear music, one must become a Soul, not a mind. And when the mind surrenders, music – like the nectar of immortality of the divine Amrita, like the Boundless and Inexhaustible Waters of Akshara – opens the doors to our True Self.