Jill Mattson – In ancient China people harmonized and meditated to a single tone…for hours.  The listeners mimicked the feeling of a tone – to develop mastery over the emotional, mental and physical lessons contained within it. Physical elements, brain waves and emotions are vibratory, just as tones are. Waves in close proximity combine. Therefore, tones affect emotions and brainwaves. Their idea was anything, but flawed.

The ancient Chinese strove to master and balance frequencies. Each tone was important. Today, who would listen to just one tone and marvel on its beauty? That would be boring and obnoxious. We do perform a watered down version of this practice, however. When a musician plays a song in one key, the song begins and ends with the same note. The music seemingly hovers around this same note. Eventually the listeners resonate with this keynote.

Listening to one tone was mixed with listening to a word. Confucius recited a verse and then a percussive instrument sounded a note to “receive the tone and transmit it to the following word.” [1] The instrument literally combined with the sound wave of the word and subtly filled the silence until the next word was spoken, creating an unbroken energy stream.

To perform one tone – the Chinese made hundreds of subtle variations that we would not appreciate. In the duration of mere seconds the ancient Chinese prescribed volume and speed variations in vibrato. Vibrato is created by fluctuating a tone up and down a tiny bit, perhaps one cycle per second. For example, the music could dictate fast vibrato then slower, slower still and then none. … all this in a second or two. The ancients documented 26 variations in the rate, volume and pitch of a vibrato. Today we employ one.

Music created subtle feelings, even inaudible vibrations. For example, the silence after various notes has different subtle feelings. Listeners achieve mastery of subtle awareness when they appreciate such tiny details.

Contrast the experience of enjoying different “silences”- to listening to Mic Jagger’s song “I can’t get No Satisfaction.” Listening styles cultivate fine or gross levels of perception.

There were other ways of modifying a single tone. The same pitch can be created on different strings. The timber sounds different on each string due its thickness and what the string is made of. The ancient Chinese regulated the measurements of musical instruments and what materials that they were constructed from.

They dictated which string a note was to be played on, controlling subtle tonal color. They also prescribed lightly or firmly placing your finger on the strings, creating an airy or solid feeling. Finally, which finger was used to pluck a string created a subtle variation of strumming sounds?

People embraced subtleness within a tone that today we would not even notice. The listener and musician would have to be “in the zone” to notice such minute attention to subtlety. By focusing on subtle effects they refined and mastered their perception of subtle energy, which was most useful in other contexts and developed psychic skills.

[1] Sachs, Curt. The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, East and West, Dover Publications: Mineola, N.Y., 1943, Pg. 108.

SF Source Jill’s Wings of Light May 2024