RockOm

Early today we posted an insightful interview with Christine Stevens of UpBeat Drum Circles. Now's your chance to hear the interview first-hand. Check out the newest episode of the RockOm Podcast to hear our conversation about how music bridges cultural and spiritual "differences" and to check out all this amazing group is doing in the world.

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An Interview with Playing For Change: Peace Through Music filmmaker Jonathan Walls
By Tom Crenshaw, tom@RockOm.net

“To travel the earth and to absorb its spectrum of differences and similarities became frustrating, enlightening and exhilarating all at once. To ponder our path is overwhelming, but when I simplify its core, I realize we are all still humans being and we are all one. When this understanding sank in, as it did for me while filming, the mysteries of life disappeared. And then I listened to the music.”
[Jonathan Walls]

As with most revolutions Playing For Change: Peace Through Music began with the sound of one voice. That voice belonged to a street musician named Roger Ridley who was often referred to as "the voice of God" by the other street musicians on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California. That’s where Playing For Change co-director Mark Johnson came across Roger performing the song “Stand By Me.” Witnessing this performance inspired Mark to return and to film and record Ridley and his anthem-song. Four years later, and after a whirlwind journey to various continents capturing musicians on film, the world is gifted with a second award winning documentary, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music (the first being Playing For Change in 2003), a ten song CD and seven track DVD. The CD/DVD album, Playing For Change: Songs From Around the World, is a collection of songs and videos featuring over 100 musicians across the planet that have never met in person, but have been brought together through the power of music.

"Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world."

Utilizing innovative mobile audio/video techniques, Playing for Change recorded musicians outdoors in cities and townships worldwide. They've traveled from post-Katrina New Orleans to post-apartheid South Africa, from the remote beauty of the Himalayas to the religiously diverse Jerusalem. The players' talents are captured in a myriad of environments: under the sun and beneath the streetlights; in public parks, plazas and promenades; in doorways, on cobblestone streets, and amid hilly pueblos. Their performances are subsequently mixed together, allowing them to collaborate - even though they are separated by hundreds, or even thousands, of miles.

Bill Moyers calls Playing For Change a remarkable example of "the simple yet transformative power of music... to touch something in each of us." Variety acknowledges it as "a great showcase for just what incredible, thoroughly accessible popular music is being made worldwide." Playing for Change is an extraordinary effort to unite musicians and vocalists from diverse parts of the globe, while at the same time seeking to immerse audiences in a multimedia movement to inspire, connect and bring peace to the world through music.

RockOm recently had the opportunity to speak with Playing For Change co-director Jonathan Walls about the documentary Playing for Change: Peace Through Music, which has been airing around the country on PBS (click here for airing schedule). In October the full length documentary will be available on DVD for purchase at PlayingForChange.com.

RockOm: You wrote in April of last year in The Huffington Post that to “travel the earth and to absorb its spectrum of differences and similarities became frustrating, enlightening and exhilarating all at once.” Now that you’ve had some time to reflect on making the documentary, what has the experience taught you about music and the human condition or spirit?

Jonathan: Music is one of the most beautiful expressions we have. It has shown me and all of us who are involved that it is a language that anyone understands and there are really no limitations to how you express yourself with music. As far as bringing in the human connection, it opens you up to other people even if there's uncomfortableness because of cultural differences. On this journey, music was a path that connected both parties, both us as filmmakers and the musicians. Our best way of communicating with them in the beginning was with a video iPod showing them the rough stages of [Playing For Change's first video] "Stand By Me."

RO: Playing For Change has consumed 10 years of your life thus far, which you’ve shared with the 100 or so musicians who’ve appeared in the two documentaries. Did you and co-director Mark Johnson ever dream Playing For Change would have the impact it has produced?

Jonathan: No, we never really thought it would impact so many people. I never would have imagined that in the very beginning. We always had the hopes that it would be inspiring but it has been a little overwhelming in feeling the impact it has had.

RO: There’s a quote in the movie, “Music knows no boundaries, knows no races… it is possible for music to bring peace around the world.” How do you answer those who would say this is being naive or is simply wishful thinking?

Jonathan: I would say it's also naive to think otherwise. That is a strong statement and it's not going to bring peace ultimately but it could start to crack down the barriers, which is a step toward peace.

RO: While filming the musicians, what did you see or discover that was cause for celebration in some of the most desolate places on earth - where disease, poverty, and conflict are commonplace?

Jonathan: In the township of Gugulethu, outside of Cape Town, South Africa, is really a poor and impoverished area where a lot of people are living. We were in the back yard of a musician named Pokei Klaas in a sea of shacks and small homes. Once he assembled his band and got the music going, people starting coming out of their little homes and dancing and celebrating in the music. From what we were told, that kind of excitement and jubilation hadn't been witnessed in some time. That was a very wonderful experience in that there was celebration in music and they forgot in that moment whatever things were bringing them down.

RO: Is that the township where the Playing For Change School is now at?

Jonathan: Yes, we built that in Klaas' back yard.

RO: How did that come about?

Jonathan: We were talking to Pokei after interviewing and getting to know him and he said that a dream of his was to have a school to help all the kids in his township. So that was kind of the birth of the idea of the [Playing For Change] Foundation - to build schools around the world and give the kids a future. Yes, it was born in that moment of the performance in Pokei Klaas' back yard. [laughs] A year and a half later we were there building the school.

RO: A quote from an Indian musician in the move says, “Through music we can get enlightenment.” Do you agree with his statement and if so, what does this enlightenment look like to you?

Jonathan: I agree with that statement. I'm not a musician myself but in witnessing all sorts of music, it can be a tool for meditation. If you do get into the music and express yourself with your music, I think it can give you some enlightenment and a more pure understanding of everything.

RO: Who are some of the most memorable musicians that stand out in your mind in the documentary and on the CD?

Jonathan: Grandpa Elliot is a special soulful musician that really sticks out. He's definitely a character and he's now one of the main musicians in our band. He's also the musician I spent a lot of time with. And then the Asian musicians, Sur Sudha, one of whom gave the quote about enlightenment, really had an impression on me because I really hadn't listened to that kind of music but I just love the tablas and sitar. There's another musician who plays the veena in India named Rajhesh Vaidhya and what he does on that veena is absolutely incredible. It compares to Jimi Hendrix! [laughs] It's phenomenal.

RO: Tell us about the Playing For Change Band that was just recently featured on The Colbert Report as well as those musicians comprising the band presently on a world tour.

Jonathan: The Playing For Change Band wasn't even one of our missions when we started. It came about on its own, basically. When we were talking with Starbucks and Concord Music Group, there was a Starbucks convention in New Orleans and they suggested that we have a little concert for all the store owners who came for that convention. So we assembled the musicians that were available and whom we thought would play well together and the crowd loved it. When our CD was first coming out, the label wanted to do a promotional tour so we brought more musicians together and throughout our travels, it was a really amazing experience. We got positive feedback from all audiences. So now it has become an entity that people want and there's going to be a fall tour in I believe 30 cities.

RO: Are you and Mark Johnson doing a documentary on the tour?

Jonathan: [laughs] No, I don't think we are. We might go out on a little stretch and do some filming and we're going to have a Foundation benefit during that tour here in Los Angeles that we are going to film. You never know down the road. We have filmed a lot of the concerts; we went to Glasbury recently and shot that concert. There might be a special release some day of live performances in different venues.

RO: Is there something you're working on in the future that's centered on music or would you like to move away from musical projects?

Jonathan: Music has become a very important part of my life as a filmmaker. Playing For Change was a concept that may really live on for quite some time, so we are talking about doing other music related projects. I think right now I'm going to stay on that train of music. There are other things I'd like to do as a documentary filmmaker, but right now I'm enjoying the ride of Playing For Change.

Visit the Playing for Change website for video samples, CD/DVD/MP3 purchases and much more information.

RockOm Round-up is a quick glance at what's going on around the world in the areas of music and spirituality...

• Jason Mraz wants his music and his actions to help people change their lives for the better - "Mraz shares the restaurant's philosophies at a 'gratitude tent' at his shows. Personally, he is always looking for ways to improve his life, whether it's through Buddhism or other sources... 'Anything I can do to stay tuned up,' Mraz said. 'It's every little pamphlet, every spiritual text, every life manual I can get. As a writer, it's my duty to stay abreast of different philosophies.'" (modbee.com)
• Terence Blanchard melds philosophy, music in 'Choices' - "These albums are not simply collections of songs, but larger thematic pieces recorded around a central idea, inspired by hard times and social change... It's part of our generation's response," said Blanchard. (latimes.com)
• Dance Your Blues Away - "Dance is also used throughout many of the spiritual traditions as a form of losing self-centeredness and opening the heart, as seen in Sufi whirling dervishes, Tibetan lama dancing, the ecstatic dance accompanying Hindu devotional chanting, or in Jewish circle dancing." (huffingtonpost.com)
• Looking to the music to lead us back - "It shouldn’t be left to politicians and economists to show the way forward... our traditional musicians have their own story to tell and a long history of healing ills" (irishtimes.com)
• Cracking the code, is music the universal language? - "During a unique panel on Notes and Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus, the presenters discussed this question: 'Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined? Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment?'" (examiner.com)

RockOm Round-up is a quick glance at what's going on around the world in the areas of music and spirituality...

• 'The Music is Filled with Colors' - An Artist and a String Quartet Interpret Music by Czech Composer Krása, Who Died in the Holocaust: "The composition is powerful, compelling and contains a message of hope and promise," he said. "There's a spiritual quality to the sky; it really works symbolically as a sign of freedom." (forward.com)
• Marin Interfaith Council concert takes world music to eclectic spiritual level - "'Interfaith music is the way we really need to go in terms of living peacefully together,' said Cantor Linda Hirschhorn, Vocolot's founder. 'The more we can appreciate each other's culture, the more places there are where our beliefs can intersect. And when we find those, then we have more in common that we can share.'" (marinij.com)
• Indian classical music icon Hangal dead - "Leading Indian classical vocalist Gangubhai Hangal died Tuesday at a hospital after a brief illness... Her demise was mourned by the Indian music community which said Hangal reached the pinnacle of music, battling poverty and defying gender and caste barriers in the conservative, pre-independence India." (earthtimes.com)
• Three days of peace and music make a comeback - "'It was an amazing event in that a group or community of people came together, that it was peaceful at a time when things were pretty horrible,' Lang said. 'All these things we had been striving for came together that weekend -- I thought this was a chance for us to demonstrate what the world was going to be like when we were in charge. I think it was a moment of hope in a very dark time.'" (manchesterjournal.com)

RockOm contributor, artist, community member and friend, Michael Garfield interviewed groundbreaking author and philosopher Ken Wilber in early 2008. In this excerpt, the two discuss the evolving "role of music."

Michael Garfield: Well, one of the things that I've been talking about with my friends is something that's kind of central to a lot of people's world right now: the changing role of music in our culture. That there's this technological revolution that we're going through now, it's a revolution of communication, and so the role of communication is expanding - like it tends to, in the middle of a technological revolution.

Ken Wilber: Right.

MG: And just as someone who's given a lot of thought to what the consequences of new modes of communication and discourse are going to mean, in the 21st Century, how do you see the role of music expanding or changing in the next ten, twenty, fifty, hundred years?

KW: Yeah. Well it depends on how you look at music, in terms of its actual functionality, its actual contours, its actual definition. We sort of begin with pointing out that music is an artifact. So it's something that is created, meaningfully, by human sentient beings. And it has a component of it that can be looked at as just purely expressive, which is something in a sense that an artist can theoretically just do alone, but then it also has a communitive aspect. Something that is meant to be conveyed to another sentient being. And that then opens the artifact to being interpreted at the altitude that it's created at.

[Ken's uses the word "altitude" to mean a particular station along the continuum of psychological development. The more developed you are, the higher your altitude.]

And this then leaves music's self-expressive and communicative capacity coming from a particular altitude. And different types of music, or even within types of music, individuals and different artists in specific types of music can pretty much span almost an entire spectrum. And so what we're looking at is a range of signifiers [signals] that are both self-expressive and communicative. And particularly in the communicative mode, it's a system or pattern of signifiers that's going to go through a particular medium, and the medium itself can be an important part of the message, but it goes through a particular medium and then is decoded as a signified [the signal's meaning] in a human or a group of human beings.

And so that essentially means several things, in terms of the role of music, what music is doing, and so on. And one is that you can look at the actual content of music, its actual altitude, and whether it's evoking a sort of second or third chakra rock and roll beat -

[The chakras of the body's subtle energy system are roughly equivalent to the stages of human psychological development - chakras two and three are correlated with the emergence of the ego and personal power.]

- or whether it's more cerebral, and Bach-classical music sort of sixth or seventh chakra [the nexuses of intuitive insight and divine union, respectively]. And you can look at it in terms of that kind of altitude evoking, and that refers essentially to the structure of music, and the structural altitude that music fits into as a signifier - and, again, whether it's aiming at lower chakras or intermediate chakras or higher chakras - but you can also look at music as its capacity to evoke states of consciousness. And this is probably one of the most important aspects of music as a spiritual transmission. Because music at any level can start out as a third-person artifact, and then can actually end up as a first-person identification. A person can actually end up feeling one with the art in a nondual flow state [in which the boundary between self and other is completely dissolved]. And if not a flow state, then as a pure witness, a contemplation of the art as being so beautiful or so arresting or so provoking that one is thrust into a causal witness state.

[The witnessing state is a state of pure awareness, unidentified with any of the objects of consciousness - the featureless self of this state is "causal" in the sense that all things arise within its spaciousness, and so there can be no prior origin.]

And if that deepens or intensifies, it will go from that third- or second-person into a first-person identification, and one gets into a flow state, one loses one's self in the art. The art evokes and pulls forth a capacity for causal or nondual Spirit. And this can happen at, again, virtually any altitude, just as states, peak experiences can occur at any altitude. But looking at the state transition itself is one of the really important aspects of looking at art, because at whatever level a society is at, art is one of its primary means of transmitting causal and nondual Spirit.

And you had some questions about environment and in the modern world, as artists are the primary spiritual speakers - one way to put it - and in a sense, that's true. So what we're looking at are two different scales of what art does. One is the altitude that the signifiers of art are flying at, and that's a developmental altitude, it's an altitude of complexity, an altitude that is put into the artwork by the consciousness of its maker, by the artist, and will then tend to evoke the same level - in viewers or readers or listeners - the same level of signifieds as the level of signifier. And so in the modern, in the coming world, art does two things - one, it has a world of higher signifiers open to it, it has a world of integral or second-tier, in some cases, third-tier altitude open that it can resonate from.

["Second-tier" refers to the altitudes at which all previous altitudes are recognized as essential elements of one's own being, and less-developed individuals are treated compassionately and appropriately according to their own development. "Third-tier" refers to the altitudes beyond second-tier at which the self/other boundary begins to unravel - not merely as a temporary peak experience, but as a permanent feature of one's identity.]

And whether it's in music, or painting, or literature, it can transmit that second-tier evocation, that integral transmission. And then another is its capacity for states, and in this capacity, as in the past, art has a possibility of evoking state experiences in the viewer, listener, or reader. And these can be subtle states, of just emotional intensity, but it can be spiritual states of causal contemplation and nondual flow. And it was nondual flow, for example, that Schopenhauer had in mind when he talked about art transmitting spiritual awareness, where subject and object become one in the viewer, and that's a nondual flow state. So, sort of two parts - and that's just an analytical, third-person answer to the question.

There's also first-person answers to the question, which are just more aesthetic responses to what aesthetics is. But that's kind of an overview, a third-person view, of where art is and that it's opening up on a frontier now of a second-tier transmission as well as being able to transmit and evoke states of consciousness. And those are essentially similar in the past, except that they are going to be interpreted. If somebody comes out of a nondual flow state, and somebody happens to be at turquoise -

[Ken uses a color-coding scheme to refer to specific altitudes. "Turquoise" refers to a mature and stable realization of so-called "integral" or "second-tier" consciousness. See the chart from Integral Spirituality (hi-res image viewable here).]

- and the art itself was composed by a turquoise mind, then if you asked the person, the listener/hearer/viewer to explain the artwork, they will explain it from an integral vantage point. They'll explain it from an turquoise vantage point, in terms of just the effect it has on them. And whether that's music, and it just somehow "makes me feel whole," and whether it's literature, and there's a consistent writing from a second-tier perspective that's taken and conveyed and evoked in the narrative itself, or whether any sort of art in its communicative form now has signifiers that are available at second-tier. And this is basically, this is a fairly novel breakthrough. And certain great artists of the past have had a chance to push into second-tier cognitively and relate that aesthetically, but we're coming to a point now where there are a large number of everyday individuals that are at that - they're advanced everyday individuals, but it's somewhere upwards of five percent of the population, so that adds a mix to art that was not present before.

And the last thing I'll say about is, when it comes to art recognized by art critics, we have basically just about run the course of postmodern art, and that's art that has green-altitude signifiers [conveying an awareness of the social construction of the ego and systematically "deconstructing" it by illuminating its reliance on cultural context] and is heavily invested with normative judgments [declarations of right and wrong]. So art basically has been politicized, which is not really its function, but that's what green postmodern artists and critics have done with it. But we have about run that course, and so what's new is signifiers coming from integral. Signifiers coming from post-postmodern. And whether that's just in music composed by individuals at second-tier, kind of a certain resonance that comes across in that, or whether its actual narrative forms that convey these second-tier perspectives either explicitly by talking about integrative material or implicitly by coming from that altitude - however the form that they are, it has the capacity to use signifiers, and it is going to start using signifiers, that are post-postmodern. And that's going to be kind of huge. We're waiting to see how it breaks out, waiting to see what form it takes, waiting to see what narrative form it takes and particularly what visual arts do in the face of integral.

So that's all right on the horizon, and that's why it's a very exciting time in the art world, we're watching the death of a huge movement and the birth of what will be a huge movement, and we're right on that cusp.

Read Michael's entire article and interview here.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

Scott Valentine song of the week:

Week 12 - "21st Century Animal Family Plan"

Click to Play (stream)

Click to download (right-click, "Save As...")

“Four legs good, two legs bad.” – George Orwell

I spent the past ten years living on the lower eastside of Vancouver. For any of you who are unfamiliar with this part of the world, imagine a visual landscape of derelict housing, apartment blocks in disrepair and blocks and blocks of abandoned and/or severely neglected storefronts. The streets are littered with various drug paraphernalia and the rather disgusting remnants of the “safe sex” trade. Human zombies wander to and fro across the streets, unaware of the presence of the cars and buses that must swerve dangerously to avoid them. They itch and they dance on street corners and in alleys, desperate to find the necessary distraction that will free them from the unattended cries of their dying spirits.

From my window beside the railway tracks I could see such men and women exchanging the brittle remains of their souls twenty-four hours a day; a constant reminder to me of the terribly uninspired and degrading means by which the stress of our way of life takes it violent toll. Of course it’s not just in neighbourhoods like this that these harsh indicators are found, but it certainly is a concentrated display of such on streets like Powell, Cordova and Hastings.

I believe it was in my grade nine honours English class that I was first introduced to the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. Published in 1945, it was a scalding political allegory that took aim at the failures of Soviet Communism: a fabled prophecy that depicted the tale of the downtrodden beasts of the Manor Farm who have united their efforts in order to overthrow their human master. Things go smoothly for a while but unavoidably the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. This imagined view of mankind through the eyes and ears of animals has fascinated me ever since.

I had been thinking a lot the past fifteen years about how the majority of mankind views the community of life. Whereas the credo of Orwell’s animal revolution was “four legs good, two legs bad” ours could perhaps be safely identified as the exact opposite. Like the pigs, we have become so wrapped up in our own intellectual capabilities that we have mistakenly assumed this to indicate a divinely appointed superiority over all other living things. We’ve presumed the gods to have favored us in this great cosmic drama and therefore determined ourselves to be in sole possession of the knowledge of what shall be permitted to live and what shall be sentenced to die amongst the humble subjects of this planet who must surely exist solely to serve the needs and desires of our vast human kingdom. Subsequently, I wrote this weeks song, “21st Century Animal Family Plan”, with an air of anthropomorphic jest in order to illustrate some of the absurd actions and stressful repercussions of our current collective arrogance.

Imagine how ridiculous it would look to find a horse shooting up heroin in a dark corner of the barn after a tough day’s work in the field? How ridiculous it must be for them then to have to watch us do the same hurtful things to ourselves in order to cope with the overwhelming challenges of our way of life.

I believe that there is a better way to survive and thrive on this earth – a plan that equally respects and appreciates all living things and this song is yet another attempt to help bring a small piece of that plan into closer view.

See you next week.

From Here To There,

Scott Valentine

This song and post are part of Scott Valentine's song a week presentation entitled Seasons. Click here for more information.

Holiday music is inescapable. Daniel J. Levitin on the ancient drive to listen to familiar songs, the psychological effects of music and why 'Little Drummer Boy' is so annoying.

December. Joy, goodwill toward men, long lines, the unwanted wet kiss from a drunk co-worker at the office party. Along with the candy canes and mistletoe, music will be there in the background wherever we go this month, as sonic wallpaper, to put us in the right festive mood. No holiday music is more annoying than the piped-in variety at shopping malls and department stores. Can science explain why the same song we enjoy singing with relatives or congregants drives us to visions of sugar-plum homicide when it blares across the public-address system Chez Target?

Our drive to surround ourselves with familiar music during life cycle events and annual celebrations is ancient in origin. Throughout most of our history as a species, music was a shared cultural experience. Early Homo sapiens coupled music with ritual to infuse special days with majesty and meaning. Before there was commerce, before there was anything to buy, our hunter-gatherer ancestors sat around campfire circles crafting pottery, jewelry and baskets, and they sang. Early humans didn't sit and listen to music by themselves -- music formed an inseparable part of community life. So much so, that when we sing together even today, our brains release oxytocin, a hormone that increases feelings of trust and social bonding.

Music is piped into public places in a cultural echo of shared ritual and ceremony. As advertisers have long known, music can help to oil the wheels of commerce. Songs can stick in our heads, giving the purveyor of a catchy jingle many more minutes of air time than was originally paid for. Whether our brains are reminding us that "When the holidays come along, there's always Coca-Cola" or that maybe we haven't "driven a Ford lately," the jingle rattles around in our synapses in a sometimes endless loop -- a commercial played out in the most private of venues over and over again.

The fact that music does get stuck in our heads -- the Germans call these Ohrwurms, or "ear worms" -- is a key to understanding how human nature evolved. Evolution selected music as an information-bearing medium precisely because it has this stick-in-your-head quality; all of us are descended from ancestors who used music to encapsulate important information. For tens of thousands of years before there was writing, information -- such as which plants were poisonous or where to find fresh water -- was encoded in song. Early Homo sapiens realized that setting words to music made it easier to remember them; the internal constraints of music, the accent structure and meter, not to mention poetic elements such as alliteration and rhyme, made it more difficult to forget the words. Many of us have had the experience of forgetting the words of a song, but we can usually recreate the missing words because there simply aren't that many that will fit. So songs are memorable because they are meant to be, no matter how irritating the alphabet song can become to parents of infants or how likely you are to strangle the next throat that warbles pa-rum-pum-pum- pum.

But if evolution is so smart, why do holiday carols become annoying? When we like a piece of music, it has to balance predictability with surprise, familiarity with novelty. Our brains become bored if we know exactly what is coming next, and frustrated if we have no idea where the song is taking us. Songs that are immediately appealing are not typically those that contain the most surprise. We like them at first and then grow tired of them. Conversely, the music that can provide a lifetime of listening pleasure -- whether it's Bruckner 1 or Zeppelin II -- often requires several listenings to reveal its nuances. And the best music offers surprises with each new listening.

Holiday mall music is irritating because the sort of music that appeals to people of disparate backgrounds and ages is going to tend to be harmonically unsurprising. Unwanted sound in general (think of the incessant drip-drip-drip in the night while you're trying to get to sleep) or unwanted music in particular is not waterboarding, but it is a kind of torture. Don't forget, the American military drove Manuel Noriega from his compound by blasting him 24/7 with AC/DC and Van Halen.

Whether it's dogs barking "Jingle Bells" or Hannah Montana Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, this piped in music is the auditory equivalent of trees and tinsel. Consumer research has shown that music, when it isn't torture, indeed has a significant effect on buying behavior. In a 1999 study, the experimental psychologist Adrian North and his colleagues from the University of Leicester played either German or French classical music in the background at a wine shop. Sales of French and German wines increased when the music from their respective countries was playing.

Another study by the researchers in 2002 played different styles of music -- classical and popular -- and found that restaurant patrons spent on average 10% more per meal when classical music was playing, and more on after-dinner coffee. The classical music created an air of sophistication, reflected in the more sophisticated (higher priced) entrées chosen by the diners.

Retailers this holiday season aren't the only ones trying to influence our mental state with music. Most of us do it at home, too. The average American spends more than four hours a day listening to music, and surveys reveal that we use music to regulate our moods, to differentiate activities such as winding down from gearing up, and to comfort us when we're feeling blue or misunderstood.

It is natural to wonder, if music has played as important a social role as evolutionary biology suggests, what might be the effect of the great and apparent de-socialization of music we are seeing today with the proliferation of personal music players (or what Lisa Simpson calls the "MyPod"). People are spending more time listening in the privacy of their own minds -- did you notice all the earbuds on athletes at the Chinese Olympics? Maybe earbuds are the real Scrooges, cutting us off from others' joy.

We are living in a time of unprecedented nonsocial access to music. The average 14-year-old will hear more music in a year than his great grandfather would have in a lifetime. Virtually every song ever recorded in the history of the world is available on the Internet somewhere. Thanks to intrepid musical explorers, even rare, indigenous and pre-industrial music is now available. Cultures that have been cut off from industrialization and Western influence have had their music preserved, and by their own accounts, it may have been unchanged for many centuries, giving us a window into the music of our ancestors.

The diversity of our musical legacy includes music made on instruments believed to be thousands of years old and on instruments invented just this week; music played on power tools; an album of Christmas carols sung (well, croaked) by frogs. So although we listen alone, we are listening to more music and it is more diverse. Its hard to find fault with digital and online media that put us more in control of what we listen to than we have at, say, the shopping mall. And on the social side, the growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) and other file-sharing communities has restored the communal, human joy of sharing and discovering music we like with others of similar mind and taste.

Holiday tunes are supposed to get us feeling at least a bit religious or spiritual, aren't they? Historically they have worked well in this way. Music's role in religious and spiritual ceremonies may be as old as religion itself. Although human religions differ markedly from one another, all religious rituals are characterized by a demarcation of time and place -- on this day we stand here in this special spot, or interact with sacred objects that we don't normally interact with -- and by the reciting of music or text that is designed to take us out of ourselves, out of routine, and uplift us with higher thoughts. Ritual and religious music helps to differentiate this day or activity from the rest of our secular activities. Because we tend to hear these songs only during this season, they serve as a unique memory cue, unlocking a neural flood of memories related to the holidays.

So give that guy from sales down the hall a break if he gets too friendly at the office party. Holiday music is signaling that this is a different time and place. It's sonic mistletoe. Maybe all he needs is some good file sharing.

Daniel J. Levitin, formerly vice president of 415/CBS Records, is a psychology professor at McGill University and author of The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. This article was originally posted at The Wall Street Journal.

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BONUS: Christmas Song Fun Facts

Known in English as "Silent Night," "Stille Nacht" was written by Austrian priest Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber. They performed the song at a Christmas mass in 1818 accompanied by guitar, and the tune later spread across Europe.

Several well-known tunes emerged from films of the 1940s and '50s. Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," sung by Bing Crosby in the 1942 "Holiday Inn," has become the most recorded holiday song to date, with more than 500 versions.

"Jingle Bells," copyrighted in 1857 by James Pierpont (uncle of J.P. Morgan), was originally not a holiday song at all. It was written for a Thanksgiving church service, as legend has it, and was so popular, it was performed again at Christmas.

The "Singing Cowboy" Gene Autry initially balked at recording "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," thinking it didn't fit his image. His wife convinced him otherwise, and the 1949 song became his biggest seller.

"The water tastes funny when you're far from your home, but it's only the thirsty, that hunger to roam" [John Prine]

Once upon a time I had the unique and awesome opportunity of swapping songs on guitar while in Negril, Jamaica with Alan Jackson. No, not THE Alan Jackson but a humble Jamaican who also shared the same name and who was so shocked that we would ask him to pull up a chair and share a beer with us. Negril’s own Alan Jackson would play a Bob Marley tune and sing his heart out for us and then I would answer him back with a song by James Taylor or The Eagles. I couldn’t say who was more enthralled - our little group listening to this shy man playing his music on a worn and badly tuned guitar or our new friend, with the sheer astonishment that we would be interested enough in him and his music to ask him over to our table. I’ll have this memory with me forever of our group singing songs on the cliffs of Negril, the light of the full moon shining above, and two cultures coming together through music and song.

If you could choose to escape all that’s familiar and comfortable to explore the music, culture and diversity of a favorite exotic locale- where would that be? Where is that place far from home you’ve always dreamed of visiting, specifically to take in the music? Is it India or Tibet? Or perhaps the Four Corners region of the States to experience Native American music first-hand? What about Jamaica, Ireland, Austria, China or South Africa? The possibilities and places are endless!

We become so accustomed and familiar, complacent with our surroundings that we sometimes forget there’s a whole world of music waiting for us to directly experience. Sure, we can download most any song available on the internet but if you could choose one country or region to take in the music in person, immerse yourself in the tastes and tunes or perhaps even take part in the festivities, where would that be?

Tell Us:

1. Where in the world have you traveled in your journeys and what have you discovered about the amazing ability of music to bridge languages and cultural divides?
2. Where would you like to travel and experience the music and diversity?

By Tom Crenshaw, Vice-President of RockOm.net

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Well - the Eagles landed, rocked the city from center stage, and took off again!

No, I did not go to the concert. I never heard of the Eagles until the city began to promote their arrival, but did get caught up in the hype.

I read an e-mail interview with the Eagles' singer-drummer Don Henley and was impressed. Henley claims to have been a hippie, and a baby-boomer. I've since logged on to the Internet to listen to some of his music and was moved by songs such as "The End of Innocence" and "The Heart of the Matter." How is it that a dropout hippie could produce such great music and write such haunting lyrics?

You see I'm not of the baby-boom generation, but of the one prior. I was born during the Great Depression and experienced my early adulthood in the 1950s. Known by some as the "Father Knows Best" generation, it was a time when mothers stayed home to care for their five or six kids and dads were respected as head of the household; a time when television ads featured an apron-clad housewife extolling the wonders of a new refrigerator or a new washer and dryer. Our lives in many ways were sheltered and predictable.

We were secure in our beliefs and sure of our destiny. As housewives, our highest form of entertainment was a baby shower or a Tupperware party, and our only cultural exposure was watching Elvis gyrate his hips on a newly acquired black and white television. This sheltered life, however, did not prevent us from keeping an eye on culture and the world around us via books, the media, and the interests of our own children.

The hippie movement in general fascinated me, along with all those long-haired, sandal-clad, bead-strung kids who couldn't stay put. They roamed the highways hitchhiking it seemed to nowhere in particular. They protested, against the war in Vietnam and against the status quo. They played their music in fields, rolled in the mud, and toked. Sure, some abused drugs and sex but others experimented with lifestyles and sought answers to existential questions through Eastern style meditation.

In the chaos of war and racial tensions, they seemingly lost faith in existing social and religious structures and sought enlightenment and peace within themselves. In that sense, not all was lost.

During this time I watched as my own five sons grew out their brush-cuts and sported hair down to their shoulders and tried to keep peace every morning as they fought over their turn to sit under the one hair dryer (mine).

I listened to them learning to play a guitar and to sing songs like "Proud Mary" and "Bad Moon Rising"; listening, I never made any connection to any particular group. I worried over the welfare of my oldest son when he decided to hitchhike all the way to Mexico. What would become of this wandering mass of discontented humanity, everyone wondered.

Charles Reich wrote a book about the hippie movement titled The Greening of America . He wrote of "a revolution coming, one that would originate with the individual and eventually change social and political structures as a final act." Would they? Would this young, idealistic generation born of the post-Second World War baby boom change the course of human history?

When Alan Cochrane asked Henley, "where do you look for inspiration?", he replied:

"Books, music, films -- there is so much stuff coming at us these days, it's hard to cut through all the clutter, but a few times a year I will read or hear or see something that just knocks me out. Also, I look to my children, I look inside of myself, I look at the world and, when I can find an unpolluted sky, I look to the heavens. As bad and corrupt as it is, planet Earth is still a miraculous, awe-inspiring place, floating in an unfathomable universe. But I don't think people look up very much anymore. We all seem to be preoccupied with ourselves and our earthly issues, as petty as many of them are. I wish that everybody on Earth could travel up to the International Space Station and look down on this little blue planet. The human race needs a new perspective."

Wow! If this is the philosophy of life that is emerging from mature baby-boomers, there is hope for our world and planet.

It remains to be seen what techie-minded Generation X will "generate" into our world. There are some smart cookies out there in wait of their own time and place in the sun. Will they discover a cure for cancer? Will their new technologies find biological life in space? Will they unravel the mysteries of quantum mechanics and thereby change the course of physics and science? Will they solve the energy crisis? Clean up the planet?

We should refrain from rash judgments of any generation. To be sure there are always negative fallouts to any movement toward change and from the application of new discoveries, but ultimately possibilities for the good of humanity remain limitless.

My own boys, thankfully, turned out great despite my worries; they are productive, creative, sensitive, reflective, and compassionate. I am so very proud of them . . . and of their children. Their hair is now very short and sparse, due to a genetic trait, apparently, and not from sitting under a hair-dryer.

As for my own generation it is now on the way out . . . a dwindling product of bygone days soon to be relegated to its own place in history.

A concert such as The Eagles is not simply a form of entertainment: It is an ongoing cultural expression collectively exposed, to the benefit of both young and old.

[Carmel Higgins, of Moncton, Canada, holds a certificate in culture and spirituality and is the author of the book Cosmic Fire/Local Sparks: My Journey into the Universe Story. She can be reached via e-mail at higginsc@nb.sympatico.ca ]