RockOm

By Trevor Harden, Trevor@RockOm.net

Modulation (mod-yoo-LAY-shun)
1. The process of changing from one key to another.
2. In electronic music, the term is applied to a change of frequency, amplitude, or other changes of similar nature possible through electronics.

(Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary)

Modulation, in music, is the act or process of changing from one key or tonal center to another. You can hear samples of various different kinds of classical music modulations - including Direct Modulation and Pivot Tone Modulation - HERE.

For a person with no music theory background this all most likely sounds like incomprehensible jargon. It's one of those things you have to hear to fully understand, but the truth is you've heard it many times.

Take this song for instance. Listen starting around the 3:00 mark; do you notice the upward shift at 3:17? That's modulation or a key change.

Well, Pir Vilayat Khan (1916-2004), the great Sufi master once said that "Meditation...could be defined as the art of modulating consciousness." The same could be said for prayer or other forms of spiritual discipline. Like a song that suddenly or gradually shifts one key higher, doing the work of spiritual discipline shifts our consciousness a notch or two closer to the "Divine Reality." As lay monk Brother Wayne Teasdale says in The Mystic Hours: A Daybook of Inspirational Wisdom and Devotion:

"To modulate our consciousness through meditation is to allow for its transformation, the change from self-preoccupation to God-realization, from ego-fixation to Divine Love... Gradually, as we learn to fine-tune our normally uncontrolled thoughts and preoccupations, we tune to the Divinity already ever-present in our consciousness."

If you have the ear to do so, as you hear modulations or key changes in the music you listen to this week, let it be a reminder to continue in your spiritual practice. Like tying a ribbon around your finger to help you remember, allow musical modulations to be "a reminder message from the universe" to stop and take a moment to pray or - in some other way - align yourself with Divine Love.

By Trevor Harden, Trevor@RockOm.net

This morning my dog shit all over the carpet.

I had some musical gear to unload from my car so I drove from my garage around to the front of the house to bring everything in the front door. In the amount of time it took me to circle the block, my dog had waylaid my office, peppering the Berber with... well, I'll spare you the details.

As you can imagine this started my day off on a sour note. I left for the office frustrated and in a mental funk. My brow was furrowed; my muscles, tense; my mind was like an angry jackrabbit on speed. In a moment, however, music would come to the rescue.

I decided to help the chilling process by popping in an album RockOm is reviewing by the kirtan band Shantala (watch for their feature in the next couple of weeks). As the first track slowly blossomed like a springtime flower, my mind and mood began a similar unfolding. My breathing deepened, my shoulders dropped and my thoughts began to decelerate.

This in itself was a powerful enough experience - observing music's power to open and release oneself from contraction. But this is not where the story ends.

You see, the coastal Lowcountry is rather gray, cloudy and gloomy today. The fall season is turning the palmetto trees brown and the landscape into a bland, monotone wash. And in any other day my 30-minute commute to Savannah would be inwardly-focused anyway, thinking about what I had to do that day instead of enjoying the world around me. Today, however, the same piece of music that helped me to open did something quite magical to my senses, namely my eyes.

The drab countryside started to come alive. Vibrant, yellow wildflowers popped out alongside the road. The trees swayed in rhythm to the beat of the tabla. The overcast sky became interesting, providing a curious color contrast to everything else in my peripheral. I saw that there was life and color out there, but I had simply not seen it.

And the people. The drivers in the other cars transformed from obstacles and non-entities to being viewed as manifestations of the divine, children of God, sparks of divinity. The hustle and bustle of commuting cars was being observed as a cosmic dance. In a few words, everything became glorious and connected. Creation, as it turns out, was singing.

This is not the first time music has done this for me. On a number of occasions I have put on earbuds during nature walks. And sometimes the sounds of nature itself is the "music" you need during a walk or hike, but at other times playing music actually changes and enhances the experience. In listening to certain kinds of music, you actually begin to perceive and see things in a totally different manner than you would otherwise.

I write all of this mainly as an observation today, but also to encourage you to experiment with this yourself.

Firstly, that since music is certainly a tool for opening, see if you can use it this week to help transform your mood and contraction when it arises. And secondly, experiment with using music to "doctor your eyes." Take a walk through an art gallery, a mall or the woods both without a musical soundtrack and with one. Observe the difference and, if you're so moved to do so, give thanks for music's awesome power and influence.

Lord, the air smells good today,
straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
the first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.

[Rumi]