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Want to trigger a spiritual experience or simply become a less selfish person? Get lost in meditation, prayer or even a good song, MU researchers say. Doing so, they’ve found, deactivates the part of the brain programmed to focus on your self.

Brick Johnstone, a University of Missouri neurophysiologist, released a study early this month that linked decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain to spiritual experiences. That particular area of the brain, found in the upper back portion, controls a person’s ability to recognize themselves, their abilities and their relationship to their environment.

Johnstone studied individuals with brain injuries and discovered that people with trauma to the right parietal lobe reported higher levels of spiritual experiences.The finding is important, he said, because it means people can learn to become selfless by decreasing activity in that part of the brain through meditation or prayer.

But one doesn’t have to be religious to experience it; even getting lost in a good song can take a person’s attention away from the sense of self, said Dan Cohen, an MU professor of religious studies and anthropologist. "Losing your sense of self is a human experience that happens in various degrees," Cohen said. "If you’re listening to music, your favorite song on the radio, you lose yourself and suddenly it’s over. You lost your sense of self for a moment as you’ve merged yourself into the music. It’s a joyful and pleasant experience."

Johnstone stressed that the study isn’t intended to minimize spirituality as simply a brain function. "Just because the brain is shutting down, allowing you to be more selfless, that doesn’t take away from the spiritual experience you feel," he said. "There’s something incredibly wonderful about the universe people feel connected to; for monotheistic religions, that’s God, or for other religions it’s nirvana or the universe, for lack of better term."

And there’s no evidence that spirituality can be linked to just one area of the brain, Cohen said. The brain is too complex and individualized to try to compartmentalize or oversimplify its functions, he said. "You have to be careful to not say, ‘Oh, that explains it,’ " he said. "That’s dangerous."

Johstone’s findings align with other studies that have shown Buddhist meditators and Franciscan nuns experience the same neuropsychological functions during religious experiences. Locally, Cohen has found that individuals from various religious denominations benefit mentally not because of religious rituals but because they feel support and love from their respective congregations. Cohen and Johnstone are now studying spirituality among individuals who have suffered a stroke or have cancer or other health problems.

The research "can be used to garner greater mental health and to make minds work better, longer and stay healthier," Cohen said. "Brain health is becoming increasingly recognized as an important part of a good life, a satisfying life."

By JANESE HEAVIN
Originally posted at the ColumbiaTribune.com here. Reposted with permission.

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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.

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@rockom.net

There once was a curious device to be found amongst professional musicians as well as the serious music lover. Along with the behemoth Hi-Fi recording equipment and stereo systems, reel to reel tape decks and shelves of LP vinyl records of the recording studio or the music connoisseur's living space were giant headphones with black rubber ear-cups to totally encapsulate the listener’s ears in complete silence from the outside world. For the professional musician, they’re still in use for recording today, but the design and style have changed. They are now featherweight and ergonomically far superior to those of the 70’s and 80’s. These days most of us use ear-buds along with our iPods or mp3 players and miss out on an experience that once was so utterly unique that late-night FM radio shows dedicated time especially for entire albums that were written and recorded precisely with optimum listening enjoyment to be found through listening with headphones.

The objective for the musician and producer is to create a compelling mix that draws the listener deeper into the experience of hearing and enjoying the music to the fullest extent using various techniques. Some techniques are used by musicians through choice of instrumentation and tuning, to name a few. Others are utilized by the engineer and producer during the recording process. Most involve post- production mixing and include panning, fading in and out, balancing of instrumentation and vocals, effects, dynamic range, separation, compression, gating, etc. All are used to achieve an optimum mix, but many of these aspects are entirely unheard as we “listen.” Most ear-buds of today are designed to allow a certain amount of outside noise, and thus interference, into our experience. While I do not advocate extreme volume in either headphones or ear-buds, there is something incredible to be discovered listening to music at home in the quiet of your space with your eyes closed and with headphones (or ear-pods) on.

Research from The Organization for Human Brain Mapping in Minneapolis, Minnesota helps explain some of science behind the 'headphones only' experience. Together with the listener’s intention, the mix and the production of the music is the natural inclination to open oneself for the listening experience by simply relaxing and closing the eyes.

“Closing your eyes seems to be a critical component in the listening experience and also has been proven to heighten and direct the focus of attention inward to oneself while listening. This has been long acknowledged by humans as reflected in ancient meditation methods as well as routine concentration and emotional acts.” [source]

This research gained through various listening experiments while participants were subjected to MRI scans shows turning inward and enjoying our listening experience is much akin to meditation. Listening to music, really listening to the full range of soundscapes and tuning out distractions through the use of headphones and closing your eyes can have a positive and relaxing effect while at the same time directing your focus inward and perhaps making for a more, all encompassing experience. Perhaps you’ll even lose yourself in the music.

I believe, as Matt Carter of the band Emery believes and mentions in tomorrow’s featured interview, that, “All music belongs to God and is ultimately from him, and to be used for him.”

“If God wants to shower his blessings upon a person, he makes him appreciate music. But if God is further happier with a person, he makes him a musician.” [Pandit Jasraj]

My Top Headphones Only Albums and CDs

Red Hot Chili Peppers-Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Stephen Halpern-Chakra Suite
John Coletrane- A love Supreme
Radiohead-Kid A
Pink Floyd-Dark Side, The Wall, The Final Cut
The Beatles-Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Anything by Bjork and Coldplay
Dave Matthews Band-Before These Crowded Streets
Sufjan Stevens-Michigan
Jeff Buckley-Grace
The Police-Message in A Box, anything Live
Gustav Holst-The Planets Suite
Peter Gabriel-Peter Gabriel a.k.a. Security
Rush-2112 and Moving Pictures
Dire Straits-Telegraph Hill
Mussorgsky-Pictures at an Exhibition
Anything by Muse and Bad Plus
Stevie Wonder-Journey through the Secret Life of Plants

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In this month's article, Essential Rhythm: An Interview with Tabla Master Zakir Hussain (Part 2), Mr. Hussain speaks to the natural rhythms and melodies inherent in the universe. Among those, Zakir mentions the frequencies created from the spinning of our planet:

"The earth, when it rotates, creates a tone and that tone is Bb. When I hit this [hits table], there's no note, but if it's played a million times fast, it becomes a tone - 'mmmm' - and that's Bb."

To bring that directly into the spiritual realm, many traditions believe that that sound of the universe vibrating, and therefore the sound of the earth, is in fact the syllable "OM" or "AUM":

"OM" or "AUM" has been called the "Sound of the Universe" as it is believed that the whole Universe, in its fundamental form, is made up of vibrating, pulsating energy. Om is considered as the humming sound of this cosmic energy... (Source)

It seems that NASA, too, agrees - at least in part. A Science@NASA article published in 2001 shares not about the sound of the spinning earth, but the planet's natural radio emissions:

If humans had radio antennas instead of ears, we would hear a remarkable symphony of strange noises coming from our own planet. Scientists call them "tweeks," "whistlers" and "sferics." They sound like background music from a flamboyant science fiction film, but this is not science fiction. Earth's natural radio emissions are real and, although we're mostly unaware of them, they are around us all the time.

"Everyone's terrestrial environment almost literally sings with radio waves at audio frequencies," says Dennis Gallagher, a space physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "Our ears can't detect radio waves directly, but we can convert them to sound waves with the aid of a very low frequency (VLF) radio receiver."

In fact, you can even click over to this page on spaceweather.com to listen to these amazing earth frequencies. Just be aware that "you can hear sferics, tweeks, whistlers and other VLF radio sounds at any time of the day, but the hours around dawn and dusk are generally best. Nighttime is also better than daytime. In Huntsville, AL, where our online receiver is located, dawn happens at about 1200 UT and dusk is ten hours later at 2200 UT."

So what is all of this to say?  You can certainly draw your own conclusions; these are simply interesting theories and facts that few people are aware of.  But it could also suggest that if the foundation of the universe and earth are vibrational (you could even say musical), then perhaps it is possible to be more or less in harmony with it.  Click below to leave your thoughts...

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[By Jennifer L. Boen]

Ever think of your body as a symphony, its tiniest cells producing waves of energy, sending signals and messages that work in synchrony to keep the body healthy – or to repair it when something goes awry?

That was the talk among some 40 researchers, doctors, physicists, musicians and music therapists who gathered at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne for the national Alliance for Research in Music Medicine conference. IPFW has a music therapy program, which made the school a good fit, organizers said.

“The goal is to bring scientists and musicians together to explore the healing effects of sound and music,” said Dr. Angela LaSalle, a Fort Wayne endocrinologist and co-founder of the 3-year-old alliance.

“Frequency and vibrations play a vital role in the function of the body,” said Claude Swanson, physicist and author of “The Synchronized Universe.”

“The body is a complex symphony of different parts, but they all communicate,” he said, pointing out how the body’s internal vibrations – the minuscule movement of cells – make waves. When the waves reproduce they make “the blueprint of our body.” The waves produce energy in short and long wave-lengths and with varying pitches.

“Health means these vibrations work together,” Swanson said. “The basis of life is the balance and interplay of the elements of this symphony. If an instrument is out of tune or too weak or strong, this corresponds to illness,” he added, noting the biophysicist embraces the premise that “activities between molecules are synchronized like an orchestra.”

University of Arizona researcher Melinda Connor’s presentation focused on the role of water in the body.

“Water is not just H2O,” she said.

While the compound does not change chemically, water contains different clusters that microscopy has uncovered. “The nano bubbles change,” she said.

In several experiments at the Optimal Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, she and colleagues found that water may carry memory. Subjects focused on water in jars for a period of time, picturing an unnamed object inside the water. Then they shook the water, after which other subjects came into the room, were given blank paper and told to write their thoughts and what they pictured, if anything, inside. Each of the 16 jars of water had, on average, five exact matches to the item pictured by both subject groups; 10 matches were allegorical, or described within the writing.

The body is mostly water, and Connor said the research findings suggest further studies should be done to determine whether the water is a “secondary system in the body that is storing memories.” For a military veteran who is struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), understanding that the memories of his war experiences may be not only stored in the brain but in the body’s water could be important.

“We don’t know how much of the body’s water is stable,” or remains for a lifetime, she said.

Other speakers discussed how the brain is affected by music. Mark Rider from the University of North Texas and author of “the Rhythmic Language of Health and Disease” said the brains of healthier people have more plasticity and can change more quickly and are more responsive to music, which has neuro-immunological implications. Rider is a psychologist, brain researcher and music therapist.

Miku Isobe, a music therapy intern at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill, said learning more about the effects of both internal and external sounds on the body helps her better understand what is occurring in her patients’ bodies.

“Research like this helps support what we do in music therapy,” said Rachel Brummett, who is also an intern at Lutheran General in Illinois. Through music at the bedside, “We see physiological and spiritual changes in our patients. We see their pulse lower, breathing deepen, their oxygen saturations go up.”

The general perception that mainstream medicine – and insurance companies – have about music as treatment is that it’s not proved, LaSalle said. “So the challenge is to go get the science. That’s what we’re doing here.” The goal is not to replace traditional treatment methods but to include music “into the repertoire,” she said.

[By Jennifer Boen, who has covered health and human services for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, IN., for about 12 years. Jennifer is a graduate of Huntington University, a Christian university in Indiana, where she also served as an adjunct professor in journalism. Her career enables her to combine two areas she loves: medicine/health and writing. This article was originally posted here at the Ft. Wayne, IN News-Sentinel. Reprinted with permission.]

Christine Stevens is an internationally acclaimed author, music therapist and speaker. The founder of UpBeat Drum Circles, she has appeared on NBC, CBS and Living Better TV and is a frequent contributing writer for a variety of health magazines on music and wellness. Christine has drummed with many major groups and companies internationally (including DuPont, The Department of Defense, and Verizon), students at ground zero and most recently survivors of Katrina in New Orleans. She is the author of The Healing Drum Kit and The Art and Heart of Drum Circles.

As a member of an integrative research team, Christine has published studies on the scientific benefits of group drumming and serves on the editorial board of Explore: The Journal of Science & Healing. As a contributing author for Yogi Times Magazine and columnist for Health World Online, she writes about the power of music as a wellness strategy for holistic health.

RockOm’s Tom Crenshaw had the privilege of speaking at length with Christine in early September. Tom adds, “I felt an instant connection with Christine. The second I heard her voice I knew this was going to be a learning experience. Christine’s passion for music and healing is very inspiring. Her message made me consider more deeply the natural rhythms surrounding us and how we can use, even create our own rhythms - for a deeper connection to our inner-most being and human experience and use that connection for healing. I really could have talked for hours with Christine as the level and diversity of her work is quite extraordinary. I came away from our conversation with not only an inspiring interview to share but with a whole new perspective on what it means to serve others through music. RockOm has made a new friend, a new soul-connection and hopefully, together, we can go on and serve others for many years ahead."

CS: There's a beautiful quote, a Navajo saying: "The Great Spirit loves the drums so much he gave everyone a heartbeat." When you look from a multicultural, global perspective, you see a type of drum in the temple in Japan, in the Shinto shrine; you see the gathering drum in the Native American pow-wow ceremony; and you see the djembe in a healing ceremony in Africa. All of these are spiritual places. So I think what makes drumming spiritual first of all is its history. Secondly, the drum's shape is a circle, which reminds us that everything is connected. Third, the drum is an easy access point to music-making. I've actually never met anyone who can't just pick up a stick and make a sound on a drum; it offers immediate access to the world of music. It doesn't require years of training. In fact, most of us were learning this before we were born, listening to our first drum teacher, our mother. The drum is a great access point to connecting with creativity, and that is an element of spirituality. Also, when you connect in a group through the drum in a drum circle, you have that sense of unification, that we're all together. Especially when you're not speaking, you're feeling the rhythms together; you're feeling even the vibrations together. That's the most spiritual element of drumming. You know, there are three elements of music: rhythm, melody and harmony. To me, what does rhythm do in music? It's like the container. It's the temple. It sets the space, it sets the tone; is it going to be fast? Slow? It's a very powerful force. I love watching audiences when the drum solo happens: the group starts dancing. People are ignited by rhythm. That's the way I want to feel about my spirituality; I want to feel that ignited feeling. I'm really thrilled that we're seeing a revival of interest in the drum because it's so ancient, it's so spiritual, and it's so historic. And now we're using it today when, now more than ever, people need to feel a connection to that which is greater than themselves, that spirituality – whatever you want to call Great Spirit, higher spirit, divine consciousness, God. Whatever people want to call that is spiritual practice because we are connecting to something greater than ourselves.

RO: Isn't it funny how in a rock concert when the drummer goes into a drum solo, the audience goes nuts?

CS: Absolutely! I love watching that. First of all, we are biologically/neurologically wired for rhythm. People aren't even consciously trying to move their bodies; their bodies are being moved by the beat. It's a powerful force. They want to participate, they want to clap along. I think spirituality involves our participation. A lot of people ask me how drumming can be used in spiritual practice. A lot of times in music, we say we should practice music – well, flip that around and make music your practice. It's a little different intention; you're not practicing notes and timing and thinking "one-ee-and-ah, two-ee-and-ah." The drum helps you get out of your head and all the sudden you can just resonate with the heartbeat. You don't need to play only the heartbeat, but in drumming you get into your heart. If you think too much when you're playing a hand drum – I'm not talking about stick drumming or playing a trap set which requires a lot of coordination – but when you're playing a hand drum, one of these rural, sacred percussion instruments, you can't think too much and drum. Thank God, it gets us out of our heads. That's really the place of spirituality – the heart.

RO: What constitutes a drum circle?

CS: I'd like to define it by what it is not. A drum circle is not a music class. There's no one teaching. There's a facilitator who makes it easy for everyone to join together. There is not a focus on performance, because there's no stage and no audience. Everyone is part of it. It is inclusive. It doesn't require any musical talent. In fact, you already have the rhythm in you. The drum circle just brings it out. The reason we use drums and percussion is because it's really hard to have a violin circle. Just kidding. [laughs] It's really easy to have a drum match other drums, they go together very simply and sonically. Harmonically and rhythmically people come together in the drum circle and create a spontaneous, in-the-moment composition. It is really defined by the outcome. People are not coming to become the next Gene Kroupa or the next great drummer. They are coming to reduce their stress. They are coming to feel a connection that is beyond words. They are coming because they want to do some activity with their family. They find they have a language or a generation barrier and all the sudden the drum helps connect people. They are sometimes coming for healing. They are coming because they love to dance, and they want to feel rhythm in their life. They are coming because they want something exciting. I always say that drumming and drum circles are the greatest natural form of caffeine.

RO: I hear a lot of people say, "I don't have a musical bone in my body. I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket." Can anyone drum?

CS: [laughs] Yes and they already are! Everyone who is alive and has that great instrument called the heartbeat is drumming. We are biologically wired for rhythm; we are walking, talking, ticking-tocking rhythm symphonies. When you start to see your biology that way, you start to realize 'I am already a symphony'. I am the orchestrator of this in my life… on a mind, body, and spirit level. There's really no excuse not to drum, because you've already been doing it, you're more entrained to it than you know. That's a really important word – entrainment. That's what makes a drum circle work. This is a term from physics; it means that pendulums over time will synchronize. So when people come into drum circles and they've never drummed before, I see them stepping to the beat as they walk in the door – they're entrained. You can't help but fall into the groove. If you've ever loved to listen to music – world music, drum tracks, drum solos – how easy it is, how effortless it is to drum along – that's entrainment.

RO: What does the scientific world have to say about the documented health benefits of drumming?

CS: Now we're seeing science and spirituality coming together – it's an exciting time in history. We're seeing better awareness of the limits of the old kind of science and the inventions of new science and one of those is psychoneuroimmunology – mind/body medicine. We worked with a neurologist, Dr. Barry Bittman – who in the Meadville Medical Center was able to show in a study published in the year 2000 that in 112 subjects who had never drummed before, their biology changed on a cellular level – they reduced their stress through one hour of the health rhythms drumming program. That's pretty exciting; it was groundbreaking news in the year 2000. But in the year 2004 we replicated that study with burned-out employees and we were able to take these employees who had never drummed before, bring them into drum circle programs in the workplace and we were able to show with our evidence that we reduced burnout by 46%, increased their positive moods, and saved money for the organization.

RO: So, just bring some drums to work and let's everyone be productive!

CS: I really see a time when in the workplace, because of this hard science that we have – it's such an evidence-based practice – and you look at the workplace challenges with multi-language, intergenerational [issues] and morale – these things definitely have an impact on the bottom line. So I really see a time when that employee break room at noon is filled with people jamming together.

RO: Tell us a little about manifesting. Tell us how drumming can help us manifest our dreams.

CS: Well, that's a great question. I think that first of all, when you drum it helps you discover your dreams. So many people have felt that music is taboo – or that they "can't carry a tune in a bucket" – and drumming helps people reconnect with the creativity that is within every person. I really believe each person has some dream here to manifest and I think people know that, they feel that intuitively. Music has traditionally been a source of connecting to that creativity, that technique, I should say. First of all, drumming helps us find or reconnect, allowing the dreams to be remembered. Secondly, anytime you take something as powerful as music, it transcends language, it's like a wordless prayer – and you drum your dream, you drum your intention; I have done this personally in my life. In fact in manifesting The Healing Drum Kit, our book that's published by Sounds True, I actually drummed my intentions for making that drum kit. [laughs] When you add music with an intention, you amplify it. It's a pretty simple formula. Not everybody can play a cello or a piano, but if you pick up the drum and go "Boom," most people say "Yeah, I can do that!" You want to take your intention, add music, and manifest it that way.

RO: Christine, how did you get started? Tell us a little on how you got started in drumming.

CS: I was like a lot of people; I didn't think I had percussion skills and it's kind of ironic that I've devoted my life to drum circles. I worked as a music therapist and just saw immediately - I'll never forget a young woman who came and had been very traumatized, sexually abused, very depressed. She sat in the back and refused to drum in the drum circle. When everyone left the room, she walked over to the big bass drum, took up the mallet and really whacked it. She didn't stop for about an hour. [laughs] When she finished her "releasing," I would say, I thought to myself, "This is the most powerful tool I've seen since being a music therapist – this drum." I'm a pianist and a saxophone player – but I got realizing that the drum brings people in immediately and it's such a healing tool. That's really how it happened.

RO: You've done something that I think is quite amazing and very inspirational: you've traveled over to Iraq and worked with the children. Tell us about that experience; that's got to be so rewarding.

CS: Actually, it was a real life changing experience. We were able last year to do the first drum circle training program in a war zone. We were in northern Iraq and we took drumming to children in the donation centers, to Kurdistan's Save the Children. Our partners were Save the Children and ACDI/VOCA. They're doing incredible work there, there's really not a school-structured system in Iraq and the kids are really at risk for being recruited into terrorist organizations. So music and drumming is the preventive tool, supporting those kids' self-esteem, their connectivity, their creativity, their feeling of success in the world. What we did was train 30 people from seven different governances of Iraq, and we brought together people that would be enemies from different sects, from different religions and speaking different languages – and just like RockOm when you have Spanish and English, but you also have music. What we found was that music is the common language. I really believe that the drum is the language of global diplomacy. I think when we all are learning each other's rhythms in the world peace will happen. So we went there to learn their songs. And we watched them teach each other songs and we watched a drum circle become a tool for connecting people that would never have had the chance to know each other simply because they were perceived as enemies. And at the end of five days they really became friends and I'm happy to say they're still drumming over there. We're hoping to go back in October and we're very grateful to our sponsors for this project, Rex Foundation, NAMM, and Remo drum company - the world's largest drum company, which donated the drums for this project.

RO: Much kudos to those sponsors, and a personal thank you for spreading the love and inspiration. America gets a bloody nose in many parts of the world, and thanks for doing your own part to inspire folks over there.

CS: Exactly, it's so interesting. When you take drumming and music to a place of the greatest need – in the war-torn area of Iraq – and you see how much people hold onto it like a life preserver; it gave people hope. A woman said in her quotes at the end – we interviewed people at the end of the training period – she said it was the best five days of her life. Someone else said drumming helps to bring your hope back. I feel really blessed to have gone there, and I can really say in this interview with you right now that if it plays in Iraq, this can work in any place of conflict.

RO: You've worked with military veterans as well.

CS: I think that the drum goes into any place that has a need for healing. They have different ways of helping people. In the case of the veterans, we were very sensitive because we didn't want the drums to be stimulating memories of the sounds of gunshots. The same in Iraq, we were very sensitive to that. So we started with shakers and we started with a protocol that helped people get into the drumming. What we learned from working with the veterans and in the VA in West Los Angeles and Hollywood is that when they were able to drum together, they had such joy. When you come back from the seeing the kind of trauma that we can't even imagine as our servicemen and women, it's very tragic and a difficult thing to adjust. And all the sudden we saw people smiling! Despite their injuries, they could play the drums. I think that's the important thing: helping people feel strong again, feel powerful, and feel empowered.

RO: Surely you do some work in hospitals and such; tell us about that.

CS: I worked for fifteen years as a music therapist, especially with cancer patients, and during that time used the drum for mind, body and spirit. There's such an interest now in holistic medicine. For example, working with the cancer patients, I'll never forget this woman that came into the drum circle. She played that really big bass drum - we have a really big Native American gathering drum - and she played that drum the whole session. I was actually kind of worried about her arm in terms of her strength. And the next session she came and everybody handed her that mallet and let her play it; it became her drum. By the third session, she held up the mallet and said, "I'm ready to let go. I've released my anger at my mother and my father and my husband…" – she had a really long list. We didn't know, it but she was doing her own work. It's really said that what healing is about is creating the context for the natural healing to happen. She cleared the space out. She made space for a new groove in her life. She cleared out the anger and she opened up to a new rhythm.

RO: After talking to you, I'm very excited about going out and getting my own drum and getting started. How would I go about doing that?

CS: Well you already have a drum in your heart. [laughs] The other most commonly placed drum is the dashboard in the car. Besides that, we're so fortunate right now to have access to the world's drums. We really recommend Remo drums, made in America with recycled material and not with animal hides. They hold their sounds no matter what the weather conditions. If you go to remo.com you can see great choices between African, Brazilian, Japanese drums, so I hope you tell people to go to a drum circle in your town, your city, your state. Find your way to a drum circle, call your music circle and see what draws you. And the reason we created The Healing Drum Kit, which we recommend for beginners, is because you don't need any prior musical experience. It includes a drum, 25 rhythm cards, 2 play-along CDs, and a guidebook. It's really made so that you can simply pick up that drum and get started immediately.

RO: Tell us what you feel when you're drumming. What are your intentions when you're performing? Is it in any way at all like praying or meditating for you? What do you feel?

CS: I am interested, instead of performing, in reforming. I think that we are shifting from being performers to being inspirational reformers. I want to watch an audience join me. I think it's all in how you prepare. I love talking to performers about what they do before they walk out there. Don't you? Then you start to see the spiritual practice come in. Okay, I breathe, I picture things… this is all spiritual practice. I breathe, maybe I do some jumping jacks, I focus, I maybe even meditate. In my mind, the intention is different than putting on a show – it's connecting. It's sharing, it's inspiring. I think that's how we do it: we start off by clearing the energy, clearing space, making ourselves available, and then really offering that as a gift to an audience. Is that really any different than meditating or praying or having a spiritual experience? Show me any church that doesn't have music – it doesn't matter what religion. Why is that? It's usually first in the order of service. The reason is that it's the most ancient, simple away to connect a group.

RO: Tell us what the future holds for Christine Stevens and Upbeat Drum Circles.

CS: Upbeat Drum Circles is going to be going back to Iraq. We are continuing to research that project; we hope to be able to prove in a research paper that drumming was successful in reducing conflict and improving leadership skills in a war zone. We're hoping to publish that study, we're always involved in research and events and concerts and we teach a training program called "Change Your Life through Rhythm." We teach a training program called "Health Rhythms." I think it's really about the continuing of training, recording, and making music that inspires people to no longer be a listener, but to pick up a drum and be part of the rhythm of life.

http://www.ubdrumcircles.com/

[Edited by Andrew Hoogheem]