Mozart is Sound Therapy
The music of Mozart has gained great attention in
recent years for its supposed therapeutic benefits, yet it is still a
minority of Australians who actively seek out classical music. Two
crusaders for the public benefit of classical music have teamed up to
bring Mozart into new realms within Australia. The following is based
on a discussion between Rafaele Joudry and Michael Clark.
Rafaele Joudry is founder and Director of Sound Therapy International,
an organization devoted to bringing Sound Therapy to the masses, in the
form of a home based listening program based on the work of the
pioneering French ear specialist, Dr Tomatis.
Michael Clark is the Founder and Artistic and Musical Director of the
newly formed orchestra, the Sydney Mozart Players. Originally from
Bathurst, Michael undertook this ambitions project of forming a new
orchestra after a very successful ten year musical career in Europe as
a conductor and pianist. He was engaged as repititeur at London’s
Covent Garden and was acclaimed for his readings of Mozart and Verdi
when he conducted at opera houses throughout Germany.
His wish now is to contribute in a more significant way to his home
country, not only to carve out a niche for himself but to expand the
community’s interest in classical music and create performing
opportunities for the many other talented musicians.
Having noticed a dirth of opportunities to hear live music in Sydney he
says “ There’s a need in a lot of parts of Sydney, the western parts of
Sydney, the regional areas as well, Bathurst, Orange, so forth.” He
believes audiences are crying out for live music events. The orchestra
will also provide opportunities for the development and exposure of
local artists. Michael says, “There’s so many musicians, soloists, even
other conductors that are missing a platform to perform regularly, and
to record. There’s a real need for this in Australia and I’m making
that platform.”
Michael cuts a dashing figure with his tall stature and brilliant red
hair. His modest and unassuming, yet confident manner makes it easy to
believe he will succeed with this ambitious undertaking. So far, he has
received a wonderful response from all parties. “The musicians have
been very excited about the project and the audiences have been great,”
he says. Other conductors of standing such as Richard Bonynge SP?,
Patrick Thomas, have also been very supportive and very complimentary
about what the new orchestra is doing.”
Michael’s initial interest in the work of Mozart stemmed from his
response to the movie, Amadeus, which came out when he was nine years
old. He says, “ I’d seen the movie and as a child I’d thought it was so
amazing, because that’s exactly what Mozart is all about, this amazing
music created in such a joyful way. And looking back on it and seeing
it again recently, I was impressed that the people who worked on the
music in that movie were very good. Neville Mariner I respect very,
very much. His group, St Martin In The Fields, which he established 30
years ago, does a magnificent job, especially with Mozart. The music in
the movie was magnificent. But the more I look into the music of Mozart
the more genius I see in it and the more freshness, the more -- just
amazing amount of energy in the music.”
Michael shared particular thoughts on the unique genius of Mozart.
“It’s not necessarily just the sounds that go together to make music.
What’s also in the composition, is an intrinsic energy in the way he
put notes together. And so another composer, if they’re not doing it as
well, is not going to provide the listener with such a high octave of
-- such a high level of resonance or energy in what they put out. It’s
like comparing a Ferrari to a VW. They both go along the road, but
one’s outputting a much higher level of perfection and tightness in the
way it’s produced.
Michael points out that “Mozart sounds quite simple when you listen to
it, but when you come to perform it, there are certain things that
aren’t simple about the way it’s made up. The structure of the phrases
is not simple, it’s not obvious where the new phrase begins. So, it’s
actually, I wouldn’t say uneven, but it’s actually structured in a very
asymmetrical way. And you would never expect that, listening to it,
because it sounds so right, so it’s like a tree. It just doesn’t go
straight up and down, there’s some way that it grows that’s not
symmetrical, it’s actually organic. And this element of organic
construction actually makes great music.”
To produce music like this, Michael believes that Mozart had to be
working beyond the level of the intellect, certainly without planning.
He was a prolific composer for his 35 years, producing a quantity of
material unparalleled by any other composer.
“But he certainly did it from instinct,” says Michael. “He had such an
instinctual feel for the construction of the music and it just came out
of him. Someone like Beethoven thought about it, so he’d write
something down but then he’d change it and he’d take out a bar here and
put a note there. But Mozart basically wrote it like a channeller. So
even when you see the difficulties and mess that he had in his life, he
still was able to focus and channel the music, and write it down.”
In wanting to bring his music to new sections of the community, Michael
Clark has some innovative ideas on presentation. In order to make the
concerts more dynamic and alive, particularly for younger audiences,
The Mozart Players integrates theatrical lighting with the music.
Michael says, “ I think the use of colours and lighting can actually
bring the audio and visual into sync for people. The visual stimulation
helps the aural recognition of the energy of the music and focuses that
listener. Because not all people are aural, some need a largely visual
stimulus as well.”
Michael may have touched on a key factor which has been explored until
now only in the field of learning difficulties, where much has been
learned about brain processes and integration. Specialists are
discovering how links between different sensory systems are crucial in
our overall learning ability. The ear specialist, Dr Tomatis 50 years
ago in France, pioneered a method of treating dyslexia using specially
recorded tracks of Mozart. Filtered classical music improved ear
function and auditory processing, yet amazingly this also assisted the
ability to correctly see and interpret the written word.
Rafaele Joudry, Director of the Sydney based company, Sound Therapy
International, has made the Tomatis method of Sound Therapy accessible
to thousands of people with a portable listening system on cassette
tape. Rafaele says, “with Sound Therapy we are integrating all the
senses, but particularly the auditory and visual. Tomatis pointed out
that the ocular-motor nerve, which controls eye tracking, is surrounded
and controlled by the auditory nerve, so you cannot really stimulate
one sensory system without affecting others.”
In the early nineties world headlines reported the amazing discovery
that Mozart made children smarter. Researchers found that if students
listened to Mozart before their exams they performed better. They were
only reporting what Dr Tomatis had been saying for forty years, that
Mozart improves brain function. But Tomatis was achieving this at a
more concentrated level with his filtering technique, points out
Rafaele Joudry. When used continuously, for several hours a day over a
period of a few weeks, the filtered music has been found to rebuild
brain pathways, stimulate cortical activity, improve memory,
concentration and language abilities. It also assists voice quality,
musical appreciation, verbal expression and conceptual skills.
Those parents who have introduced Sound Therapy to their children and
teenagers have been amazed at the improvements in attitude, academic
performance, sleep patterns and self esteem. The fact that the program
uses classical music is seen as a hindrance to some, since teenagers
don’t usually go for it. However, according to Rafaele Joudry who has
worked in the field for nearly fourteen years, contrary to
expectations, those who try Sound Therapy often get hooked on the
benefits and modify their musical taste.
One of the aims of the Mozart Players is to take Mozart into the
schools and to attract younger audiences to their concerts. Michael
says “ I think the stigma or the misconception of classical music has
to be lifted, and this only begins if we educate young people so that
this music becomes more accessible and they see groups of musicians or
singers or pianists. They see them perform and they think, ‘yes this is
a great thing.’ It’s not just a toffee nosed concern but something that
they can grasp, that they can appreciate and actually listen to and
enjoy.”
Michael also wishes to use the medium of video to make classical music
a more immediate experience.
“I think children or young people seeing a video of a live performance
experience a different relationship to an orchestra and to classical
music. Then when they’re introduced into the concert hall and see
actual concerts they have a different attitude, they have recognition
of what’s happening, they know what’s happening because they’ve seen it
up close through a video.”
Rafaele Joudry and Michael Clark are currently collaborating on the
production of a new video to be released on VHS and DVD about the
therapeutic possibilities of Sound Therapy, the work of Dr Tomatis and
the involvement of the Sydney Mozart Players in this work.
Sound Therapy has great potential application in schools to assist with
learning and the structural development of the brain. In addition it
offers surprising benefits for those with hearing problems. Michael’s
first contact with Sound Therapy was through his father who used the
program to overcome his tinnitus, (the name given to a condition of
persistent ringing or buzzing in the ears.)
Michael’s father, who was an engineer and building inspector in
Bathurst, had suffered from an industrial tinnitus for many years.
Michael relates how his father had put up with this constant ringing
for 20 years or more, almost as long as he can remember. He had tried
various methods to try and repair the damage or get some relief but had
no success until he came across the Sound Therapy method. He read
Rafaele Joudry’s books on Sound Therapy and tinnitus very thoroughly,
and after much deliberation, decided to try the tapes. He did his work
while he was listening, which he did religiously, as much as he could,
for the time suggested which was 300 hours. He experienced initially
great improvement and gradually total betterment of his tinnitus, “and
he seems to be very energetic and pretty happy about everything,”
according to his son. Michael noticed another significant difference in
his father after he used Sound Therapy, which was that he could now
attend a social function and follow the conversation instead of being
isolated by his inability to sort out the mix of voices. Michael’s
mother also found that the tapes helped her to sleep better.
Due to these personal experiences, Michael is very enthusiastic about
this therapy which has helped many thousands of people. He is intrigued
by the ideas behind it, the concept and the scientific basis. “The fact
that it is so easy to use in its portable form makes it really
practical and terrific for people,” he says.
As an expression of his total support for the Sound Therapy program,
Michael has agreed for the Music from the Mozart Players concerts to be
used in future Sound Therapy recordings. He says “ Well I support the
venture totally and I like the idea of our music being used in the
tapes. I think to maximize the effect of the therapy its important that
the music that’s used should be as good as possible, which I hope our
music is. And the energy contained in the music can also go towards any
healing process.”
In order to fully preserve the energy inherent in the music, Sound
Therapy has always been produced using analogue recording methods. This
is an area where musicians and engineers sometimes differ.
Michael says, “ There’s long been an argument, analogue versus digital.
I think the difference can be measured by a number of things. If
someone looks at the pure technical aspects of it, of an analogue tape
or a digital comparison, certain results come up. And one can say
digital has these and these qualities and picks up this and this sound
and analogue only goes to these levels of hertz and so forth. But
that’s actually a very cerebral view and only looks at the scientific
values that are associated with measuring things. It actually ignores
the qualities which people can pick up. An analogue tape however, being
a physical substance, being an actual metal or magnetic substance, can
be influenced by sound, by surroundings, by everything, and therefore,
in my opinion can actually absorb more of the energy and transmit that
from the recording source that it comes from. A digital source being
zeroes and ones, can only actually pick up what information it receives
and it doesn’t have a physical source of recording. So the argument can
be seen in both ways and that aspect of the quality can be heard
differently from the two sources.
“ I’ve listened to a lot of music played on various sources. For
instance, if you hear an old 78 record played on an old gramophone, now
the sound quality is not particularly good as far as what we judge good
these days, but the level of energy in the sound that it produces is
incredible. It’s like you get in the throat of the person singing or
you’re transported into the very core of that. And why is that? For me
it’s because it’s a physical thing. I’ve listened then to old
recordings that were obviously done in analogue version, either from
cut records or analogue tape and they’ve been converted into CD. I find
these still have that intrinsic energy in them and I can only, from my
perception, explain that perhaps it’s because of the recording process.
I’ve heard now obviously a lot of digitally remastered recorded work in
the last, few years since it’s existed. I’m finding a lot of these new
recordings to be lacking in energy. I’m finding that there’s a dryness
to the energy that it’s transmitting. One can say, yes it sounds good,
very clean, even perfect, but a certain energy is missing. And what are
we trying to do here? Actually transmitting energy!”
Rafaele adds to this discussion a debate that she held for many years
with her mother, Patricia Joudry, who was the originator of the
portable Tomatis method. She says, “My mother used to have very strong
opinions about computers, which she never learned to use. We’re both
writers, and we’d joke about how people would say ‘well computers are
so great because you can move things around.’ Its true, its very
convenient with all the cutting and pasting on the screen, but you can
easily lose the flow of the original inspiration that came through. My
writing never has the flow that my mother’s did. She never moved things
around on a computer, she just listened to the muse, a bit like Mozart!
And I wonder if that’s what may be happening with the level of fiddling
around that can be done in studio digital recording?”
Michael agrees that it could be. “And there certainly is often a lot of
adjustment, trying to find that warmth in the recording or find the
sound that may be lacking. Unfortunately we often think because it’s
new technology, that can’t be avoided. We have the telephone, we love
the telephone, it’s handy -- a mobile phone, everyone goes for it. We
get a computer and we’re excited by this idea of technology. But stop
for a moment and think what you get from it and maybe you make another
judgement.”
Sound Therapy approaches sound from an entirely different level to
other audio systems. The Tomatis method grew from discoveries that Dr
Tomatis made about the effect of the mother’s voice on the unborn
child. Earlier researchers had established that if baby birds did not
hear their mothers sing before they were hatched, they would never
learn to sing later. This raised questions about the foetal development
of the auditory system in humans. The listening program that Tomatis
developed is designed to give the listener an experience of rebirth
through sound. Brain pathways that may have been established but not
fully developed for emotional or cognitive developmental reasons, can
be accessed and reactivated with the highly filtered Mozart. This
reenactment of pre natal listening means Sound Therapy is impacting the
nervous system at a more profound and structural level than any other
sound experience. For this reason the quality of the sound and its
direct, energetic impact on nerve impulses is of paramount importance.
Rafaele believes that only a person with a highly developed ear, a
highly sensitive person or a talented musician can have the sensitivity
to evaluate the potential impact of different recording methods.
Michael Clark states, “I think it’s possible that staying with analogue
recordings can actually boost the intrinsic energy or retain the
intrinsic energy in the recording and therefore give the edge and the
beauty and the love that’s in a sound coming to a Sound Therapy
listener, which is what we all want. It’s sort of like this idea about
the mother’s voice that Tomatis wrote about. The mother’s voice when in
the womb, it doesn’t sound like much probably but it has some intrinsic
quality of energy or love that we all need. So that’s one of the things
that you may be interfering with if you bring in a digital signal.”
Sound Therapy International will be making analogue recordings of
Sydney Mozart Players concerts for exclusive release as Sound Therapy
programs.
The Sydney Mozart Players’ gala opening concert takes place on October
26th 2001 at Angel Place Sydney.
For more information on Sound Therapy and their products, courses and
practitioner training program contact Sound Therapy International Pty
Ltd. Phone 02 4234-4534 or 1300 55 77 96 or visit
www.soundtherapyinternational.com
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