The formulation of this sequence of ideas has come in response to a thought experiment recently posed to me by saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman. He proposed the consideration that one was able to travel back in time and interact with former stages of human civilization. Assuming that one were not immediately killed or incapacitated on charges of insanity, witchcraft or the like, and assuming that one was believed in the claim that they originated from the future, the crux of the problem is as follows: having explained the history, circumstances, and technology of the future, what would one actually be able to do when asked for proof of our origin? Not one of us would be able to recreate a cellphone or a computer in the Bronze Age, for instance. As for musicians, how many of us could create a piano if we were placed back in time even one millennia? The point Steve was making here is that the majority of people are users and not creators. We have learned to navigate a certain infrastructure, but in the majority of cases, we are unable to create it ourselves.
This problem stayed with me for several weeks, and I began to consider a related hypothetical situation grounded in the present instead of the past. Consider if one were to come from an advanced civilization in the future and happened to be a musician from that time. How would this civilization have utilized music, and how could this be demonstrated relative to our present limitations of technology and collective psychological growth? My initial response is that such an advanced civilization would have mastered music as catalyst for the development of consciousness. Respectively, it would employ interdisciplinary knowledge to initiate the psychophysical activation and integration proper to that end. Integrative Music may be an appropriate term to represent such a phase of artistic progress that has successfully unified aesthetic achievement with the scientific, philosophical, moral, and religious understanding required to meet humanity’s evolutionary needs.
Several areas of practice and research are required for integrative music of any form to come to fruition, each of which can be explored on an individual, collective, or institutional basis. To begin, knowledge of the physical and psychological conditions of advanced cognition provides the foundation and underlying impetus. This covers without limitation areas of cognition which utilize extraordinary intelligence, access transpersonal and parapsychological modes of consciousness, and induce psychosomatic healing. In-depth exploration of the states and stages of contemplation is the means by which these parameters can be personally discovered, and utilizing traditional or comparative sources of learning can help to ensure that this occur within healthy bounds. This category of understanding presupposes both experiential and intellectual/scientific knowledge. On a personal level, the individual creator must have the ability to explore the depths of mind as would occur during contemplative practice and must develop enough intimate familiarity to measure the effects of their subsequent creative work against. It stands to reason that at a certain point of societal evolution these forms of knowledge will become adopted in dominant scientific and intellectual institutions when the body of data on the subject becomes adequately substantiated. Presently, some understanding of this component of Integrative Music exists in religious and mystical traditions, and we are in the beginning phases of translating this information into the scientific terms of neuroscience and transpersonal psychology.
Second, there must be a definitive understanding of the effects of sound and music on the mind and body. Without this branch of knowledge, the efficacy of any music could be no more than self-induced. Common sense tells us that the effects of music are more than wish fulfillment, but for as far as contemporary music theory has gone to exhaust the harmonic possibilities of the 12-tone system, it has not begun to systematically breach the effects of sound on the mind and body. How do particular frequencies, timbres, harmonies, or rhythms specifically impact the performer and listener? What range of physiological and psychological effects can sound stimulate? The answers to these kind of queries are usually addressed implicitly in the experience of music itself, with more concise formulations remaining privy to more esoterically oriented composers and musicians like Milford Graves, a drummer, composer, researcher and mystic who has spent years studying the power of music to entrain the rhythms of the heart. Any artist of substance has spent many hours experimenting with the effects of basic and advanced elements of musical vocabulary in this way owing to the fact that this is the grammar by which any musical communication takes place. It is only a matter of time until the results of this study are delineated systematically and drawn beyond the purview of occult musical knowledge. The more explicit this knowledge becomes, the easier one can invoke particular effects with sound and music.
Next, it should be stated that competence and ultimately mastery of the craft of music as pertains to the artists particular practice is a sine qua non in order to actualize this vision. Without excellence of skill in compositional, improvisational, or instrumental technique, any attempt to satisfy the former two dimensions of Integrative Music will be cursory and lacking in seriousness and depth. Many present attempts falling into this category abound. One only need to look under the category of meditation music on Youtube or listen to the ‘free jazz’ of early university musicians to see the abundance of artistically impoverished attempts to yield the kind of music we are discussing. Great musicians and composers like Beethoven, John Coltrane, Per Norgard, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Part, John Taverner, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, or Steve Coleman exemplify the type of creator who has reach beyond the apex of the craft into realms that transcend music. The fluency required is one where the artist need no longer consider technique in the creative process. A creator cannot be concerned with either still working out technical skill or with technique for technique’s sake to successfully translate the essence that this art would otherwise convey.
The final branch of Integrative Music is a synthetic one, pertaining to the implementation of the former three parameters in an aesthetically significant way. Of course, music is much more than the intonation of test tones or binaural beats meant to stimulate certain kinds of neurological activity. Creative intelligence makes a contribution entirely its own in this regard, giving meaningful and beautiful form to musical ideas that stand at the precipice of contemplative religion and sonic science. In its final phase, Integrative Music assumes the teleology of contemplative practice, the factual grounding of sonic science, and the beauty of mature artistry to become an invocation for existential growth in much the same way as Jung conceived this to be the function of visual mandalas. Factoring in the dynamic fluctuation of mental and physical states over time, improvisation inhabits a foremost role in integrative music practice. It enables the musician to exercise real-time intelligence in navigating variable internal and external circumstances. This stands in contrast to creative output that is frozen at a given time in history as is the case with notated composition. However, in either case if the music is successful in its objective of stimulating the deeper structures of consciousness, the effects are lasting and often historically recounted.
Given the outlined conditions, the logical question remains what can present day musicians, composers, improvisers, and even listeners do to move in the direction of an Integrative Music practice? At the outset of study, applying a combination of scientific methodology and intuitive apprehension is of inestimable value in attaining a balanced view of these inter-related fields. Even while investigating relevant internal phenomena from a first-person perspective, using processes which are as consistent with scientific reasoning as the subject allows (while retaining the irreducible quality of experiential data) helps one to avoid byways in favour of more profitable and founded results. Not all artists give consideration to their method of learning, and for this reason, I make mention thereof. As an object of experience and as the subject of creative process, Integrative Music demands a total, encompassing, and holistic involvement of all resources of the self. It is as much about physical engagement as it is about emotional content, intellectual substance, or spiritual depth.
An underlying attitude of total attention and concentration is the activating agent of consciousness which effectively engages all subsidiary parameters of the integrative musical experience. Sharpening ones sensitivity to all the events that arise in the mind-body continuum on a moment-to-moment basis primes one to optimally receive and process the information that each branch of this study contains. The primary skill which enables all subsequent observations is that of concentration, meditation, or contemplation according to the tradition of reference. It is applicable to all subjects, objects, and processes that fall under the domain of Integrative Music, making it by far the most transferable ability for a musician to develop. As a general principle, it enlivens harmonious operation of all functions of consciousness, and when applied to musical experience it confers a greater vantage of unity. Most importantly, extended concentration can impart transrational insight into the nature and essence of the content of focus that is relevant when systematically exploring the properties of sound, contemplative states, or the craft of music and their relationship to the mind-body system. Relying on this method of knowing can unveil perspective that directs the later exposition in scientific discovery, akin to Einstein’s insight into the nature of relativity which was later articulated in mathematical terms.
Finding a contemplative tradition that is particularly relatable, establishing a personal practice, and deepening ones study with literature, community, and an experienced guide is an excellent way to lay the foundations of progress which stand at the base of Integrative Music. If it has not already been done, one also can apply the same rigorous awareness to studying the interaction of sound and music with the mind and body. One can also apply these discoveries of awareness to the skill of musical practice, including instrumental technique, composition, or improvisation, in order to reach the culmination of masterful synthesis in process and output which I have termed Integrative Music. Should this study be taken beyond the realm of first-hand experience, other procedures need to be applied to expand upon the body of knowledge that will eventually constitute this field. I will expand on my ideas for these procedural considerations in later writing.