The first Savasana CD I recorded in 2001 was my reaction to a life that was falling apart. I went into the studio and prayed. And prayed. It turned my life around and helped others turn their lives around. In the next five years, I was repeatedly asked to play during savasana at the end of yoga class. People asked when the next Savasana CD would come out, and I avoided their questions. Frankly, I had no idea how the first one had happened. Back then I was singing and praying out of desperation. Sourcing divine energy seemed natural when I was in trouble (doesn’t everyone pray for guidance when they’re down and out?); but I didn’t know if I could do it as a whole person and create healing as a free-flowing, playful venture.

I wanted to study how I sourced divine energy, understand it, and refine my skills in healing and sound. Certainly practicing yoga and then sitting down to pray and sing left me more expanded than ever before. It was a positive experience for me and everyone else. (Thanks Steven, for some beautiful and inspired yoga classes, and for welcoming me with open arms.) I played only in group classes, and explored my process – musically, mentally, and spiritually.

I noticed during class that I could extend my psyche over everyone in the room and take them with me on my journey of Source. It was a way I could heal people and keep myself whole (what a concept). I also noticed that I needed to start with a clear mind and no plan. Allowing the music to create itself was a key factor in being able to source healing energy. I had to take away the foundation of what I knew, what I thought, what I expected. It had to be completely new, improvised; indeed, it had to be pulled out of thin air.

And so I started each time with nothing. I allowed the melody to come to me from the wind and I played what I heard. Play was the key word – I played with the music, venturing off into improvisations before returning to the melody. I watched the music play on people’s psyche. I could beat them mercilessly with certain tones to break up blockages. I could soothe, caress, and heal. As I played for yoga classes throughout Europe and the US, it was completely different every time! It was evident that I would not be able to prepare for a recording session. So I booked the studio for three days around Christmas and waited without rehearsing. When it came time to record, I was less than excited. Exhausted from the European tour, my voice was scratchy, my body tired. Recording a CD was the last thing I felt like doing. Shouldn’t I be sparkling fresh, shouldn’t I get a massage, some healing treatment, something? Being present meant being here now, no matter what the circumstances. So I sat down for 8 hours and sang. Every moment revealed a different melody.

A few tracks were thrown out, but everything I recorded that day stayed. I played bass on a few tracks and then started calling musicians. The first was Baird Hersey, an overtone singer from Woodstock, NY ( www.pranasound.com). He agreed to sing on the project, so I sent him some tracks. When I heard what he created, I was overjoyed. It was other-worldly, captivating, and like nothing I had ever heard before.

It also presented a problem. If I used Baird’s tracks, I would not be able to use tamboura like I had used on the first Savasana CD. The tamboura created harmonic overtones, enriching to most Indian music, but these overtones were the same ones Baird was singing. In technical lingo, it’s called sound cancellation. I would have to drop the tamboura.

That started me thinking, how could I create harmonic overtones with instruments other than the tamboura? I played harmonics on my violin. Katisse accidentally whistled some notes while he was recording and I asked him to do a whole track of whistling. He inhaled his whistles and caught some beautiful energy. Paul Hill sang OM drones. Brian Allen bowed notes on the upright bass. Paul Hollman played keyboards and acoustic guitar. Kirk Margo played jazz and electric guitar. I used feedback frequencies, harmonics on the violin, guitar and bass. Any harmonic frequency was added to the overtone library and used in the tracks.

I did some research on death and near-death experiences. From what I learned, the white light at the end of the tunnel is not the only experience people have after leaving their body in the death process. There are also harmonic tones, multi-toned humming, and celestial music which draw the soul back to the spirit world. Apparently, light and music frequencies are like so many threads intertwining to create a pathway back to the spirit world. Once you latch on to a thread, you can ride it like a train back to oneness.

I tried to imagine those tones in my auditory mind, and used whistling and higher frequencies to create it in the tracks. I also used a radio dial in OM TARE. If the various frequencies were always there, it was a matter of tuning into a frequency of healing that worked, and it might vary from individual to individual. Turning the radio dial seemed similar to the way a mind filtered through information and available energies. I added this at the end of Om Tare to indicate the filtering process.

One thing is clear to me – to transform and heal ourselves, we have to let go a little. We all have our lives in a certain order, held together by thoughts and projections. We can voluntarily submit to a letting go process (as in the yogic practice of Savasana) or it can happen involuntarily (as when our lives fall apart, business goes bankrupt, or we lose friends or family). In any case, having no music and no ideas was what forced me to hover between earth and heaven. I learned to use less brain power and more prayer. I learned how imagination and intuition come together to create healing vibrations. To imagine what other-worldly, out-of-body music might sound like, and to do my best to create it was like free-falling. I asked for sounds and performances which seemed unusual, even crazy, but not impossible. We followed and explored these ideas until they gelled musically. When no one in the studio could move, when we were mesmerized by what we heard, I knew we had what we needed.

My thanks to everyone who has supported my music, to those who buy my CDs and come to the concerts. It gives me a precious opportunity to discover healing energy and how I can transmit it through music.

praises,

wah!