Contemporary soundwork derives from older practices of using the voice or instrumental sound as a means of caring for the well-being of a community and its members.  Down through time and across the world, cultures have turned to soundmaking as a means of celebrating life, lamenting sorrows, connecting with nature and the Great Mystery, as well as fostering peace and cooperation among diverse societies.

CASP is proud to develop and deepen the tradition of intentional soundmaking.  We recognize that present-day soundwork, combining timeworn practices with a modern application, offers a sorely needed ‘medicine’ in these times of momentous change.

The following provides an overview of common soundwork modalities taught or put into practice by our membership:

Sonic Celebrations and Rituals
Soundwork as Soulwork
Vocal Exploration and Expression
Soundwork and Reflective Practices
Soundwork and Bodywork
Soundwork Through Chants and Mantras
Corporate Events
Drum Circles
Fundraising
Griefwork
Singing Crystal Bowls
Toning and Overtoning
Tuning Forks

Sonic Celebrations and Rituals

Sometimes, sound speaks louder than words.  Soundwork offers a cohesive and non-dogmatic means for a grouping of individuals to interact in rich, meaningful ways such as observing a Solstice event, commemorating an accomplishment, or memorializing the loss of a loved one.

Soundwork practitioners often bring a high level of skill in being able to facilitate interactive experiences with large and small groups.  Supported by user-friendly instruments or vocal sounding, a roomful of individuals can quickly form a sense of community through a powerful version of group sounding.

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Soundwork as Soulwork

Many practitioners of soundwork have trained as counselors or psychotherapists.  These individuals will typically employ soundwork with clients as a reflective, receptive, or interactive tool to consider ‘matters of the soul,’ or the inner life.  Sound, in this regard, can implicate our psychological, emotional or spiritual dimensions without too much intellectual analysis.

Sometimes, soundwork can help a client befriend inner conflicts or integrate energies that have been exiled. Sometimes, soundwork simply offers a playful process for clients as they become inquisitive and inventive, like children.

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Vocal Exploration and Expression

The art form of singing arranged songs represents only one small slice of a large pie.  Improvised vocalization invites individuals to be fully in the moment and leap with curiosity into the unknown. Most soundwork practitioners possess artful ways of engaging both the trained and untrained vocalist in a spirit of discovery.

Some of the services provided by members may include group workshops, individual coaching, or conference presentations that unite a large group in extemporaneous vocal play.

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Soundwork and Reflective Practices

Contemplative practices, such as meditation, can be greatly enhanced by soundwork.  Whether listening to meditative soundscapes (using bells and bowls) or actively using the breath through vocalization, soundwork asks both listener and sounder to come fully into the moment.  Stilling the mind, for most Westerners, can be effectively taught through a range of sonic possibilities ranging from chant to drumming.

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Soundwork and Bodywork

Most of us have received bodywork or therapeutic treatments, whether massage treatment or Reiki, where pre-recorded music helped us relax into a receptive state.  Now imagine receiving a treatment where the practitioner incorporates live soundmaking into the experience.  Soundwork can transform a ‘session’ into a ceremony.  Soundwork not only opens our ears but our hearts in ways that can undergird and enhance a therapeutic process.

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Soundwork through Chants and Mantras

What is a mantra? The science of mantra recognizes that each syllable has a natural inherent power, a vibratory quality that relates to aspects of the human condition. A mantra is a word or phrase with an inherent meaning – an innate power to affect change. This power is greatly amplified with repetition and focused intent.

Studies have shown that chanting mantras can lead to many physical benefits, such as: more coherent and harmonic brain patterns; better communication between left and right hemispheres of the brain; boosted immune systems; increased lymphatic circulation; lowered heart rate and blood pressure; increased production of melatonin, interlukin-1, and other hormones and endorphins.  It has been shown to benefit the treatment of many disorders such as eating disorders, schizophrenia, hyperactivity, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dennis Gaumond, one of our founding members, teaches chant as a powerful form of meditation that can affect our subtle or spiritual bodies and thereby enhance the health of our physical bodies.

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Corporate Events

Many benefits and positive effects arise from having Sound present at corporate events. There are as many different ways for a Sound Practitioner to weave sound, energy and interactive experiences into a corporate agenda as there are corporate event configurations.

If ‘team building’ is the purpose of the event, there are Sound Practitioners who specialize in this area. Either one or more Practitioners will create a program of interactive experiences for the participants where they will have the opportunity to experience deep listening, personal expression and communication with their peers. This is accomplished through different musical expressions presented in a safe, non-judgmental environment.

Should the event be a dinner where a form of entertainment has been the norm, adding sound is an excellent option for consideration. One or more Sound Practitioners will bring a unique, interactive expression to the evening. This could involve call and response activities or interactive drumming using various sonic toys supplied by the Practitioners or possibly, some form of body movement or vocable singing/sounding. The result will find participants feeling open, involved and having had thought provoking fun. An excellent way to digest a meal!

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Drum Circles

Are gatherings where people from the surrounding community join together to play their drums. The drum circle is an inclusive experience for people of all ages. The main objective is to share rhythm, tune-in and resonate with each other and themselves. What unfolds is an entrained group consciousness where a new voice, a collective voice, emerges from the group as they drum together.

There are a wide variety of different types of drumming circles:

• Community drum circles - for recreation, celebration, social enhancement, general group learning, and honor.
• Conference drum circles - as a general session or interactive keynote presentation.
• Corporate drum circles - to build teamwork and morale, using the metaphor of music to improve corporate workings.
• Diversity drum circles - to educate and demonstrate using the metaphor of music to build unity and appreciate differences.
• Health and Wellness drum circles - at medical, meditation / wellness centers and senior living facilities.
• Recreational drum circles - in community parks or social gatherings for playing together.

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Fundraising

Finding ways of raising funds for any cause is becoming more difficult, especially in light of the current economy. A unique and heart-centered way of engaging people to participate and support a fundraiser is with the inclusion of Sound Practitioners.

Music brings people closer to the mystery that lies deep within oneself. Through interactive activities of singing/sounding, drumming, playing and deep listening, some small part of the participant opens to the sense of what his/her role is on this planet.

A group of Sound Practitioners can create a wonderful, fun-filled presentation of interactive activities for attendees and assist in making a fundraising event a fun-filled and enjoyable way of giving. Group Sound experiences can enhance a celebration, teach communication skills, or engage a roomful of participants in the spirit of play.

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Griefwork

When we are confronted with a painful loss, whether it’s the death of someone close to us, a lost opportunity or the ending of an intimate relationship, we can use these circumstances to enter into a deeper connection with our soul. But often we minimize our grief in order to function ‘normally’ and stay strong. If we have the courage and support during these tender times we can allow ourselves to be broken open. While in a state separated from the norm, radical shifts and even radical healing can occur.

The nonverbal world of sound and music can be a helpful ally in the grieving process. Sound moves us beyond the use of words and into the deepest realms of the heart. It creates a space for clients to connect more directly to their feelings and often in a powerful way. By asking our intellect to take a back seat, we allow sounds to help us access our feelings of sorrow, longing and anger so that we may eventually release them and begin the journey back to wholeness. Crying, like laughing, releases emotional and physical tension in our bodies. It’s good medicine.

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Singing Crystal Bowls

Singing crystal bowls are amongst the most powerful sonic healing tools in use today. The bowls are a gift of the technological age, as they were originally created in the Silicon Valley to grow the crystals for computer chips. The crystal bowls have been brought into modern healing practices and practitioners have discovered they have a lasting and profound effect on the human body.

We have discovered that each bowl can be tuned to resonate with a particular chakra, affecting cells or organs. They produce one of the purest circular waveforms, called sine waves. A sine wave has only a single frequency associated with it, considered the simplest and purest sound. When the bowls are sounded, the clear tones of the crystal bowls move through the body in vibrant waves; calming, aligning, and healing the energy centers and auric field. Scientific studies show that sound waves produce changes in the autonomic, immune, endocrine and neuropeptide systems.

Crystal Sound Healing is a ‘vibrational therapy’ that is being incorporated into many energy medicine practices. Energy Medicine works on the belief that the human body is not solid. Rather it is energy that is held together by sound. Sound is a creative and formative power. The Practitioner uses crystal sound to create balance and alignment in the physical body, the energy centers called “chakras”, the meridians and the etheric field. The health of a particular area of a body reflects one’s psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being. When chakra energy is blocked or misdirected, emotional and physical illness can arise.

Currently, our medical approach to dealing with health problems is to either sedate with drugs or to remove the part that is no longer functioning. For sound healers, however, disease indicates that something is out of tune. The body resonates to musical notes and the colours of the rainbow, and so the premise of Sound Healing is to simply ‘re-frequence’ the out of tune, cell, organ, or entire body. By projecting the correct resonant frequency into that part of the body which is vibrating out of harmony, the practitioner can restore the imbalanced area back to its natural resonant frequency.

Crystal bowls are very effective in this process. Their calming sound waves immediately put the brain into the alpha state. They speak to the entire body; vibrating each organ, cell and atom, shaking loose old patterns, realigning, ‘refrequencing’ and allowing easier access to higher states of consciousness.

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Toning and Overtoning

Toning is vocalizing a pure sound and requires no singing ability whatsoever. Creating sound in this way has a powerful healing effect on all levels. The vibrations massage the vocal chords, the face plate and skull, and course throughout the whole body, leaving it humming with vitality. The mind is also refreshed and clarified by being cleared of its usual distractions. Toning, combined with clearly focused intent, is a very powerful meditative tool.

Overtone Singing , or overtoning, is an ancient art that has received more attention in the past few decades. This is largely due to the efforts of the Tibetan monks from the Drepung-Loseling Monastery who have been touring the world demonstrating their ‘Deep Voice’ style of overtone singing. In this practice, a single voice can simultaneously produce more than one note, creating a ‘one voice chord’. Aside from the Tibetan, there are other styles of overtoning. From Mongolia and Tuva comes a different technique called ‘Hoomi”, which uses less of a deep, throaty sound. In this technique one sounds a note with the normal voice, which is called the fundamental note. At the same time, high-pitched notes called ‘overtones’ or ‘harmonics’ can be heard dancing above the fundamental note in a flute-like way.

With overtoning, the beneficial effects of toning are maximized. The vibratory quality of the sound is enhanced and amplified by this technique. The research of Dr. Alfred Tomatis suggests that higher pitched sounds have a greater capacity to break apart negative energy patters and are thus more effective at treating disease and disorder. With overtone singing, the vibration of the fundamental note is greatly augmented by the power of the higher-pitched harmonics.

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Tuning Forks

The sounding of the tuning forks stimulates and balances the body's physical and subtle energy field to promote healing and inner harmony. Listening to the forks speaks to us deeply accessing our sense of motion, balance, space, memory, and healing. Tuning forks were originally used to assist musicians to tune musical instruments because they emanate perfect sine wave sound patterns that allow you to fine-tune instruments to the proper pitch.

Practitioners in many areas of the Healing Arts use the standard tuning forks to positively alter the body’s biochemistry. There are two types of tuning forks and they both come in many different vibrations and pitches. The trained practitioner will know exactly what they are looking for. They can be used in and around the energy field to balance and activate the physical body. When the tuning fork is struck, it causes the air around the fork to vibrate, sending out very strong vibrating impulses through the air, increasing the amount of energy on parts of the body in need of healing.

The tuning forks with weighted disks on them are designed to project sound directly into the physical body. This is sometimes called “Accusonics”. The practitioner hits the top with the two weighted discs on it, and then places the stem directly onto the body. The recipient will feel the sound go into the body like a sonic massage. The weighted tuning forks are used to project sound into specific points and places associated with particular body therapies. Practitioners use them on tight muscles, joints, tendons, bones and tissues, as well as, on reflex, trigger and acupuncture points.

The fork is struck to get it vibrating and placed on or near the body. By putting them in the vicinity of the different chakras or energy centers located along the spine, the impulses are received by the corresponding organs. The vibration energizes these areas and stimulates the organs into greater health-giving activity. The sound waves of the tuning forks vibrate and travel deeply into the body along energy pathways, affecting human physiology and reaching places not easily accessed by traditional medicine.

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