So, How Do You Treat the  Blues?

With the blues, of course. Dave played with the Tijerina Band at the NASW Statewide Convention this past month. Over 700 people attended the convention, which was the best ever! It was a privilege to play for such an appreciative and therapeutic audience. Not to mention fun.

Welcome New Friends and Wonderful New Sounds.

We had some amazing music at Rt 66 Music and recording these last couple of months, all original and memorable.

First was John Green, a local writer and musician, with a rich voice and an uncanny ability for lyrics. He came in with his band, Sage, and recorded some tunes that lay somewhere in texture between George Strait and Gordon Lightfoot. His talent is known to quite a few people in the Placitas area and we’re delighted to have him with the Rt66music family.

After John, we were delighted to have singer/songwriter Maxine Sanchez, who wrote a beautiful song for a family member and sang it with such style!  We have no picture for her yet, but we hope you’ll be hearing a lot more about her in the months and years to come. She wrote this about her experience in the studio:

I want to thank you, again, for the wonderful experience I had with you Saturday. I was most impressed by the space you consistently held allowing me to realize that anything I wanted to express was inside of me and within my capabilities. As I mentioned, I have coaching skills that I practice, on others to, hopefully, achieve the same outcome. Everything we need, we have. You are a natural. I left feeling like I’d had this particular experience without knowing what was happening while I was in it. I am so happy having met you, the ease in which I was able to create in your presence and the spectacular recording/mixing skills and talent you have. I look forward to experiencing more of the same and hope to get a chance to hear you play soon. Also enjoyed the humor.

Thank you Dave!!!

And another newcomer to the studio, but not to the Albuquerque Sound and Dance Machine: Sam Quiles, who wrote some exquisite lyrics and sang them to Latin tunes that Dave has apparently channeled from Los Panchos or Armando Manzanero. We still haven’t decided who’s got control of that part of his brain, but the music is flowing and it’s glorious.

Sam’s had a long history of singing ballads and remembers how his mother used to sing with him when he was barely old enough to understand the words.

The studio’s been getting busier and busier and the creativity has been flowing. Everyone who’s been to visit or to play or record has said the same thing: “The atmosphere is perfect for creating.” And–like the hokey poky–that’s what it’s all about.

What is this Magic? How Does Music Heal?

How does this work? What does music do that facilitates the mending of bones, the softening and soothing of broken hearts, the nearly instant increase in auto-immunity?

According to some experts, it is the vibration itself. The simplest example of this principle is the use of sonic vibration to heal injuries (a common practice now at rehab centers).

Frequency healing, as it is called, has been studied intensely and broken down Hz by Hz. Every frequency “range” has a specific, non-random effect. For instance, 1.0 Hz impacts the pituitary, stimulating the production of growth hormones. If you want to sleep better, tune in to 3.4 Hz on the dial. For long-term memory, it’s 6 Hz. If you want to be awake and alert, surround yourself with the sound of 14 Hz. Mind you, all of this occurs below the expectable low end of normal hearing. The lowest piano note is 27.5 Hz.

It continues:  111 Hz will increase beta endorphins and stimulate cell regeneration. In the workshops I conduct on the use of animals in therapeutic settings, I can spend an hour listing the ways in which animal-song—cooing, purring, whinnying, sighing, happy barking, even their simple presence and vibration—can be enormously healing.

According to many experts, animal sounds directly affect physiology. Apparently, the frequency of a cat’s purr helps broken bones to knit together faster. When investigated further, they found that vibrations between 20 and 140Hz at low db are anabolic for bone growth, mending muscles and ligaments, and reducing swelling and pain. (See www.animalvoice.com)

Mindfulness and Music

Another point of view is that music that resonates with us demands our full attention—both mental and physical. Shawn Phillips, author of Strength for Life, explores the impact of attention on every area of a person’s life: “It’s not necessarily what’s on your mind, but how you hold your attention without distraction.” This attention—focus and intensity—is the basis for all well-being, whether that’s in the form of achievement of specific goals or overall health.

Others see music as a channel to reflection and stillness, which is the flipside of attention. After 30 years of recording and playing, I’ve often wondered whether the spaces between the notes are a big part of helping us to meditate and reflect. I guess when we only have twelve notes the possibilities in the spaces outnumber the notes.

What I’ve come to understand is that the importance of this stillness is incalculable on every major physical system in our bodies.

Jon Kabat Zinn, a world-renown researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard University, contributed to one study reported in Psychosomatic Medicine 65:564-570 (2003), entitled, Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation.

Using a well-known and widely used 8-week clinical training in mindfulness with employees in an active work environment, they measured brain activity before and after the period of meditation. A control group was tested at the same time.

At the end of the 8-week period, the 25 experimental subjects and 16 control subjects were given the influenza vaccine. They measured both groups 4 months after the program and found for the first time significant increases in certain brain activity (left-sided anterior activation) that is commonly associated with positive affect in the meditators compared with those who did not meditate. They also found a significant increase in immune response with the meditators. The study concluded that a short program in mindfulness meditation produced demonstrable and enduring effects on brain and immune function.

The stillness, the focus, the clarity and intensity of attention—these things are the stuff of music that draws us back to it over and over and over again.

Riding through Colorado snowstorms to play around the state, back into New Mexico, and ready for a new year.

Check out our schedule for events in New Mexico and Colorado.