Course Descriptions
Sound Work: Resonance, Entrainment, and Psychoacoustic Music Production
Joshua Leeds
Sound is an ancient healing modality that has retained its potency throughout modern times. Ancient wisdom complements new technologies to impart a deeper understanding of molecular reactions, neurological benefits, and the emotional effects of sound in healing. Psychoacoustics -the study of the effect of music and sound on the human nervous system-forms the foundation upon which the emerging field of soundwork builds.
This course of study is a broad inquiry into the theory and tools of modern soundwork. We will delineate the components of sound, explore the physiology of hearing, experience the psychology of listening, and study our natural human responses to vibration and frequency. Topics will include psychoacoustics, bioacoustics, resonance, entrainment, current therapeutic sound techniques, the creation of healing music soundtracks, music healing discography and music production, and more on the power of sound to activate brain activity and molecular changes towards the future of music as complementary medical modality.
Joshua Leeds is a music producer, sound researcher, and educator specializing in the field of psychoacoustics. He has authored The Power of Sound and Sonic Alchemy . His 30+ benefit-specific soundtracks are used in clinics and classrooms around the world. Joshua resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit www.ThePowerOfSound.com.
Sound, Voice, and Music Foundation:
Applications in Healing and Transformation of Consciousness
Silvia Nakkach
Through an innovative, cross-cultural, and integral approach to awakening one’s musicality, this weekly class will provide a framework for understanding how sound, voice, and music can affect one's state of consciousness, promote relaxation, and assist in the process of healing. Students will learn how to implement sound, the voice, and music for personal growth, and in a variety of clinical settings.
This class will introduce techniques from The Yoga of Sound and the Voice™, a system for sound and voice development that incorporates breathing, tone range, and vocal practices including seed-sounds, invocations, lullabies, storytelling, jazz, choral singing, indigenous and classical styles, sacred mantras, and overtone singing, and devotional chanting from spiritual and shamanic traditions. Students receive music theory, improvisation, steps for cultivating intuitive playing skills, and instruction on the use of simple instruments.
One’s musicianship will be enriched by integrating the contemplative to the expressive, the shamanic, and the ecstatic. Students will gain understanding of the use of sound in alternative medicine, as part of energy healing, music therapy, and as spiritual practice.
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, therapist, and specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, and a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She has devoted 24 years of study to the art of raga singing and classical Indian music under the direction of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and systematic uses of the voice to induce emotional healing. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and was named by Utne magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists that will shake the art world in the new millennium.
Sonic Meditations and Deep Listening®
Pauline Oliveros
Deep Listening® is a practice created by Pauline Oliveros that explores the relationship between sound and consciousness. In this practice, you actively direct attention to any and all sounds to expand listening and to direct the interaction between oneself and the sources of sound. In this way, practitioners experience meaning within themselves and their world.
In this workshop, you will be introduced to the history and practice of Deep Listening through listening exercises and partner processing. You will have an opportunity to experience energy exercises, listening practices, slow walking, journal writing, and Sonic Meditations - original compositions by Pauline - to understand how the practice of Deep Listening can be used for improvisation, creativity, and movement with the intention of healing.
Pauline Oliveros is considered one of the most influential figures in experimental music for the past 50 years. As a composer and improviser, she has created definitive and original works using a classical electronic music studio, modular synthesizers, and her own Expanded Instrument System (EIS) that combines any acoustic instrument or voice with software transformations she has designed. Pauline has written extensively about music, consciousness, and humanitarian concerns. Her Deep Listening philosophy advocates expanding awareness and attentiveness by "listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear, no matter what you are doing."
Tomatis Method and Cross-Cultural Healing Music Applications in Health Care
Pat Moffitt Cook
Participants will learn about both indigenous and traditional cross-cultural therapeutic techniques and sound/music repertoires used in Western health care settings today. Emphasis will be placed on transcultural themes and the needs of a multiethnic client/patient population. Students will investigate how sound and music are used as diagnostic tools, healing agents, and connectors to spiritual domains, and how each of these elements creates and constructs a dynamic healing session.
Applications of the “Tomatis Method" and Selected Auditory Stimulation Programs for the Listening and Learning-Disabled
Pat Moffitt Cook
Since the 1940s, auditory stimulation has been used for the reeducation of the ear. This field has grown to include a number of methods that address children and adults with specific listening and learning disabilities, including dyslexia, attention deficit disorders, speech problems, poor reading comprehension, and communication skills. This workshop explores the comparative research and clinical applications of the Tomatis Method and a number of Tomatis-based auditory stimulation technologies used nationwide in learning centers, schools, clinics, and homes.
The workshop encompasses lecture, audiovisual presentations, and demonstrations; individual, dyad, and group exercises; and discussions.
Healing with Sacred Sound
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Since ancient times, meditative practices from a variety of spiritual traditions have used sound and its vibration as an essential tool for healing. Through singing and chanting sacred syllables and mantras, spiritual practitioners, healers, and lay persons can access purification and restore harmony to a range of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. Guided by the mind and carried by the breath through subtle channels, the power of sound opens the potential to heal illness and dissolve energetic disturbances.
The Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition is one of the oldest unbroken lineages of wisdom to make use of sound for the well-being of its practitioners. During this lecture, Rinpoche will explain the relationship between the sounds of particular Tibetan syllables and their healing qualities. Translating ancient texts into modern western idiom, Rinpoche will present these teachings in sacred sound and instruct the meditations that empower their healing capabilities.
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, founder of the Ligmincha Institute, is one of the few masters of the Bön Dzogchen tradition presently living in the West. Known for his clear, lively, and insightful teaching style, as well as his ability to make Tibetan practices easily accessible to the Western student, Rinpoche is a highly respected and beloved teacher throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe.
Music and the End of Life Care: A Cross-cultural Model for the Voice and Sound in Palliative and Hospice Care
Silvia Nakkach
Drawing from indigenous practices as well as Western and Eastern spiritual perspectives on death and dying as a journey, this class presents a framework within which to consider the subtleties and modalities of implementing the voice, music, and sound to accompany the death process, and the experience of shared chanting and healing sounds as a gateway to gently comfort the person who is making the final passage.
As a therapeutic instrument, simple humming, sacred sounds, and the singing voice become a vehicle for the patient to transcend the limitations of the physical body, as she or he releases tensions and fears. A sequence of cross-cultural music healing practices are introduced including chanting, lullabies, story songs, microtonal melodies, invocations, and self-generated prayers. The methodology combines singing with a drone and echoing strategies with ancient techniques of breathing. Simple string instruments, percussion, bowls, and bells provide the instrumental accompaniment to facilitate an atmosphere of spiritual intimacy and open heart. Participants learn about the capacity of meditative singing to lessen depression and anxiety, and the therapeutic value of building a multi-cultural repertoire of vocal applications to assist specific terminal conditions including cancer, AIDS-related syndromes, and degenerative diseases.
The repertoire of practices also includes vocal improvisational techniques for grounding, relaxing, and an in-depth exploration of the emotional texture of vocal expression. The class includes a careful selection of music for end of life care that describes the relationship between the architecture of the music and its power to shift emotions and lessen pain through exploring the musical concepts of rasa, spiritual melodicism, mystical minimalism, and changeless harmonies. In addition, hospice workers will be invited to share their experience and clinical case studies. Students are encouraged to download and read this article before this class: http://www.voxmundiproject.com/recommended_readings.htm
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, therapist, and specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, and a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She has devoted 24 years of study to the art of raga singing and classical Indian music under the direction of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and systematic uses of the voice to induce emotional healing. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and was named by Utne magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists that will shake the art world in the new millennium.
The Mysticism of Sound and Music
Silvia Nakkach
Join sound-healing pioneer and vocalist Silvia Nakkach on a journey through the transformative power of music and experience firsthand ancient and contemporary sound tools as a healing modality. Since time immemorial, sound has been used as a gateway to transcendence and the exploration of consciousness by shamans, yogis, mystics, and scientists. Sound expresses the relationship between the human and cosmic orders, and it can deepen our knowledge of the universe.
This course offers a comprehensive and systematic understanding of how sound underlies our most fundamental existence, and how music and intention can be used to assist psychospiritual insight and transformation. The extensive coursework integrates the power of mantra in addressing the subtle root of a problem. Students also explore spiritual healing with sound, involving instruction in the music of the Sama Veda, Sufi teachings, Indian ragas as microtonal melodies, and Rudolph Steiner’s studies on etheric tone. In sound and awareness practice, students learn how sound can induce ecstatic states of consciousness as it enhances intention, ritual, shamanic journeys, and meditation.
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, therapist, and specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, and a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She has devoted 24 years of study to the art of raga singing and classical Indian music under the direction of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and systematic uses of the voice to induce emotional healing. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and was named by Utne magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists that will shake the art world in the new millennium.
Sound Therapies
John Beaulieu and Silvia Nakkach
BioSonic Repatterning™ is a method of healing that makes use of tuning forks to attune the nervous system and to re-pattern our minds, bodies, and spirits. This workshop will demonstrate how this form of energy medicine, based on sonic ratios inherent in nature, has practical applications in the healing arts.
Topics include the history of sound healing, the study of wave phenomena, sound and molecular science, sonic anatomy, voice and movement analysis, and sound as super-conscious psychotherapy. We will also discuss the alchemy of mind, the art of still point, cranial anatomy, sonic fields, chaos theory, and sacred geometry.
Students will learn the theory and practice of healing with Pythagorean tuning forks through direct experience and group exercises. They will also learn techniques of ear reception, point stimulation, and overtone healing, and have an opportunity to look at numerous case studies, which include work with children, relationships, psychiatric disorders, and addictions.
John Beaulieu, ND, PhD, is a naturopathic doctor, composer, and sound therapist. He is the founder of BioSonic Repatterning™ and the author of Music and Sound in the Healing Arts. He currently oversees molecular research on sound and the healing effects of tuning forks, and has published numerous research papers.
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, therapist, and specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, and a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She has devoted 24 years of study to the art of raga singing and classical Indian music under the direction of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and systematic uses of the voice to induce emotional healing. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and was named by Utne magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists that will shake the art world in the new millennium.
Drumming, Building Community, and the Art and Heart of Drum Circles
Christine Stevens, MSW, MT-BC
Drumming has been used by individuals and in communities for reducing stress, supporting immune function, boosting morale, and decreasing burnout. In this inspirational and interactive workshop, learn to drum and facilitate drum circles for clinical work and self-care. We will review clinical examples of drumming for diverse populations, survivors of natural disasters, and corporate teambuilding. We will explore rhythms of the world, including Ayube, Taiko, Clave, Samba, Rumba, Agilablanca, and Econcon. Other topics include drum holding positions, the use of four key sounds for building a rhythmic vocabulary, drum massage, and working with the vibration of the drum. We will also introduce a map for facilitating drumming for sound healing in groups, and for using various rhythms for inspiring transformation, power, release, creativity, playfulness, relaxation, and vitality. Bring a drum or percussion instrument. Drums will be provided.
Music Therapy in Medicine: From Life to Death
Joanne Loewy DA, MT-BC, LCAT
Music and sound is part of our life-world from pre-birth in the womb through the passage to death. From the moment we come into existence, until the final moments of letting go, we live in a musical realm. In the womb we synchronize the coordination of our breathing and heart-beating to the sound environment of the womb. As we prepare for death, our sound environment becomes filled with memories and meaningful contexts that connect the history of our moments. Music and music therapy provides important nurturance, release, integration, and a means of collaboration in ease and dis-ease.
From chanting in sedation to clinical improvisation, such as in wind playing for asthma, music therapy has important health implications for prevention, function, and ultimate treatment of disease. Music therapy in medicine can enhance wellness and spirituality especially when implemented in a specific psychotherapeutic context.
This course will teach you how to use music as an element and agent of healing, health, and transformation. Participants will learn how to create live music therapy practices and experience possibilities for experiencing music therapy as it is used clinically in urban hospitals and schools, for specific disease applications, and in neonatal, asthma, heart disease, COPD, cancer, trauma and end of life care.
Joanne Loewy, DA, MT-BC, LCAT is the director of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. She is a faculty member of the Hahnemann Creative Arts in Therapy Masters program in Music Therapy at Drexel University. Dr. Loewy has conducted research in sedation, pain, and asthma and serves on the editorial board of the Journal for Alternative Medicine and Music Therapy journals. She has authored articles and edited books on the use of Music Therapy in pediatric pain, NICU, grief and trauma, and in end of life care. She has consulted at numerous hospitals in the US and abroad where she has helped to initiate medical music therapy programs.
The Art of Improvisation
David Darling and Silvia Nakkach
We are all born with the innate ability to sing, to dance, and to live a celebratory creative lifestyle. Music is one of the most natural ways through which we can heal and celebrate our spirit. Singing, chanting, drumming, and playing the piano or any instrument allows us to nurture a loving relationship with oneself through music.
Success in music does not depend on the quantity of notes, rather, the quality of one’s presence or consciousness during the moments we participate with our notes and sounds. This creates personal music-making.
This workshop provides a humorous and energetic environment for practicing exercises that will deepen our relationship with our own natural musical self. Through improvisational techniques and musical gestures from the music of India, Brazil, Africa, and the West, students discover how distant worlds of music complement and complete each other, engaging in optimally balanced left and right brain activity. This all-levels workshop is designed to help you develop confidence through creating a positive musical experience and cultivating a balanced approach to a long-term musical journey.
David Darling, cellist, composer, and educator, has been opening hearts to the mystery of sound for the past four decades. He is known for his energetic, loving, and accepting style in bringing out the musical soul in everyone. He has produced numerous recordings as well as eight solo albums, and has over three dozen collaborative efforts with such diverse artists as Paul Winter and Jan Garbarek.
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, therapist, and specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, and a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She has devoted 24 years of study to the art of raga singing and classical Indian music under the direction of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and systematic uses of the voice to induce emotional healing. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and was named by Utne magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists that will shake the art world in the new millennium.
Musical Magic and Semantics:
The Experiential World of the German Romantics
Claudio Naranjo, MD
Music, deeply rooted in shamanism, has the potential to elevate and deepen consciousness and to evoke sacredness. This workshop explores the broad spectrum of the qualities of sacredness associated with musical intervals and the way the elementary qualities combine to create more complex units of musical meaning.
Through the contemplative playing of master pieces of classical music from the German Romantics, Claudio will offer an experiential and in-depth exploration of music composition and how its relates to the depth of the human psyche. For example, how does the intuition of a premature death permeate Schubert's music; how does Schuman's music 'speak' of a lost paradise and the longing to return to it, and how may Brahms' compositions be therapeutic for the balance between 'heroic' father love, motherly compassion and childlike eros, among other examples in the music of Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and other classics. This class is a rare opportunity to gain insights into deep archetypal structure of Western classical music and transformation of consciousness, guided by a legendary teacher of the human potential movement as well as an accomplished pianist.
Dancing Voice, Singing Body
Meredith Monk
Voice, the original human instrument, is an eloquent language of the heart that delineates energy for which we don't have words. This workshop offers a place where voice, movement, and image intersect, creating a unique opportunity for participants to discover their own personal inner richness. Beginning with breathing techniques and a vocal and movement warm-up, participants will work with the voice and body as instruments for exploring range, timbre, gesture, resonance, character, landscape, and rhythm to uncover the fundamentals of performance as vehicles for spiritual transformation.
Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, musical theater works, films, and installations. A pioneer in what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance,” she has created more than 100 works. She is a recipient of numerous, prestigious awards, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, three “Obies”, a “Bessie” for Sustained Creative Achievement and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Music, Healthcare, and Consciousness
Don Campbell
Modern healthcare facilities are beginning to recognize the importance of sound in promoting the well-being of staff, visitors, and patients through innovations in acoustic and visual design, which refresh and restore calmness on all levels of care. Being conscious of the sounds around us is essential to healthcare.
In this class, we will look at ways music can assist creative care-giving by exploring the architecture of sound that serves as an essential tool for time-space perception. From jazz to ambient, from filtered sounds to classical orchestrations, music serves as a vital bridge to bring harmony and health to hospitals, homes, automobiles, and classrooms.
In this interactive "ears-on" workshop, Don Campbell will take us on an auditory journey through deep process and cutting-edge techniques for using music, sound, and imagery for healing. Using rhythm, tone, and harmonics, Don will demonstrate practical and useful ways to connect to heightened states of consciousness through music. Tracing this information from transcendent spiritual states to neurological responses in the brain, we will see how music serves to stimulate and re-orchestrate neuro-pathways for better health, transforming the chaos and dissonance of modern living into the music of life.
Don Campbell is a recognized authority on the transformative power of music, listening, and The Mozart Effect®. He is a leading lecturer and consultant to health-care organizations, corporations, parenting groups, and educational groups. Don has authored eighteen books, including Music Physician for Times to Come, the 1997 best-seller, The Mozart Effect, and his most recent publication, The Harmony of Health.
Acutonics: Sound Gates to Meridian Harmonics
Katie Mink and Laurie Herron
In every cosmology and mythology, sound is the major link, or the carrier wave, between the world of spirit and the people of earth. This series of workshops introduces the Acutonics® Healing System of tuning forks. This non-invasive system has its roots in Oriental Medicine and draws on science, music, metaphysics, philosophical, and indigenous traditions and both Eastern and Western medicine to create an integrated, harmonic approach to health care and healing. Students learn how to apply calibrated tuning forks, using sound intervals that are based on the orbital properties of the Earth, Moon, and Sun.
Acutonics provides a unique methodology and experiential tools for the practice of harmonic medicine and sound healing. Students will explore the energetics of sound, the human body as sound resonator, meridians and points as pathways for sound, concepts of the world harmonies and cellular memory, sound imprinting, and reformatting. It offers fresh new insights into pre-meridian energy networks and the role of the kidney and heavenly-given Qi as sacred access to ultimate potential, vitality, and consciousness.
Introduction to Counseling Techniques and Integration
Janis Phelps, PhD, and Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT
This class provides a technical and theoretical framework for building a practice in sound healing. Students will review diverse approaches to integral counseling and learn how to incorporate these into a sound, voice, and music healing session. Topics include Psychopathology, relationship issues, therapeutic assessment, counseling objectives, and ways to evaluate client outcomes. Students will also learn effective practices in psychotherapy, including how to work with time limitations, financial constraints, and how to meet the needs of a diverse population.
Drawing upon traditional disciplines, contemporary humanistic, and transpersonal psychologies, this class introduces methods of psychological treatment, including Gestalt, guided imagery, non-verbal body and movement-centered therapies, cognitive and behavioral therapy, stress reduction and trauma/grief counseling, hospice care, psychoanalysis, conflict resolution, family therapy, and music therapy. Students will be guided in how to use intuition in assessment and how to implement shamanic healing strategies.
The integration portion of this weekend aims to raise the consciousness and confidence in each practitioner as a healing artist and as an integrated individual. We will explore questions that may have arisen during the semester, discuss individual projects, reflect upon how the program has enriched each student's personal practice, and encourage ways to provide a safe and supportive setting in which clients can experience healing with sound.
Janis Phelps, PhD, teaches at CIIS in the graduate departments East-West Psychology and Clinical Psychology. She has researched and taught graduate courses in childhood development, enhanced expectancies and treatment, clinical supervision, mind-body wellness, transpersonal and wellness therapy, Eastern disciplines, research methodology, and meditation and creativity.
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT, is an award-winning composer, therapist, and specialist in cross-cultural music therapy training, and a pioneer in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. She has devoted 24 years of study to the art of raga singing and classical Indian music under the direction of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and has been involved in clinical research in the areas of micro-tonal singing and systematic uses of the voice to induce emotional healing. She is the founding director of Vox Mundi School of the Voice, and was named by Utne magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists that will shake the art world in the new millennium.
Drumming and Mind-Body Synchronization
Glen Velez
The legacy of the frame drum extends to ancient times as an instrument used widely for ritual and healing. In this workshop, you will experience the pulsing of the drum with the rhythm of your own voice in a percussive language inspired by Konnakol, or South Indian rhythm singing. As a group, we will call for guidance and support from ancient drummers, and use our honest endeavors to create a resonant body-voice-drum sound temple.
This workshop will explore simple movement, rhythmic breathing, and the tones of the frame drum to help strengthen the connections between the body, the voice, and the drum, as well as to experience the joy of being alive. You will use active listening, synchronized pulsing, overtone singing, and call and response to generate a sense of unity of purpose within yourself and the group as a whole as we explore the language of rhythm. People of all frame drum experience levels are welcome.
Glen Velez is a Grammy Award-winning percussionist, an international soloist, and a seminal figure in the history of the frame drum. After 15 years performing and recording with Steve Reich and Paul Winter, he is working as a soloist while continuing to collaborate with a variety of prominent artists in many genres. Glen’s own compositions have been featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and John Schaefer's New Sounds, and have been commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Jerome Foundation, among other organizations As a master teacher, he has developed his own teaching approach called “The Handance Method,” which incorporates voice and body movement into the process of learning to play the frame drum and has been presented in hundreds of universities worldwide.
Sanskrit Mantra: Theory and Practice
Jim Ryan
Sanskrit has been called the Indian “language of the gods,” and is understood to have always existed. The nature of the universe is said to exist as the language of Sanskrit congealed into form. When one chants or simply speaks Sanskrit, one is understood to be making a direct connection to all of reality, both what is here and what lies beyond. In this way, the chanting of Sanskrit is seen as a path of liberation or salvation in and of itself.
This workshop will introduce students to the Sanskrit alphabet and its proper pronunciation, as well as the primary theories of language and mantra that underlie the practices of Sanskrit chanting. Sanskrit chanting will be a central part of this workshop.
Jim Ryan has taught Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy at CIIS for 24 years. He teaches courses on the Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, and Hindu Tantrism. He has a special interest in the Integral Philosophy of Haridas Chaudhuri. His focus in teaching on yoga is the issue of embodiment and the intersection of worldly and transcendental aims in yoga.
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