Bass and frequency: To heal or to hurt? Sonic bodies and the pre-personal experience.
Paul Jasen’s work on bass, frequency, and the ‘sonic body’ has personally been one of the most fascinating readings in our CS640 course for me this term. Most notably, this is because he introduces the bodily sensational aspect of the sonic experience rather than how many authors focus solely on the textual or cultural significance of sound. Jasen’s fascination with the existence of the bodily vibrational force that bass and frequency emit ties perfectly with our earlier readings, like Stephen Goodman’s work on ‘sonic warfare’ and Bull and Hosokawa’s work on the transcendent experience and cerebral escape that music can create.
Specifically, I’d love to discuss a personal interest of mine: sound/singing bowl music, because it perfectly embodies the power of frequency as a bodily healing, vibrational force. For context, singing bowls, also known as Tibetan singing bowls, are used to promote healing including deep relaxation and bodily regeneration like relieving pain in joints, our digestive system, migraine relief, circulatory improvement, and relieving overall bodily tension. For the spiritual homies like myself, singing bowls are excellent instruments to assist in a person’s emotional regulation and chakra alignment. Buddhist monks have also used sound bowls in their meditative practices for centuries.
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| Tibetan singing bowls (Photo by: Kimberely Coole, Getty Images) |
I took a particular interest in singing bowl music during the height of the pandemic when I felt like I was operating at a very low vibration. As I briefly mentioned in my presentation, I would play Jhene Aiko’s live sound bowl performance of her ‘Chilombo’ album (linked below) every morning to physically relax, emotionally center myself, and to feel a sense of peace amidst a very stressful and irregular time. I highly encourage you to check it out and see if you feel any physical or emotional changes after you listen to her performance.
The concept of sound bowls and Jasen’s work on sonic bodies leads me to question the power and lengths that frequency holds in impacting our human experience. The universal connection we feel through music transcends the cultural and hegemonic binaries that find their way into almost every aspect of our lives. Is it possible that the concept of “music connecting people” goes far beyond the cliche, and instead is rooted in a very physical and bodily connection amongst listeners? For example, the connected feeling you get with the audience at a concert goes far beyond just a shared interest in the artist - it feels transcendent and emotional, like you are quite literally on the same ‘wavelength’ with everyone around you as the artist performs.
Moreover, Jasen stresses that frequency and bass are ‘asocial’ or ‘pre-personal’ meaning that they exist beyond any cultural interpretations or biases we hold as individuals. Essentially, bass and frequency affect our bodies at our most natural human state before our brains can even make sense of it. Additionally, he notes that these sonic experiences have the capacity to redirect thought, action, and collective organization. What possibilities could this lead to with this type of power over our physical being? We’ve mentioned concepts like sonic warfare, sonic therapy, among others… Can you think of other ways (or examples) that sound could be used as a tool (or weapon) to alter our physical and emotional state? Can you recall a time when you felt like frequency and sound altered your state?
This is an excellent post!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read "sub-bass pressures so great that they disrupt respiration, blur vision, induce phantom perceptions and resonate various bones and cavities" in Paul Jasen's article, I began to understand sound through listening with my body, not my ears.
What you're describing as singing bowl reminds me of ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), and I believe it may be the answer to your questions. It is activated by placid sights and sounds like whispers, accents, and crackles. I know that many people watch ASMR videos in the hopes of relieving stress, finding sleep, and chasing a delightful, shudder-inducing tingling sensation. However, some viewers find ASMR annoying since it may relate to the circumstances described. Also, if a viewer isn't getting nice tingling sensations, watching someone whisper at the camera will likely appear ridiculous.
Hi Alanna,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your writing on bass and sound frequency. I liked the perspective you took on it in terms of the way it impacts our emotions. I think the affective impact of sound is part of the backbone of a lot of what we have read in this course. Personally, I believe that sound has an incredibly deep effect on humans in relation to their physical and mental state. For example, if we go back to Hosowaka and Bull's writing on the iPod and the Walkman, we can get to see how sound can transport us to a world within ourselves, it can create feelings and push us further into them. In this case we can take the example of sad music. Often, if I put on my playlist that is complied of sad songs I begin to feel sad or even more sad if I am already in that state. In relation to the authors I mentioned above, this feeling comes about most significantly if I am listening to this music through my headphones. When I put my headphones on and then listen to this curated playlist of deeply emotional music, I am transported into my own personal world and swayed into sadness through the frequencies of the music. Sound creates is transformable event in which we are whisked out of our being and transported to a new space of affective takeover. Especially in relation to Jasens' concept of the bodily sensational aspect of the sonic experience and Henriques concept of sonic dominance, we can see this quite clearly. Going back to Hnerqiues, in this sense there is a takeover in terms of all three wavebands in which we are touched on the corporeal, material, and the sociocultural levels.
Hi Alanna,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post. I listened to the video and found it very calm and definitively helpful to any type of anxiety. One of your questions asks for different ways of using sound as a weapon, and I thought about different ways in which sound has been used to inflict terror and fear in communities. As some of you may know, we have had a rough three years politically and socially speaking in Colombia. Protests and strikes against government politics have been common before and during the pandemic. However, the government and the military have found several ways to keep people away from the streets. One memory I can recall was one night, people in the poorest areas of Bogotá and Cali started to confront police with shields and barricades in the act of defense against police brutality. Around 12 or 1 am, police cars and tanks would reproduce Colombia's anthem as a way to affirm their power in the confrontational zones. I remember people got so afraid that they did not even get the chance to go to the streets at night those days.
So I think yes, sound can be used in various ways, both to pleasant but also terrorific situations. I thought about this like Stirling mentions when she says, sound can affect people and certainly can produce body responses that most of us haven't think of yet.