The Importance of Relationships as a Sound Facilitator
Relationships are everything as a space holder, but particularly within the context of facilitating sound and music. As a practitioner, there are many key elements you must be aware of in order to truly provide a sensitively supportive experience to your recipient(s).
Your relationship within
It is imperative that you continually evaluate and reevaluate your relationship with yourself and your intention. Before entering into your providing role at a sound event, check in with your headspace. Where is your mind? How are you feeling? How are you feeling in relationship to what you are providing? Be super honest and real with yourself; the intention is the true source of sound. You as the player are the very first instrument. The spirit is moving through you and therefore creating the rest of the experience. How are you able to honor your vessel and self fully in each session and therefore honoring everyone else present and involved? This will vary greatly on many factors, including the following.
2. Your relationship to the receiver(s)
Take notice to what you are sensing from the people whom are there to receive your service. If it’s a group, does the room feel more heavy or sad? Light and ungrounded? Truly listen deeply, sense and respond to what you are picking up on. It is a living, breathing moment and you are the captain of how it flows. Is somebody holding their ears, breathing rapidly or scrunching their face muscles? These are all possible indicators that maybe you could turn down the volume or intensity or proximity of instrument to the person. Or perhaps they are the only one and you just need to be mindful around that person. Pay attention to the cues that you are sensing from your recipients in all scenarios and honor as much as you can your providing and their experience.
Secondarily, as a private recipient with whom you have built a rapport over time, take notice to how that deepening impacts your sessions. How much further is someone going whom you feel a deep sense of trust from vs someone who is just dipping their toe in and is unsure their feeling around sound baths in general? It is a vast difference. How you compose yourself around everyone matters. Whether you are operating from a place of true care and service for the person shows in the subtle energies. It does not matter how well you can finesse a gong if you do not have the trust of your receiver, you are going nowhere.
3. Your relationship to the space
There are a multitude of ways that one needs to be mindful of the space they are entering. As the most obvious, how are the acoustics? Are the ceilings tall, is the room wide? Are there a lot of objects in the room or is it barren? Is the room carpeted? Are you outside? How secure do you feel within the space? How in control do you feel of the variables? Can you respond to certain sounds that are unique to the space or can you be open to respond to what comes up as it does? It is so much fun to maneuver and play around with the unique acoustics of each space where you provide this work. There are so many ways you can setup your instruments to accommodate the unique feel of the space you are in. It can also feel grating, confusing and exhausting if you are trying to manipulate or resist what sound quality or response you are getting from that environment. Be open and curious. Play with every sense of that word. What you are bringing is what you are transmitting.
4. Your relationship to the instruments
The last matter of importance when it comes to curating sound experiences is the instrument. The relationship of the instrument to you, the recipient and space is, however, of utmost importance. Mike Tamburo said that you want to pick an instrument that really excites you to play, that you really enjoy the feeling and sound aesthetic. This is absolutely true. I lean towards the value of this instrument being because of how deeply it pulls you into the sound, that space of twilight, joy, spaciousness and wonder. This place where we desperately as a culture need to reside more and more regularly. This place is where true living happens.
There are so many relationships that happen with playing your instruments. How quickly are you tapping the singing bowl? How long are you taking to circumnavigate the rim when making it sing? How close or frequently are you tapping the mallets on the gong? This is an endless exploration of how you are cultivating sound.
Also intrinsically connected is how are you, as the player, sounding within the session? Are your movements jolty or smooth? Are your joints cracking? Are you breathing heavy or softly? It all matters! And again, you are the #1 instrument of the symphony.
How many times are you turning your wrist or moving your fingers when playing a chime? How close are you in proximity to the person with the instrument? How are they responding? How are you feeling?
See how it all accumulates and builds? It is a never-ending deep dive into the land of relationship with infinite possibilities including tonal relationship, frequencies and so much more beyond what is touched on here. It is such a space of curiosity, openness and wonder. Deep listening is your greatest ally when discerning how supportive your service is to the people and places where you are sharing.
