phenomeNEWS - This Month's Music Review

This Month's Music Review
by Greg Ozimek

Increase Vitality
Andrew Weil, MD and Joshua Leeds

Is it time to pick up the tempo of your life? of your day? of your moment? Oh yes it is!

Surprisingly! there is a music CD that is able to get you up and moving unless you are a rock or otherwise glued to a chair. And I have it here for your listening enjoyment and action-oriented daily living. (Can you tell yet that I’m excited to bring you this CD collection of music?)

The idea that music can affect our emotions and well being is an enormously compelling idea, at least it would be if we already hadn’t been exposed to sounds that made us laugh – music that makes us feel romantic, or cry or feel energized.
However, take this idea and actually expose your ears and body to specially selected music from the centuries of classical music that has stood the test of time, as it were, and you have one of the latest applications of the science of psychoacoustic music, and it works so very well!

Increase Vitality is, to jump on the old and worn cliche, so “totally amazing!”

Inspired composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin instinctively understood the revitalizing effect that music can have on your emotions and physical body.

Increase Vitality is the brilliant addition to best-selling author and physician Dr. Andrew Weil and producer and sound researcher Joshua Leeds. Dr. Andrew Weil’s Music for Self-Healing is a series of classical music recordings for promoting good health.

Certainly that is what is purported.

What I find is a breath of fresh air, or an oxygen mask which propels me into activity which I sometimes might not be that enthusiastic to join in

Sometimes, if I’m feeling not as rested from the previous night’s rest, listening to one or more of the 3 tracks of this CD while I’m dressing or within earshot makes me forget about being envious about my pillow laying there invitingly and enticingly by itself on my comfortable and warm bed, beckoning me.

Performed by the award-winning players of The Apollo Chamber Ensemble, every arrangement is delivered with an emphasis on the underlying psychoacoustic components.

Increase Vitality presents 18 invigorating selections in 3 uplifting sequences that naturally stimulate body, mind, and spirit. Orchestration includes piano, flute, oboe, English horn and cello.

The first sequence “Easy Does It” offers gentle auditory arousal for recuperation or those sensitive to sensory stimulation.

“Get Up & Go” provides “aerobics for the ears” with enlivening pieces by Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Eastern European Gypsy-style compositions.

"Have Mercy!” is the highest octane, powered by musical surprises, propelling tempos and the intriguing arrangements of Beethoven, Chopin, Monti and others. It’s like presto! but more like 20 mintues of presto! presto! presto! It’s like, “does your chiropractor know what you’re doing?” This third sequence is like an endorphin rush of the most l33t of endorphin rushes (ask a gamer kid for the translation).

The whole CD is weeee! without the Whew!!

Joshua Leeds is a sound researcher, music producer, and educator. He is one of few published authorities in the emerging field of psychoacoustics—the study of the effect of music and sound on the human nervous system. He is the author of The Power of Sound and Sonic Alchemy.

Leeds application-specific soundtracks are used in homes, clinics, and classrooms around the world. He presents seminars internationally and is a faculty member of the California Institute of Integral Studies and Globe Institute of Recording, both located in San Francisco.
Dr. Andrew Weil is a clinical professor of internal medicine and director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona’s Health Sciences Center in Tucson. He is a well known and an internationally recognized expert on medicinal herbs, mind-body interactions and integrative medicine.

STATE OF GRACE III
Paul Schwartz, Zakatak Music

More than a little bit modern-classical and a little bit operatic/symphonic State of Grace III is the kind of music that inspires one’s heart and gives your mind something to listen to.
State of Grace III is like, but more than a sound track from a motion picture or a stage play – each tune rings in such a way that it envelopes you, wraps you in its charm and warmth, and brings you to its emotional space. Some day there may be a film or a theatrical play made for the music contained in State of Grace III.

Paul Schwartz is a classically trained composer from the Royal College of Music in London. He has conducted Broadway shows (the original Phantom of the Opera) and worked with Andre Previn, composed and recorded with Carlos Santana and David Foster, and written for John Groban.

State of Grace III’s arrangements are wide-ranging from modern pulsing rhythmic patterns to a piano-and-violin pieces and from small acoustic ensembles to large orchestrations.

Schwartz plays piano, conducts a symphonic string orchestra and uses his studio full of electronics to add color – but only when using sounds that are uniquely electronic.

He said, “I never use a synthesizer to fake the sound of an orchestra.”

Schwartz also wrote all of the music on the album (with the exception of the traditional spiritual “Beams of Heaven”) and gathered the lyrics from varied sources including ancient texts as well as from his primary vocalist, Lisbeth Scott.

The Latin lyrics for “Christe Redemptor” came from an old Advent hymn that Paul reinvents using modern techno beats as well as a string section. That track flows into the dreamy “Agnus Dei” that juxtaposes a choir against a jazzy piano and light strings.

“Beams of Heaven simply features Lisbeth’s voice with a large string orchestra.

Schwartz’s State of Grace III is preceded by I and II. He is also the creator of another spiritually oriented best selling series Aria and Aria II and Aria III.

Although serving as composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and producer on his recordings, Paul puts his music to the forefront and does not put his name on the covers of the State of Grace recordings. In addition, although a few of the pieces on his albums are instrumentals, most feature solo or chorus vocals by singers such as Listbeth Scott and Rebecca Luker, both of whom Schwartz has worked with for many years.

“I’m listed in the credits similar to a film director,” he explained. “I create the overall sound production, but I don’t feel the need to be in the spotlight myself.”