Sound, Color and Movement
with Fabien Maman
Excerpts from an interview appearing in "La Gazette des Gides," the Journal of the Academy of Sound, Color and Moment.
L.G. Why did you add color and movement to your work with sound? You are a musician. Why not work only with sound?
F.M. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, my research did focus only on the influence of sound on different levels of the human being. Part of this research took me into the biology laboratory where I took pictures with a Kirlian camera (which photographs the electromagnetic fields) of human cells as they responded to the effect of different instruments on which specific frequencies were played. In these pictures, I saw how each sound produced a different color and shape in the electromagnetic fields around the cell. From this point, at the cellular level you might say, I became interested in the link between sound, color and movement (shape changing.)
Later, as I began teaching the practiced of pure sound, such as Kototama, for healing and self awareness, I understood quickly that the use of sound alone was not enough to affect a deep and lasting transformation on the major levels of our being: cellular, physical, emotional and mental.
L.G. From this you began to include in your teaching work with color and Tao Yin Fa?*
F.M. Yes. It became obvious to me that sound, as vibration, works best not as a separate tool, but as part of a synthesis - or complement - for the vibrational qualities of chi movement and work with color.
Vibration expressed as sound occupies a specific interval in the continuum of the vibrational spectrum from earth to sky. Imagine a wavelength vibrating vertically from earth to sky. Somewhere between earth to sky this wave would vibrate as sound “Above”(approximately 50 octaves above,)-or vibration at a faster rate than sound, this wave would become color.
Color, speeded up vibrationally, would become light. "Below,"or complement- or vibrating at a slower rate than sound would be the chi or energy of human movement. Sound, understood in this context occupies only a portion of the vibrational continuum that could be developed into tools for healing or fine tuning awareness.
L.G. So, it follows that the use of sound or music alone to promote healing would affect only a certain level of being, but not the 'whole' person?
F.M. I have found that the use of sound or music alone creates a shorter lived, more ephemeral effect than if we use the tool of other energetic levels such as color and movement. These other tools can help to integrate and make more permanent the work with sound.
If for example, we intend that our work with sound will be integrated into the 'lower level' of the vibratory wavelength, it helps to add specific exercises with chi, such as Tai Chi or Tao Yin Fa to 'fix' the sound into the density of the physical body, And if we want to experience the effects of sound at a higher level, we need to work with sound at its higher level; color, in order to influence the subtle bodies or the aura.
L.G. If the chi or movement is linked with the physical body and the color with the subtle body, where exactly does the sound affect us?
F.M. I can give you an arbitrary model; but we must understand that the sound vibration itself travels very far-into the physical and subtle realms. But for our discussion, I would say that sound occupies the sphere which we call the astral or emotional body.
L.G. Are you referring to the fact that different pieces of music affect different emotional responses in people?
F.M. Yes. In our model of sound, color and movement, we say that color is linked most directly with the mental subtle body, sound with the emotional body and movement with the physical body. When, for example one listens to a concert, the emotional response is strong and shifts as the music changes. If one watches a color light show, for example, the emotional response would be less ''heavy' or dense that in a concert. The response would consist of much finer emotions, such as wonder or awe-emotions that come closer to metal energies that those associated with music.
And then movement works on the physical and etheric body. When I speak of movement here, I don't mean dance movement, but chi movement: precise movements linked with mudra which give an energetic signal and create a real connection inside of the body between the brain and the different systems in the body, thus integrating the purpose of each movement into the cellular and later the molecular level.
L.G. Dancing to music would not have the same effect?
F.M. Dancing certainly can energize, but to direct specific sounds to certain organs or systems of the body, we need to work precisely with the way the energy travels through the meridians to the organs.
L.G. So, movement affects the physical and etheric body, sound the astral/emotional body and color reaches the mental subtle body.
F.M. But we must not confuse the model with the reality. For example, color, the vibration of color, comes from a very high sphere, though the point of integration of the effect of the color in the human being would be the mental subtle body.
Healers who work with color can use sound to continue the effects of the color from the mental subtle body into the emotional and even into the physical if they add movement. Likewise, practitioners of chi exercise can use sound to continue the running of the chi from the physical into the emotional body and into the finer subtle fields of the human being if they add color.
L.G. ...And if, when making a sound we visualized, breathed or perhaps looked at a color, we would continue the vibrational influence of the sound from the emotional or astral body to the mental subtle body.
F.M. As we could also fix this sound deeper into the physical body into the organs and cells and perhaps even the DNA by directing it with the chi of movement. This is the purpose of a daily practice with sound, color and movement.
L.G. Is there any scientific proof for all for this?
F.M. Scientists have yet to develop the sophisticated techniques with which to investigate the inside structure of cells to know further what happens as sound is directed through chi into the body. We need a more thorough analysis of the RNA, DNA, proteins and amino acids, since they shed light onto what is happening inside of the cells. There are implications that the induction of sound at the cellular level appears to modify the information stored in the DNA, and this could provide a powerful step toward a lasting healing process.
But, as I said, scientists in such fields as biophysics and biotechnology are at the moment still lacking tools sophisticated or subtle enough that will enable us to enter more precisely the vibrational world. So, in the meantime, it is good to continue your practices with sound, color and movement to experiment yourself!
L.G. ...And you have found so far that effects of vibrational healing are more pronounced when sound, color and movement are used together.
F.M. Definitely. One seems to call the other. It doesn't make sense anymore to consider sound or color or movement as separate tools.
It is as if we need the different intervals between these tools. Think of it this way: If I use one sound, it produces immobility. It takes me back to the mirror of myself, to my image. But there in no motion. If I use two sounds I create an interval and, according to the quality of the interval, the movement starts because I have created motion. I don't have anymore the answer of the emptiness as a resonance of one sound, I have created a power.
L.G. So, as two sounds are more powerful than one, in terms of moving energy, are two or three practices, such as sound, color and movement more powerful to use together as techniques to move energy?
For now, I want to add one more consideration to the question of integrating work with sound so that it has more than a fleeting effect: the consideration of where or to whom you send your sound. If I speak to your while looking at a gray wall, the sound of my voice or the sound I make with an instrument or even the vibration of my idea will be related to what this gray wall can send me back as a resonance.
If I say the same thing while looking at a rainbow, there are more aspects of the sound which could be received and reflected because I have this different witness. Perhaps my sound and purpose would be attracted to, or synchronize with, a certain tonality of the vibration of one of the colors. If I speak or sing, this color will help to fix the effect of the sound into the space I want to send it to, or in a patient, or in myself.
The same thing happens with movement. If I make a sound for someone sitting motionless, what will be perceived by this person and by me will be completely different than if I make a sound for someone doing Tai Chi or Tao Yin Fa. There will be a level where these two arts (movement and sound) meet and at this point of correspondence, the sound will be integrated.
L.G. So, how the sound is perceived by the sender and receiver depends on who the receiver is?
F.M. Yes. I teach in different countries to speakers of languages such as Russian, German, English, French and Swiss German. I have seen that the level of perception and integration of work with sound is different in each root language. Each language integrates a different aspect of the sound and sends that resonance back to mer. This brings me to a different understanding myself of what I am teaching. This is probably because sound (or color or movement) touches the vibrational level of each languages' roots-roots which create the way of listening, thinking, understanding and even the mythology of each culture
L.G. So, when using sound you must take into account who receives the sound and work with the resonance mirror back if you want to ensure the result you intend?
F.M. Yes. Using sound is easy. But making sure its messages follow your intentions is not so easy. For example, if you don't have the right mirror in front of you, you may loose part of the message you are trying to send with the sound. And, as I said, if you want to integrate your work with sound, it makes sense to add movement and color to carry these sound messages into the physical and subtle bodies.
And remember, actually these three levels of expression; sound, color and movement, are not separate 'levels' at all. As we sue each to complement the other, we are merely respecting the nature of vibration which moves freely in this synthesis as part of the real flow of the energy of life.
*Tao Yin Fa is a form of movement which works with chi and is comparable to Tai Chi or Chi Gong. It is practiced on 4 different levels or series: the first two series stimulate the acupuncture meridians in the body and link with the energy fields surrounding the body, the second two series link with the 8 directions and specific star energies.