The day was Wednesday, and the time had come for another meeting at the Shed. Luckily, when I turned up late to the meeting (oops!), the boys were just waiting for their food to arrive, whilst drinking cocktails, so I hadn’t really missed much, even if they did spend the next twenty-something minutes trying to convince me our soundscape was now called something along the lines of “Ballad of the Peacock”, but luckily I knew they were kidding. Finally our food arrived (I joined the crew in ordering one of the £1.99 meals, after stupidly spending rather a lot on a tuna melt the week before) and we were, for once, silent.
After filling our bellies and quenching our thirst, we got on with the meeting and, no surprises when I say, it was still called “Swan Song”. We listened to a few more sound ideas, and chose which sections each of us would be covering when delivering our presentation. It was quite a simple task, considering we’d all kind of focused on particular tasks anyway (I was given the task to discuss the research that we’d done; the geek inside me roared with joy). We decided that we would spend the following week before we once again met to individually create scripts, each one lasting between forty and fifty seconds (roughly), but during the meeting, we wrote our introductory and conclusive scripts. Basically, we decided our introductory slide was the time to “geek out”, as it was, and brag about what we had each put into the project. Of course, we experienced the hilarity that erupted when, during the introductory slide planning, we each introduced ourselves with “Hi, I’m _____…” and it very nearly resembled an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting…
We also finalised our self-composed brief; this being important as it will now dictate our soundscape, as our final idea must fit this brief. We left the meeting, each with the task to continue our personal research, and write our loose scripts for our presentation in week 7.
As part of my continual research towards this project, I found a particularly interesting website about Psychoacoustics and meditation music. It explains that Psychoacoustics is the science that deals with the perception of hearing and sensations produced by sound. Below is a passage I found particularly interesting from the site:
The fundamental reason why we enjoy listening to music is because it is mood altering. Music can stimulate or sooth you. It can relieve stress and it can induce stress. It can elevate you or depress you.
Music can be extremely powerful in this regard. The tones, textures, melodies, harmonies and the tempo of a piece of music can affect you psychologically, emotionally and even physically.
Have you ever been so touched by a beautiful piece of music that you cried? Have you ever cringed at the sound of fingernails being dragged down a chalkboard? Most people answer “yes” to both of these questions.
So if sound can have such a strong effect on us, then how can we use this to our advantage? What can the study of psychoacoustics tell us about the most effective types of music and sounds for meditation and deep relaxation?
– Dr Christopher Lloyd Clarke from www.The-Guided-Meditation-Site.com , http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/psychoacoustics
Ps, Sorry this blog post is slightly late, I have been moving house and have had no internet and very little time!
Vashti
