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It has been said, “...How will we know where we are going if we don’t know where we have come from?” To facilitate a little perspective on the ever emerging field of soundwork, I have compiled a brief history. Time does not permit a complete compendium of the history of sound... Kindly forgive any omissions.
If you would like to suggest significant contributors or events that I have missed, kindly email me at Joshua.Leeds@
ThePowerOfSound.com.
Thank you.
Ancient cultures knew about the power of sound long before the term science was coined. The spiritually wise men of India knew that the world is sound. From India’s Vedic scriptures comes the term Nada Brahman — “the primal sound of being” or “being itself.” Even four thousand years ago, India’s scholars and religious leaders understood that we live in a state of vibration from which sound derives and on which sound has profound influences.
Philosophers and prophets of old shared a common belief in the divine origin and nature of sound. In ancient philosophies and religions, sound (vibration) is the lead character in creation myths. The genesis of the universe — or, thinking locally, our planet Earth — is ascribed to the “Word” or the “One Sound.” Cutting across historical, religious, and political lines, Egyptians, Hebrews, Native Americans, Celts, Chinese, and Christians all have spoken of sound as a divine principle.
The roots of this belief in the power of sound can be found in the ancient cultures of the Ethiopians, Hopi, and Aborigines, as well as the temples of Greece and Rome. Many of the musical philosophies of Pythagoras have withstood the test of time.
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In The Secret Power of Music, however, David Tame states, “Almost three thousand years before the birth of Christ, at a time when the music of European man may have amounted to no more than the beating of bones on hollow logs, the people of China were already in possession of the most complex and fascinating philosophy of music of which we know today.”
The Chinese dynasties compared music with a force of nature and held it in that level of awe. “The Chinese understood the power within music to be a free energy, which man could use or misuse according to his own free will.” The rulers and their philosophers believed that in order for their citizens not to misuse music — and for all to benefit from its optimally beneficent use — only the “correct” music could be played. Beyond entertainment, Chinese emperors believed moral influence was the major effect of music that they needed to control. And revere and harness the power of sound they did, for four and a half millennia, until the Ch’ing dynasty (1644-1912).
Worldwide, powerful shamans cured disease and mental anguish by coaxing evil spirits into leaving their victims through the power of chanting. Today entire villages, from Africa to Alabama to the Arctic, continue to drum, sing, or dance themselves into states of spiritual ecstasy.
The entire planet vibrates to the rhythms and sounds of music. No matter how primitive or advanced, music plays an inclusive and vital role in every country. It is an inescapable part of life: of spiritual ceremonies, social celebrations, child rearing, armies marching off to war, initiations, funerals, harvests, and feast days.
Read: Summary of Significant Soundwork Events Since 1787
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