Michael Reiley: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Sounds of SAND, a podcast inquiring into the beauty and mystery of existence beyond ultimate truths.
Hello, this is Michael Riley, and I wanna welcome you to today's episode. Today we present an encore episode that originally aired in January of 2023, and our guest for th- today's conversation is Michael Harrison, who passed away on April 17th of 2026 at the age of 67. Michael was a composer, pianist, and one of the most brilliant musicians and listeners I've ever been in conversation with.
Philip Glass called him an American maverick, and he studied with La Monte Young and Terry Riley and Pandit Pran Nath, who we speak about in this episode. And he spent years learning to retune his piano [00:01:00] to an alternate tuning system and, uh, performed many important works in this style. And what we speak about in depth in this episode is his work and study of the Sufi music lineage from Hazrat Inayat Khan.
And he recently wrote the introduction to Hazrat Inayat Khan's seminal book, Mysticism and the Sound of Music.
So we wanted to re-share this beautiful conversation to remember Michael's music and his offerings to the world, and to celebrate his offering here to the SAND community through the podcast. So we listen in light and in memory of Michael Harrison. And his final album, Evening Light, just came out two weeks before [00:02:00] he died.
And we'll hear, uh, a number of Michael's selections of music throughout the episode. So the listening and the music continues. And on to today's conversation.
Welcome, Michael, to The Sounds of SAND. Great to be with you today.
Michael Harrison: Thank you, Michael. It's very nice to be here on your show.
Michael Reiley: Thanks. So today we'll be exploring Mysticism of Sound and Music by Hazrat Inayat Khan. Uh, but first I wanted to start by asking you about your path as a composer and musician, and your path of discovery which led you to discover mysticism in sound and music.
Michael Harrison: Well, it began, I suppose, when I went trekking in the Himalayas when I was 15 And I had some really eye-opening experiences in India and [00:03:00] Nepal, which I think paved the way for me to begin meditating. Uh, and shortly after that, around maybe age 17, I discovered the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan on the mysticism of sound and music, and they literally changed the course of my life.
Uh, I read them voraciously, and I'd never even encountered the idea of music as being a spiritual path until these writings. Um, and so I immediately sought out the Sufis and, uh, was able to find Hazrat Inayat Khan's son, Pir Vilayat Khan, who became my Sufi initiator and teacher in 1977. And then two years later, I found Pandit Pran Nath, who's a master Indian vocalist, uh, in the Sufi lineage, and he, uh, was [00:04:00] also the guru for my two other teachers, La Monte Young and Terry Riley, who are regarded as two of the founders of minimalism in Western classical music.
So, um, began a lifelong journey really blending what I'd learned as a conservatory-trained composer and pianist with Indian classical music and Sufism and the exploration of music as a spiritual path.
Michael Reiley: Nice. And did you, did you discover much resistance in conservatory life of, uh, in New York and... or, or was that already kind of an accepted path as a musician to, to explore spirituality in a, as a musical expression?
Michael Harrison: I would say it's not an accepted path, uh, but I also didn't find resistance, um, because in conservatories, you know, we're studying the [00:05:00] art of music, which is obviously a very finely and highly developed art. And so, uh, and there isn't a focus specifically on spirituality, but I would say there also isn't a resistance to spirituality.
So, uh, I was able to really kind of blend both worlds for the most part. Uh, except for my very early training, there was some, I would say, resistance to tonal music, uh, in ac- some academic circles. Less so now than back in the '70s and '80s. Uh, there was some resistance to music that had a tonal center or repetitive processes like minimalism.
That's all pretty much changed now, but there was an emphasis on writing atonal music, which can be, depending on how you look at it, can be antithetical to, you know, the teachings of music [00:06:00] as a kind of a hierarchy of tones based on a tonal language.
Michael Reiley: And how does this manifest for you as a, as a practice in terms of, uh, you mentioned a meditation practice in Nepal.
Do you see any distinction between a meditative, contemplative posture and composing or playing music on the piano, or does it all feel like one continuous continuum of, of experience?
Michael Harrison: No, there are actually quite different experiences, and at different points in my work and in my career, I've focused on different things.
So let's start with my practice. So I spend between, let's say, one and two hours every morning, uh, singing ragas. And the ragas are the melodic foundation for Indian classical music and arguably the most comprehensive system of melody and modality in the, in the [00:07:00] world. So this is something I learned from, originally from Pandit Pran Nath, and I continue my studies today with Ustad Mashkhali Khan.
So for the first 35 years or so, I accompanied myself every day singing ragas, playing the tambura. The tambura is a really rich string instrument with a lot of h- overtones and harmonics, and it's the perfect instrument to sing with because you learn to sing really in tune with all these harmonics resonating.
And it's also very-- uh, it opens you to kind of a transcendental experience. And then after Pandit Pran Nath died, I started playing the pianos, the, the ragas on the piano. And of course, my, one of my specialties is creating my own tuning systems in what's called just intonation, which we can talk about more later, but it deals with finding harmonious, the most harmonious tuning for vibrations, which is not how the piano is normally tuned.[00:08:00]
Uh, and so the-- I developed a tuning specifically for playing ragas, and so now it's become so fascinating for me that I do my raga singing at the piano, accompanying myself on the piano. I'm also developing playing ragas on the piano. And it's, it's a really nice thing because you can do things like adding harmonies to ragas, which is not traditional, but adds a whole nother dimension, and I believe is important for future development in music.
And also for me personally, it connects all the different aspects of my life. It connects my music as a spiritual practice, my piano playing, improvisation, singing ragas, all in one practice.
Uh, now you asked in your question about composing, and I get a [00:09:00] lot of my ideas from my raga practice. In fact, right now I'm working on a raga cycle, so a whole series of 24 different ragas based on the 24 hours of the day. Uh, and it'll be opening at an installation in North Carolina at the Turchin Center for Visual Arts.
It's a collaboration with Nina Elder, who's a visual and media artist. And, uh, but there will be a series of recordings coming out. And a lot of the music is structured improvisation based on raga. Uh, but a lot of it is also notated composition. And so I find a lot of my inspiration and ideas from improvising and playing at the piano.
But then when I start notating them, they take on a whole nother life of their own. Sort of like if you can imagine you're writing a book and you write down some ideas, and then you start editing your ideas, right? So one goes through a process of refining and [00:10:00] editing, and most composers do this. And today it's very easy to do this at a computer, uh, with a music software program where you can, you know, try things many different ways and edit and change things.
So it becomes a very different process. It's not really a meditative process. It's more of a creative process and of an artistic, uh, unfolding and development. And a lot of that is-- can be more tedious, but on the other hand, it can be incredibly inspirational. You know, when you discover really great ideas and you start to rework the ideas and edit them and refine them, uh, ultimately I would say that those are some of the highest moments of inspiration in my life.[00:11:00] [00:12:00]
Michael Reiley: And so these improvisations, this morning [00:13:00] practice you have of singing ragas at the piano, this becomes meditative for you? Do you feel as though the analytical mind, the structured mind is released and it becomes a transcendent practice for you?
Michael Harrison: Very much so. And there are different parts to the practice.
So I begin maybe for the first half hour to 40 minutes singing long tones. And I feel that singing long tones with a drone is a really fantastic spiritual practice. You can sing Om, Ah, Sa, the names of the notes in Sanskrit. And, um, I also sing Sufi Wazifas. These are the Sufi mantric practices. Uh, and then after doing that, then I-- And I do that in a raga, but it's more focused on the tones.
Uh, and then I develop from that into improvisation in the raga. [00:14:00] And then out of that, I develop into actually playing traditional Indian classical compositions on the piano, adapting them for the piano, and more rhythmic improvisation. But it, it comes from-- It all starts with this, um, diving in really deep into singing and listening and transcending.
And part of the beauty of singing as a spiritual practice is that the, the voice is the only God-made instrument, and the voice is connected with our breath. Obviously, when you sing, you, you exhale. When you, uh-- In between exhales, you need to inhale. So if one can do that really consciously, it becomes very mindful.
It becomes a meditation. And so I try to be always aware of every inhale I take and the fullness of the exhale. [00:15:00] And, and that's where long tone singing practices are really helpful because you can really focus on that rather than the content of the music, but then you can grow from that into the content of the music.
The other wonderful thing about singing, and this is all outlined very beautifully in Hazarat Inayat Khan's chapter on the voice in The Mysticism of Sound, that the body actually becomes a resonant chamber. So the different chakras and spiritual centers in the body can awaken from different sounds. And, and that's part of what the Sufi practice of Wazifa is all about, is awakening the different spiritual centers in the body.
And that can much more easily be done through singing than playing an instrument. It can be done to some extent through playing an instrument, especially if one is playing very-- with a sense of mindfulness and presence. Uh, but I think it's more direct [00:16:00] through th- through singing.
Michael Reiley: Yeah, I love this too, this pointing to embodiment and, and a, and a full body listening, full body sounding.
Um, 'cause often I think contemporary music can, can become very cerebral and can become about, um, analyzing and, and emotions and can be stuck in the brain. And I-- So I love what you're talking about here and specifically with Hazarat Inayat Khan. I found that his writings are so inclusive of, of Many different traditions in the world, uh, so creation myths and systems of spirituality that is, is so radically inclusive, I think, for the time in which he was writing.
Um, I just wanna read a quote here from, from the book. Um, "And the beauty of music is that [00:17:00] it is both the source of creation and the means of absorbing it. In other words, by music, the world was created, and by music, it is withdrawn again into the source which has created it." And so this, uh, this weaving of, of breath and vibration and the body and creation,
it feels, uh, it feels so fresh even reading it. It feels so new to read, to read his writings and his teachings, um, some 100 years later. Um, yeah. So I was just wondering if you, if you could react to that quote or respond to this cosmology that, that Khan has created, um, this n- non-duality that's woven so much into his, uh, his music and spiritual practices.
Michael Harrison: Well, it's really deep, and it echoes 100 years ago what we're finding today in modern [00:18:00] science, that the whole of creation is vibration. And he was very, very aware of that. And the, uh, mystics talk about the, the inner sound or the non-man-manifest sound. So it's called... In Sufi language, it's called Shabda or Sarmad, and, um, in, uh, Hinduism, it's called Nad, uh, or Nad Brahm, like the, the sound of God or sound is God, in fact.
And, um, mystics have talked over the ages about having experienced this kind of soundless music, you know, this inner universe of music, and that that's a revelation. And so... And now Khan actually has a whole chapter about that, yeah, in his book, uh, that when one experiences [00:19:00] that, one knows one is coming close to God or close to the experience of enlightenment.
It's like a sign. And many of the prophets and saints have had that, that experience of the inner sound. And so I think that's what he's coming to in that quote. Uh, and then the second part of the quote where-- Can you read it again, please?
Michael Reiley: Yeah. "And the beauty of music is that it is both the source of creation and the means of s- of absorbing it.
In other words, by music, the world was created- And by music, it is withdrawn again into the source which has created it.
Michael Harrison: Right. So the other side of this is that music is a miniature of the entire universe, music as we know it. And so by practicing music, we're tapping into this universal structure through our senses, through [00:20:00] listening and experiencing it, and vibrating the body.
And, and, uh, and then through that, it can take us back to the source beyond this world, beyond duality.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. And the chapter on harmony, you know, I think that is perhaps another metaphor that he uses to describe this, this duality of, you know, God, creation, emptiness, silence, and the manifestation of that reality, which is th- the physical vibrating world that we experience.
Uh, and I think that's interesting too when you were describing your raga practice of exploring harmony as a, you know, a, a, a new way to find, to find the c- the cracks and the, um, new relationships between these, these sacred ancient mantras.
Michael Harrison: Yeah. Harmony is a very, very interesting subject because it is the cornerstone of Western music, [00:21:00] right?
M- Western music developed very deeply into harmony. The music of Bach and everything since then and even before is based on harmony, whereas most other world music traditions are based on modality, uh, of, you know, melodies without these, you know, different melodic strands happening at the same time creating harmony.
And, and Nyakhan actually talks a lot about this because he was concerned that, you know, at least at his time, people had commented to him, "Well, Indian m- music doesn't have harmony." But he said that's not true. I mean, that's like saying, you know, that music, your music has no soul, right? Because harmony is, is f- such a deeper meaning than chord changes.
So we can talk about that for a minute if you'd like. Um, let's start with the broader perspective that Nyakhan looked at harmony as being in harmony with one's universe, with [00:22:00] one's surroundings. And one of the things that we ideally can learn through practicing music is to be in harmony with those around us and with our environment.
Something particularly important in this day and age where there's so much violence and war and lack of harmony with the environment. Um, to be environmentally conscious is to be in harmony with the world in which we live. So that's one kind of broader view of harmony. But when you look specifically at music, harmony, the definition of harmony is usually that you have multiple notes at the same time.
And we have theory in the West that different notes are more consonant and different notes are more dissonant. And one ideally in music finds a balance where the, the, uh, dissonances [00:23:00] resolve, right? So for 300 years in Western music, during what we call the common practice period from 1600 to 1900, music followed very specific rules where the more dissonant intervals, uh, would have to follow these rules of being passing tones or neighbor tones or suspensions to resolve into more consonant harmonies.
And of course, all of that was abolished, uh, with, with Schoenberg and modern music and atonal music, where in a way it was really freeing to music because we freed music from all the constraints that it had before. Um, and in another way, we had to find new rules to, to guide music. And so that's still in question.
Uh, you know, composers are still exploring whether to go tonal or atonal. Um, and, um, my music is very much tonal, but not tonal in the con- sense of the conventional [00:24:00] rules and regulations that guide music. More tonal in the form of modality and finding resonance. But there's also a fascinating connection here with science and mathematics in that music is whole number proportions.
So for example, if, if you and I sing a note and I sing it an octave higher, the v- vibrations from my note are exactly twice as fast as the vibrations of your note. And when you tune it up, you would see that there would be two waves from my note for every wave of your note. Well, this same principle applies to all of harmony.
So if a note is vibrating three times for every two vibrations of another note, that's a three-to-two relationship, uh, which is used in art and architecture. It's a very universal relationship, and it also creates the most stable interval in music, which we call the perfect fifth. And four to three creates a perfect fourth, five to four creates a major third, six to five creates a minor third, [00:25:00] and it goes on forever.
So every different whole number pro- proportion creates a different musical or harmonious relationship. And it's fascinating that the simpler the whole number proportion, like two to one, three to two, four to three, the more harmonious it sounds to us, the more consonant. And the more dissonant or complex the mathematical relationship, the more dissonant it becomes And so this is a really fascinating thing.
And this leads us to the subject of just intonation, so that throughout most of the history of music, music was tuned according to these whole number proportions. But in the Renaissance, as the fixed pitch instruments began to develop, like the early keyboard instruments and lutes, if you tune a piano or a keyboard instrument in just intonation, then the relationships all change when you change the key center.[00:26:00]
And as music was becoming more complex and people wanted to play in different keys, this didn't work out. So temperament was invented. It really started in the 15th century, but didn't come into its fullness until hundreds of years later with Bach and even later. And temperament is the idea that you compromise the tuning of the tones so that they can be more usable in different contexts or different keys and with different harmonies.
And so this is the route that Western music took, ultimately resulting in a complete temperament or complete compromise where the musical octave, the two-to-one relationship, is divided equally into 12 parts, but none of the notes are in tune anymore except the octave. And it provides for a really wonderful democratic system that has been now adopted throughout most of the world, [00:27:00] but something else is lost.
And what's lost is these perfect harmonious vibrations. And most of the music we experience today is tuned in temperament where some of the notes are more in tune and some of them are less in tune, and the compromise is kind of culturally accepted. But what we've lost is this beautiful harmonious resonance that one finds in just intonation when the notes are tuned according to these harmonic proportions.
And it still exists today in Indian classical music and in early music, early Western music, for example, Gregorian chant and the music of Hildegard de Bigham, and a lot of a cappella music. And so this is something that there's fortunately becoming more awareness of. There's been less and less awareness and no teaching about this in the universities and conservatories, but there's starting to be today.
And especially [00:28:00] for musicians that want to explore music as a spiritual path or use music for meditation, I think it's critically important to understand the different tuning relationships because that's the actual foundation of the vibrations. And Anaykan refers to this indirectly in a number of places in his teachings.
There's this beautiful section. I can read it if you want, but it's from the, uh... Well, I'll read it, and then you can choose if you want to include it or not. Uh, it's from the section, "The Art and Science of Hindu Music."
And it, it's talking all about
the importance of tuning, but tuning not only an instrument, but actually tuning souls. "There are two ways in life, uniformity and individualism. Uniformity has its strength, [00:29:00] but individualism has its beauty. When one hears an artist, a singer of Hindu music, the first thing he will do is tune his tambura to give one chord.
And while he tunes his tambura, he tunes his own soul, and this has such an influence on his hearers that they can wait patiently, often for a considerable time. Once he finds he is in tune with its instrument, with that chord, his soul, mind, and body all seem to be one with the instrument. A person with a sensitive heart listening to his song, even a foreigner, will perceive the way he sings into that chord, the way he tunes his spirit to that chord.
And by that time, he has become concentrated. By that time, he has tuned himself to all who are there. Not only has he tuned the instrument, but he has felt the need of every soul in the audience and the [00:30:00] demands of their souls, what they want at that time. Not every musician can do this, but the best can.
And when he synthesizes, and it all comes automatically as he begins his song, it seems that it touches every person in the audience, for it is all the answer to the demand of the souls that are sitting there. He has not made a program beforehand. He does not know what he will sing next. But each time he is inspired to sing a certain song or play a certain mode, he becomes an instrument of the whole cosmic system, open to all inspiration, at one with the audience, in tune with the chord of the tambura.
And it is not only music, but spiritual phenomena that he gives to the people."
Michael Reiley: Nice. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.
Michael Harrison: My pleasure. I'll share [00:31:00] one other quote with you, uh, that relates to tuning.
"If one can focus one's heart on music, it is just like warming something that was frozen. The heart returns to its natural condition And the rhythm regulates the beating of the heart, which helps to restore health of body, mind, and soul and bring them to their proper tuning. The joy of life depends upon the perfect tuning of mind and body.
So as one looks into this proper tuning, the steps of tuning, and takes time to really tune an instrument, you will discover the need for other tuning [00:32:00] systems than the way the piano is tuned today. This happened to me actually when I was a teenager and I first started studying Indian classical music. I was singing with the tambura every day, and then my main instrument, the piano, started sounding out of tune.
And the reason was that I had learned to sing in just intonation, even though I had never heard the term just intonation. I didn't understand the theory of it. And so I was hearing the compromises in the equal temperament in the way the piano is tuned. The compromises being that the whole number of proportions are compromised so that the music notes can be equally spaced to work in any key.
So I called the piano tuner and had him tune the piano, and it still sounded out of tune. And that began a lifelong journey of studying of acoustics and physics of sound and getting multiple pianos and tuning them myself. And that process that [00:33:00] Nyakhan talks about where the Hindu musician goes in depth into tuning their tambura and then tuning their voice to the tambura, that's a process I go through tuning my own piano, getting all the vibrations lined up perfectly.
And if someone is interested in exploring this, I recommend my piece Revelation Music in Pure Intonation, which is a 75-minute piano work in a pretty esoteric tuning system. It's not your vanilla version of just intonation. It's a more contemporary version that really explores a lot of microtonality.
And then for something maybe a little more traditional is The Seven Sacred Names, which is one of my latest recordings, where I have musical compositions for the seven sacred names that are highlighted in the Sufi tradition. These are the wazifas or [00:34:00] mantras that are regarded as being very important for the unfolding of the whole universe and also the creative process and human awakening.
And so I do use just intonation on six of the leading names. I used equal temperament on one of them. And, uh, I, each different piece has a different tuning actually. Uh, and it explores more conventional forms of just intonation as well as less conventional forms and a variety of instrumentation. So there's vocals, piano, strings, and even the, uh, Grammy-winning vocal group Room- Roomful of Teeth.[00:35:00]
Michael Reiley: In speaking about tuning systems, equal temperament, just in- intonation, one, [00:36:00] um, I don't know if it's a controversy, but one point of discussion that you often see on YouTube and places like that is, is, uh, you know, 440 versus 432 tuning. And so in your, uh, explorations of alternate tuning systems, has this come up?
And do you have any, any thoughts or strong feelings about the 440 versus 432 debate?
Michael Harrison: Well, I think the nature of the universe and our experience in it is about relationships. And everything is, is in how we relate to the world around us and the vibrations around us and the people around us. And the same thing applies to music.
It's about the relationships of the different tones and rhythms in relationship to, to everything else. So what's more important to me is how notes are tuned in relationship to each other as opposed to the absolute pitch center. So I don't believe there's [00:37:00] any kind of one cosmic note of the universe, you know, that we should all be attuning to.
Uh, it-- my exploration of music is more about the interrelationships of the sound. And that's where I think just intonation is so incredibly important because all of the notes work together creating a kind of cosmic geometry or architecture where everything relates to whole number proportions, uh, while as in equal temperament, uh, all the overtones and harmonics are fuzzy because they don't line up perfectly.
And so I think that's a much more important distinction, uh, just intonation versus temperament rather than the absolute pitch center of 432 or 440. That said, different instruments do vibrate very differently at different pitch centers. So for example, if you take a piano and you raise the pitch, it's gonna make it brighter, [00:38:00] but it's gonna decrease the sustain.
And if you lower the pitch, you're gonna have a longer sustain, but it's not gonna project as well. And so-- And certainly with original musical instruments like violins and s- and whatnot, and if you have music like I'm a big fan of John Eliot Gardiner and, and, uh, you know, music on original instruments, then you need to do it at 432 because the instruments weren't designed to play at 440, and they'll be more resonant, and they'll speak more, uh, at a, at a lower pitch than they were originally designed for.
But instruments today, for the most part, are being designed to play in equal temperament at 440, so I think they'll sound better at 440. Of course, in-- with electronic music, you can choose any pitch center you want, and you can choose any tuning you want, and that's one of the huge advantages of electronic music that a lot of people haven't really been utilizing, is how you can, uh, [00:39:00] if you understand what you're doing, how you can consciously change the tuning to find more resonant frequency relationships.
Michael Reiley: Nice. Thank you for that, that journey through tuning, uh, and, and, and intonation. It-- Even the phrase, the, the word choice there with just intonation versus equal temperament, um, there feels like there's some sort of cultural, cultural prog- projection on, on the choice of those words. And when you were describing earlier this idea that, uh, you know, Western musicians look down upon what we call drone music, so music that stays in one key and, and kind of the Eurocentric model that, um, that harmony and complexity of harmony is, is a sign of an advanced music system, I think is still something that we're, we're grappling with as, as a, as a global society.
Um, and one thing that I love [00:40:00] about Inayat Khan and what he's offering in this inclusive model is this idea of the universality of Well, you could say music, but also just awareness of vibration, awareness of breath, awareness of silence in basically every culture. And he describes, uh, another quote I'll read is that, "Someday music will be the means of expressing universal religion.
Time is wanted for this, but there will come a day when music and its philosophy will become the religion of humanity." And, you know, sacred music, religious music, I mean, I can't think of any world religion that doesn't involve song as a way of praise, as a way of surrender. Um, so, you know, I do have hope for this [00:41:00] path that sound and music can be a unifying force on our planet that, as you described, is seemingly getting more and more tribal, more and more fragmented.
Um, is that something, uh, something that resonates with you as well, this idea of coming together as a global society around a consciousness around sound and music?
Michael Harrison: Absolutely. It's been my life path. Uh, music is my spirituality. It is my religion. And I think actually we've made a lot of progress since the time of Inayat Khan.
I mean, Inayat Khan's teachings were radical at the time, you know, that music could be the future of religion. But music is the centerpiece of every religious tradition. I mean, one finds it in every religion all over the world and every spiritual tradition. And, um, you know, in Western music, we, you know, go back, we have [00:42:00] Hildegard of Bingen, who was a great saint from the 12th century and whose music is more popular today than ever before.
And we have, of course, Gregorian chant and then all of the beautiful Renaissance music, Josquin des Prez, Monteverdi, leading to the culmination of Bach, JS Bach, who wrote some of the most beautiful and profoundly spiritual music ever. Uh, and then today, you know, we have composers like Arvo Pärt, who are writing very deep spiritual music, and my mentor, La Monte Young, and his masterpiece, The Well-Tuned Piano.
Uh, and we have music traditions from all over the world, from Africa, from India, from Asia, uh, that are focused on music as a spirituality. And of course, the Sufis, you know, there's so many different Sufi lineages in many different parts of the world, everywhere from America to the Middle [00:43:00] East to the Far East, uh, have explored music in depth as a part of the, um- as part of spirituality and spiritual awakening.
And I think that we've come a long ways since the time of Inayat Khan, actually. There's a story that, you know, the first two years Inayat Khan came to play his music in the West. In fact, let me read you the instructions that his murshid or guru gave him to come to the West. Let me just find it. Give me one moment.
Yes. It was as a musician and musical educator that Hazrat Inayat Khan traveled to the Western world in 1910. His Sufi teacher, Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani, had blessed him saying, [00:44:00] "Fare forth into the world, my child, and harmonize the East and West with the harmony of your music." Again, that word harmony in a universal context.
Touring the United States and Europe, Hazrat Inayat Khan and his brothers, together known as the Royal Musicians of Hindustan, built a musical bridge between the Orient and Occidental. Now, it's fascinating, though, this story that I'm going to tell you is one time they were all on stage tuning all their instruments, according to the quote that I read you, and it takes quite a lot of time to tune all your instruments.
And the musicians and audience in the West was totally unaccustomed to this. So they actually thought the tuning was the music. And of course, in a larger context, it is part of the music, right? But it was tuning the instruments to prepare for the performance.
Michael Reiley: There's a funny thing that happened in George Harrison concert in the concert for Bangladesh where Ravi Shankar, it's a similar thing.
They're tuning for [00:45:00] five or seven minutes, and at the end, everyone gives them a standing ovation. He's like, "Oh, that was just the tuning. We didn't even start playing the music part
Michael Harrison: yet." Amazing, right? The same thing happened with Inayat Khan except for the curtains came down and that was the end of the concert.
So we've come a long way since then. And really, if you think about it, Ravi Shankar and George Harrison studying with Ravi Shankar really kind of popularized Indian classical music in the West and led to this awakening of music that Inayat Khan, 30, 40 years before, had really brought to the West, but audiences weren't ready for it yet.
So now, finally in the 1960s, the West was ready and open and embraced Indian music. And so we found Uh, much more of an opening now, and I believe that there's many more people accepting the idea that music can be a spiritual path or even be a religion [00:46:00] than in the time of Inayat Khan. And of course, we've, we've also embraced a broader spectrum of what mindfulness and sound and music can be with, you know, composers like Pauline Oliveros and this whole concept of deep, deep listening, of listening as a form of mindfulness.
And even John Cage, you know, with h-his whole philosophy on sound, and he was a deep student of Zen Buddhism also. Uh, and, you know, pieces like, uh, "4'33"" you know, which is a mindfulness meditation where the, the pianist comes up, opens the keyboard on the piano and sits there and for four minutes and thir- thirty-three seconds, and the music is everything that one hears.
You know, the sirens going in the background, the rustling in the audience, the breathing that you hear of the audience, the laughing, whatever it is, which really changed the [00:47:00] way musicians think about sound and music to the point where now everything can be music, you know, which relates back to what Inayat Khan was talking about as music as a miniature for the whole universe, the structure of the whole universe.
Michael Reiley: Yeah. Th-that's exactly where I was heading with, with the next, uh, inquiry was about John Cage and Pauline Oliveros and who was my teacher and the, the act of listening itself and, and our listening consciousness coming into harmony with existence itself. So this, this subjective power of when we bring our attention to an experience, something new is created just by, by noticing it.
And again, you know, we, we see, we've, uh, discovered this, you know, in, in quotes, we've found this in the observer principle in quantum mechanics that observing a process changes it, [00:48:00] and so listening as well. And this expansion of what is sacred music and what is even music itself that the sounds of the natural world, the sounds of, of noise, the sounds of silence that you're talking about with Cage are all a part of this fabric of, of this, the sacredness of vibrational awareness.
And, um, yeah, what a, what a gift that Inayat Khan and this, this book and, and the, the, the, the, uh, the teachings of, of
vibrational, I don't even know what you'd call it, but a cosmology, I guess, of, of, of music and sound as a spiritual path.
Michael Harrison: Absolutely. I mean, the amazing thing is that we have this book Because I have not encountered anything like it. It is so comprehensive and so deep that [00:49:00] it really can be looked at as a Bible for music.
And I think that the way this book has given such inspiration to musicians and non-musicians for the last 100 years is just the beginning of what can happen as music starts to become even more of a universal religion, beyond words, beyond language, something that we can just tap into the consciousness and awareness through sound.
And he's given us these incredible teachings that-- This has been my inspiration for my entire adult life. And as I've explored both Eastern music and Western music in depth and sought to find enlightenment and truth through music, and I keep coming back and [00:50:00] finding more and more in these teachings like I'm just beginning to study them for the first time.[00:51:00]
So I'm extremely honored that I was invited by Pir Zia, who is the grandson and successor of Hazrat Inayat Khan and the current spiritual leader of the Inayat Order, to do an in-depth commentary on his grandfather Hazrat Inayat Khan's teachings on the mysticism of sound and music. So this is something that I'm working on now and also Studying various sacred sound practices and developing sacred sound and musical practices to form a simple curriculum, uh, that [00:52:00] people can s- go into this teachings in a deeper way, and also find practices that they can do on a daily, daily basis.
Michael Reiley: Nice. And these would be m- meditative or, or singing or things that can be done individually or in groups as well?
Michael Harrison: Both. Both, because I feel it's important that medi- me- music is not just done as a m- meditation or as a spiritual practice, but as a musical practice. Um, and there are a lot of, uh, spiritual seekers that use music in a kind of, uh, superficial way, let's say, that can, you know, certainly deepen through the practice that we talked about earlier of deep listening, but even better through actual music practice.
And then there are musicians who spent their lives practicing music that can greatly benefit from some simple [00:53:00] practices of music as a spiritual practice or music as a form of meditation. So I think it's c- important to combine both. And I teach a lot. I, I have about 30 students. I teach a ongoing series of raga singing classes online.
Uh, and I have students from all over the world, from mostly from America and Europe, but also from India and from Turkey and from the East. And, uh, so we go in depth every week. Uh, we, we sing one raga for 10 weeks and really learn the raga and how to improvise the raga and some traditional compositions, as well as doing sacred sound practices.
And then I also direct a music program every summer for two weeks called the Creative and Mu- Creative Music Intensive in upstate New York at Arts, Letters and Numbers. But it's a hybrid program that can be done in person or online. And the whole focus on [00:54:00] that is creativity, on musicians from any different background, any different genre coming together and exploring the creative process through music.
So what would be really helpful is to have some basic sound practices that musicians can do to develop their attunement, uh, where they're not just practicing music, but practicing music in the moment with mindfulness and going deeper and deeper into the experience of universal sound according to the teachings that Hazrat Inayat Khan outlines so beautifully in The Mysticism of Sound and Music.
And at the same time, let's have a curriculum of basic musical practices that amateur musicians can do, or even musicians to develop their musicality, their awareness of music, because the [00:55:00] two go hand in hand. And we explore some of these things in the classes and the workshops that I teach, but I'm hoping to include in the commentary that I give on Hazrat Inayat Khan's teachings a series of practices, both sound practices and musical practices, that we can, we can use to develop ourselves and our attunements through music.
Michael Reiley: All right. Well, thank you, Michael. I think we'll leave it there, and it's been a, a beautiful journey. So thank you so much for your offerings and your, your work and, uh- Keep on listening and sounding
Michael Harrison: Well, thank you, Michael. It was really an incredible opportunity to have a deep conversation with someone that's an actual practitioner of sacred sound practice.
And I know you've been living and teaching this work for many years, and so I'm grateful for the opportunity that we had this conversation.[00:56:00] [00:57:00] [00:58:00]
Michael Reiley: Thank you for listening to The Sounds of SAND. If you enjoyed this podcast, we invite you to become a member of Science and Nonduality. With membership, you have access to our massive library of content, including over 15 years of webinars, courses, and films. You can find out more about becoming a SAND member by finding a link in the show notes or visiting scienceandnonduality.com slash join.
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