Mindfulness in Music by Mark Tanner

Author:Mark Tanner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leaping Hare Press
Published: 2018-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

Welcome to My Office

On a visit to Tahiti, our wonderfully able guide, Teuai, drove us along a narrowing dirt track deep into Fautaua Valley. It has thirty impressive waterfalls, which bring what he optimistically described as an endless supply of water to keep the surrounding mountains lush. Teuai brought the jeep to a halt, turned to us and smiled, ‘Welcome to my office.’ He then retrieved a conch and showed us how his ancestors had used the shell for communication in centuries past – each guttural, penetrating tone issued forth into the valley for perhaps eight seconds. He then demonstrated how members of his tribe would have signalled their arrival at another part of the island by striking the base of a tree trunk with a heavy rock. Different rhythms would have had a variety of meanings, the simplest consisting of three bold strikes of increasingly higher pitch, formed by aiming slightly higher up the trunk at each strike. ‘Heavy rock music,’ he grinned, ‘but not Motörhead.’

For Teuai’s ancestors the sounds made with both the tree and the shell were emblematic of three potent elements all wrapped into one: man working in harmony with the land, the music of the forest and the need to communicate from one corner of the valley to another. It all made satisfying sense as we stood there, panting from the heat. As if from nowhere, Teuai calmly produced his iPhone and called his mother – from Fautaua Valley to Silicon Valley in the blink of an eye, an odd conclusion to a memorable tour.

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