Ever listened to the tribal chants on National Geographic? Pretty unfamiliar, huh?
But when you consider the sound of these chants, it’s not hard to find their similarity with cries of pain, excitement, or mourning. That’s because chanting is for expressing passionate emotion.
Emotion is our reaction to the world we experience through our senses. If our emotion is passionate, we speak, or yell, sing, or sob, depending on the emotion. We understand what these sounds mean, just as the tribes knew what their chants meant. As it gains meaning and feeling, sound becomes song, especially in nature.
The world around us is not quiet, even in the most far off places, because life does not reside solely under the skin, but in nature’s interactions: the “plop” of a nut as it falls into a pond, the symphony of raindrops on a lake, wind’s movement through tree leaves, the screech of cricket wings at night…these are nature’s song!
Song is an expression of sounds that have a beginning and end, and it still communicates emotion. What we consider “song” today traveled a long road, from ancient times when people listened and sang to nature, through strict religious purposes, to entertainment (and its business) as we know it today.
As humanity developed, we structured our traditions and ideas, giving them names (“song”), categories (“music”), and form (“iambic pentameter”). When we started writing with these structures in mind, we built a stereotype for song, which is probably why most of us think tribal chants sound like noise. Go figure, right?
Today, try opening your mind to all of life’s song. Don’t hear it as noise, but as nature’s melody in your ears! Who knows, you might like it…
