In Lou Reed’s last interview, given on September 21, 2013, he related to film director Farida Khelfa his musical fascination with inner sounds. “There is a sound you hear in your head; it’s your nerves, or your blood running. It’s kind of amazing to hear that.” He also referred to the sound of our mother’s heartbeat as the first sound we all hear, and a powerful influence for the rhythm of our music. If you’re familiar with John Cage, or have read my book A Big History of Music, then you’ll recognize that Reed’s comments hearken back to the unorthodox composer’s experience in an anechoic studio—a room with no external sounds or echoes—and how that visit was a life-altering event for him due to his perception of these inner physiological sounds and his recognition of their significance to our subconscious mind and our concept of music. These inner sounds are also the typical sounds of common tinnitus, a condition in which they are simply amplified. They constantly play at one volume or another for all of us. They literally provide the background music to our lives. As such, they warrant serious consideration and beg for deeper inquiries. How exactly have they influenced our musical pursuits through time? And, for that matter, how have they influenced our spiritual lives (given that music and spiritual matters have been inexorably bound together in human development)?
The great violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin mused about the origins of music having some source in these inner sounds: “Music must have begun out of natural sounds impinging on our ears, and those to which we listen with our inner ear in silence.” Prominent composers have professed the inner sounds to be a source of creative impetus for their works. Leoš Janáček, when writing about the inspiration for his cantata Amarus, said, “I look down into my soul. Innumerable notes ring in my ears, in every octave; they have voices like small, faint telegraph bells. . . . This is the sound of silence.” Richard Wagner wrote about lying down after a long walk and drifting into a drowsy state in which the flowing music for the overture of his opera Das Rheingold appeared to him for the first time, not just in his imagination but in a vivid, multi-sensory experience. This incident was quite profound to him because, as he put it, “I then quickly realized my own nature; the stream of life was not to flow to me from without, but from within.”
The modern philosopher and polymath Terence McKenna was a proponent of this inner music—something that everyone can partake of. In a recorded lecture he went so far as to assert that “nothing is more exquisite than the interior music, and all music is obviously an effort to approximate this interior music.” We can appreciate this as a global statement about the forces that drive us to make music, and about music’s underlying purpose—clearly, he did not mean that all musicians and listeners are consciously engaged in the pursuit of realizing their own inner music. But since music has undoubtedly served a central role in our attempts to commune with the divine and discover our true selves, we should carefully consider not only how external “music does lead deeper into these visionary states” (and, I would add, this is especially true to the extent the external music is evocative of, or attunes one to, the inner music) but also how those visionary states themselves are largely comprised of one’s own internal music. Thus, as he put it, “if you can cast loose from exterior musical input [after perhaps using music to help you achieve greater awareness] this interior music will rise into perception and reward you for that.”
McKenna’s comments may seem strange to those who equate inner music with simply the imagination, but make no mistake: they are based on “sound” reasoning, direct experience, and a thorough understanding of humankind’s historical quest to understand its place in the universe. Coming from no apparent external source, the inner sounds have been regarded for many thousands of years as esoteric and mystical (and indeed, they still are by many), rather than the stuff of physiology. Thus, they were elevated to a holy status, just as Janáček in the above quote referred to them as residing deep in his “soul.” The inner sounds inevitably became the focus of silent meditation and were equated with the sound of spirit, or more specifically, the sound of the underlying cosmic vibration that supports and animates all of creation. They became the path and the goal of meditation. In the East, they were referred to as “Om” and regarded as one and the same as the non-material force of spirit.
Descriptions of the inner sounds abound in ancient literature, and there they are intimately connected with early religious thought and spiritual endeavors. As I wrote in A Big History of Music, “Inner sounds of meditation have been variously described in ancient works as sounding like a horn, flute, string, ocean, bee, or flute (among other sounds), and also a combination of all such sounds. The tradition of listening for this sound and meditating upon it has survived even up to modern times and is still widely practiced by a variety of religious groups, in both technologically simple and advanced, modern cultures. Many of these modern-day practitioners state that they also hear these ‘spiritual sounds,’ just as the ancients did.” Not surprisingly, these descriptions match the common sounds heard today by those who sit in silence, as well as those with symptoms of tinnitus.
Although listening to these sounds ultimately contributed to the creation of all kinds of imaginative worldviews and religious philosophies, the sounds themselves are not the result of a collective fanciful imagination—they are part of the common human experience. While it may be seen as ironic that we subsequently learned, through the aid of modern technology, of the existence of universal vibrations, at every level of creation—that periodic vibrations (i.e., musical tones) are ever present in the fabric of existence, even on a cosmological scale—it is quite astounding to come to the conclusion that it was the quiet reflection upon these inner sounds that originally opened the door to an intuitive understanding of this reality by primitive humans. Listening to the inner tones quieted the mind, which created the space needed to receive intuitive revelation.
Religions that refer to silencing the mind, whether for its own sake or to specifically help in hearing the voice of God, are far too numerous to mention and include all the primary ones known to us today. Listening to the inner physiological sounds is no doubt an inevitable consequence of following this advice, for what else does one hear when not consumed with listening to one’s own thoughts, when one is “still” and realizing the omnipresence of God? To some, the inner music is an invaluable tool for achieving that rest from the constant mental workings that block out higher input, whether one calls it intuition, the voice of angels, or the spirit of God. So, it is no wonder that some have gone so far as to regard this inner music as not merely a tool but as the actual goal.
External music, being a reflection of this internal music, is thus a reflection of the cosmic music. It contributes to our realization of the basic truths of our existence, including the musical vibrations of our own bodies. Yehudi Menuhin also touched on this point by saying “I believe profoundly that music helps keep us in touch with the entire vibrating world, and thereby centers us in our being.” It is a concept addressed in detail in the work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who felt that music is the only art which is not representational of images of the world, but is in fact evocative of what he called the noumenon, the otherwise undetectable life force that supports and animates all of creation–the essence of everything. This is why, he believed, music speaks to us from the “utmost depths.”
Our musical heritage is far from devoid of references to these fantastic correlations. Wagner, an avid follower of Schopenhauer, would allude to them in his later works, such as in his opera Tristan and Isolde, which ends with the famous “Leibestod” (love death) of Isolde, who sings “In the heaving swell, in the resounding echoes, in the universal stream of the world-breath—to drown, to founder—unconscious—utmost rapture.” Numerous examples can also be found in modern, popular music, both in arrangements that are imitative of the inner sound as well as in song lyrics. The Moody Blues’ On the Threshold of a Dream opens and closes with a representation of the inner sounds, and their songs “The Word” and “Om” from In Search of the Lost Chord encapsulate the experience and its philosophical implications (from the popular Eastern religious paradigm). In The Doors’ “When the Music’s Over,” we get a swelling organ note from keyboardist Ray Manzarek to denote the inner sound, immediately following the descriptive lyrics “I want to hear the scream of the butterfly,“ sung by Jim Morrison. In that Doors classic, the inner musical stream is the “very gentle sound” that you hear “with your ear down to the ground“ (i.e., with careful attentiveness).
Understanding the inner sounds’ physiological nature should help us in both deconstructing various popular myths about them and in regarding them with greater scientific circumspection. While we continue to look to theologians, religious elders, and philosophers (and now, to a certain extent, quantum physicists) to help us make sense of that which lies beyond the reach of the external senses but is yet still within the scope of our awareness, we can now assign a greater role to psychologists, music therapists, neurologists, and even otolaryngologists to help us understand the intricacies of the physical mechanisms at work with the inner sounds, as well as their effect on us. It is not only external music which we should hold in high regard for its value in helping us move towards a more sacred consciousness, greater fellowship with our fellow humans and the world in which we live, and even in healing the body, mind, and spirit, but also internal music.
Armed with this information, we find there is much new light shed on the central question of why music is consistently regarded throughout human culture as a means of invoking a divine atmosphere and communing with the Creator. The particular qualities of the inner sounds’ tone and timbre may be regarded as evolutionary happenstance—a byproduct of the overall composition of human beings—but it is quite amazing that this oddity of nature has served as a primary catalyst for helping us recognize our interconnectedness with creation, as well as a platform for releasing our imagination towards the stars and an impetus for helping us craft an amazing type of audible art with far reaching powers. And we have much yet still to learn about music and life from listening to these inner tones and exploring their role in the development of music and religious thought.
