SPACEMUSIC:
EXPLORING INNER WORLDS
INTERVIEW
BY
FRANKIE NEMKO-GRAHAM
THE MOVEMENT NEWSPAPER
LOS ANGELES
Whenever the subject of electronic Spacemusic comes up, Lee Underwood, one of its champions, inevitably comes to mind. Underwood's background is as a professional guitarist (most notably with the late Tim Buckley from '66 to '73) and as a writer since '74, including such publications as Rolling Stone, Soul, Billboard, Cashbox, and as West Coast editor of Down Beat from '77 to '81.
His current activities include a radio show on KCRW in Los Angeles, and his most recent venture was producing an electronic music festival in Venice, California. At first glance, it might seem that this category of music would have very little to do with the goal The Movement had in mind when instigating this special issue. Yet in talking with Underwood, he eloquently points out how this "new" music reaches into the heart and soul of listeners, often transporting them into another realm.
The Movement News: Some electronic music is just electronic music — nice to listen to and maybe get high with, yet some of it goes much deeper than that. Can you establish what relationship there is between this genre of music and the spiritual journey?
Lee Underwood: When I was interviewing Carlos Santana for Down Beat, he made a distinction between being an entertainer and a musician. He said the entertainer plays the same role as that of the dancing bear on a motorcycle in a circus. A musician, however, is somebody who floods the listener's heart with inspiration, hope, faith, light, joy, harmony, all the nutritious qualities that an "entertainer" will not be able to deliver.
I feel that many of the musicians currently involved with contemporary electronic music are exploring an inner world, the world of spirit. They are attempting to create music that takes us on an unguided tour of our own subconscious, to a place where we can pass beyond dreaming and into selflessness — in other words, into a state of meditation, where ego disappears, and bliss consciousness fills one's inner being.
I've had some personal experiences of this nature with the electro-acoustic music of such people as guitarist John McLaughlin and acoustic pianist Keith Jarrett, among others. Sometimes I've been right on the brink of total self-destruction and I would go to the music for help. It would miraculously bring me back in touch with that which is beautiful and life-affirming. In terms of consciousness, it's the quality of the musician's inner being that's relevant here, not whether or not the instrument is electronic or acoustic.
MN: Do you feel that it's basically the musician himself who creates this atmosphere? Do you think he must have experienced something in his own life that gives him a certain power, or that he has some kind of positive attitude going?
LU: All music is positive, even music that we might consider negative, angry or lustful, which most pop music is, of course, because the musical impulse is being articulated by musicians who may not yet be very far along the evolutionary path of consciousness. They are still locked in the torments of egoic needs and neurotic impulses. Nevertheless, the musical impulse is itself is positive. Music exists in and of itself outside of the musician.
In the kind of music we are talking about here today, the successful musician experiences the realization that he or she is a servant of Music with a capital M. He disciplines himself to stop trying to manipulate it, or exploit it for egoistic or material purposes, and simply becomes a conduit through which the music passes. He lives to remove himself as an ego, and to simply serve the music.
Music is alive. It flows through everything. The whole universe vibrates. All of the rhythms, harmonies and melodies that are the laws of nature are also the laws of music. It's this vibration that comes through musicians. According to their personalities, individual musicians give qualitative colorings to music, and extend it out into the world according to their own levels of psychological and spiritual development. There is one musical energy in the cosmos, with an unlimited variety of expressions. It's exciting, isn't it? Music is like a gigantic, endlessly growing tree. Each branch is a culture, each twig a kind of music within that culture, each leaf a musician.
I was talking with a young student the other day and he was criticizing punk rock, saying it was bad and that the people who play it have no talent. I told him that all music is valid. Even though you may not care for it because you have evolved into a higher, more inclusive, more compassionate level of consciousness than punk rockers, nevertheless that music too is an extension of a level of human consciousness, and, as such it has validity and power for those who make it and for the people who listen to it. As you see, I embrace and celebrate the full spectrum of consciousness, not just the one I happen to occupy at the moment.
MN: A lot of people criticize some of the synthesizer players today. They say their drum machines and the electronic sound in general sounds artificial, mechanical, lifeless.
LU: There are a lot of kids just picking up the instrument, and the instrument itself is in many cases new and undeveloped, so, yes, much of electronic pop music today does sound artificial. It's going to take time for popular music to develop. Watch what happens when these kids grow up and become accomplished synthesists. A whole new kind of dance music will emerge, probably rooted in disco-type rhythms — intoxicating, sex-oriented, entrancing, intense. It may take 15 or 20 years, but it will happen. Meanwhile, the musicians I am talking about are already accomplished, and they are coming from an entirely different level of consciousness — for the most part, higher-consciousness, rooted in meditation, serenity, and worldcentric inclusiveness — people like Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny, Michael Stearns, David Parsons and dozens of others.
MN: When you speak of "levels," what do you mean?
LU: Music and the musicians who serve it generally come from one of four areas, and listeners tend to listen to whichever music corresponds to and mirrors their own level of development.
The first is aggression, which is usually covered by the various forms of rock ‘n' roll. It deals with violence, sex, hostility, frustration, etc. The second level is what I would term that of the emotional center. It includes the desires and sufferings of daily life. It is still personal music. In a sense, country music typifies it, but so do dozens of other kinds of music that focus on personal tumult and the sentiments that go with them.
The third is intellect, in which the music is often very interesting and often extremely complex. Jazz tends to fall into this general area — it is personal, emotionally intense, and has levels of complexity that less inclusive musics do not have.
The fourth level is that of the sublime, most often found in classical musics of East-West nations and now in this new electronic domain as well. As John McLaughlin once told me, "Music has the power to touch a magical spot inside us that dissolves all the daily crud that accumulates. It permits us to see that life is indeed wonderful, and what a mystery and how awesome it is."
I have noticed that as listeners we tend to resist evolution. But if we allow ourselves grow and change, and allow ourselves to experience music on all of those levels, not just one or two, and not be afraid of corresponding emotions and states of being within ourselves, then when we are feeling, say, really aggressive, as we all do from time to time, we can put on some rock ‘n' roll without denigrating it. We can venture into all of those four general psycho-spiritual zones, at which time the world of music becomes fully open to us. Narrow-mindedness becomes impossible.
As we become less afraid of what the music might uncover in our inner realms, all forms of music take on positive aspects. Music can amplify OR change the way we feel. If we use it right, it can be a powerful tool for psychological growth and spiritual evolution.
MN: Why is it that electronic music has been dubbed "New Age"?
LU: Partly because many new people who embrace a certain lifestyle are playing synthesizers today and exploring meditation music. A better, more inclusive term for the music might be Spacemusic, because a lot of people who have nothing to do with New Age lifestyles are exploring these interior states too.
Whatever the lifestyles, some people call this new music Celestial music or Heartcall music. Others call it healing music. It has all the elements of others musics, because it is alive, but it very often puts the feeling emphasis in a different place. It emphasizes the creative within us rather than the destructive; the inner rather than the outer; the positive rather than the negative; the spiritual rather than the intellectual; the infinite meditative consciousness rather than the finite mental-egoic consciousness.
It's important to note, as well, that the electronic music we are talking about is a new flowering of awareness that reaches into our time on the shoulders of the academic avant-garde musicians of the ‘50s and early ‘60s. Stockhausen, Berio, Mimaroglu, Druckman, Subotnick and numerous others led the way in post-acoustic electronic music, and much of that music was exciting and profoundly revelatory. The early electronic artists brought an entirely new concept of music-as-sound into the fore, far transcending our Western concepts of 12-tone scales.
However, as I indicated above, today's New Age Spacemusic emerges from a different mentality than the intellectually brilliant avant-garde innovators, while the modern synthesizer plays an important role in articulating the music and the consciousness infusing it.
MN: The synthesizer offers a wider range of sonic possibilities than traditional acoustic instruments, doesn't it?
LU: Nothing electronic will ever replace the harmonic richness of well-made acoustic instruments. The violin, the piano, the guitar and all the others are here to stay, and I dearly love them.
At the same time, my opinion, the synthesizer is the most important new instrument since the development of the piano over 200 years ago. It's a marvelous addition to the pantheon of instruments we already have, and it has significantly altered our concepts of music. As you point out, with the synthesizer we have available all of the wonderful sounds with which we are already familiar, plus an incredible palate of colors and sounds that we have not previously known. It is how the musician uses these sounds that makes all the difference.
These new technological developments have enabled us to explore a state of mind that is, in fact, very ancient. The Indians in India, for example, have known about drones for millennia. Drones and repetitive rhythms, which are easily constructed on a synthesizer, tend to have a hypnotic effect and take us into inner worlds, just the way chants always have. With a synthesizer, musicians can also sustain a note forever; and they can play arpeggios and repetitive patterns at speeds well beyond our human capacity. They often use these technical capabilities to create a positive music that directs us toward the hypnotic, the calming, the inspiring and the hopeful within us.
This combination of ancient states of mind with the "new" sounds and new electronic approaches is one of the most important and exciting steps taken in music since the 19th Century classical Renaissance.
MN: Do you think that the idea of repetitive sound is frightening to some people? Are they afraid that if they listen to it for any length of time they may find changes taking place within themselves that they are not able to cope with?
LU: Undoubtedly, some people may feel that way initially, although there's really nothing to fear. If they feel uncomfortable at first, it may be because the music is ambiguous and quite often offers no focus of attention. It doesn't have Frank Sinatra or Bob Dylan or the Beatles or other personalities singing words and leading us through familiar song-forms. Generally, the music that most people listen to is the kind that takes them outside of themselves to where they can feel safe. They can focus on charismatic personalities. Music of this new music, by contrast, asks us to close our eyes and go inside, and quite often even ignore the player and the music so that we are not focusing on something "out there." Instead, we are directing our attention inward.
This lack of focus sometimes disturbs people who are not used to exploring their own inner worlds. But when they are courageous enough to give this music, and this state of mind — or no-mind, as the Zen folks call it — a fair shake, they find out that their inner worlds aren't as scary as they thought. On the contrary, they might begin to break through these barriers of fear and discover new and wondrous places within themselves.
Music is a magnificent guide. By finding and listening to musicians who have given themselves over to music, I awaken to a greater sense of who I am. Once we start to get acquainted with these inner realms — whether they are beautiful and ethereal or upsetting and disturbing — through the music we can grow.
MN: Would you say that we have music as an adjunct in our lives as an added bonus, and it seems to be becoming a tool of great value in our spiritual development?
LU: If there is a single phrase the would sum up what I and a number of Spacemusic composer have been up to, it would be perhaps a quote from Chaitanya Hari Deuter, a multi-talented electro-acoustic musician, who told me, "Music is not a matter of intellect, but a deep feeling. I'm not releasing powers through energy and aggression, but liberating emotion through beauty. My life's work is relating peace, beauty, balance and joy through music."
The Movement Newspaper
November, 1981
