The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 86 - 'Sounds That Make Me Smile (Drones, Binaural Beats, ASMR)' - Nick Able
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In this episode Chris chats with Nick Able https://www.instagram.com/nickiable about music education and wellbeing and using Drones. This podcast is brought to you by Charanga.
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by Charanga. In this episode, I chat with Nick Abel. Now my conversation with Nick focuses around music for well-being. And actually, more specifically, it really delves into the idea of working with drones. No, I'm not talking about the things that fly, I'm talking about the things that sound a bit like this. Drones are incredibly powerful and immersive things from a well-being perspective for sure. But also they play a really big part in a lot of music from a lot of different cultures and from a lot of different points in history as well. So ancient cultures and including very, very modern musical cultures as well. And Nick is really interesting because he's played with drones in an Indian classical context, accompanying Ravi Shankar and Anushka Shankar. So working within uh incredibly rich and ancient musical culture, but he also works with it in a very modern music and wellness space as well, and within electronic music. So he's got a really unique and interesting perspective. If you're really interested by the things that we're talking about here, or maybe you want to bring drones in to your own work as a music educator, then within Charanga you can access Mindful Tune-Ups, which is a collection of music and mindfulness exercises. One of those in particular, Listen and Breathe, is a collection of really immersive and quite varied drones, which are absolutely fantastic to use. I really hope you enjoy this episode, and I really hope that you'll stick around for the next episode too. So please click subscribe or follow so that you can continue to be part of the conversation. Do you mess about with drones a lot?
SPEAKER_00Do you use an all an awful lot, you know? Um in a lot of different ways as well. Um such a vast subject, even though it's just generally two notes or one note. Um yeah, I use drones a lot. Uh, in my own music, I listened to them a lot. Spent many years with my great teacher, Maestro Ravi Shankar, uh playing the tampura, accompanying him and his daughter Unishka in many concerts throughout the world for 10 years, playing the tampura, which is the Indian drone instrument. Um, yeah, I was involved in I got involved in ambient music probably 15 years ago, which I'm a huge fan of, and the whole drone scene, if you like. And I ended up working, I ended up working with some uh local musicians in a dance company. Um, we worked on this piece called The Black Sea of Trees.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, so Nick, I'm so happy that straight away you've mentioned Indian classical music um because I think it helps bring some context. Obviously, drones have this really important place in music and well-being, music and mindfulness. It's a big part of mindful tune-ups that we were talking about earlier within Charanga. But also, drones exist in music from all around the world, right? And particularly in Indian classical, which is really exciting because I mean, to some extent, I think drones being part of such a rich and ancient musical culture, you know, validates their use for some who need it, um, within the use of drones in well-being and music to make you feel better. Is it fair to say that drones are kind of central to Indian classical music or the drones are at the centre?
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure if centre's the right word, but it's definitely something that's present throughout all of that uh genre of music and that art form. Um not sure what it would be without that. Um in some ways it's a huge part of it, and in some ways it's not as well. Okay. Well, the tampura isn't an instrument that would be seen as something that you would learn if you like, and spend years and years and years learning. It's not, you know, it's it's there's a there's a knack to it, but it's nothing major, you know. The tampura is an accompanying instrument. The the tampura is an essential part of that whole art form.
SPEAKER_01And for those of you who don't know what a tampura drone sounds like, it sounds something like this. And now people all listening to this understand what um a tampura drone sounds like. What is in in Indian classical, it'd be nice to almost like make the bridge from its use in Indian classical, somewhere that it's been for so long, to its modern day use from from a maybe from a well-being perspective, sort of uh understanding why it does that. Because it's sometimes I think when you're talking to people who aren't using drones or aren't creating music for well-being, then there's because there's no sort of direct justification of drones make you feel happier, they make you feel calmer because it does this. Do you know do you know what I mean? So I think it's nice to link it to that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So of course the link is so in Indian classic music, the the drone or the tanpura is tuned to the usually the root and the fifth, or the root and the fourth, depending on what piece is being played. And my understanding of drones in modern music, if you like, or in electronic music, or in well-being, in the well-being uh industry, is that if you think of it on a keyboard, you know, uh it would still be the root and the fifth, generally, that you would play. And um it just creates a grounding, calming sound, it's repetitive, it just doesn't modulate, it doesn't change, it doesn't move to a different note, it doesn't change key or anything, it stays uh the way that it is, and um, in terms of the whole wellness thing, and this is something that was so crazy for me personally because I was in quite a dark place a few years ago, you know, and uh coming out of COVID and all of that, I was kind of like searching for ways to make myself feel better. Um, and one of the things that I discovered was frequency music. Uh, on YouTube, there's thousands of videos of this electronic drone music, but embedded within those are frequencies, notes that are being played or tuned to a different frequency other than 440 hertz. Okay, and these have a whole range of different effects on the human body, spirituality and spiritual uh ness, you know, is a is another aspect of it as well, you know. And I got really into this, something that really helped me um ground myself again and gave me something to focus on. And I love music, you know, and I love ambient music, so I would spend hours listening to this.
SPEAKER_01And what what what did it do for you, Nick? Like, because like for to fright, I want I want to frame that in a sense of someone l listening to that who is you've you used words that I know I know immediately, someone who might sort of um I don't know, resistant to some of those ideas. You you what you said spiritual for starters. As soon as we uh use those words, then I I think to uh a proportion of the population, if you like, that's an immediate like what are you talking about? So I I really yeah, yeah, yeah. But so what what is it that you were that you feel and that you gain from listening to that? You saying you were in a you know really bad place and you listened to that, and what what did it sort of actively do for you?
SPEAKER_00It took a while to get really into it, you know, four years on, and I'm still doing it every day. But there's different frequencies such as four three two hertz, five three two hertz, all of these different frequencies that are coherent and they create a coherent field, they even create coherent geometry.
SPEAKER_01That's getting into a whole other is this is this when like water and yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00So you see that so so so sound affects everything that it passes through, including the human body. You know, we're made up of so much water, our cells, all of that kind of thing. Um, it just made me feel just it's hard to describe for me. It was a really profound thing. You know, not only did it make me feel calm, make me feel at ease, it calmed anxiety. Um I started to sleep better, you know, my mind functioned better. I just felt better in every kind of a way, which is a very broad, general kind of way to sort of like answer your question.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, but that's that's that's great. You you you sort of that a tangible, it's it's it's like in trying to explain this stuff, though sort of tangible responses to it.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I mean, I mean you can you can go quite deep into it, you know, um in terms of each frequency, the soft edge geo frequencies, and how each frequency has its own series of effects or benefits on the human body. I mean, it's a thing that even Nikola Tesla back in the day, you know, was heavily into, you know, uh, and there's a lot of people who are into with it all, you know, there's so many different things within that, um, such as binaural beats, brainwave entrainment.
SPEAKER_01Can we talk about the binaural thing as well? Because um for me, uh, it was profound in explaining how to tune something. That's two notes a bit. Go on, you you explain what it is, Nick. Come on.
SPEAKER_00Um, it's funny when I first got into it. I thought I was I was listening to this music and waiting for like a beat to come in.
SPEAKER_01It's just uh do you want to listen to some binaural beats, mate? That banging.
SPEAKER_00It's not that my understanding of it is um there are they are two different frequencies that are played at the same time, and they create a binaural effect, binaural effect, or however you pronounce it, uh, which affects the human brain and the human body, and it helps put your brain, and even like talking like on an emotional level, if you're struggling with emotions or you're going through a bit of a bad time or whatever, it can help ease that and comfort you.
SPEAKER_01And for the listeners, this is what binaural beats sound like, fantastic. So I man, I I I love the sensation that it gives you. It's sort of um uh yeah, it's it's not disconcerting, it's like uh I you which it should be because it's sort of something going in and out of tune almost, isn't it? And which turns its head go on, sorry.
SPEAKER_00Those two frequencies that are played in a bonora beat are so close to each other, it creates like a bit of like slight, like a kind of like a dissonance, but after a little while of listening to it, that dissonance becomes very pleasurable. But initially it's like whoa, to my to my year, it is anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what I mean you've spent your life trying to make everything exactly in tune, isn't it? So if you're something to understand, well what's going on here. Um yeah, I know I I think for me it's like it's like a a focus, and not necessarily focusing on you know something that you can see in front of you, but it just the ability to just focus on what you're hearing, I suppose. Which which I I get from the Indian classical thing. That's what I really you know you know I find so engaging from that of having that drone just sort of I don't know, it's like a place to sit, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Almost it's a point, it's a point of focus, yeah. It's a point of focus, and it's somewhere that you could call like I don't know, it's a bit like home, like it's just somewhere that you are, somewhere that you're present in, and it doesn't waver. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So like a tuning in thing. Because that that that in yeah bringing bringing this into the classroom, um something that I'm always fascinated by uh is a class of children coming in from the corridor, depending on the school, depends on how insane that transition has been. So some have like sort of you know quiet transitions, and some of you know they might come in from lunch and they're like proper wired, and you know, there's a sort of a violence amongst them because they've just been in the playground and then let's do music. Um, and it's that moment of actually remembering as any kind of music practitioner, and I rather than saying educator, because I think it actually relates to performance, doesn't it, as well? Is that time for people to actually dial in and tune in and that and the whole sort of drone thing is exactly that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It is, yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_01So what when you're doing more sort of therapeutic sort of sessions and workshops, right? Because that's something you're you're really delving into now, right?
SPEAKER_00For for adults, I guess, predominantly, or up to up to this point, yeah, it's been for adults, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And what's the process that you're going through for from music for a wellness perspective? Like what what what is it that you sort of offer? What is it that you're trying to trying to do, even?
SPEAKER_00So I mean, this all links back to being when I was in a bit of a dark place, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I and I and I discovered this frequency music, but actually I rediscovered it because you know, my great teacher, I used to tune a sitar of 438 Hertz. And I never knew why. I should have probably asked that at the time. Um, and would always retune it back to 440 when it would be with, you know, there was a piano there or something like that, you know.
SPEAKER_01Is is it written anywhere why he did that? Maybe just sort of even feeling that as a sense of just feeling actually it just feels slightly more comfortable, just low low because it's an arbitrary standardization, isn't it? These things become sort of standard practice just out of yeah, arbitrary administration, right? Because there has to be some kind of let's let's go with that 440 as is the stand because it means not nothing, doesn't it? In our understanding of pitch, we're only understanding the space between unless we have the the curse of perfect pitch of being able to go, that is a concert A. You know, that's irrelevant, it's just the frequency. So you're talking about frequencies in that way, but there still has to be an understanding, doesn't there? But that that would you're talking about a frequency at that particular point, whereas when we hear instruments, we hear the whole plethora of frequencies, right? So even if I play an A, I am well, I see it on my EQ, I'm seeing all of those frequencies coming up, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, what what do you think, Nick, about uh listening in day-to-day life? So again, going back to mindful tune-ups, a lot of that is based around field recordings and taking the time to focus on not necessarily natural sounds, because I think immediately people think of field recordings, you know, yeah, it can be a cityscape, it can be with the the ambience of a place. What do you think about that from a a uh well-being perspective? Actually, just listening in where we are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, like there's a lot of stuff that I enjoy listening to myself. There's uh walkthroughs of this this video game called Skyrim, I think it's called. I mean, I don't play video games, and there's a lot of others that are like walking through Hogwarts, there's others that that are that's like uh an old library, and you can hear the the rock and chair creaking, and like there's others where there's where there's rain or sort of ASMR element ASMR, yeah, all of that, you know, which which ASMR is is another element of um sound healing, if you like, um, which I'm massively into, which is also another part of the whole frequency thing. It's kind of all in in my mind, it's all in the same bag. Frequency, Bonora Beats, ASMR, all of that kind of is is all part of the same thing for me. But I have a very similar um experience, if you like, when I do listen to that type of thing that you're talking about, you know. Um, because when you start learning about what it actually does, the whole ASMR thing, tingles and all of that, it creates a feeling of comfort.
SPEAKER_01Why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_00That crackly, poppy kind of like, you know, some people are like, I don't like that, it's making me feel like I want to itch my myself, you know. Um for me, it's a it's a it's a lovely thing, and that I'm at this point starting to figure out how to implement that in what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01Okay. It's actually just making people feel better using these sounds to just make people feel yeah, because that that that's an interesting uh sort of misstatement, if you like, isn't it, of what music for well-being is trying to do. Just making people feel better, because it's sure it's far more complicated, isn't it? Than just making you feel you're gonna come away from it thinking, oh, I'm really happy now. I've listened to some field recordings and then I listen to a drone and everything's okay. But it's more it is more complicated than that, isn't it? I suppose it's like uh I don't know.
SPEAKER_00It's a deep subject, yeah. It's a deep subject once you start getting into it.
SPEAKER_01I think you uh, you know, I'm a radio head fan, right? Which some people are utterly confused by because why you know I can be feeling my absolute happiest, and I can put on an absolutely like a proper dark, bleak tune. But for somehow, somehow that sort of there's an enjoyment in the you you almost like listen to music anyway, to feel something, don't you? So maybe this stuff is doing do you think it's just doing the same thing, you know, as like listening to a sad song when you're sad, or it's just you know, kicking your body into stopping thinking about taxes and insurance, and actually just not that kids in school thinking about that, but they might be thinking of a plethora of other young people's worries or concerns, and it's just bringing you to connecting with your feelings in some way.
SPEAKER_00I suppose in a in a way it's a bit like a guided meditation.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, I I always struggled with just sitting in the quiet and trying to meditate in silence, but I really got into it when I started doing guided meditations because it gives you something to focus on. Okay, which is very much what I think a lot of this that we're talking about now, um can do for people is they don't have to be into the science of it all and understand all of the effects on the human body and the brain and all of that, you know. It's just the simple thing of like it's a point of focus, right? It gives you something to focus on that is comforting, you know, relaxing, you know, calming, even sometimes something that's familiar, you know, um, which can take you away from whatever it is that's over here that you want to get away from.
SPEAKER_01And I guess that doesn't even have to be some kind of terrible situation, does it? That can just there's just a an enjoyment of that. That's like a that's a nice place to be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely, yeah. I mean, I spent hours listening to it every day.
SPEAKER_01Do you do you think this stuff has an effect on an a musical ability as well? So leaving the well-being, just improving your sort of state, and go, and you're a musician. So Nick, has this made you a better musician? Has it made you worse? Since listening to drones, I've made uh I've I've played blum notes all the time.
SPEAKER_00Um that's a hard one to answer.
SPEAKER_01Um I think it must be interesting from your perspective as well, because you're someone who's been playing in an Indian classical realm where you've sort of been dialed in and connected and focused more than most, I could I could say. So you know, in some ways it's like, is that possible to build on? But I'd imagine, well, I actually sort of I'll say, you know, I I think I've seen for some musicians that they haven't actually accessed music in the way that they do genuinely focus, they're just going through a process.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I suppose what what it has done is it's slowed me down. You know, I I I'm I love technical virtuosity music, you know. Uh I'm a guitar player as well, you know. And you know, I mean the Steve I, John McGrocklin, all of that stuff, you know. Uh I can I can play like that, you know, but you know, I can't write and perform like that. I do it for my own enjoyment. Uh one of the things that drone music, music for wellness, frequency music has given me now is the ability to slow down and just play what comes to my mind without feeling self-conscious about it, without worrying about is it good enough, without worrying about has it got this technique in it, or whatever. It's just pure music that's kind of coming through. Um, so in a way, it's giving me uh a voice that I feel like in the past I wasn't ready for, I wasn't good enough for, uh, no one would like it, you know, etc. All of these kind of things I'll probably go through all musicians' minds at some point. Um it's allowed me to connect with the notes in a much deeper way, which I got from accompanying my great teacher and his daughter all over the world for many years. Um but that was with them, and once they are gone, or I'm at home, I don't have that. So, how do I how do I how do I create that for myself? It's something I was never able to do before. Uh, but I'm in a place now where I'm able to do that and connect with music on a different level in terms of how I'm playing and performing. Um, if that makes sense. So I suppose, in a way, yes, it's made me better because I'm doing things now that I would never have done before, and very content and happy doing it, which is another big aspect of you know, there's a lot of musicians who critique themselves massively, you know, they're not able to enjoy the process, you know, and all of that, you know, and I'm in a peace, I'm in a I'm in a place now of peace, of peace with with what I'm doing, you know, which is great, you know. I must say, by the way, if if I say Ravi's name, as in Ravi, everyone knows who Ravi Shankar is, but you know, that we wouldn't address him or speak of him in in that way. You know, we always use Guruji or we say Ravi Gi, which is a Hindu Indian way of showing respect to an elder or a teacher or a guru. So just for the benefits of the audience, you know, um, in Indian culture that would be seen as being really disrespectful, just to say address him by his name, because you know, that's just the way that it is, and because I'm a student of his, just wanted to interject that in, you know.
SPEAKER_01Uh just I mean, you're you're you said uh connecting on a different level and deeper connection, which is fantastic to hear. Um I wrote a little article way back, uh well, actually, maybe pretty pretty much spot on a year, actually. The music teacher, and we did a podcast on here, and I was talking about deeper connection and this idea that when we go and see a performance, we expect a musician to be sort of deeply connected with what they're playing, and if they're not, you kind of you want your money back, right?
SPEAKER_00You can spot you can spot it in a mile off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you can spot it in a mile off, and it's it's like our prerequisite for the that's partly stolen from June Boyce Tillman from uh the episode that I did around this, but that's our prerequisite for for musical performance. It's our like our it's our baseline expectation for a musician to be deeply connected, like in some kind of transcendental far out in the zone. Um but in music education, anyway, when we talk about it, um it immediately sort of comes out, or it's it's so often deeply dismissed. Like I I mean, I've been um in in very recently um um music hub board meeting talking about well music well-being, um, and being on the curriculum and it being argued quite actively by a lot of those members of the board that actually music well-being shouldn't be part of it because music education is about learning to play. But actually, think it's almost like that if we get rid of that word well-being, and you're talking you're talking about what it did to your uh musicianship, is it gave you that ability to sort of deeply connect? It's almost surely it's it's like an the integral, the most important part of music is to be connected because if they're not connected, then you're like, Well, who is this guy? I don't want to go see him because he's just you know well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I mean you mentioned like it's it's all about teaching people to play, and of course, there's so many um aspects to that. Obviously, you've got technical ability, you've got you know, there's so many different things, but also the ability to be in a flow state, in a state of calm, in a state of yeah, a flow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we can talk about flow state, and that that that's something which which comes from
SPEAKER_00You know, feeling well, being well, you know, feeling calm, and all of that sort of thing, you know. Um, which is a whole other aspect to being able to perform. There's something that you can't learn from someone. I don't think you can read books about it, you can listen to stuff about it, but ultimately, it's like how you feel about your playing, uh, in terms of things that are non-technical, uh, in terms of the delivery of how you deliver what it is that you're doing. In my opinion, um, huge aspect to learning how to play. Okay, because because a lot of a lot of these things, in terms of internally how you're feeling, can override anyone's technical ability on an instrument to be able to deliver the performance. So it it's it's an important aspect.
SPEAKER_01Um can can we unpack why you did learning in an in air quotes for me. Learning to play. Because I feel that's that's always like the the crux of the point, is is what what you're sort of saying, you know, about learning to play.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um learning to play. I mean, you know, it's like it's almost like that that phrase needs to have like 50 sub things below it that are that that kind of describe all of the different aspects of what that actually is. You know, learning to play is just like a huge, a huge subject.
SPEAKER_01But what uh but it's absurd in itself, isn't it? In that sort of I'm thinking about my kids right now right now are downstairs playing, and I certainly didn't teach them to do that.
SPEAKER_00It's a tough one, yeah. I don't really know how to answer that. I'm not really sure what to see. So there you go.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, yeah, I'm definitely gonna lead that bit in. You're the first podcast guest who I've asked the question. You said actually, I don't really know how to answer that rather than I'm just gonna say something now, anyway. Um but I don't know, you're we're talking about things that are ironically, we're talking about things that are almost impossible to articulate, right? Because you you've you mentioned how a feeling that you haven't override a technical ability. Um and in music education, there is so much time talking spent talking about um the things that we can measure, right? There's that famous saying that I'm gonna say completely incorrectly, those uh all things that can be measured shouldn't necessarily be measured, and those things that can't be measured aren't necessarily not worth measuring, and that that's sort of by default, we talk about the things that can be measured, you know, musical, theoretical knowledge, um being uh you know the the sort of the biggest thing, um just some kind of knowledge that can be articulated, whereas this huge part of music is knowledge that can't be articulated, and I feel it's so linked to this well being not only listening to drones, but just that sort of I think it's that deeper connection word that you're saying that you got from this that you would get from playing with those two inspirational musicians, but then when you're away from them, it's like harder to sort of tap into that, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. Do you do you think but doing these things that you're talking about, like listening to drones or or listening to sounds, taking time to pay attention and tune into stuff, is a kind of a protocol to getting there?
SPEAKER_00It certainly worked for me. It worked for me because you know I've spent a lot of time doing it, you know. A lot of time, not just five, ten minutes here or there, like one, two hours every day for the last four to five years.
SPEAKER_01I mean, well, that's practice, man, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00That's like because it's just become a way of life for me. It's a bit like brushing your teeth, you know. It's just like it's just I just do it, you know. I love I love to do it. But you know, certainly at the start, uh, it didn't take long for effects to start to be seen, you know. It was pretty quick. Um, so I'm not saying to your listeners that you know you need to listen to this for four to five years before you see any effect or anything like that, you know. I'm just saying for me, it's had such a profound impact on my life. It's something that is a way of life for me now. It's it's one of those things like brushing your teeth.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. All right, thank you so much, Nick.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much, Chris.