Split screen of jazz keyboardist and jazz drummer demonstrating call and response.
Impact of Sound

Call and Response

by Emma Laurence

Call and response is a form of musical dialogue where one instrument plays or sings a short phrase and another responds, creating a musical conversation. The answer may repeat or complement the call. Either way, it’s often a playful or soulful style of communication.

Check out this jazz example. Reginald Thomas (piano) and Alvin Atkinson (drums) demonstrate jazz style call and response with Duke Ellington’s “Perdido.” You won’t believe what the drummer can do!

Call and response began as a vocal technique with deep roots across cultures worldwide. Its ancient origins in building community span tribal, religious, and folk traditions. Its global breadth is stunning: West African ceremony, Native American ritual, Caribbean calypso, Cantonese opera, Celtic choral arrangements, Islamic Adhan*, and even the cultural welcoming protocol of the New Zealand Maori.

We may be most familiar with call and response in jazz, gospel, blues, or pop music. Think of B.B. King’s The Thrill is Gone when the guitar responds to his voice with a mournful melody. Or Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline where the audience can’t help but respond with bum, bum, bum.

Call and response is profoundly and quintessentially human. Why?

I believe we all, at some point in our lives, call out. We may call for help in a moment of deep despair, or call out from the rooftops in joyful sharing of great news. Either way, we want to be answered. It’s why crisis centers and hotlines exist, why we gather in celebration at milestone events, and why ghosting is such a devastating experience. No one wants to be ignored.

In daily life, we call out through our goals, our dreams, and our conversations with others. Answers come in the form of life experiences and personal interactions. We may not always like the responses we get. But we can be more aware of what we’re calling out for and, maybe more importantly, how we can answer the calls of others.

That is living as music.

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*Adhan is the Muslim call to prayer. Listeners mostly respond by saying the same words.

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Close up of the sun with an audio bar across showing that the sun sings, makes sound.
Impact of Sound

The Sun Sings

by Emma Laurence

Are you as surprised as I am to learn that the sun “sings”? I know scientific instruments detect and monitor sounds in the universe all the time. Yet, I never thought of the sun having sound. 

Through a process called data sonification, heliophysicists use NASA satellites like audio recorders to listen to the sun’s electromagnetics. It took NASA 300 hours to make this 1-minute raw audio. Their telescope took video every 12 seconds of invisible UV light. 

Take a listen and see if you find resonance here, as the sun sings:

A simple sound can give us a way to probe inside our life-giving star and better understand its deeper layers. How cool is that?

For me, when the human world becomes too chaotic, I try to understand deeper layers, too. I work at expanding my heart, and I seek a bigger picture. I remember that the sun shines the next morning despite the human drama playing out on earth. 

And I listen for a sound to uplift me—rain on the roof, my dearest friend’s voice or my cat’s purr, a beautiful singer. Learning that the sun creates music as it shines lifts me up with light and sound. 

I also discovered recently a kind of sunrise within me each morning, too. On any given day, the quality of light inside may be diffuse or bright, depending on what I dreamt the night before, how my body feels that morning, or what emotions show up. Like internal weather.

If we greet the day by opening to that light, that sound— from an outer or inner sun— will we gain in peace and confidence? Maybe our personal world would brighten, no matter what surrounds us.

Even seeking that place is living as music.

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Giraffe in motion in the wild
Animal Story

Giraffes Hum!

by Emma Laurence

I first learned that giraffes hum to one another from reading the historical novel West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. The novel fictionalizes a 1937 trek across the U.S.A., when two young giraffes arrived in New York harbor during a hurricane, barely alive, and were transported by make-shift rig to the San Diego Zoo. [A great adventure tale, highly recommended.]

Who knew that giraffes hum?
Click below to listen to this extraordinary nocturnal sound:

Giraffe in motion in the wild

In the novel, the young giraffes hum to comfort one another, to create safety, and to express a sense of contentment. The human characters are awe-struck when they experience this vibration firsthand.

I got to wondering if people who experience insomnia might benefit from learning the giraffes’ secret to comfort and peace. Many of us may listen to ocean waves or soft music as a way to relax into sleep. But what about making our own sound?

It turns out that humming isn’t just soothing. It stimulates the vagus nerve and signals the brain to calm down. It lowers our heart rate and blood pressure. Humming produces oxytocin, can release melatonin, and induces parasympathetic dominance.

Several research studies have been done on humming’s healing impact. In fact, a book called The Humming Effect dives deeply into the topic.

As we look for ways to calm our nervous system, quiet our minds, and balance our emotions, isn’t it heartening to know that we carry with us this simple sound technique? I’m trying it out.

Thank you, giraffes!
That is living as music.

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If you know someone who could benefit by reading this blog, please pass it along and make their day. 😃

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.

Picture of Jacob Collier conducting his audience in singing harmonies.
Uncategorized

Jacob Collier Creates Community Harmony

by Emma Laurence

A community sound leader today is Jacob Collier. By creating beautiful, improvised harmonic experiences, Collier brings his audiences together in music.

Take a moment to notice how you feel right now, then listen to this extraordinary sound (2 min):

Do you feel differently after hearing this music? How so?

Harmony is heart opening, and it’s also mathematics. A surprising fact about this technique is that it’s quite simple. The sonic result is layered, so it may appear complex to create. But more than anything, harmony requires simple listening.

You can bring harmony to your family, friend group, classroom, office headquarters, courtroom, restaurant, Zoom call — anywhere you are, whenever you’d like — by listening differently.

You don’t even need to conduct the music. All you need to do is be the one who’s tuning into the overview, paying attention to where harmony already rings, where notes meet in the space between.

Two practical examples.

You manage a corporate team. You notice the common ground of disparate factions at a group meeting and speak up to say, “One thing we all agree on here is…” A single commonality serves as the strength of unison and the necessary first tone upon which to build harmony.

You’re a waitress at a restaurant. You begin to pay attention to the rhythm of co-working where timing is key — chefs to servers to patrons. Just by noticing the dance and your part in it, you begin to create a level of community harmony in your workplace.

Naming and noticing. Seems so simple. It is.

That is living as music.

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Looking for a creative way to navigate a transition in your life? I’m here to help.
💛Emma

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Find Your Rhythm. Harmonize with your heart.