While we listen to sound,
what is happening in the body?

When I play crystal bowls,
I sometimes sense small changes taking place in people’s bodies.

Breathing slows.

Faces soften.

Tension leaves the body.

After a performance, some people tell me,
“It feels like I slept very deeply,”
or “My mind has gone quiet.”

I myself
have experienced many times
how sound changes the way my body feels.

As I continued Full Body Listening,
a question arose.

While we listen to sound,
what is actually happening in the body?

I wanted to know a little more about that.

Feeling, and measuring.

One of the things I am looking at now
is heart rate variability, or HRV.

The heart
does not beat at fixed intervals like a machine;
the interval between each beat varies slightly.

Analyzing that variability
offers one clue
for considering how the autonomic nervous system is working
and what state the body is in.

Before listening to sound, and after.

What was felt in the body,
and the data that was measured.

Placing the two side by side.

That is what interests me so much.

Between numbers and sensation.

When I measure frequencies, too,
what I am doing is very similar.

Look at the numbers.
Listen to the sound.
Feel it with the body.

And then look at the numbers again.

Rather than deciding on an answer from just one side,
I observe what lies in the “in-between.”

I want to look at the body
in the same way.

“That felt good.”

That feeling, too, is an important record.

And the data left on the body’s side
becomes another clue for understanding that experience.

Sound and the body.

There is still
so much I want to know.

SENOA.

The place where I pursue this exploration
while people actually experience sound
is SENOA.

Listening to the resonance of crystal bowls with the whole body,
and measuring the state of the body before and after the session.

What was felt, and the record of the body.

From both,
we create time to come to know yourself.

In the “in-between” of sound and the body,
what changes are born?

I continue that exploration at SENOA.