Jeff Buckley:"Hallelujah"-waking up my emotional center?

aragorn

aragorn

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
This was too strong of an experience not to write about...

Now, I've been feeling sick for many weeks now (posted on magnesium miracle thread) but finally a few days ago I felt the physical symptoms going away (mostly phlegm in my sinuses/throat). This was replaced by a strange sadness I couldn't quite identify. I've long since suspected that I DO have strong emotional responses to things, but they somehow are suppressed (partly due to my upbringing in a scary environment, or so I believe).

On many occasions I've tried to "lure" or "stimulate" feelings for situations/people/happenings I KNOW should be very sad to me, but with no effect - no tears. Sometimes I've succeeded "getting through" to my emotions after a longer breathing-meditation. And I don't mind the "hard work" that it demands...it's just that I don't always have the time (sorry this oldest of excuses!) to meditate.

So, anyways, as I've told you I've been feeling sad, but haven't been able to "get it out". This evening I was driving home from work and I just happened to turn on the car radio. I usually don't listen to any music in the car, but this time I felt I needed some "distraction". And after some quick searching I heard this amazingly touching voice singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Now, I've heard this song before sung by Cohen himself, but never by this man, Jeff Buckley - and OMG was this a experience!

In my line of work I hear singers all the time, and I've also try to teach my own singing pupils to "sing with a true feeling". However, I've seldom been moved so much by a performance as this. I could be fooled of course by Jeff, but I don't care, his singing and this song REALLY wakes up something deep emotional in me. I was weeping all the way home in the car (almost an hour), and at home I wept some more...still sobbing  :cry:

It is strange: even though I'm very sad (for the many things flying through my brain right now, and for things I even don't recognize) I feel liberated - I know that my "emotional center" is finally working! I feel it was not so much the lyrics (all though the lyrics also triggered something) but the overall feeling of the melody and Jeff's "commitment".

For those of you not familiar with this interpretation of "Hallelujah", here goes (I recommend listening to it without watching the screen):

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnJ-4p9fYxg&feature=related

p.s. I was sad to learn that Jeff Buckley has passed away.
 
I have frequently had the kind of experience you are talking about. As a result, I truly believe that that very gifted singers and songwriters have the ability to trigger the opening of the emotional centre through their work -- especially if you are a great lover of music and poetry. I believe the same is potentially true for all works of art, be it music, visual art, literature, poetry, plays, films, etc.

Leonard Cohen is my favourite songwriter of all time. His music instantly opens my emotional centre, I often feel that he has written the soundtrack to my life. Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah is outstanding (though I confess a slight preference for k.d. lang's version, which can be heard HERE.)

When my second marriage ended, I had to exert a great deal of effort to get through the day in my very busy and demanding job, without letting my sadness and grief overcome me. As a result, I would have difficulty accessing those emotions outside of work. Like you, I discovered that a very specific piece of music seemed to break down the walls built up during the day, and allow me to cry out my grief and sadness.

For those interested, the piece is Loreena McKennit's "Dante's Song", which can be heard HERE; from her brilliant CD "Book of Secrets". It is a moving song, but I find the Russian monks choral accompaniament at the end particulary evocative.
 
K.D.Lang - yes I'm a great fan of her! I listened to her version; for my taste it's too romantic - there's too much "feeling" instead of "pain" compared to Jeff Buckley. This is of course completely a matter of taste/"key to the opening".

There certainly is something to sound waves (á la Choral Castle) and music that can change your whole persona and emotions...at least for a while ;)
 
Thanks Aragorn for providing that link, it also made me cry. Here is another singer that I think also has the ability to trigger the opening of the emotional center, his name is Andrew Johnston.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyHuNnIdp64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hhOXu-wSoc&feature=related
 
Remarkable for me that these two pieces of music would be referenced in a thread here, both being among my favorites. What makes these pieces so powerful in my opinion is the collaborative combination of at least 2 different points of view. Hallelujah is a near perfect composition by Cohen, and Jeff Buckley brings an emotional reading to it which I don't think Leonard would ever have conceived himself and yet takes it even further. The result is more than the sum of the parts. I've shed a few tears with this one, too. I think it is because of the power of collaboration involving strong individual contributors.

Dante's Prayer is another really evocative emotional piece. What really makes it extra-special is the addition of the choir. Those are my favorite parts. Loreena McKennitt has many emotive, brilliant and evocative songs and I wouldn't say this is my very favorite song of hers, but this song, to me is special for those choir parts which are emotional in a very special way. Again, I think it is because of the collaboration.

Thank you both aragorn & Pepperfritz for sharing the details you did.
Taking this concept a little further, imagine the world we would live in if we all collaborated with each other in every little way to produce results like these!
 
Yes, this is an extraordinary song, it never fails to "wake up my emotional center". Very powerful, and I agree with the Venusian, way stronger then Cohen's version.

I first heard it couple of years ago in an excellent German movie called The Educators (__http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408777/ ) about young people who think they can fight the system...well, don't want to spoil it for you.

Reading about Buckley's tragic life I am not surprised hallelujah is imbued with so much pain.
 
aragorn said:
This evening I was driving home from work and I just happened to turn on the car radio. I usually don't listen to any music in the car, but this time I felt I needed some "distraction". And after some quick searching I heard this amazingly touching voice singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Now, I've heard this song before sung by Cohen himself, but never by this man, Jeff Buckley - and OMG was this a experience!
Click to expand...

Thank you aragon for sharing your experience.
It looks like you experienced something that Jeff Buckley (and myself) experienced after listening to the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

From Jeff Buckley:
The first time I heard the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was in Harlem, 1990. My roommate and I stood there, blasting it in his room. We were all awash in the thick undulating tide of dark punjabi tabla rhythyms, spiked with synchronized handclaps booming from above and below in hard, perfect time.

I heard the clarion call of harmoniums dancing the antique melody around like giant, singing wooden spiders. Then all of a sudden, the rising of one, then ten voices hovering over the tonic like a flock of geese ascending into formation across the sky.

Then came the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel...his voice is velvet fire, simply incomparable. Nusrat's blending of classical improvisations to the art of Qawwali, combined with his out and out daredevil style and his sensitivity, outs him in a category all his own, above all others in his field.

His every enunciation went straight into me. I knew not one word of Urdu, and somehow it still hooked me into the story that he weaved with his wordless voice. I remember my senses fully froze in order to feel melody after melody crash upon each other in waves of improvisation; with each line being repeated by the men in the chorus, restated again by the main soloists, and then Nusrat setting the whole bloody thing alflame with his rapid-fire scatting, turning classical Indian Solfeggio (Sa, Re, Gha, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni) into a chaotic/manic birdsong. The phrase burst into a climax somewhere, with Nusrat's upper register painting a melody that made my heart long to fly. The piece went on for fifteen minutes. I ate my heart out. My roommate just looked at me knowingly, muttering, "Nusrat...Fa-teh...A-li...Khaaan," like he had just scored the wine of the century. I felt a rush of adrenaline in my chest, like I was on the edge of a cliff, wondering when I would jump and how well the ocean would catch me: two questions that would never be answered until I experienced the first leap.

That is the sensation and the character of Qawwali music, the music of the Sufis, as best I can describe it.

In between the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit is the void. The Qawwali is the messenger who leaps empty-handed into the abyss and returns carrying messages of love from the Beloved (Allah). These messages have no words, per se, but at the high point of a Qawwali performance, they come in bursts of light into the hearts and minds of the members of the audience. (Of course, by that time the whole house is either hanging from the rafters, or dancing.) This is called Marifat, the inner knowledge, and it is in the aim of the Qawwali tradition to bring the listener into this state: first through the beauty of the poetry and the weight of its meaning; then, eventually, through the Qawwali's use of repetition; repeating the key phrases of the poem until the meaning has melted away to reveal the true form to the listener. I've seen Nusrat and his party repeatedly melt New Yorkers into human beings. At times I've seen him in such a trance while singing that I am sure that the world does not exist for him any longer. The effect it has is gorgeous. These men do not play music, they are music itself.

The texts from which traditional Qawwals are sung come from the works of the great sufi poets: Bulle Shah (1680-1753), Shams Tabrez (d. 1247), Shah Hussain (1538-1599), and the great Sufi poet and scholar, Amir Khusrav (1253-1325), who was the inventor of Qawwali itself. These texts are devotional, of course, meaning poems of worship for Allah (Hamd) and the prophet Muhammad (N'ati-Sharif). There are also love poems (ghazals), where a more secular romantic interplay is happening between man and woman (which I can dig). The Qawwali's, however, see ghazals as a metaphor between Man and the Divine. They don't care about which meaning was derived from where. In the true Sufi way, through their music, any meaning that is needed by the listener is there for the listener to absorb. For the true Qawwali, all meanings of the music exist simutaneously and there is no need of purpose for religious dogma. There is only the pilgrimage to the light within the heart, which is the home of God. There is only a pure devotion and a fierce virtuosity to grow wings and soar through music. To plant a kiss on the eyes of Allah and then sing His loving gaze back home into the hearts of Man.

-Jeff Buckley, New York, 1997
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http://www.liquidgnome.com/JeffBuckley/nusrat.html

A little qoute from the interview, that Jeff Buckley conducted with NFAK:
JEFF BUCKLEY: The first real Qawwali I ever heard was called "Yeh Jo Halka Halka," from the album The Day, the Night, the Dawn, the Dusk on Shanachie Records.

NUSRAT FATEH ALl KHAN: You liked it?

JB: It saved my life. I was in a very bad place.

NFAK: Where were you?

JB: Just depressed.

NFAK: I see.
Click to expand...
Link to whole interview: http://www.junoonforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=95643&sid=9cb79c2b17111d7d5cfa3661e179b1bf

Which brings me to my own experience with NFAK and possible waking of emotional center.
In 1996 I was released from jail after 'serving' 7 years sentence. While 'doing time' I heard once on the radio this incredible, rhythmic, arabic music. For days I couldn't get it out my head. So I went around asking middle eastern inmates, if they could recommend me some names, titles of this kind of music for future listening.
One of them, when I told him what I was after, just said to me four words: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Then he turn around and walked away.
Curiously, later I found, his name was Arabi. He was from South America, grew up in old fashioned, religious Lebanese family, his parents left Beirut before all trouble there broke out.

Five years later, after my release, the first CD I bought was that of NFAK. And I kept buying... I ended up buying about 60 of them.

At that time my life was full of strange happenings, strange relationships and strange experiences.
I lived and worked in Sydney. Every Friday however, straight after work I drove 100 km west to my tiny place in Blue Mountains.
Here I didn't know anyone, I didn't talk or socialize with anyone.
What was happening was what I called - "getting it out of my system"
Days and nights I spent on endless bushwalks, getting lost there and finding my way back.
Back at home (in BM) I constantly played the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. And I couldn't control crying.
I cried more then any time before in my life. I also couldn't listen to any other music (I tried...), nothing else 'would do'.
When in Sydney NFAK's music endlessly played in my head.

Unfortunately, at the time I didn't recognize it for what it was, possible waking of emotional center, and slipped back to 'darker side' (STS).

It took much bigger shock later and coming upon this pages to see what was happening - but that's another story.

Here's one of NFAK videos http://video.google.com.au/videosearch?q=Nusrat+Fateh+Ali+Khan&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#
 
Gotta say this info caught me by surprise. I didn't know of the connection between Jeff Buckley and Nusrat (thank you, OzRich, for telling us about it) but have been a huge fan of Qawwali music, especially Nusrat's for years. Sabri Brothers (from Pakistan) also has similar effect for me, though none quite equal Nusrat's amazing voice.
I have had the good fortune of hearing music of this nature performed live, and it remains mostly unequaled by performances of western music in terms of its sheer emotional power, at least for me.
I am a veteran of a couple of Indian guru groups from long ago, and though I have long since discarded the misguided teachings, the practice of chanting Qawwali-like melodies with repetitive lines, call and response singing, and the tremendous power for opening one's emotional center remains strong in memory. Very powerful stuff, especially when done in a group.
I'd be very interested in knowing more from the researchers and scholars of Sufi wisdom here about the particulars & science of this if anyone knows.
 
I am also a Nusrat fan and came across this thread whilst googling.

I felt compelled to comment after ozrich's post. Firstly, thanks for making me aware of the link between Buckley and Nusrat. That revelation's a real eye opener for me.

Reading Buckleys experience of Nusrat struck a few chords with me too. Buckleys description of Nusrats voice as 'velvet fire' was spot on. That's the first time I've heard Nusrats voice described like that and it seems to fit perfectly.

Anyone that listens to Nusrat can understand the emotional effect his music can have, especially to someone who's depressed or exhillirated. Reading about the emotional effect Nusrat had on Buckley and thinking about the untimely death of Nusrat brings a tear to my eye.

ozrich, reading your own story is also tear-jerkeng. It's amazing how his music can have such a profound effect on peoples lives.

RIP Nusrat and Jeff.
 
Clarissa Pinkola Estes has helped me to comprehend the real meaning and the necessity of tears

Here some quotes I found:

Clarissa Pinkola said:
“The real miracle of individuation and reclamation of the Wild Woman/man is that we all begin the process before we are ready, before we are strong enough, before we know enough; we begin a dialogue with thoughts and feelings that both tickle and thunder within us. We respond before we know how to speak the language, before we know all the answers, and before we know exactly to whom we are speaking.”
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Clarissa Pinkola said:
We are reminded again and again of the power of this great feeling. There is drawing power in tears, and within the tear itself, powerful images that guide us. Tears not only represent feeling but are also lenses through which we gain an alternative vision, another point of view”
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Clarissa Pinkola said:
"Tears say, 'I admit the wound.'
When we face our wound, tears come naturally.
When we face our wound, we have come upon our sorrow.
Tears release us from having to protect ourselves from the wound.
Tears move us forward.
Tears call us to new beginnings.
Tears correct what needs correcting.
When the tears are pure (true tears),
weeping keeps the predator away.
The power of evil is broken when tears are shed.
Tears help us to continue grieving.
Tears save us from collapsing."
Click to expand...
 
aragorn said:
In my line of work I hear singers all the time, and I've also try to teach my own singing pupils to "sing with a true feeling". However, I've seldom been moved so much by a performance as this. I could be fooled of course by Jeff, but I don't care, his singing and this song REALLY wakes up something deep emotional in me. I was weeping all the way home in the car (almost an hour), and at home I wept some more...still sobbing :cry:

It is strange: even though I'm very sad (for the many things flying through my brain right now, and for things I even don't recognize) I feel liberated - I know that my "emotional center" is finally working! I feel it was not so much the lyrics (all though the lyrics also triggered something) but the overall feeling of the melody and Jeff's "commitment".
Click to expand...
Thank you for opening this thread aragorn. These days I have had in mind to talk about this curious quality of music and the human voice. This song Hallelujah, I like it very much and I have heard it interpreted by different people in an excellent way! But, on a certain occasion, while watching a musical meeting, I heard it interpreted by Joe again. Unexpectedly, tears came to my eyes. Something in Joe's voice unlocked my emotional center. I was very struck by this event. I thought it was "yet another time" to hear one of my favorite songs and melodies. Of course, when a person speaks or sings, through the voice channel, there is a kind of frequency that carries through the voice. I learned that from the Cs when they told us about Laura's voice.

Well, it also happened to me with a violin, unexpectedly. André Rieu's violin. Then I listened to the same melody again and the crying didn't happen again. Now, I know that at some point, when I least expect it, some voice or piece of music will touch some fibers inside me to collaborate in the healing of the pain.

Here I share the video of a great musical reunion. The song in question is around minute 9:

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
 
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