- 歌曲
- 时长
简介
"Music is called Ghiza-i Ruh - the food of the soul - by Sufis. Music being the most divine art elevates the soul to the higher spirit; music itself being unseen soon reaches the unseen; just as only the diamond can break the diamond, so musical vibrations are used to make the physical and mental vibrations inactive, in order that the Sufi may be elevated to the spiritual spheres." ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan This release is my first foray into the meditation & spiritual music genres, inspired by the writings of Sufi mystic and master musician Hazrat Inayat Khan. Unlike most composers in this niche, who primarily use keyboards and synthesizers, I experimented with new instrumentation and effects on my MIDI bass guitar to come up with a customized patch of several Indian, Mediterranean, and Middle-Eastern stringed instruments, including the santur (or santoor), qanun (or kanun), and Khan's beloved veena (or vina). It is written that in order to complete their spiritual journey, a Sufi must advance through seven stages, or states of being sometimes referred to as "mystical veils", so I added drones, synth vox, and other sounds - six in total, each with a different time duration, and played everything in real-time via MIDI bass pedals, to come up with an organic long-form composition that is both cyclical and elastic, much like the traditional Sufi whirling dervishes. Given the concept, I used the fifth mode of E harmonic minor, or its Phrygian dominant, as the main scale. It is widely used in Indian, Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern, and Arabic music, even though it is known by many different names whether as a dastgah, maqam, or raga. Even the artwork colors I chose where inspired by, and in accordance with, Sufi iconography: "luminous black" and "brilliant green" (the traditional color of Islam), after the final two colors of light that are supposed to provide the seeker with a recognition of the stage of their spiritual progress.