NMR ISSUE 29

An Urban Wicca
Astrological Forecast 29
Editorial 29
Flamingo, Centipede & Falcon
Gratitude
Letters 29
Mari
Media Manipulation
Outing Children
Spirit of the Night
The Goddess of Writing Speaks
The Magical Flute
The Magickal Diary
The Split Between Spirit and Nature

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The Magical Flute

One: Your Special Flute

By Lew Paxton Price

Many of us have thought of having a special instrument of our own to use for advanced magical purposes. This is not a new idea. The people of older cultures, those who still knew the real purpose of music, used instruments for such things. Today, most of us do not know what to look for or all its uses. But we still have that longing for such an instrument. I would like to suggest a flute because they are easy to carry, maintain and store, and they are relatively inexpensive. They also have a few other benefits that are not readily perceived. But what flute, what other benefits, and how to choose a flute? For those not proficient on a flute, the following list of uses can be helpful.

1) The human body responds to mental and emotional states. If you are worried or fearful, the body reflects this. The muscles are tenser, which reduces circulation. The adrenaline is more likely to flow from what is seen as potential threats. In the short run, you easily recover. But prolonged stress on the body will result in an immune system that is less capable, poor blood chemistry, and the onset of disease or even injury. So you need to disconnect your mind from your body periodically to let the body return to normal. This is especially true if you are in a stressful situation or job. How do you do this?

Years ago, I practiced a technique in which I made my mind a blank and actually forgot who I was for a time. There is more to the proper preparation for this technique, of course, but to help, I would lie down, place my head midway between two stereo speakers, and listen to soothing music at a volume that was not too loud, but loud enough to have its effect. In later years, I have found that playing the right kind of flute will do this as well and with some superior side effects. This is one important use for the flute.

2) The minds of most people are in the Beta State. Here the brain pulses dominantly at more than fourteen times per second. This is the state from which one must escape from time to time. In the alpha state the brain pulses at a lower rate. Below the alpha is the Theta State. The lower states are the ones that are important for good health, problem solving, setting and attaining goals, and for experiencing pleasure more deeply. And the flute can help one to reach the lower cyclic states of brain activity and its accompanying physiological effects.

3) The body depends upon the lungs to maintain the proper pH in the blood. Cellular activity produces carbonic acid. This is eliminated when broken down into carbon dioxide and water (the exhaust from your own engine) which your lungs expel. When you breathe often and deeply, it eliminates more carbonic acid and your blood becomes basic (higher pH). This is a delicate balance because too much breathing can make the blood too basic and this causes dizziness and eventual unconsciousness (hyperventilation). Playing a flute makes one breathe a bit more deeply and more often without overdoing it, and keeps the blood at a healthy basic level. Disease germs prefer blood with an acid pH level and most of these germs cannot thrive in a basic environment. So the flute helps to maintain health by keeping the blood slightly basic.

Good flute players also use the diaphragm and learn to keep it tight, as do singers. This keeps the diaphragm in good shape and tends to prevent a type of hernia in which the top of the stomach begins to protrude through the diaphragm where only the esophagus is supposed to be.

These are some hints of the benefits one can experience from playing a flute. Many of them depend on the alpha state. It is the state that people are in when they are visualizing strongly, as when mentally designing something. In its lower levels, and sometimes down into theta, one can forget, for a time, all life's problems and even forget life (don't worry, you don't need to remember your life all the time for your body to live). Alpha is the level of brain activity when actively dreaming. And alpha has other names in other disciplines and languages.

People have developed various ways to increase their ability to use alpha. They have found that by increasing the amplitude of alpha in the brain, its effects are stronger. They have found that the deeper the level of alpha, the deeper a pattern is established in the mind. In fact, if you visualize something while in deep alpha, you must go back to that same level of alpha if you wish to alter the way you remember it. For instance, if you are mentally rearranging your living room and you move the sofa to the north wall while in alpha and then decide to change its location to the south wall while in beta, you won't see the sofa at the south wall next time you recall it because you had it last at the north wall while in alpha. This is important. The body responds to visual imagery. So you need to be in deep alpha to establish a healthy visualization of your body if you want to have good health. Then, each time you think of your body, you will naturally remember it as healthy and this image of health will continue reinforce the health message to your body. In other words, alpha is the pattern-setting state.

It takes practice to maintain conscious thought while in the deeper states of alpha and more practice to learn to maintain consciousness when in the Theta State. Unexpected, loud, rude sounds deliver a strong shock to one in these deeper states, and these states cannot be achieved when such sounds are present. Rhythmic drumbeats of the proper frequency can enhance alpha or theta, but these are sounds that are expected and they achieve their effect by occurring at precise intervals of time.

At one time, alpha training was accomplished through feedback in the form of a buzzer that went off when a person arrived at the alpha state. Each time the buzzer went off, the alpha state was lost, and the buzzer tended to condition one to expect to lose the alpha state each time it was achieved. Needless to say, there are better ways to increase the amplitude of one's alpha mode.

To use a flute to bring on alpha, it is wise to use one that requires little conscious effort and one that does not make rude noises. The usual scale we hear today is the diatonic scale. It is not the best scale to use for achieving and maintaining alpha because it is composed of notes that are not always harmonious when played together. The human ear/brain mechanism tends to subconsciously relate notes played at different times and can detect notes that do not harmonize well. You can hear this phenomenon consciously by using an instrument such as a guitar or piano to play two inharmonious notes at once.

For most people, playing a flute that requires a trained lip is an exercise in concentration. Any lapse in this concentration can lead to an unexpected, rude sound. Sometimes, this much concentration is a detriment to maintaining the proper mental state, and an unexpected, rude sound is definitely a detriment. The same is true of playing a flute that requires complex and disciplined finger work or very sensitive breath control. Transverse flutes, diagonals, endblown types and others of like nature require a trained lip. Flutes with scales containing notes that do not sound harmonious when played together require complex finger work. Also, multiple octave flutes require sensitive breath control.

So transverse flutes, diagonals, notched endblown types, others requiring a lip, flutes having certain scales, and multiple octave flutes are not the best for the average, untrained person. Once one has achieved a certain level of proficiency on any flute (including those just mentioned), that allows one to play the flute subconsciously; the danger of disturbing the alpha state with the flute is gone. But this advanced ability on the flute is not possible for most of us until we have had years of practice.

Usually, the more pleasing the sound, the better the results from any particular exercise. So the flute one should use in most alpha exercises should sound as pleasant as possible to the flutist. What is most pleasing to one of us may not be most pleasing to another, so the choice of sound quality is definitely an individual thing. However, there are some sounds that seem to be almost universally felt as pleasing, and a flute playing this sound is a safe bet for your special flute.

The key of a flute is another consideration. Long ago, people discovered that a single octave flute in the pentatonic scale had a practical maximum length when it had only finger holes of the same size (no thumbhole and no variation in size of finger holes). Because the key of a flute is lower when the flute is longer, this set the practical limit for the key of the flute at about what we now call F sharp. In this key, the length of the flute is such that the fingers can still spread comfortably without straining. Flutes of the same type, tuned above the A above middle C become rather shrill to the ear in their higher ranges. The two-octave flutes usually had a diatonic scale with fewer half-intervals between notes, so the fingers could be kept closer together and allow the key to drop comfortably to a D. This left the midrange of the flute to begin at about the key of G which is only a half-interval above F sharp.

So the physical dimensions of the human body may have helped to establish a racial memory of what key sounds best to us. That key, when considering the flute's lowest note as its key, is something between F sharp and the A above middle C. This gives us a choice of single octave flutes in the keys of F sharp, G, G sharp, and A. This is not to say that someone with a larger hand could not choose an F or an E, or that someone with a very small eardrum or just a particularly high preference could not choose something higher than an A. And by drilling finger holes of varying sizes on the same flute, a flute with a lower key may be used comfortably by someone with smaller hands. Generally speaking, however, your choice of key might best be either F sharp, G, G sharp, or the A above middle C.

There is only one scale that has all its notes harmonious with its fundamental (beginning note). This is the pentatonic (five-note) scale in its most common form that I call mode one, or its next most common form that I call mode four. Within mode one of this scale are four notes that compose a chord we call the minor dominant seventh. These four notes are very harmonious in any combination including all four played simultaneously.

Ideally, a flute using only the four notes of the minor dominant seventh is the best sound except that this will eventually become monotonous. The whole pentatonic scale in either mode one or mode four, which includes one more note and the octave note as well, seems to cure the monotony. Oddly enough, the ancient Chinese chose mode one in the key of F sharp as their standard. It is also the closest thing to a standard for most of the known ancient Native American flutes.

To summarize: For all but the more advanced flute players, a form of flute that requires only blowing into it to obtain a pleasing sound is best. The flute should have only slightly over one octave of range. It should have a quality of sound that you prefer. It should be in a key between F sharp and A above middle C, and it should have a pentatonic scale.

Flutes that do not require a trained lip are called block flutes. They include the recorder, the flageolet, the tin whistle, the old bamboo whistle of the Indo-Europeans, the Native American love flute and the square bore whistle of South America. Of these, the Native American love flute is the one that best fits the other qualifications. It has only a little over an octave in range, is most often tuned pentatonically, is usually in a key between F sharp and A above middle C, and it sounds elegantly beautiful, like a transverse flute as opposed to the harshness found in a recorder or a whistle.

The only other major choice is whether to buy one or make it yourself. This will be the topic of the next article in this series.

1993 Lew Paxton Price