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SKIDMORE COLLEGE

Saratoga Springs

Comparative Approaches to Music-Induced Trance States

A thesis satisfying the requirements of an Honors Bachelor of the Arts in Music

Degree

by

Maxwell Weigel

2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Acknowledgements 3

2. Introduction 4

3. Literature Review 9

4. Case Studies

I. The meanings of taksu and trance within Balinese culture 21

II. The meanings of meditation and shakuhachi in Japanese 38

and American culture

III. Trance-like states in Western classical music 48

IV. Trance-like states in electronic music 54

5. Conclusions 58

6. References

I. Interviews 62

II. Literature 63

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Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful for the wealth of knowledge I Ketut Bujana, Dr. John

Chowning, Dr. I Wayan Dibia, Elliot Kallen, Simon Klein, Makhzuna Khudoynazarova,

I Made Lasmawan, Robin Luongo, I Ketut Rasnawa, Bill Schultz and Desmond Siu contributed to my research process. In addition, I thank Dr. Lei Bryant and Dr. Flip

Phillips, as their respective ethnomusicological and psychological perspectives have proven tremendously valuable to my work. Finally, I would like to thank Dr.

Elizabeth Macy for advising the completion of this thesis over the course of eight months, providing me with all of the advice, opportunities, information and patience necessary for the completion of my capstone project.

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Introduction

As a musician, I have experienced enough nerves when performing to recognize and try to harness them. When successful, I reach a meditative calm, wherein I can disregard the past or future to focus intuitively on the aspects of a performance necessary at that moment. As an audience member, I have witnessed talented musicians accomplish stunning acts of musicality without breaking a sweat, leaving me to stand in awe and feel a rush of energy. Moreover, as someone who researches both psychology and ethnomusicology, I have pondered just how music can affect us in such a variety of different contexts. This paper explores how music facilitates interactions between minds and bodies of performers and listeners in what I refer to as music-induced trance states.

My aim in this paper is to synthesize ethnomusicological fieldwork and perspectives with findings in the fields of psychology and neuroscience to explore the nature of music-induced trance states. I focus on three main questions:

1. How are trance or trance-like behaviors acquired and disseminated

2. Are there similarities amongst cultures and societies that feature trances

or trance-like behaviors in their traditions, and

3. What is the extent to which trance and trance-like behaviors can

permeate any society.

This Capstone Project examines how trance or trance-like behaviors figure into

Balinese, Japanese and contemporary Western music practice via interviews, ethnographic fieldwork and literature comparisons. 5

In order to do this, I have accrued a variety of academic criteria that I utilize to assess such cultural practices and understand how trance states function both through emic and etic lenses. I understand trance to be a number of similar mental states that can affect one’s physiology. An individual typically focuses intensely on the distinct characteristics of the trance state, to the extent that they ignore or disregard their immediate environment (Becker). This disconnect from one’s surroundings (in addition to the neuronal underpinnings of the state) sometimes causes the practitioner of trance to believe they are possessed, and they often experience somewhat of a lack of short-term memories (ibid.). Typically, this behavior is learned within one’s culture, where practitioners engage in trance through contextual cues similar to those that induced a trance state in their predecessors. More often than not, music acts as one of these contextual cues, defining and directing the course of an individual’s trance state.

In comparing and contrasting trances, I subdivide trance-like states into two main categories: ecstatic trance, involving an excitatory state wherein one loses control over one’s muscular actions due to altered inhibitional facilities, heightened endorphin levels and excited bodily functions (i.e. heart rate); or meditative trance, a reflective state where bodily functions (i.e. respiratory cycles) are depressed to facilitate greater control over one’s physiology and consciousness (Zacks & Hasher;

Henry; Schmit). Elements of both categories can appear in many trance states, 6 although the physiological manifestation of the ASC1 will provide me with my basic definition of it.

In this paper, I focus primarily on two different cultures’ musical practices to elucidate my definition of trance. First, Balinese gamelan: a performance of metallophones, percussion and other instruments utilized in sacred and secular contexts. Within a gamelan performance, performers or audience members may enter a diverse range of trances, from the sacred Sanghyang2 to the manic

Rangda/Barong3 ritual (Edge). Second, the Japanese shakuhachi: a bamboo flute that became somewhat synonymous with the Fuke4 sect of Zen Buddhism, whose komuso5 priests would use the instrument to achieve individualized meditative states. While the komuso have since disappeared, the use of the shakuhachi as a tool for meditation, rather than performance, still remains popular within certain circles of Japanese and even American society (Keister 100). After examining these two traditions, I determine modern Western counterparts to these trance behaviors. To do so, I interviewed electronic musicians who have induced ecstatic states within crowds, and classical musicians who claim to reach a certain meditative mental state

1 Altered State of Consciousness, a term coined by Arnold M. Ludwig in assessing any mental state differing from waking states characterized by beta-wave activity and normal, theta-wave dominated sleeping states (Ludwig). 2 A sacred Balinese dance performed by two young girls in a possession trance state (Davies 196). 3 A sacred Balinese ritual intended to maintain the balance between the human and spirit world and depicting a battle between the evil witch Rangda and the mythical beast Barong (Becker 43). 4 The Fukeshu were a sect of Zen Buddhists that can trace back their lineage to a group of monks travelling from China in the 13th century. Up until Japan’s Meiji era, they practiced meditation with their shakuhachis and rejected society in favor of a life of relative poverty (Keister 99; Sanford 412). “monks of nothingness” who practiced 5 fuke zen Buddhism during Japan’s Tokugawa era (Keister 104). 7 when performing and conducting music (Siu Feb. 22; Luongo Feb. 25; Klein Mar. 4;

St. John).

To better understand these trance states and their contexts, I established contact with informants and conducted fieldwork to bolster my archival and library research. For the first three weeks of 2015, I travelled to Bali, Indonesia as part of a travel seminar in order to conduct interviews, attend temple festivals (odalan), and study and perform multiple styles of gamelan music. This trip provided me with opportunities to speak with both professional educators and ameteur performers of

Balinese gamelan, including reknowned musicians and dancers I Made Lasmawan and I Wayan Dibia. To gain more perspective on shakuhachi pedagogy and practice, I interviewed professional musicians and teachers Bill Schultz and Elliot Kallen. In addition, conversations with composer and inventor of FM synthesis John

Chowning6 addressed some of the psychoacoustic principles I am interested in within the context of music-induced trances. Alongside these interviews, I have talked to individuals around Skidmore’s campus who have either participated in the aforementioned dance music festivals, inducing ecstatic trance states; or those who have experienced meditative states from performing music with personal meaning.

Considering trance states are not as commonly discussed in contemporary

Western musical practice due to cultural norms and expectations, and that I was exposed to such a wealth of individuals open to discussing their experience with

Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs) in Bali, there is an imbalance in the number of case studies conducted on each target area of research. Regardless, these

6 John Chowning was a guest on my radio show at Skidmore College radio station 91.1 WSPN on February 23, 2015. 8 conversations with scholars and musicians offer me an insider’s perspective into the cultural, historical and psychological contexts of trance states as I hear personal accounts of experiences with ASCs.

I will begin my analysis of music-induced trance states with a The meanings of taksu and trance within Balinese culture, examining research conducted on the traditions under analysis, their place within their respective cultures, and the psychological mechanisms underlying their functions. Following my evaluation of the current body of research on music-induced trance, I will analyze and discuss interviews conducted on Skidmore College’s campus, in Bangah, Bali, Indonesia, and via video calls. The first collection of interviews and my fieldwork covers my stay in

Bali, where I spent three weeks. The next section of my thesis investigates shakuhachi tradition and practices through conversations with scholars about the instrument and suizen7 Following this analysis, I discuss my research conducted on

Skidmore’s student body: first assessing how individuals relate to electronic dance music, and then examining attitudes regarding classical performance experiences.

Finally, I include and evaluate portions of my interview with psychoacoustician, composer and inventor of FM synthesis John Chowning.

Following this analysis, I will present my conclusions about my three research questions. This synthesis will lead into suggestions for further avenues of research regarding the trance and trance-like states described in this paper.

7 Roughly translating to “blowing Zen/meditation,” the practice of playing shakuhachi as a means to meditate through the use of the instrument’s sacred honkyoku repertoire, which is designed to regulate an individual’s breathing patterns (Keister 104; Schultz). 9

Literature Review

Increasingly, researchers approach trance states from as many analytical perspectives as there are different types of trance states around the world.

Theoretical approaches from the fields of religious studies, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, musicology and sociology have assessed the roles and features of trance states, and each distinct approach to the subject presents material that supplements other methodologies. Ethnomusicologist Richard C. Jankowsky of

Tufts University’s research suggests that focusing too heavily on one aspect of trance, such as the music that often accompanies the state, can be problematic, as it ultimately abstracts the trance from the larger ritual or practice to which it contributes (187). He notes the conflict between scientific (etic) approaches, which generalize behaviors from a rationalizing lens; and more phenomenological (emic) approaches, which consequently describe behaviors from a more experiential approach. In a similar vein, Judith Becker’s work attempts to balance both scientific and phenomenological tactics to elucidate trance behaviors, seeing value in knowing both the neuronal and cultural bases of trance. Regardless of the methodology used, it is integral recognize and understand whatever system of beliefs a culture might use to contextualize their individual trances states, considering that societies which include trances as part of rituals often attribute their respective ASCs to any number of divine sources. 10

Depending on the culture under analysis, researchers may emphasize different approaches. Jankowsky focused his studies on stambeli (a ritual healing music that Tunisian slaves developed by fusing sub-Saharan and North African

Muslim beliefs) through immersion: he lived within the Barnu reigon of Tunisia for two years and learned the practices integral to stambeli rituals (186). Stambeli music rests upon a polyrhythmic three over two beat bedrock, led by singing from a galadima kbir (great chief) and yinna (musician healer who plays the 3-stringed gumbri) (ibid.). His work draws on comparisons with other trance rituals including

Afro-Cuban Santeria, Brazilian candomble, and Tumbuka vimbuza in Malawi, he notes how music remains integral to inducing trance, yet he doubts there are any inherent musical qualities necessary to induce trance.

Psychologists often employ a radically different approach to evaluate the causes and features of trance behaviors. Rather than immerse themselves within

Ugandan culture and ceremonies to understand their frequent spirit possessions

(what they see as a “…common idiom of distress in Uganda”), psychologists

Marjolein van Duijl, Wim Kleijn and Joop De Jong tackled these local manifestations of suffering from a diagnostic perspective (1417). They lumped symptoms of spirit- possessed patients into criteria gathered primarily from the DSM-V (but also compared them to criteria from the DSM-IV) for Dissociative Trance Disorder (DTD) and Possessive Trance Disorder (PTD), the latter of which is a subset of the often- debated Dissociative Identity Disorder, yet only considering them disorders if the symptoms were unwanted outside of culturally relevant and beneficial trances

(ibid.). They talked to 119 spirit possessed patients, finding either passive 11 symptoms (e.g. feeling influenced by outside powers, strange dreams) or active symptoms (e.g. shaking movements, talking in voices attributed to spirits) that resemble certain DSM IV and V criteria in an effort to revise the newer manual’s definition of each trance disorder.

Biophysicist Elmer Green assesses trance states through more concrete physiological criteria (Schmit 1). He created a portable psychophysiological lab that he brought to the Ganges River in Rishikesh in the Himalayas, hooking it up to expert yoga practitioners (Yogiraja) within an airtight box to measure his physiology. Somewhat removed from the scenic environments the yogiraja are used to, Green found that the yogiraja could still lower their breath rate to four breaths a minute over a period of seven hours (ibid.). Schmit continues to provide an overview on how such research came about from Romantic era intellectuals’,

Transcendentalists’ and even the American clergy’s interests in unusual states of mind (e.g. sleepwalking, hallucinations, etc.) under the broad field of mesmerism

(ibid.). Scholars such as George Sandby (1799-1881) and John Kearsley Mitchell

(1798-1858) focused on American Indians’ and Catholic priests’ ecstatic and meditative states as induced by music, featuring basic evaluations of physiology (e.g. temperature, skin pallor) in early examples of scientific approaches to trance behaviors (Schmit 12-13).

In my first case study of trance, I analyze ecstatic and group trance behaviors as they pertain to Balinese gamelan practice. Every Balinese village’s gamelan ensemble includes local farmers and laborers who perform on drums and metallophones such as the reyong (a line of bronze gongs suspended on rope), 12 kendhang (a two headed drum), gender (a set of ten or more metal bars hovering above a resonator), cengceng (a pair of small cymbals), and a variety of other instruments, all of which accompany dance (Suryani and Jensen). Each ensemble’s instruments are typically in slendro tuning: an evenly spaced, pentatonic (five-note) scale. The instruments interlock and overlap in a colotomic structure, denoting the lengths, rhythms and repetitions of instruments according to their relative pitches

(ibid.; Becker 48). Luh Ketut Suryani and Jensen and Gordon D. Jensen identify the three types of Balinese trance as follows: traditional and ceremonial, kreasi baru

(previously new arrangements of traditional gamelan), and music kontemporer

(contemporary compositions with gamelan ensembles).

A variety of trance behaviors are present and acknowledged within Balinese society, some of which can occur spontaneously without musical accompaniment and are sometimes called “egoistic trances” (Edge 2). For example, the latah trance resembles a startle reaction, leading to either mimicry, compulsive obedience, or uttering expletives; whereas the engkebang memedi sees an individual disappear for a week to thirty days, until they are found confused and recalling being possessed by a small evil spirit with red hair (Suryani and Jensen). However, the more socially accepted form of trance often arises within those who participate in ceremonial group gamelan performances. In this way, the Balinese designate appropriate trance behaviors similarly to how van Duiji et al. separate their psychiatric diagnoses from what they deem as “culturally appropriate” trance states, further implying that music-induced trance states lie somewhat on the periphery of what traditional

Western psychology considers to be a disorder (1417). 13

An exceptional gamelan musician or dancer often is claimed to possess taksu, described by I Wayan Dibia and Rucina Ballinger as the “spiritual charisma of a performer” which often defines the qualities of the performative trance (Dibia and

Ballinger 11). According to Becker, the Rangda Barong ritual exemplifies taksu- infused trances within performers: conducted to restore the balance between the

Balinese and their Dharma Hindu deities in order to prevent illnesses and crop failures, it begins with a chorus of women singing poetry in a temple filled with incense to induce the trance in young volunteers (43). These young men, equipped with blunted daggers, help depict a battle with the evil Rangda, who consequently curses them to stab themselves as cued by short, rapid ostinatos from the gamelan ensemble. The men match their rhythms with those of the drums until the ceremony finishes, where the men fall to the ground until they cool off; afterward, they feel relaxed and happy. They often have difficulty remembering the specifics of the experience, but the procedure, familiar to almost all Balinese, has been ingrained into their memories on an annual basis since childhood, to the point where they subconsciously recognize the cues for the trance state (i.e. music, incense, poetry, temple setting) (ibid.; Suryani and Jensen).

Psychiatrist Luh Ketut Suryani and anthropologist George Jensen conducted a study on three composers and seventeen players of gamelan music at the former

Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia (State Institution of the Arts, now known as the

Institut Seni Indonesia Surakarta (ISI)) to see if a particular type of music effected trance states more directly, writing about their experiences in their book Trance and

Possession in Bali: a Window on Western Multiple Personality, Possession Disorder, 14 and Suicide. They were often dissatisfied with and exhausted from playing and composing music kontemporer and some kreasi baru due to the amount of precision they necessitated, although they used the forms as a vehicle to express emotions like happiness and anger that they typically repress within regular society. When playing ceremonial gamelan, however, they claimed to be “in another world…amidst peace and quiet” and that “their body is not here; they feel as if they are floating above the ground”, the latter description resembling an out-of-body experience

(ibid. 102; Fachner and Rittner).

To understand more individual, meditative trance behaviors, I use the paradigm of the practice of the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute integral to the practices of the fuke sect of Zen Buddhism. This school of thought sought Zen enlightenment through transmission of its sacred honkyoku repertoire for the shakuhachi. Wearing woven hoods resembling baskets (tengai), the komuso relied on alms from their honkyoku recitations; in its effort to clear Japan of Tokugawa-era practices (namely governments hiring komuso and ronin8 disguised as komuso as spies due to their ability to cross provincial (han) borders uninhibited), Meiji-era officials disbanded the sect (Keister). Aside from these alms, they refused to perform the instrument for personal or performative pleasures, instead focusing on the instrument’s role in sacred suizen practice.

Using different blowing techniques that embody the Japanese concept of sawari (roughness), suizen relies on an established repertoire of honkyoku pieces to attain individual enlightenment and awareness (Wallmark 2). When practicing

8 Samurai without masters, leading them to wander in search of opportunities (Schultz; Kallen). 15 suizen, the individual focuses more on the process of making a sound than listening to it in order to cleanse oneself: literally from clearing out mucus from blowing, and symbolically from detaching oneself from connotations of “good” or “bad” sounds

(ibid.; Mathers). Japanese musical pedagogy focuses on the certain kata (form, shape) that dictates the sound that will come from having precise bodily positioning; suizen emphasizes this through the learning of honkyoku and emphasis on technique, but offers a wide variety of personal embellishments that ensures the practitioner never plays the piece the same way (Keister). The process of suizen is analogous to the idea of zazen9 (Mathers).

The processes of both zazen and suizen have been noted as therapeutic in the sense that an individual frees him or herself from judgment to assess his or her current mental state and presence, consequently “forgetting oneself” and a void of rational, directed thinking (Mathers 2009). In the rigid, classist society of pre-Meiji era Japan, suizen was transformative through the individuality it represented and instilled within its practitioner, and still does as it induces a trance-like “…quiet state of mind cleared of conscious thoughts” (Keister 114). The analogous practice of zazen has provided insights into “…human capacities required to perceive and resolve organizational dilemmas,” shattering the hang-ups caused by binary thinking (i.e. either/or) by “[involving] a new logic of ambiguity that is the basis of creative insight” to lead to a kensho: an “a-ha!” moment following successful meditation (Low and Purser 347).

9 A means of meditation providing insight into the nature of the world achieved through practicing and studying introspective dialogues and questions called koans. The prefix za is derived from the Japanese word for cushion (Mathers; Schultz). 16

As far removed from a rigid, contemporary Western society as music- induced suizen and gamelan trances may seem, analogues to such behavior can be found within dance music culture. Cultural anthropologist Graham St. John studies both electronic dance music and alternative spiritual movements; he notes how scholarship of such a topic has evolved to focus on the religio-spiritual aspects of

EDM (electronic dance music) culture, the roots of which can be traced back to the trend of experimental consciousness expansions that permeated the 1960s and were often linked to psychedelic music (13). Disco music provided a bridge from this era to the formulative late 1980s acid house scene in England by continuing the propagation of psychoactive substances, yet adding consistent, repetitive rhythms.

The textures and rhythms of what evolved into various forms of EDM could be seen as similar to gamelan; Melanie Takahashi notes how both forms of music include

“repetitive, minimalistic, seamless cyclings of sonic patterns accompanied by a relentless driving or metronomic rhythm,” (236) and others have noted the importance of resounding bass frequencies in both styles of music (Fachner &

Rittner).

As improved digital audio resources, DJ techniques,the late 1980s onward contributed to EDM communities and aesthetics, many dancers at raves, parties or similar venues have noted a sort of “spiritual healing” involved with such events (St.

John 12). From what has been interpreted as creating meaning out of such confusion and loss of self-control, individuals succumb to a group “vibe” (a feeling of communal energy inducing a sense of personal liberation) and experience intense pleasure and sense of belonging through dissolving binaries (e.g. self/other, 17 mind/body) (similarly to shakuhachi practice) (ibid.). Interestingly, Greeley and

McCready report that two fifths of American adults claim to have had a “mystical experience” regardless of context that generally involves “a feeling of deep and profound peace” among other positive qualities (180).

Whereas aforementioned forms of trance need no drugs to arise, Takahashi notes how drugs such as MDMA and acid can provide “...easy and immediate access to an ASC” in the “…monophasic consciousness of western cultures (cultures where alternatives to rational, waking consciousness are devalued or litigated against)”

(145-164). Such ASCs might be litigated against in modern Western culture due to the effects of MDMA (also known as “molly” or ecstasy”) on the brain. A synthetic hallucinogen with stimulatory qualities, it primarily acts on the neurotransmitters serotonin (influencing one’s sense of sociability and arousal), dopamine (influencing one’s sense of euphoria) and norepinephrine (influencing one’s sense of energy and concentration) simultaneously (National Institute on Drug Abuse). When levels of these three neurotransmitters are spiked, all of these effects mixed heavily effect the limbic system, which contains the hippocampus (which creates conscious associations), amygdala (heavily involved in the fight-or-flight and basic emotional responses) and the pituitary gland (involved with hormones regulating sex and blood pressure) (Becker 47).

The results of these activations induce an ecstatic state (hence the nickname

“ecstasy”) that can heighten one’s sensitivity to sensory information, especially sound and music (National Institute on Drug Abuse; Becker). Thus someone who becomes attracted to the sensory overload associated with an EDM event and/or the 18

MDMA they consume in such a situation gradually tunes their autonomic nervous system to facilitate a quicker release of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine during each successive festival or rave, cementing their brain’s response to such an event (Takahashi). While an individual under the influence of MDMA’s brain patterns might not entirely mimic the brain patterns of an individual in more culturally appropriate music-induced trance states, they are acquired and cement themselves in similar ways and also involve a heightened sense of emotional arousal. Moreover, drugs are in no way required to access such trance-like states, and individuals can acquire, undergo and disseminate electronic music-derived ecstatic states in a very similar manner to what I have just described purely through dancefloor experiences (Becker; Takahashi; Klein 2015).

Finding analogues to such culturally appropriate trance states as suizen within the realm of Western classical music, however, proved more difficult for a number of reasons. Researchers often have understood and assessed trance states from cultures distanced from their own, often distancing them from their own traditions and beliefs in a manner that has the potential to exoticize them. Over time, classical music has become such an integral part of Western culture, to the point where researchers might have not deemed it appropriate to place the practice under the same lens as other cultures they often analyzed from etic perspectives.

Therefore with the debate about the basic nature of trance states still a hotly debated topic, there is a scant amount of literature examining ASCs within classical playing (Herbert 12). Gilbert Rouget describes a harpsichordist Marie de l’Incarnation, who played as precisely as possible in order to reach an ecstatic trance 19 state (ibid.). In addition, it has been suggested that a classical listener in a deep state of contemplation reaches similar states of consciousness as a meditative trance state

(ibid.). Nevertheless, these analyses are more speculative than anything. Therefore, I find it necessary to explore the notion that trance and trance-like states can be present within a body of music that has remained at the core of Western culture for centuries.

The brain patterns of trance states primarily reside in the “languaging” areas of the brain known as Wernicke’s area (a.k.a. the left temporal lobe) and Broca’s area (left frontal cortex), which are also involved with processing rhythm and playing music (Becker 47). The connection to language arises likely from trance being a behavior arising from beliefs, which are mitigated by language formation facilities (ibid.). Therefore when these beliefs are cemented, the neuronal process involved with remembering the belief is too, resulting in easier cognitive access to the associated mental states.

Due to the detachment and change in focus individuals experience during trance behaviors, the brain accordingly alters its inhibitional facilities, which are linked to working memory (a system that holds and manipulates multiple pieces of information in the mind temporarily) capacity and controlled by the prefrontal cortex (Zacks and Hasher). Individuals in a trance state experience reduced connections between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, a connection integral for rehearsing information enough to store it into long-term memory: this explains the haziness surrounding an individual’s memory of a trance (Becker 43). On a cognitive level, inhibition works by blocking out information hindering attention to 20 an individual’s intended focal point from working memory, a skill that improves with age (Zacks and Hasher). Thus an individual’s ability to inhibit matures alongside the growth of an individual’s capacity to gradually learn cues that incite trance states. While there is a dearth of empirical research on the subject to confirm my notion, I posit that one’s inhibitional facilities might develop at a similar rate to the cultivation of one’s potential for trance.

The aforementioned brain processes result in what I consider to be one of two broad categories of trance: physiologically stimulating “ecstatic trance” that and

Rittner also call “ergotropic” (237). The other category involves physiologically calming trances that the aforementioned researchers call “trophotopic”; I will call them “meditative trances” (ibid.). I choose my own terminology to outline the basic qualities of a trance state, especially since the underlying neuronal and physiological mechanisms might be more complicated than merely being either “ergotropic” or

“trophotropic” (ibid.).

Meditative trances, and meditation in general, involve decreases in muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen consumption (Schmit 13). In contrast to the loss of inhibition characterizing ecstatic trances, fMRI reports indicate that meditative states involve having greater control over emotion and attentional facilities, qualities that often arise from particular bodily positions and processes

(ibid.). This change in attention remains crucial to the foundations of Zen Buddhist practice (and accordingly shakuhachi practice) (Fachner & Rittner; Low & Purser). It has also been noted that such meditative practices heighten alpha-theta brain wave 21 patterns, which characterize relaxed physical and emotional states, with low alpha frequencies generally between 8-10 Hz (AvRuskin; Fachner & Rittner).

I choose my terminology to better reflect the cultural contexts of these two types of trance, as cultural contexts relate more directly to my research questions. In addition, various authors as of late have defined such ASCs in sometimes contradictory ways, so I want a method of summarizing such trances and trance-like states without generating confusion as to their meaning (Herbert 207). Moreover, it is important to note that while I refer to trances as Altered States of Consciousness, scientific literature has begun to view trances as mental processes rather than static states of consciousness (ibid.). For the purpose of this paper, the terminology of

“states” and ASCs will refer to these ever-shifting neurological processes rather than a defined neurological moment.

Case Studies

I. The meanings of Taksu and trance within Balinese culture

The island of Bali is a mere 2,231.69 square miles, although the abundance of types of arts and music in this Indonesian province far exceeds its geographic borders. With a rich history influenced by its relations with Indian, Chinese,

Portuguese, Japanese and Dutch cultures; and its syncretic Agama Hindu Dharma10 religion that pervades all walks of its life and art, Bali occupies a unique space

10 Agama Hindu Dharma is a Balinese syncretic religion, blending Hindu, Buddhist and animist beliefs. 22 within the more than 17,000 islands that compromise Indonesia. I visited the island for three weeks with my thesis advisor Dr. Elizabeth McLean Macy as part of a travel seminar titled Music, Culture, and Performance: Bali. During my stay at musician and teacher I Made Lasmawan’s family compound (Sanggar Manik Galih, which doubles as a music and dance studio), I was exposed to gamelan on a daily basis and discussed Bali’s music and trances with a number of Balinese citizens.

Talking with I Made Lasmawan (Pak 11 Made) provided me with my most comprehensive understanding of trance. The teacher, composer and performer has studied at both KOKAR (The Conservatory of Performing Arts, in Denpasar) and

STSI (The Indonesian College of the Arts, in Surakarta, Java): consequently he can play almost any style and type of gamelan (Lasmawan 2015). He first remembers witnessing a trance as early as elementary school, watching a priest enter an unexpected kusurupan (spiritual possession) trance; he also assures me of how common it is to be able to trance at that age, with many younger students entering trances in the classrooms (ibid.). His assertion exposes cultural differences between the Balinese and contemporary Western society, as what he views as healthy and culturally appropriate behavior in a classroom setting might be viewed as an aberration in a different light.

Another type of trance he described to me was ketakson, which involves receiving a perceived spiritual energy from a god or a demon. Considering a demonic possession could potentially prove disastrous, priests often assume the role of a ketakson curator: they ask who is possessing the individual, then lead the

11 The term “Pak” is an honorific used for men in Bahasa Indonesia, the Indonesian language. 23 possessed individual through their trance and ceremony in a controlled manner

(ibid.). This affirms the importance of religion in the eyes of many Balinese trance participants, considering their spirituality defines and provides meaning to their altered state of consciousness. In a performance setting, a ketakson is known as nadi, often with the performer taking on the role of a very specific deity or historical individual. For example, Pak Made explained to me how the dancer inside of the

Rangda costume for the Rangda-Barong ceremonial trance dance does not feel like a human; instead, they fully embody the titular demon queen. When those undergoing trances in the ceremony stab themselves with blunted kris (knives), they both do not remember nor feel the impact of their blade due to their ketakson nadi possession (ibid.; Becker 42).

With such extensive gamelan experience, however, Pak Made has only been in a trance a few times (Lasmawan 2015). Moreover, the trances he experience are more along the lines of a ceremonial, ancestral trance known as Kosalang, strictly not intended for performance. He described to me the funeral of his friend Ratu

Gede, who was known around Bangah as an exemplary Barong dancer in the

Rangda-Barong ceremony (ibid.; Becker 42). At some point during the ceremony,

Pak Made entered a kosalang trance: he “started forgetting [himself]”, gradually feeling as if his “brain [were] in the sky” in what resembles an out-of-body experience (Lasmawan 2015). After exiting this ASC, he only remembers wondering,

“why is my body wet?”; in many Balinese trances, priests often splash holy water on an individual to both initiate and conclude his or her trance (ibid.). He claims this quick exit initially shocked him, as he soon realized that an ancestor had possessed 24 him to talk to the family at the funeral; soon, however, he felt refreshed “like after a big massage,” tired but with a feeling that he can start life over (ibid.). He does not remember the actual trance, however, and the people in attendance must remind him of how he behaved during his experience. With such an intense history with kosalang trances, Pak Made generally does not prefer to enter a trance state, as trances momentarily destabilize his connection with waking consciousness.

Instead, Pak Made prefers to achieve taksu (ibid.). Scholar and artist I Wayan

Dibia (Pak Dibia) offers the most fundamental definition of taksu: “the spiritual charisma of the performer” (Balinese Dance 6). Building off of this explanation, he also notes how the term “…[explains] the extra-ordinary…in the face of normal life….[and designates] unusual efficacy” that catches attention, frequently as an essential component of a brilliant performance or the many types of trances so ubiquitous to Bali (Taksu xii). The word taksu evolved out of caksu (a Sanskrit term that roughly translates as “the faculty of sight” or “the gaze”) (Dibia 2015). Such a derivation makes sense on a fundamental level, considering the Balinese often will declare that someone has taksu when they create or perform something that demands a viewer’s concentration; it can also connote a specific goddess named

Taksu, and a process enabling her to enter an individual (ibid.). Once this happens, an audience immediately recognizes the individual’s taksu and responds positively to it, further augmenting the performer’s charisma and focus (Lasmawan 2015).

A performance space can influence how one both connects to the piece they are playing and can consequently achieve taksu, implying that environmental cues might play a role in defining the nature of this trance-like state (Lasmawan 2015). 25

Playing a traditional piece can instill feeling of both tranquility and vigor, yet staging it in a hotel as opposed to an odalan brings about different feelings within a listener that influence the strength of the resulting taksu. Pak Made personally does not discern much of a difference in quality wherever he plays, although he noted how he feels much more present in his taksu state when in a temple as opposed to a school

(ibid.). He divides taksu into three different types: bekel (a taksu everyone is born with, inherited from ancestors), paica (a specific spiritual energy acquired in a temple setting) and gegaen (energy received from a balian [spiritual healer], a sort of medical taksu).

Paica taksu arises when one prays to an ancestor in the appropriate Balinese temple, satisfying the concept of spiritual knowledge known as idep (ibid.). The resulting taksu arrives in either a male (Ratu Bagus Pregina) or female (Ratu Dewi

Pregina) form depending on one’s sex, and Pak Made notes how “like holy water is spread to everyone in a ceremony”, the appropriate manifestation of taksu can be disseminated to other performers at a concert. He mentioned how my group’s final joged performance (a flirtatious dance often accompanied by bamboo gamelan), all of the audience recognized a member of my class, Makhzuna Khudoynazarova

(Lena) as having taksu because of how naturally and fluidly she performed the piece

(Lasmawan Feb. 15).

I discussed the event with Lena to gain an emic perspective from an outsider to Balinese culture about what appeared to be an authentic trance-like state. She claims to enjoy Balinese dance because of how innocent it seems (despite joged’s flirtatious connotations) and how it brings a community together (Khudoynazarova 26

2015). Her previous experience taking ballet as a young child, Indian dance (which focuses on hand placement) as a Skidmore student and traditional Uzbek dance

(which involves frequent spinning and specified facial expressions) growing up provided her with the facilities to adapt so fluidly to the complicated intricacies of

Balinese dance (Khudoynazarova 2015). The latter practice especially helped her learn the joged dance:

That’s why I understood it. I could relate to what [our teacher] said because

it was the exact same thing my teacher taught me. But we used our whole

face, not just our eyes. (ibid.)

She learned the joged dance in a day, as it only involved memorizing a small amount of choreography in the beginning of the dance and thereafter improvising to suit the situation. Due to the improvisatory nature of the dance, she claimed to feel out her movements to the music, consciously trying to match her movements to the gamelan’s pace so the audience could enjoy her dancing; considering what Pak Made and others said, this effort proved to be more convincing than she had initially envisioned (ibid.; Made 2015). She noticed how the audience smiled at her as she performed and pulled them onstage, effectively providing her with feedback and influencing how she performed (Khudoynazarova 2015). Although she thought taksu would involve feeling something other than nerves, this interaction confirms that she had taksu according to the definitions Pak Dibia and Pak Made provided me

(ibid.; 2015; 2015). She did, however, mention that she forgot about how uncomfortable her traditional wear was when she was dancing, implying she became relaxed (Khudoynazarova 2015). This all presents an intriguing case of an 27 individual with only basic knowledge of a society’s traditions adapting her own enculturated practices to suit a performance and enter what appears to be a music- induced trance-like state.

Although I bolster my research on music-induced trance states with empirical literature and scientific findings, Pak Dibia introduces his treatise on taksu stating that this Balinese concept embodies niskala (the immaterial), denoting it is impossible “to analyze…scientifically” (2012, 2). Niskala’s counterpart is sekala (the visible), compromising everything plainly visible to the eye. This niskala-sekala division is emblematic of the importance Balinese place on spiritual balance (Gold,

2004). As a member of Balinese society, Pak Dibia views such scientific analysis as superfluous considering it has become so ingrained into his island’s culture. Even if this equivocal, somewhat ambiguous concept seems to defy intricate examination, my etic perspective as an outsider makes it necessary to consider taksu from anthropological and psychological perspectives. Through my conversations and interviews with musicians, scholars and other locals in Bali in January 2015, I have gathered firsthand accounts and opinions regarding taksu to clarify its complex and crucial connections to music-induced trance.

By my third night at I Made Lasmawan’s family compound in Bangah, a small agrarian town near the center of Bali, I had established a rapport with three of the compound’s residents: I Ketut Bujana (Pak Katok), I Ketut Rasnawa (Pak Ris), and

Daya Putri. As rice farmers, they tend to their paddies when dawn rises; for the duration of our stay, however, they assisted in transporting, feeding and teaching our group. All related to Pak Made, they too are proficient in many instruments from 28 a variety of different gamelan ensembles. Whether practicing or performing, they executed composite patterns on their instruments nimbly without batting an eye.

My nascent knowledge of taksu made me assume that it was indivisible from trance, but my initial conversations with these three on the topic revealed a more multifaceted idea of taksu. When questioned as to whether he has experienced taksu, Pak Katok immediately disclosed that he feels taksu every time he plays gamelan (Bujana 2015). I was surprised to hear how commonplace taksu seemed to him, yet he implied that he considers taksu is more of a gradient than an on/off switch. Pak Ris chimed in to confirm that taksu remains within himself regardless of whether he is performing; instead, it elevates him especially when performing, citing Pak Made’s effortless charisma as an example of ever-present taksu (Rasnawa

2015).

The two seemed to have the least amount of difficulty conveying the religious aspects of taksu in English. To connect to taksu, Pak Katok noted that he prays for taksu to its titular goddess every time he enters his family temple. Even if he cannot pray everyday, these moments in the most Wali (sacred) part of his family compound serve to connect him to his beliefs in a manner that reinforces his musical skill and confidence. On a religious level, this process serves to cleanse individuals’ souls as they prepare for Taksu (the goddess) to enter their bodies; on a psychological level, this ceremony provides moments of relaxation and calmness to individuals that can instigate motivation for them to fulfill their role as artists; on a physiological level, this process could provide benefits similar to those of the aforementioned meditative trance states. 29

Following this invocation, Pak Ris indicated that the goddess comes to an individual during a time that they need her, especially in a performance setting

(Rasnawa 2015). Like Pak Katok had said only moments before, Pak Ris claimed that he typically feels taksu most during a gamelan concert following a proper ceremony.

Should he forget or forego conducting the proper ritual before a concert, he cannot properly reach the desired, heightened performance state. If he has suitably cleansed his spirit prior to a performance, taksu enters his body effortlessly and with little warning, resembling both Pak Made’s descriptions of elements of kusurupan trances and paica taksu.

Rather than becoming overwhelmed by such a possession, Pak Ris asserts that it instills a sense of fearlessness and confidence within him (Rasnawa 2015).

The possession erases any negative or nervous thoughts he might have had pervading his consciousness, and apparently he receives a feeling of imperviousness. In Pak Ris’ own words: “If you felt fire, it’s no problem. If you bring in a car [he demonstrated being hit by a car], it’s no problem” (Rasnawa 2015). He attributes this feeling of invulnerability to the fact that his tactile sensitivity decreases when taksu is within him and controlling him, aside from a tingling sensation upon the goddess’ initial entrance. Rather than declare the taksu he feels at that moment, it is up to members of his audience to recognize this sort of spiritual charisma. This acknowledgment relates to the fact that taksu is cognate to the aforementioned Sanskrit term caksu, implying that the very nature of taksu demands onlooker’s visual attention and identification (Dibia Balinese Dance 2). 30

When questioned about the length of a taksu possession, Pak Ris claimed his episodes last no more than five minutes at a time, after which the goddess exits his body (Rasnawa 2015). The ephemerality of his experiences with taksu surprised me, as I had envisioned the sensation lasting for the rest of the piece of music.

Nevertheless this makes sense in a performance context: if audience members are supposed to recognize him, a talented yet unprofessional gamelan musician, as having taksu, he likely sustains their attention for a brief period of time with short moments of brilliant playing.

I began to recognize a clearer distinction between taksu and my idea of a trance state at this point; namely that taksu is a personal and spiritual charisma recognized by others, whereas a trance state can arise from taksu yet affects an individual on more of a personal level. To gain more of an understanding about taksu’s relation to trance, I questioned these informants about their experiences with trance states. They all claimed to have undergone them, although they had difficulty conveying just what might be going through their heads when in a trance state. Claiming he does not quite process or attend to what his ensemble is playing,

Pak Ris disconnects from his immediate position in the ensemble yet continues to play (Rasnawa 2015). When augmented by taksu, he garners accolades from audience members, who cease talking in order to pay closer attention to his part. As for how he regards his own playing during a trance state, he claims the gamelan sounds the same, although the various parts of the ensemble sound clearer and more distinct. 31

The ambiguous nature of and distinction between taksu and trance became more apparent as the conversation continued. Adept at both gamelan music and rock music (on drums and vocals for various local bands), Putri claims to have entered trance states countless times. Whereas Pak Ris noted how fleeting his moments with taksu are, Putri mentions that his music-induced trances usually last for the entire length of a performance (though he too has experienced similarly short bursts of taksu-charged energy) (2015). He claims:

Ya, you feel different. If you’re tired, you don’t perform tired. You wake up,

and people see you as something different. [But you do] nothing, you just

keep moving. You don’t think [because you’re possessed], you’re right there

and you listen better. (ibid.)

Contrasting ethnomusicologist Judith Becker’s assertion that individuals in a trance state fail to remember many of their experiences, Daya asserts that he distinctly remembers his trance state immediately following a performance, often feeling relaxed and happy (43; Putri 2015). When questioned about what exactly he remembers after a trance, however, he had difficulty remembering specifics; this indicates that the memory of a trance state might reside in working (short-term) memory, whereas an individual might not be able to integrate the memory of a trance state into long-term memory as easily.

I Wayan Dibia’s extensive research on, and experience with, taksu reveals the importance of taksu in all Balinese professions. According to Pak Dibia, “by understanding taksu you will know the soul of Balinese culture” (Dibia 2015). He elucidated the tangible effects that taksu has upon Balinese: according to Pak Dibia, 32 he hears and feels something different when listening to taksu-infused gamelan as an audience member. He also remarked upon the visual magnetism of a performance, relating it to taksu’s significance as a cognate of the aforementioned

Sanskrit word for eyes, caksu. In this way, he affirmed that taksu is more of a means to capture attention, almost becoming more of an objective phenomenon than a personalized state of mind.

To be able to experience taksu, Pak Dibia suggested following a tripartite process, each of the three steps a circle concentric to the other steps of the process.

He referred to the first step as bayu (energy): one learns the technique related to his or her art, which is distinct for whatever craft that individual cultivates (Dibia

2015). He noted how taksu is unobtainable without proper training; however, some arja (street opera) performers have taksu in their ability to sing even if they lack taksu in their ability to dance. Regardless, the audience notices an individual’s capacity for taksu, yet taksu manifests itself within him or her selectively (ibid.).

Second, one teaches himself or herself the philosophy of his or her art known as sabda (inner voice), effectively ensuring that individuals access a part of their inner vision of a craft when projecting an outward expression of the art (Dibia 2015; Dibia

& Ballinger Balinese Dance). To further support this sabda, the third step involves cultivating a spiritual connection to the topic known as idep (thought, mind): this is not necessarily religious; moreso, it is whatever appropriate means you have to

“…activate the power you already have within yourself” mentally and physically

(Dibia 2015). 33

Thus this tripartite process of achieving taksu involves knowledge of the physical and philosophical aspects of the subject and implementing a method of accessing the innately personal connection one has of their art. Pak Dibia asserted to us that “those who are here now: you all have taksu. But sometimes you don’t know how to activate it,” indicating that the Balinese access their idep by visiting the aforementioned family temples and enacting the appropriate religious ceremonies

(ibid.). This explanation confirms my notion that access to this trance-like state is partially enculturated and partially self-cultivated.

Pak Dibia asserts that if an individual is not honest with him or herself about the art they are performing and their personal connection to the art, it becomes more difficult to fully realize the bayu-sabda-idep necessary to convey strong taksu

(2015). He claims an individual must be capable of devoting all of their heart to a craft: even if they can perform their technique and know the necessary philosophy, they need the other three parts of the bayu-sabda-idep division to properly embody their art. To support Pak Dibia’s notion, Pak Made described the importance of a mewinten ceremony in being able to realize bayu, sabda and idep, intended to purify one’s body and mind in preparation for an individual’s spirituality to take hold in the appropriate form of taksu (Lasmawan Feb. 15).

Pak Dibia disclosed his own means of achieving taksu when performing the role of Hanoman for twenty-five years: his teacher instructed him to invoke the monkey king hero from the Ramayana epic with a mewinten ritual related to the role before every performance (2015). Claiming to sense a gentle wind blow across his face in what could be viewed as either a divine possession or a moment of 34 synesthesia, he would perform the role successfully. Should he lose concentration during prayer due to a worry in his mind, however, he would interpret this lack of focus as a warning that he has to work twice as hard to achieve the proper amount of taksu following his ritual, perhaps by performing more somersaults than usual. In this way, this pre-performance ritual serves a similarly meditative purpose that shakuhachi might to a practitioner of Buddhism, offering a chance to relax and assess one’s focus to approach a task with a fresh perspective (Low; Albert &

Purser).

Further emphasizing how important Pak Dibia’s Agama Hindu Dharma beliefs are for him to achieve taksu, he worries about whether his island’s recent trend of secularism might undermine its appreciation of taksu. If a painter paints 60 paintings within six months as commodities (instead of six within six months as commissioned works like Balinese artists in the past have done), he or she loses the personal and spiritual investment that the Balinese would see as a visible manifestation of taksu (Dibia 2015). I started to realize that taksu can be utilized as a means to disseminate religious and spiritual ideals to the Balinese masses.

When asked whether taksu was a necessary component of trance and vice versa, he explained that having taksu does not require being in a trance state; even if the audience thinks the individual is in a trance, he or she retains more cognitive and kinesthetic control over his or herself (ibid.). He also noted how some pieces require induced trance states; they inherently necessitate a degree of taksu potential within the performer, yet do not need taksu possession to conduct the trance as it merely serves a purpose in a ritual. 35

No matter how extensive and detailed these personal accounts of taksu were, they revealed relatively little about the internal sensations behind both taksu and trance states. This notion makes sense when considering ASCs temporarily decrease connections forming between working memory and long-term memory (Becker 47).

Hearing the meaning of taksu and trances within the greater context of Balinese culture, however, sheds light on the importance of these concepts for these people.

As enculturated as it might be, Pak Dibia affirmed the idea that taksu is within every one of us: achieving it is just a matter of having the right tools to do so (Dibia 2015).

My discussion with Pak Made revealed how overwhelming a trance state can be, describing it as more of an acquired taste than a necessary component for every performer (Lasmawan Feb. 15). Simultaneously, one seems to temporarily disconnect with oneself when in a trance, in a manner resembling Marjolein et al.’s link between Ugandan spirit possessions and symptoms of DTD and PTD (1417).

However, these researchers only support the idea of their Ugandan subjects having

DTD and PTD if the symptoms are negative and culturally inappropriate. Even if Pak

Made had felt uncomfortable by his loss of control during his ketakson trance, he still felt the benefits of the rejuvenating and therapeutic aspects of his trance, indicating that these Western disorders are inappropriate diagnoses for Balinese undergoing trances. While they might share similar properties, the way Western and Eastern cultures view such symptoms defines their subsequent expression. In this case, Balinese trances serve as a culturally appropriate means to connect to and propagate Agama Hindu Dharma spirituality, act in ways one would normally 36 repress without fear of reprimand, and undergo a transformative process that often has the capacity to change an individual’s life views.

While the three main categories of gamelan (traditional/ceremonial, kreasi baru and music kontemporer) can influence a musician’s ability to access either taksu or a trance state, the performance situation holds greater sway over an individual’s mentality (Suryani & Jensen). Balinese musicians might feel an affinity with a certain style, facilitating easier access to a trance state or taksu. Should a musician not feel comfortable in a situation (i.e. performing gamelan in another country instead of a local temple), however, the environment might dampen his or her ability to access these ASCs (Lasmawan Feb. 15). The appropriate music remains integral in facilitating a trance; for example, the fast ostinatos that define the barong rangda ceremony excite a dancer into entering the specific ketakson nadi trance (ibid.; Becker 42). That being said, the environment for the barong rangda ceremony plays just as important of a role in providing a space for the performers to feel comfortable, enough so to loosen the psychological restraints necessary to stab oneself (ibid.). Therefore sonics must appropriately inhabit an atmosphere for a trance to occur.

Although trances and taksu resemble each other in their ability to produce

ASCs in both musicians and audience members, the Balinese consider them distinct phenomena. Both can arise from musical cues, but each trance-like state manifests itself differently within an individual: taksu typically enables a musician to control the performance consciously with ease and panache (even if they fail to realize they have taksu until after a performance), whereas a trance renders a musician passive 37 to the influence of their own spirituality and their present situation. In a trance, a musician can exhibit taksu if they manage to attract the attention of their audience; however, trances can occur without taksu, as in the case of the kerang bumbu di ceremony (Lasmawan 2015).

Both taksu and trances can induce a sense of relaxation and satisfaction following their occurrence. However, individuals achieve different degrees of fulfillment from each ASC depending on the regularity and the intensity of each experience: taksu is more commonplace to those that cultivate their bayu-sabda- idep facilities, whereas complete trances (whether spontaneous or directly induced for a ceremony) usually occur less frequently (Dibia Jan. 14; Rasnawa Jan. 3).

Consequently, someone who just experienced taksu might feel a temporary boost in confidence (ideal for a performance). Someone exiting a trance might consider the situation revelatory and refreshing (to the point where Pak Made mentioned he felt he could start his life over), but the trance has the potential to overwhelm, exhaust and even traumatize an individual in contrast to the immediately empowering and invigorating effects of taksu (Lasmawan Feb. 15).

I consider a Balinese trance state to exemplify my definition of an ecstatic trance state, while taksu more resembles my definition of a mild meditative trance- like state. From a dualist’s perspective, the fact that taksu and trances can occur simultaneously appears at first to be somewhat of an oxymoron: on a physiological level, it seems impossible that someone could be both relaxed and excited at the same time (Zacks & Hasher; Schmit). Viewing taksu from a Balinese perspective, however, elucidates how a musician exudes the spiritual charisma that is taksu, 38 thereby bestowing the captivation that resembles a meditative trance into an audience (Dibia Bali Dance 6). This skill seems innate within the Balinese, as even young children are capable of entering a trance-state (Lasmawan Feb. 15). Although tourism has raised concerns throughout the island, with many older Balinese fearing the perceived loss of focus in the youngest generation dilutes their ability to cultivate skills necessary for taksu, these ACSs are disseminated across generations by maintaining tradition and support for the arts (Dibia Jan. 14; Dibia and Ballinger

Balinese Dance). Through this constant exposure, the Balinese ensure that music- induced trances and trance-like states remain an integral part of the island’s culture.

II. The meanings of meditation and shakuhachi in Japanese and American

culture

Considering I have accrued evidence of a mild trance-like meditative state in

Bali, I now shift my focus toward an even more mentally and physically demanding meditative trance state within Japanese traditional musical practice. Although usually practiced in solitude, the art of suizen was circulated through generations of komuso, thereby sustaining the defining components of fuke zen Buddhism and providing tools to a large group of monks seeking enlightenment through musical meditation. Although the Fuke sect has been disbanded for more than a century and a half, their honkyoku repertoire has survived and thrived in the hands and breaths of many shakuhachi practitioners today. To better understand the history of the 39 instrument and the relevance of modern day suizen, I discussed both topics with shakuhachi teachers and scholars Bill Schultz and Elliot Kallen.

Schultz studied under Koyama Seizan Sensei extensively starting in 1985, learning the meian12 style of shakuhachi. Taking on a number of temporary students at UCLA in addition to the more permanent students he teaches outside of the university setting, Schultz molds his own pedagogy to the needs of each of his students (Schultz 2015). He designs private lessons to suit a student’s individual strengths and weaknesses. This task proves to be more difficult at UCLA, as he must abbreviate how he approaches conveying both shakuhachi repertoire and its accompanying philosophical percepts for students likely only taking lessons for a year. When he can take on a private student for longer periods of time, he feels more able to analyze and build his apprentices from their strengths.

Although Schultz himself is a shihan (a master of shakuhachi), he still regularly calls his teacher Koyama Seizan Sensei, whom he studied with extensively from 1985 onward, for advice. He noted how pedagogical relationships in America differ significantly from those in Japan: American musicians might remember which of their teachers influenced them, yet choose to follow their own path, rarely maintaining contact with former instructors (ibid.). In Japan, however, students sometimes live with their music teachers in order to immerse themselves in the lifestyles and personalities of their instructors, and continue to maintain contact with their instructors for life. He views this convention as a means for a student to

12 A school of fuke zen Buddhist practice that focused strictly on using the shakuhachi as a meditative tool (Schultz Feb. 6). 40 perfect their kata13, wherein a student embodies their teacher’s art and style in order to continue and cultivate a musical lineage (ibid.; Kallen).

The komuso also sought to preserve their highly specific customs for future generations; however, their suizen practices prompted them to deviate from the tutelage of their educators as they wandered alone in search of enlightenment. The very nature of their repertoire resembles their solitary lifestyle, as honkyoku pieces emphasize the paucity of notes and spaces between phrases to depict ma14 and create an atmosphere of loneliness (Schultz 2015). In addition, the komuso only saw it fit to practice the honkyoku in front of others as a means to gather alms as they wandered, thereby restricting them from any professional aspirations (Keister).

Considering such a tradition ensures students stray from their instructors after a certain period of time, the komuso’s practices differ from typical Japanese musical pedagogy and strengthens the notion that the shakuhachi functions as a hokki15

(Schultz 2015).

In an effort to modernize Japan rapidly, the nascent Meiji government officially disbanded the fuke sect in the early 1850s because of the potential danger that lay in its socio-political freedom and its association with vagabond ronin

(Keister; Schultz 2015). Because they refused to serve as spies to the Tokugawa government, Meian practitioners of fuke zen Buddhism were permitted to continue

13 Choreographed movements that compromise a certain Japanese art (Rosenbaum 2004) 14 Literally meaning an interval in time and space, the concept of ma (間) in arts defines empty spaces that enhance the overall impression of a work of art (Masaki 67). 15 A tool of meditation rather than a musical instrument (gakki) (Schultz 2015). 41 on, so as they redefined their view of the shakuhachi to practice it as a musical instrument (Schultz 2015). By removing these sociological restrictions previously placed on the shakuhachi, the Meiji government enabled laymen to include the bamboo flute as a fixture within a sankyoku16 ensemble, thereby imposing a new context for what was formerly a device for meditation (ibid.). In the twentieth century, shakuhachi teachers such as Watazumido and his protégé Yokohama

Katsuya sparked a renaissance in using the shakuhachi as a hokki, again popularizing the practice of suizen (ibid.). This whole new generation of shakuhachi players had few records of fuke zen practices, as it was largely an oral tradition; thus the instrument appealed to Americans interested in transcendental meditation starting in the 1960s (Keister; Schultz 2015).

This constant redefinition of the shakuhachi from the 1850s onward enabled

Americans like Schultz to experience Zen Buddhist principles in a meaningful and individualized manner. He views Zen as a method of cultivating awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings, helping individuals punctuate the constant streams of thoughts their mind generates with “gaps in thinking” through breath regulation

(Schultz 2015). In broad terms, Zen practitioners control their respiratory patterns during meditation by directing their focus on exactly how they inhale and exhale.

Whether they choose to do this by counting individual breaths, reciting koans for a zazen ceremony or letting the honkyoku direct the way they breathe, practicing suizen can influence the intensity and profundity of their kensho, and Schultz claims

16 A traditional Japanese musical ensemble, featuring a koto (plucked zither), a shamisen (three stringed plucked instrument) and shakuhachi, the latter instrument replacing a kokyu (two-stringed bowed lute resembling a Chinese erhu) (Keister; Shultz 2015). 42 that suizen provides him with more powerful kensho than zazen (2015). For him, the auditory output of his shakuhachi playing provides him with immediate feedback as to whether his mind is wandering.

For example: his experiences with the piece “Tozan” initially were more stressful than refreshing. Playing the piece requires a great deal of concentration and precision, as its rigor removes any spaces for personal embellishments that many other honkyoku pieces permit (Schultz 2015). Soon, however, he found a certain security within the confines of this piece, as he could use the rigidity as a focal point and note exactly where his mind strays from his suizen.

Other honkyoku pieces leave room for individual flourishes such as pitch bending and overblowing: these timbral manipulations (bolstered by deliberate instrument-based inconveniences) often result in sawari tone colorings, which are defining features of Japanese traditional music but double as indicators to shakuhachi players that their minds are wandering (Wallmark; Schultz 2015).

Regarding the necessity of sawari, Schultz considers Japanese music to be 70% clean and 30% dirt (Schultz Feb. 6). Western musicians might think of sawari sounds as noisy and mistakes, yet these atonal elaborations expose a shakuhachi player to the dirt in their own consciousness and a chance for them to tame it. By incorporating elements of sawari into a honkyoku recitation, individuals can turn these inconveniences into personal advantages. The more aware players are of these imperfections, the greater the chance they can mitigate them as they unfold (ibid.).

Schultz recognizes that he cannot enter a full meditative trance every time he meditates, although he recognizes contextual factors that can instigate them. He 43 experiences them more often when playing shakuhachi alone, yet has entered meditative trances a scant few times without expecting to do so when performing

(ibid.). He asserts that he must be comfortable and relaxed to facilitate a “conscious- changing activity”, noting that beginning a song with this mind set is essential for him in order to let a honkyoku piece heighten his mentality into a meditative trance state (ibid.). This approach was inspired by the preface of a honkyoku piece’s transcription that states, “playing this piece will relax you, but you must be relaxed playing this piece” (ibid.). Considering the slow and repetitive phrasing characteristic of honkyoku pieces are designed to direct and control an individual’s breath patterns and thereby produce a calming effect within the performer, it remains essential for the player to contribute their utmost focus in order to capitalize on these effects (ibid.; Schmit).

Schultz acknowledges the importance of experience for entering these trance states, as a player likely needs the proper practice and enculturation to be able to access trances more regularly (2015). With the music acting as the product of an individual’s breathing, a player has the ability to connect directly to the familiar, languid, droning tones of a honkyoku piece in order to enter the specifically meditative trance state (ibid.). This also indicates that tempo can have an effect upon the type of trance state one can enter, with the characteristically slow honkyoku repertoire producing similarly consistent trance states for a player. Such slower tempos provide room for a suizen practitioner to think critically about their playing and practice, whereas the material of an upbeat Balinese gamelan piece fills in any vacancies in thinking to excite the musician into a trance that they might not 44 be able to remember as well (ibid.; Lasmawan 2015). Therefore, shakuhachi practitioners’ thinking processes might speed up as their physiology slows down, providing them with space to think critically about their own body, presence, playing and consciousness (Schultz 2015).

Schultz attributes the evolutionary bases for such trance states to the fact that culture dictates how certain groups of people interpret such deviations from regular consciousness, as individuals have often attributed these ASCs to aspects of their religions for a lack of better explanations. Schultz relates his interpretation to how individuals cope with traumatic experiences; especially when musicians forget their trance experience during ecstatic Balinese trances, their mind will not allow them to access the specifics of what was a mentally overpowering situation (likely due to the fact that on a broadly neurological level, the experience is one part of an individual’s brain shutting down as another part opens up); therefore, they attribute such moments to ancestral or divine possessions in order to digest the often overwhelming nature of such trances (ibid.). With his training as a cultural anthropologist, Schultz sees religion as a means to explain and rationalize the fear of the unknown.

Elliot Kallen approached the shakuhachi later in his life than Schultz, formerly focusing his musical effort on playing keyboards for rock and jazz groups

(Kallen). He notes the influence of jazz pianist Keith Jarrett on his own jazz playing, transcribing his solos in detail (something he would not do with a shakuhachi piece, which is more about getting the big picture) (ibid.). From 2004 onward, the musician and teacher has learned how to play shakuhachi from the American David 45

Kansuke Wheeler and Wheeler’s Japanese teacher Junsuke Kawase III, and Kallen claims to be able to hear the particulars of Kawase’s technique in Wheeler’s and his own practice as it is quite easy to detect someone’s lineage through their style of playing (ibid.). Kallen has since become a member of the Japanese shakuhachi organization Chikuyusha (Japanflute.com).

I first discussed the particulars of suizen with Kallen: he noted the importance of the outbreath in the practice, as that is what determines both the sonic output of the shakuhachi and it represents subconscious thought happening during meditation (Kallen 2015). Because concentrating on the physical aspects of playing might hinder his performance, he directs his focus away from his inhalations that have become second nature from extensive practice. He views his breaths as analogous to his thoughts when performing: his breaths going into his shakuhachi are like his thoughts entering his consciousness, then his exhalations exiting his flute are like thoughts passing through his consciousness (ibid.). When practicing a piece alone, he also focuses on internalizing his finger positions so that he need not think about them in performance. During a performance, he interprets whatever he has practiced and opens it to elements of chance as represented by sawari.

As Schultz mentioned before, Kallen notes how there is no direct lineage to the original fuke zen sect: just the traditions that have survived in various forms

(2015; 2015). The Kinko school of fuke zen thought was responsible for the honkyoku transcriptions we have today, whereas the Tozan school of fuke zen thought wanted to incorporate Western concepts (i.e. performing in shakuhachi trios and quartets, more Western notation, etc.) into shakuhachi practice as the Meiji 46 era began (alongside the Meian school of fuke zen thought, who transformed the shakuhachi into a sankyoku instrument) (ibid.; ibid.). These two different schools helped popularize the instrument and carry traditions into new generations, although diluted the purity of what was originally an oral tradition.

Nonetheless, the surviving honkyoku repertoire still ties the philosophy behind the pieces to the performance of them. In its honkyoku context, “Koku” roughly translates to “nothingness”, relating to the Zen concept of “no-self” (Kallen

2015; Mathers). The monk Kyochiku wrote the piece after he heard the sounds in a dream and transcribed them soon after, lending the piece its otherworldly quality

(ibid.). The oldest piece “Kyore” is also the most straightforward of the honkyoku repertoire, and Kallen considers it “pure sonic meditation” due to its sequential phrasing with no room for expression or personalized sawari (Feb. 19). When he performs pieces such as these in a concert, he tells the audience, “please don’t clap at the end. Sit with it and enjoy it as my meditation” which implies that even in a performance context the piece defies conventional musicality (ibid.).

He often struggles with meditation when performing, however, as the audience’s presence influences and hinders the purity of the meditative practice of suizen. Even if the audience is silent, he feels their energy and cannot help but react with it. The people sitting in front of him tend to crowd his consciousness, whereas he can reach a more profoundly transformative meditative trance by himself.

Nonetheless, in this case it does not matter if he is playing honkyoku or something far less traditional (such as a jazz piece): he can still reach a certain kind of meditative state that he claims to be definitively different from his waking 47 consciousness (ibid.). He attempts to channel something beyond what he has incessantly practiced in order to reach a heightened state of consciousness. Kallen views this state as somewhat different than traditional Zen meditation, which he claims is more focused and direct for him. In his view, zazen and suizen arise from the same transformative impetus, yet both practices manifest themselves differently.

In Kallen’s case, he appears to be able to experience trance-like states regardless of the instrumental context. His experiences with suizen and other Zen practices, however, have helped him embrace and connect to his own mentality in a much more direct and meaningful fashion. As Schultz mentioned, suizen practice involves a high degree of personal participation in order to reap the meditative benefits; the pieces by themselves will likely not induce a trance state (2015).

Nonetheless, honkyoku repertoire has the ability to direct and enhance the effects of meditation to the extent that practitioners can access what I have before described as distinct meditative trance states (Fachner and Rittner; Schmit). In this way, the fuke sect of Zen Buddhists created an oeuvre of tools for meditation, as honkyoku music directly induces trance states when performed correctly.

Thus this repertoire of pieces, specifically designed to help individuals access

ASCs, has been well established as a part of Japanese history; I now switch my focus to determine whether the sprawling, codified body of Western classical music has the ability to do the same.

48

III. Trance-like states in Western classical music

Through my conversations with gamelan and shakuhachi musicians, it is evident that their respective Balinese and Japanese traditions have incorporated trances and trance-like behaviors for centuries. Moreover, they make it clear that maintaining their styles of music in a modern day context means understanding and engaging in trance and trance-like behaviors that are inherent in their traditions.

Clearly trance behaviors are kept alive in Balinese and Japanese traditional music practices and cultures, although contemporary Western music has a far more ambivalent stance toward trances (Takahashi). I have had little doubt, however, that musicians and audiences of everything from classical to electronic music concerts have experienced ASCs as induced by the music they hear, play and to which they apply meaning.

I decided to first explore this idea through the paradigm of Western classical music. Encompassing a broad range of styles, functions, countries and eras, the body of music that comprises the classical tradition generally places emphasis on a high level of instrumental proficiency, complexity, rigor and sophistication. As it focuses so heavily on maintaining tradition through strict emulations of composers’ visions, classical music would appear to discourage the freedom characteristic of many ASCs upon first glance.

My conversation with Desmond Siu, a senior at Skidmore College, about his violin and orchestral conducting experiences seems to indicate otherwise. He has played violin since a very young age, taking inspiration along the way from the likes 49 of esteemed musicians Ray Chen and Hillary Hahn, yet he only began conducting halfway through his college career (Siu 2015). Consequently, he thinks about both of his musical talents differently, and nowadays prefers conducting as it has lately occupied more of his time than violin playing. He recognizes how his visual field can affect his chosen medium in a performance setting simply from the direction he faces. When conducting, he feels more connected to his peers, whereas he acknowledges the audience more when playing violin. He believes that, “as a conductor, you can’t command [your musicians]. You must invite and persuade them” (ibid.). Similarly, he told me about an analogy he took to heart when learning from Ensemble ACJW (a collective of conservatory graduates who enroll in their two year program to perform and educate about modern classical music) during a masterclass:

When performing for an audience, you want to channel their energy as a

disco ball might, reflecting it out to them. (ibid.)

His conducting philosophy appears to resemble a sort of intergroup taksu, wherein the musicians respond to whoever has taksu due to the natural sway the individual has over the group. The latter analogy also resembles taksu, as the audience acknowledges his musical talent as a Balinese audience would call attention to the fact that an individual has taksu (Rasnawa 2015; Siu 2015). Consequently, he considers audience feedback following a show, both tacit and congratulatory, to be his greatest source of inspiration, feeling power from it.

Siu claims to be able to hear music best as an audience member, and surprisingly has the most trouble discerning individual parts when conducting (Siu 50

2015). Nonetheless, he feels most thrilled when conducting, remembering fondly how hearing a fortissimo wall of sound from Skidmore’s orchestra playing a Brahms piece firsthand invigorated him (ibid.). His rehearsals become essential to ensuring that his audience hears a great performance from the group he conducts, as he makes a point to follow the necessary motions the piece warrants precisely; when conducting a concert, he realizes he must still adhere to what he has practiced as much as possible. When performing, however, he is more willing to liberate his violin playing, as he acknowledges the necessity of adapting to mistakes. What might manifest itself as nervousness to some becomes a source of energy for Siu, as he claims to “benefit from pressure” (ibid.). These aspects of classical conducting and performance somewhat resemble the concept of sawari in shakuhachi playing, as the performer turns what could be considered a sonic mistake into a point of strength and inspiration (Siu 2015; Schultz 2015). Just as Kallen considers the sounds of a honkyoku piece a source of immediate feedback for his meditation,

Desmond places a great deal of his attention in a performance to as many of the sounds as he can hear.

To gain more insight into the emotional and mental aspects of playing classical music, I talked with Robin Luongo, a cellist, Filene scholar and senior at

Skidmore College. He claims to enjoy playing cello because of the range of feelings he can access through his instrument of choice, indicating that he introspects more when playing alone yet prefers playing with others (Luongo 2015). Although he was raised going to a Unitarian Universalist church every week, he went so far as to claim, “the closest I get to anything called God is when I’m playing music” (ibid.). He 51 notes that music holds this specific meaning to him due to its abstract qualities and ability “…to say a lot without being inspired by anything specific in particular” in contrast to visual art, which has historically referenced specific aspects of the natural world more often than music (ibid.). This suggests that the somewhat neutral meanings inherent in music might be why it plays such a large role in inducing trance behaviors, as individuals can apply their own meaning to the music to which they listen or perform (ibid.).

Having written music for student films, played in rock band Queen Ambrosia and performed concertos, he feels most comfortable working in a classical idiom, yet actively challenges himself to approach new methods of playing when opportunities arise. Since he has been trained primarily with classical music, he prefers having structure and the ability to think critically about what he plays within this idiom; in contrast, he claims to intuit when improvising, which can be as difficult as it is rewarding for him. These claims further indicate that his musicality equates to spirituality for him, one that actively challenges him but provides him with psychological rewards; this notion is similar to how Bill Schultz utilizes his shakuhachi for meditative purposes without adhering to any particular religion

(Luongo 2015; Schultz 2015).

One of Luongo’s favorite moments onstage was when he led the Skidmore

Orchestra in performing Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B Minor (2015). Initially nervous, he nevertheless asserts, “I was in love with what I was doing,” as he felt he was sharing something meaningful to his audience about both music and himself

(ibid.). He had little difficulty in learning the piece, which is at a slow tempo and 52 makes the most of a relative paucity of notes, so he could free up his playing comfortably onstage. At various points in the performance, he claims to have not felt anything at all, distancing his mind from the music in a manner that resembled an out-of-body experience (much like the disconnect that occurs in many Balinese trance behaviors) (Luongo 2015; Putri 2015). Instead, he pondered:

…how weird it was that I was doing this, and that human beings do this

thing. They’re just big monkeys playing instruments, scraping sticks on

wood. (Luongo 2015)

Such a moment somewhat resembles a more tempered version of the abnormal behaviors and thought processes involved in many Balinese trances, where the trancer disconnects with their immediate surroundings and personality in favor of contemplating more spiritual questions (Lasmawan 2015).

In contrast, Luongo finds it much more difficult to connect personally to

Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 2 in D Major that he is currently practicing for an upcoming performance with Skidmore’s orchestra (2015). The piece is among the hardest in cello repertoire, featuring fast arpeggios that leave him little room to think about what he is playing. While he enjoys it enough, he believes Haydn had little to say with what is a typically cheerful classical piece, whereas Dvořák’s highly expressive Cello Concerto enables the player to invest a greater deal of emotion into the piece. He notes how both were commissioned works, so he feels an urge to channel aspects of both pieces’ original contexts in his performances. Interestingly, however, he was able to enter an ASC resembling a Balinese ecstatic trance much 53 easier with the slower Dvořák Cello Concerto, whereas Haydn’s fast-paced, pulse- oriented Cello Concerto does not seem to provide him the same opportunity.

Both Siu and Luongo are able to mine a wealth of meaning from the music that they play, and both have described ASCs that they have reached by means of performing (2015; 2015). However, they appear to have singular methods of achieving such specific ASCs. The ASCs that Siu described resemble a meditative, taksu-esque trance that is heavily influenced by interactions with his audiences and the musicians he conducts; it also features elements of ecstatic trances in the excitement he feels onstage. In contrast, Robin seems to perform within an ecstatic trance resembling many Balinese trance states, with elements of meditative trance states in the way he reaps personal meaning and contemplative exploration within his performances.

Such conversations seem to indicate that my definitions of ecstatic and meditative trance states should be used more as diagnostic criteria rather than fixed points upon a spectrum of trances. Whereas the paradigms of Balinese trances and

Zen suizen practices exemplify the polarity of my definitions, trance behaviors in a classical music context blur the lines between each type of trance state, which makes sense considering how little research there is indicating that such criteria have been applied to classical music. I propose that more ethnomusicological and psychological research be conducted exploring the notion of trance states within the realm of classical music, as such a well-established fixture within Western music clearly is able to induce ASCs within its performers.

54

IV. Trance-like states in electronic music

In contrast to the scant amount of research conducted on ASCs within

Western classical music, electronic music and its related cultures has become a hot topic for conversations about trance states (St. John). With a recent surge in the popularity of electronic music and elements of its production techniques appearing in both pop, independent rock and a variety of other genres, electronic dance music is doubtlessly creating avenues for a whole new generation of fans to experience the trance-like states that have long been associated with it.

A senior at Skidmore College, Simon Klein DJs for Skidmore parties and other functions, curates dance music for crowds and thereby enables dancers to reach potential ASCs through his song selections and sequencing. Beginning DJing at age

16 out of a love for sharing music and seeing how it interacts with culture, he saw

DJing as a means for him to communicate with people at a party and control the atmosphere of the social event simultaneously (Klein 2015). DJing at a party enables him to be a part of situations he might not otherwise seek (“to an extent I don’t love parties”), and he mentions that this role provides him a position wherein he need not “abide by normal partygoer ideals” (ibid.). He differentiates his DJing from a regular music performance, noting how a band might play a set whereas he constantly has to alter his material to suit the situation around him. This makes playing at paid functions more stressful for him, considering more pressure and expectations are put onto him to craft his musical output into something that suits his audience. Moreover, the increasingly popular EDM scene makes him 55 uncomfortable, as he sees it as trashy, not demonstrative of any subtlety and propagating an overreliance on club drugs (ibid.).

Nonetheless, Klein revels in the sway he holds over a crowd as a DJ as the role is more fluid than that of a traditional musician. This fluidity keeps him in the moment, letting him manipulating a crowd’s attention and behavior in an interaction quite similar to the audience recognition that defines taksu (ibid.;

Rasnawa 2015). He describes a situation where he noticed a friend of his attempting to dance with a girl he was interested in, and Klein realized that he had the power to bring them together. Therefore he played a classic that everybody can dance to in order to provide his friend a chance to approach the girl, consciously avoiding playing the Beyoncé song he had cued up that might have prompted the girl to dance with her girlfriends instead (Klein 2015). He realized that his command over his audience could rile people up, tone them down and incite them to interact in ways that they normally would not. He receives immediate feedback from his audience by watching their movements and analyzing how they request songs: if they ask for a song next, he considers what he is playing at the moment to be not good enough, as this is “…different than a crowd member asking, ‘hey can you play this at some point? My friends want to hear it’” (ibid.).

As mentioned before, his experience as a DJ strongly resembles a Balinese musician’s ability to have taksu. Just as Pak Ris or Putri might become more relaxed and aware of the sounds of their ensembles when they have taksu, Klein is familiar enough with the variety of music he plays (typically a mixture of house, hip-hop, pop, R&B and other styles) to notice what qualities of his tunes make a crowd react 56 positively when played for a crowd (Rasnawa 2015; 2015; 2015). This becomes cyclical, as his crowd reacts directly to what he plays through their movement and energy, directly prompting him to alter his sequencing choices. Thus as the crowd enters what I consider to be an ecstatic music-induced trance state through dancing,

Klein experiences a more meditative and focused trance state through his curatorial role at an event.

On the opposite side of the electronic music spectrum is the work of psychoacoustician, inventor of FM synthesis17 and composer John Chowning.

Exploiting the computational power of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab in the

1960s to study sound spatialization techniques, he inadvertently developed the technique of FM synthesis in 1967. His interest in sound spatialization led him to compose Turenas in 1972, which was one of the first compositions ever to feature sounds seemingly moving in a 360º space through manipulation of timbral detail in conjunction with the Doppler effect and pioneering surround sound techniques

(Chowning 2015). Although a near infinite range of sounds are possible with FM synthesis, he has attempted to create unheard sounds with natural qualities: his

1977 piece Stria features variants of the Golden Ratio18, which appears in various forms in nature, in its harmonic content to produce tones perceived as coherent by a regular ear even if it is dissonant (ibid.). In addition, his 1981 piece Phoné attempted

17 A means of producing a complex tone by applying a modulating synthesized tone to one or more carrier (main) frequencies through rapid vibrato between the modulating frequency and the carrier frequency. The resulting tone can replicate almost any sound as long as its harmonic content and partials have been properly assessed, and produce sounds theretofore unachievable by natural means (Chowning 2015). 18 1.618, or (1+√5)/2. 57 to create tones imitating the human voice, manipulating them over time to transform them into bell-like sounds in a way that our ears barely notice a difference.

Mixing art, science and nature in his sonic explorations, Chowning himself acknowledges that his works have had the ability to induce meditative trance-like states in people:

[Listeners] can completely become lost in listening to [Stria], and find

themselves at the end where they began [likely due to its use of the Golden

Ratio]. (ibid.)

He performed his 2005 piece Voices at Skidmore in February of 2015, which he mentions was inspired by the ancient Greek oracles of Delphi. Intoxicated from a mixture of pneuma (a form of ethane gases present in the locations where they prophesized) and their own spirituality, they made up syllables that were in turn interpreted by Greek priests for their own purposes, similar to how Pentecostals often enter the trance-like state of speaking in tongues during church services

(ibid.). For a piece he is currently composing, he is taking inspiration from research conducted on the Peruvian archeological site of Chavín de Huantar, where religious officials would bring individuals they wish to initiate into their religion, feed them the psychoactive San Pedro cactus and blow conch shell trumpets to induce trance states (ibid.). With his piece, he took measurements of the caves on the sites to synthesize metallic tones that emulate the location and produce a similarly hallucinatory quality. 58

When asked about the possibility of using FM synthesis to generate gamelan- esque tones and the complex beating that occurs with Balinese gamelan, Chowning concluded it would be relatively easy to model the tones of the instruments precisely from their harmonic spectra (ibid.). However, he notes how Balinese musicians listen closely to each other when performing, which can never be captured in any other context. I then mentioned to him that his FM synthesis techniques have been extensively utilized in electronic dance music to induce trance-like states within individuals. He realized that FM synthesis is a natural fit for such a situation, as the technique can produce virtually any tone one can conceive; this capability enables electronic producers to craft imaginative sounds that inspire and stimulate dancers. When questioned as to whether he is okay with trances happening within electronic dance music context, he readily notes “that’s okay with me, as long as people don’t hurt themselves” (ibid.).

Conclusions

As the inventor of a technique that can produce virtually any sonic possibility has confessed his own interest in inducing trance-like states within individuals and the history of such ASCs, it appears that music-induced trance states can occur in many more contexts than the ones in which they have been popularized (such as in

Balinese culture). Considering the dearth of research indicating the presence of trance-like states within classical music playing, I propose that more ethnomusicological, psychological and especially neurological research be 59 conducted on the subject. The notion that Western culture is relatively devoid of music-induced trances (whereas other cultures accept and propagate them) might arise from the nature of anthropological study in general: many Western anthropologists study topics outside of their own cultures, often exoticizing them in their efforts to explain such foreign practices. With trance states thereby exoticized and distanced from Western researchers’ own societies, researchers might be reluctant to apply labels typically reserved for cultures distanced from their own to their own culture. By broadening the scope of research conducted thus far on music- induced trance to evaluate contemporary Western culture further, we could more suitably understand the universality of the mechanisms that underlie such ASCs.

While ways individuals express music-induced trance or trance-like states might differ within different contexts, there are common threads across a variety of cultures’ mental and physical interactions when listening to and performing music.

For example, Schultz can discern the sonic details of his shakuhachi playing when practicing suizen successfully just as much as Siu does when performing on his violin (2015; 2015). Both situations might have different historical, religious and musical contexts, yet both produce a meditative experience within the instrumentalist. When someone in an audience recognizes a musician’s taksu for their extra musical abilities within a performance, the reaction strongly resembles that of someone on a dancefloor moving their body more freely to the perfect song picked by a DJ (Rasnawa 2015; Klein 2015). What Luongo described as a sort of out- of-body experience resembles what Pak Made experienced during his kosalang trance (2015; Lasmawan 2015). 60

My interviews with Pak Made and Schultz have indicated an evolutionary basis for music-induced trances, namely that they can resemble human reactions to trauma (2015; 2015). When individuals are overly stimulated and rewiring their brain to accommodate their trances, they might forget large chunks of information from such moments just as those who have experienced trauma subconsciously block mental access to their traumatic situation. Thus despite the diversity in ways all of the aforementioned cultures feature music in their daily lives, members of humanity all seem to have the capacity to enter music-induced trances or trance-like states. Particular music-induced trances like ketakson are highly specific to the cultures they inhabit, but different types of music appear to be able to produce different types of trances for different types of individuals. Therefore the maintenance of cultural values remains important in disseminating specific kinds of trances, yet Lena’s experience with taksu proves it is not entirely necessary for a person to enter a music-induced trance or trance-like state.

The balance between an individual’s mental and environmental situations plays the largest role in facilitating trance states, as sonics must appropriately inhabit an atmosphere for a music-induced trance to occur. Although psychoactive drugs have the potential to activate parts of the brain and lower inhibition, they do not appear to be as necessary for dance and electronic music-induced trances as the current body of literature has suggested (Klein 2015). Rather, these substances can merely serve the priming role for certain individuals that holy water might serve for a Balinese musician about to perform: with the proper cognitive and environmental

(especially music-related) cues, individuals can gain access to sensations resembling 61 those of trance-like states. In this way, music-induced trances and trance-like states can influence and trigger similar or related ASCs within other members of an audience similar to recognitions of taksu within Balinese culture or a DJ’s charisma feeding the audience’s energy levels (Rasnawa 2015; Klein 2015).

Moreover, individuals who have experienced music-induced trance states have reaped benefits from their experiences more often than not. Even more difficult to handle trances, such as Pak Made’s overwhelming ketakson trance, have advantages in the way they cause individuals to reassess their lives and relax their physiology immediately afterwards (2015). Taksu and Suizen (very likely in addition to the similar meditative states that I found within Western classical practice) can help a player take full advantage of their performance situation: a performer with taksu can hear the instruments of his or her gamelan ensemble more clearly, whereas suizen encourages shakuhachi performers to embrace their mistakes to transform them into advantages through the use of sawari techniques (Rasnawa

2015; Putri 2015; Kallen 2015; Schultz 2015). Furthermore, the breathing techniques involved with suizen work in combination to the koan-like mental exercises to provide the performer with a somewhat therapeutic interaction with their instrument, environment and consciousness (Schultz 2015; Kallen 2015).

With such benefits outlined, the most obvious next step would be assessing trance states for translational research purposes. Fachner and Rittner attempted to analyze the therapeutic effects of sound-induced trances through EEG experiments, although the nature of many trances (especially more mobile, ecstatic trances) make it difficult to measure precise bodily functions during the situation (235). While 62 more of these kinds of experiments could prove beneficial, basic psychological research on the therapeutic aspects of music-induced trances could provide a more feasible starting point into this potential field of inquiry. For example, models of experiments assessing the benefits of Zen Buddhist meditation techniques could be adapted to teach individuals suizen techniques, which Kallen mentioned provide him with more of a kensho than when he practices zazen (2015).

Another contemporary Western trance-like state that strikes me as particularly interesting is that of a punk concert, where audience members and musicians interact through high-volume music, flailing moshing movements and back-and-forth communication of ideologies in ways that resemble ecstatic trances

(Ensminger 2). This paper also focuses on a relatively narrow range of well- researched music-induced trances, as there are far more around the world waiting to be compared. That being said, I hope that this thesis will bring about even more questions about the nature of how people interact and respond to music.

References

Interviews

Bujana, I Ketut (Pak Katok). Personal interview. 3 January 2015.

Chowning, John. Personal interview. 23 February 2015.

Dibia, I Wayan (Pak Dibia). Conversation with the teacher. 14 January 2015.

Kallen, Elliot. Personal interview. 19 February 2015.

63

Klein, Simon. Personal interview. 4 March 2015.

Khudoynazarova, Makhzuna (Lena). Personal interview. 31 March 2015.

Lasmawan, I Made. Personal interview. 19 February 2015.

Luongo, Robin. Personal interview. 25 February 2015.

Rasnawa, I Ketut (Pak Ris). Personal interview. 3 January 2015.

Schultz, Bill. Personal interview. 6 February 2015.

Siu, Desmond. Personal interview. 22 February 2015.

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