#4231: Music to Change Your Mind
Hear music to change your state of mind from Pink Floyd’s psychedelica as done up by guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela’s, music from Iranian mystic and hidden composer Ostad Elahi, to the clouds and drones of LaMonte Young’s Well-Tuned Piano.
The Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela first made a name for themselves busking in Dublin, Ireland, even though they spoke no English at the time. Influenced by both flamenco and heavy metal guitar, their originals and incredible covers have since won the world over. Hear music from their latest record, Mettavolution, and their improbable cover version of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”, which offers mind-altering sonic psychedelics and somehow recreates what John Schaefer calls the “expansive wash of electronic freakout sound” of the 1971 original.
Then, listen to the acoustic sounds of the tanbūr—an ancient, long-necked lute in music by Ostad Elahi (1895–1974), a 20th century Iranian mystic, philosopher, jurist, and hidden composer who never performed in public. His music was reported to have startling effects, which led one of his sons to surreptitiously record him as he played privately for family and friends. Hear how his music might affect the mind, with its repetition and change, from a recent concert of Ostad Elahi’s tanbūr music, as performed by his son, Sharokh Elahi, recorded at the Metropolitan Museum in 2019.
Then, hear an excerpt from LaMonte Young’s five hour masterwork - the Well Tuned Piano - for a piano tuned in just intonation. The resulting sound is the building up and ringing out of the overtones, in such a way that all of the overtones reinforce each other – the “Cloud Effect”. However scientifically grounded those overtones might be or however mathematically grounded in prime number theory, the music has the repetition and an implied drone that relates to the Ostad Elahi or Pink Floyd.
Program #4231: Music to Change Your Mind (First aired 4/26/2019)
ARTIST: Pink Floyd
WORK: Echoes [2:00]
RECORDING: Meddle
SOURCE: Capitol / EMI Records
INFO: Available at Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify
ARTIST: Rodrigo y Gabriela
WORK: Echoes (Pink Floyd) [18:58]
RECORDING: Mettavolution
SOURCE: Rubyworks Records/ATO Records
INFO: https://ryg.lnk.to/StorePR
ARTIST: Sharokh Elahi
WORK: Ostad Elahi: Shah Hosseyni [19:12]
RECORDING: Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 4/5/2019
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The Sacred Lute of Ostad Elahi is available as an import via Le Chant du Monde / Metropolitan Museum 8742259. Try Amazon.com or auction sites.
ARTIST: La Monte Young
WORK:The Magic Opening Chord, excerpt [8:33]
RECORDING: The Well-Tuned Piano
SOURCE: Gramavision 5 CD-set, #18-8701
INFO: Out of print. Info at melafoundation.org
