TOWARDS A TRANSPERSONAL MUSIC

by John Burke

THE REPERTOIRE

Labyrinthmusic is an open-ended, expanding repertoire of functional music designed to inform and deepen the contemplative state. It can be used in an wide variety of meditative settings, although it derives its inspiration and deep structure from the practice of walking the labyrinth, especially the medieval design found at Chartres Cathedral in France. While primarily ambient in mood, it uses the ethos and resources of contemporary classical music to model a process of evolution and transformation that is distinct from the comparatively static modal styles of Gregorian chant, non-Western devotional music, and New Age music.

Founded on the core instrumentation of string quartet, the repertoire consists of music for string quartet alone, as well as combinations such as string quartet with solo woodwinds, and string quartet with plucked strings (which include percussion). There are also choral components, woodwind music, with offshoots to appear in the future including orchestral music. 

The entire repertoire is based on a seed pattern or musical source code that is heard in its most basic form in the various versions of Mysterium. This is ramified by way of longer pieces that progressively extend and deepen the implications of the formula, progressively taking it farther afield, just as the participants progressively journey deeper into their own psyches as they progress to the centre of the labyrinth and return to the point of departure. Thus an evolutionary and transformative journey can be modeled that is determined by how the music is programmed and presented.

The repertoire as a whole is designed to provide the required components of a living ritual. For example, the The Calland Gyaling serve as fanfares that establish sacred space and announce the source code in a decisive, celebratory way. The ambient pieces, which comprise the majority of the music, range from the minimalism of Sanctum I and II, to the more complex ruminations of Hymn. The pieces entitled Versicle serve as a backdrop to spoken text, should that be a desired component.

In fact the entire cycle comprises a continuum that ranges from meditative introspection to concert hall extroversion. While the ambient music at the labyrinth is complete in itself and can serve as the sole basis for an event, at some point it will be appropriate to bring the understated implications to fruition within the concert setting. The hour-long chamber work Remember Your Power is meant to be the final destination of the journey, in that it realizes and catalyzes the potential of the basic material while providing a portal for reentry to the wider world. Thus one possible model for an evening-length event might take the form of an hour or two of walking the labyrinth, a performance of Remember Your Power, concluding with a meal or celebratory  ritual .

MUSIC AND THE LABYRINTH

To walk the labyrinth is to enter a timeless and powerful sacred space that calls out for the mysterious intercession of sound and music to unlock its transpersonal potential.

In a way fundamentally different from the concert experience, the labyrinth engages us in a communal ritual act that renders us open and receptive at a profound level, unburdened by expectations of entertainment or aesthetic refinement.  The labyrinth graciously extends an unspoken invitation to inner work while providing a template for its realization.

The musician at the labyrinth is in the ideal stance to speak directly to the subconscious minds of the participants, without recourse to persuasion or artifice.  Such a musician is attending to nothing less than the alchemical marriage of anima and animus, the coniunctio, the process of individuation--what Jung called the circumambulation of the Self, which finds its symbolic and energetic counterpart in the sacred geometry of the labyrinth design itself. 

The path we take in walking the labyrinth is a potent metaphor for the journey of life, and can be viewed as a literal enactment of the archetype of personal transformation that Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey.  Through this pilgrimage, this rite of passage, we answer the call to leave the world of common day, to undergo the ordeal of initiation, and to return with the gift of the adventure for the benefit of others. 

This fundamental transformative process has always been the essence and secret aspiration of art music, which after all, began as an extension of plainchant, a repertoire possesing a healing dimesnion now becoming known to us. For a classical musician, the labyrinth represents an ideal setting in which to effect a renewal of serious music’s high calling.