FEEDBACK: TONING FOR THE SONICALLY DISTORTED
For centuries, people from all around the globe have practiced the art of toning, or intoning. This meditation style practice involves everything from the deep and mysterious chanting of Tibetan monks, to the soft hummings of various practioners of the healing arts as they attempt to realign your out of synch body-mind connection. Beginning from the understandable belief that the sound of the voice is a powerful force (easily demonstrated by trying out various ways of saying 'fuck you' to people and observing their various raeactions), toning works with the philosophy that just as electro-magnetic vibrations impact the emotional and physical world we live in, so too does one's voice. Ipso facto -- the more harsh the sound, the more sonically disturbed our environ can be.
Straightforward enough, yes?
But what if you're one of those that simply doesn't like things quite and calm? What if you're one of those deranged and unique people who like it loud? Like it distorted? Like it a chaotic and noisey?
I have come to find that this basic principle of toning can be practiced in a way more conducive for those, like myself, who find distortion, white noise, and feedback to be the element that soothes most emphatically.
Take your average evening at home, after the kids are asleep, and you are confronted with a veritable mountain of exams to mark. The formula to conquer this mountain is simple -- two parts Jesus and Mary Chain, one part Pixies, two parts Husker Du and, finally, if the work still isn't done, three parts Iggy and the Stooges/ Sex Pistols/ John Coltrane in equal proportion. Mix with red wine and VOILA! Work done, wine gone, good night's sleep ahead.
This is a tried and true method. Back in the day, when I first stated university and the workload seemed more motherlode than cartload, I tried the relaxation method -- quiet music, quiet space, quiet time. And I fell asleep. Thinking it was exhaustion, I tried coffee, but all that made me do was go to the can more often. I tried working in the daytime, but that just lead to afternoon catnaps. That's when I realized the problem -- it's too damn quiet! My mind was raging, but my surroundings were dead. And so, in a moment of epiphany I came to my senses and jammed Barbed Wire Kisses into the ol' boom box and the paper was flying like trees out the nether end of a chipper on a June afternoon in Northern New Brunswick.
Frank Black, I'm sending you my undergrad degree. And Bob Mould, you can have my Masters.
You see, I am Sonically Distorted. I like the monks, don't get me wrong, but they have their place -- bedtime. But when it comes to working and creativity, only one thing will do for this Twisted Feedback Machine -- raunch and roll, squeeling saxaphones, and notes that defy the music stave. Oh yes my friends, there is life in the noise off the scale, and they are the notes of the mind driven by distortion.
