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The Healing Power of Sound with Darlene Koldenhoven · New Thinking Allowed Audio Podcast

0:00
because I have a five octave vocal range
0:02
and when I go way up and sing those
0:04
really high frequencies, I've done that
0:07
on several recording sessions as a
0:09
studio singer back in LA and there was
0:13
one producer who always used to say he
0:15
always would make me write these really
0:17
high notes for me to sing cuz I kind of
0:20
was the only one in town that could do
0:21
that, right? But he go he says it's
0:24
really a trip watching you sing those
0:26
notes because he says your whole face
0:28
changes and it's like you whole go into
0:30
this whole different dimension
0:33
and I never thought about it but since
0:34
he brought it up I thought yeah I do I
0:37
do go into a different dimension
0:39
dimension because I'm going into a
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different center frequencies you know
0:43
all lower frequencies as Tomatus pointed
0:46
out go to will correlate it with a base
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chakra
0:50
>> okay And and as you go up to higher
0:53
frequencies, they are coordinate with
0:56
the chakras, you know, the Indian
0:58
chakras. And the higher chakras are for
1:01
the higher frequencies because they have
1:03
to do with not only your head but in
1:05
your aura and beyond into the land of
1:08
spirituality. So yes, to me singing
1:10
certain things u is very spiritual.
1:14
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2:00
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2:16
>> [music]
2:19
>> Thinking Aloud,
2:22
Conversations on the Leading Edge of
2:24
Knowledge and Discovery with
2:26
psychologist Jeffrey Michishlov.
2:31
[music]
2:35
Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey
2:36
Michionlo. Our topic today is sound and
2:41
healing. And I'm delighted to be in my
2:43
small Albuquerque studio with a live
2:46
guest today, Darlene Coldenhovven, who
2:50
is a Grammy awardwinning vocalist and
2:54
has had three Grammy nominations. She is
2:57
also a pianist and a composer. She is
3:00
the author of a new book called Put Your
3:03
Dress Down and Sing. Darlene has been in
3:08
over a thousand studio sessions as a
3:11
professional musician. A billion people
3:14
watched her on TV back in the '9s when
3:18
PBS broadcast the special with Yanni at
3:23
the Acropolis. Darlene was the soprano
3:26
soloist singing the, if I recall
3:29
correctly, the Arya for humanity.
3:32
>> That's right.
3:33
On top of that, she is a specialist in
3:36
the topic we'll be focusing on today,
3:38
healing and sound. Welcome, Darlene.
3:41
>> Thank you. I'm so excited to be here
3:43
with you today.
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>> It is an honor and a joy for me to be
3:46
with you. I hope we'll be able to share
3:49
some of your music with our viewers as
3:52
as well uh on on the piano we have here
3:56
in the in the house. But for now, let's
4:00
talk about your healing journey because
4:03
I know in spite of your storied career,
4:06
it wasn't always easy. You had to go
4:08
through various trials and tribulations
4:12
that led you to become involved in the
4:14
healing profession.
4:16
>> That's right. There were several things.
4:19
First of all, let me give you some
4:21
background. I was born and raised in a
4:23
very, very strict, repressive Dutch
4:26
Calvinist household. And I was only
4:29
allowed to listen to or sing or play
4:32
religious or classical music and that's
4:34
it. Uh imagination was a sin. Creativity
4:38
was a sin. And I was severely punished
4:42
for being creative.
4:44
And so it made life very difficult for
4:47
me as a creative child. As a gifted
4:49
child, it made life very difficult for
4:51
me. And it took many years of sitting in
4:54
the therapist chair for me to overcome
4:56
some of that severe punishment. I got
4:58
for being creative.
4:59
>> If I recall, you grew up in the Chicago
5:02
area.
5:02
>> Yeah, the south side of Chicago.
5:04
>> Mhm.
5:05
>> Far south side of Chicago. And um that
5:08
was an interesting neighborhood to grow
5:10
up in as well. It's considerably changed
5:12
since then, but that whole community was
5:15
a Dutch community. And so the ethos of
5:18
the whole neighborhood was very Dutch,
5:22
very strict religion, seven days a week.
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It was just non-stop and not [snorts] a
5:28
very fun place to be. Pleasure was not
5:31
Well, let's just say pleasure was
5:33
frowned upon. We'll put it that way.
5:34
[laughter]
5:35
>> But you were singing even as a
5:37
three-year-old.
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>> Yes, as a three-year-old. And I and in
5:40
the Christian schools I went to, there
5:41
was always music a few times a week and
5:44
of course church was hem singing and all
5:46
that stuff. But my mother and her
5:49
father, especially her father, Grandpa
5:51
John Radius, used to sing to me a lot
5:54
when I was from the time I was an
5:56
infant. And as a matter of fact, my
5:58
mother told me that she used to put her
6:00
pregnant belly up against the big
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old-fashioned tall radio stations to
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hear the classical music. So since we
6:09
can hear by bone conduction, feeling the
6:11
vibration of that radio, you know, for
6:14
the fetus can hear the voice of the
6:16
mother at 24 weeks old because it has a
6:19
fully formed functioning ear. So I could
6:21
sing really well in tune. I could even
6:23
hold my own part in Row, Row, Row Your
6:25
Boat, a three-part round by the time I
6:28
was 3, three and a half. And so my
6:31
mother decided to put me up on the
6:33
platform in church on Easter Sunday
6:36
morning. And I was dressed in all my
6:38
Easter finery and had a whole bunch of
6:41
itchy tulle krenolin slips underneath my
6:44
dress and some lace panties, you know.
6:46
And she puts me on the platform to sing
6:48
a song called Low in the Grave Helay.
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>> Such a song for a three-year-old, right?
6:54
But see, I thought she said low in the
6:57
gravy lay. And I thought, oh, that's
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going to be fun. Just singing a song
7:01
about laying in the gravy. Okay, I'll do
7:03
it. Right. So, she puts me up in the
7:06
platform and uh like I said, singing was
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no problem until I saw 200 people
7:11
staring at me and I did what any shy
7:14
three-year-old would do with a skirt on.
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I took my dress and I lifted it high
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[laughter] over my head so I couldn't
7:20
see the people. At which point, my
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mother rushes to the platform. She goes,
7:24
"Darlene, put your dress down and sing."
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Okay. And I turned to the organist. I'm
7:30
ready now. And away we went and I sang,
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you know, and and some I learned some
7:36
very good lessons from that, even though
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I didn't know what it was at the time.
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But first of all, I learned how to keep
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my dress down when I sing in public. And
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that's kind of run through the rest of
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my life. [laughter]
7:49
But the big lesson about that in
7:51
psychology is if you want to overcome
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some feelings, some dil, you know,
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debilitating feelings or negative
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feelings, you have to take an action. A
8:02
lot of people think, oh, I've got to be
8:04
in the right mood or I got to feel a
8:06
certain way to write music or accomplish
8:09
a goal or whatever it is. No, it's the
8:11
opposite. M you have to take the action
8:14
because in taking of the action now
8:17
you're creating hope self-confidence for
8:20
yourself and it's that's how you
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overcome those feelings and you're able
8:25
to maintain your goal. So as an early
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kid at three and a half by taking the
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action of pulling my dress down and
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singing
8:35
>> since that point I was never shy
8:38
>> to sing in front of people ever again.
8:40
You [clears throat] know your point
8:41
about taking action first rather than
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waiting for the right emotion. That's
8:47
called the James Lang theory of emotion.
8:49
>> Oh, it is. It's got a name, huh?
8:51
>> Was developed by William James.
8:53
>> Okay, that's good to know.
8:54
>> One of my [clears throat] heroes.
8:55
>> That theme runs throughout the book. Put
8:58
your dress down and sing. Of course,
8:59
that's where the title came from. Of
9:00
course, you know. So, but yeah, that
9:02
theme runs throughout.
9:03
>> And I should mention for our viewers,
9:05
your book is wonderful.
9:07
>> Oh, thank you. It's it [clears throat]
9:08
it's a glimpse into a world I've never
9:11
been in personally, but if you anyone
9:14
wants to know about the the life of a
9:17
professional studio musician such as
9:20
yourself, it it's just filled with
9:24
wonderful, delightful stories. And
9:26
although we're just going to be focusing
9:28
on your healing work primarily in this
9:31
interview, I want to make sure our
9:33
readers, our viewers also
9:36
>> are aware of your book.
9:38
>> Great. Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing
9:40
it
9:40
>> and I didn't want to write one at first,
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but I had a lot of people ask me
9:45
starting in the 90s, "Oh, your stories
9:47
are so great. You should write a book."
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I go, I'm not old enough, but now I
9:51
certainly am. [laughter]
9:52
So, I decided to let's write this book,
9:55
but if I'm going to do it, it's not
9:56
going to just be a purge of my life. I
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want it to have a purpose,
10:01
>> which we just talked about the theme
10:02
that runs through the book, but I wanted
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to inspire people and to motivate
10:06
people.
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>> And I love helping people and helping
10:10
people change their lives. And why I do
10:12
that through voice lessons, through
10:15
sonic therapy, through music therapy,
10:17
sound healing, and and now with writing
10:20
the book, with encouraging people to
10:22
find their dream, never give up on the
10:24
dream, you know, because we all have
10:26
gifts, right? And people don't even
10:28
bother to even think they have a gift.
10:30
But if you start looking deep inside
10:33
yourself, there is some gift that you
10:35
might have and you need to bring that
10:37
out and develop the gift because the
10:40
world needs everyone's gifts and that's
10:43
>> well sometimes the gift is just being a
10:46
good parent or good brother or sister or
10:49
spouse.
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>> That's right. That's right.
10:51
>> Let's talk about sonic healing.
10:55
You you for example I know worked with
10:59
the toatis. I say tomatis. I know you
11:03
call it to tomatus. Tomatus. Tomatis.
11:09
I was exposed to this back in 1976.
11:12
>> You're lucky
11:13
>> because at the time it was my first trip
11:16
to Europe and I was rooming with a
11:19
well-known physicist named Fred Allen
11:21
Wolf [snorts] who was studying Cababala.
11:25
Hebrew.
11:26
>> And he had this idea that you speak the
11:29
letters which are all words and they
11:32
create a a sonic imprint.
11:34
>> And he was comparing the actual, you
11:37
know, these voice prints from
11:40
pronouncing the Hebrew letters. And
11:43
somehow this got him in touch with Dr.
11:45
Tomatis and I'm on my way to Europe. He
11:48
says, "You've got to check this guy out.
11:50
>> You got to check that guy out." Right.
11:52
>> Yeah.
11:53
>> And you got to meet him. No,
11:54
>> no, I did visit his office.
11:56
>> Got it.
11:57
>> Yeah.
11:58
>> A long time ago. And and what I was told
12:01
was quite interesting that
12:03
[clears throat]
12:03
>> if I recall correctly, he he said that
12:06
often times parents in different
12:09
cultures all have different vocal
12:11
ranges, pitches and so on associated
12:14
with each language. But when they yell
12:16
at a child,
12:17
>> they may yell at a child or discipline a
12:20
child in a particular vocal frequency.
12:23
>> Right.
12:24
>> And then the child will learn to block
12:27
that frequency. They won't hear it.
12:30
>> And that that's like an audio
12:32
impairment.
12:32
>> Right. That's right. So I I
12:37
have an advanced certification in the
12:40
tomatus or tomates. Um I'll call it
12:43
therapy, if you will. I don't know if he
12:46
had developed or he was in the process
12:47
of developing his electronic ear in the
12:50
70s, but I know in the 80s he had and
12:53
that's when he really started [sighs]
12:55
the uh formalization of the electronic
12:58
ear and the organization of the therapy
13:01
that he does. But I want to go back if
13:04
if you will to when I was 9 years old
13:06
and just kind of set the stage for how I
13:09
got involved.
13:10
>> All right.
13:10
>> In sonic therapy.
13:12
>> Mhm. So I have one sibling, a sister and
13:16
I was nine at the time and she was born
13:19
she was born deaf with no ears, a
13:21
condition called bilateral oral atreia.
13:25
And so in one side she had absolutely
13:28
nothing. In the left side she did have
13:31
the important auditory nerve, a mastoid
13:33
bone, the inner ear but she had no
13:37
middle ear, no eardrum, no canal, no
13:40
openings. It was if you took your ears
13:42
and folded them over, that's what they
13:43
look like. So, at age nine,
13:47
I my mother sent well, my mother and I
13:50
went to a school for the handicap to
13:52
teach deaf children how to speak and
13:55
sing. And that was by the use of
13:57
vibration because you can feel your
13:59
vocal cords when you speak or sing and
14:02
the movement of the jaw. And so,
14:04
vibration caught my attention as a
14:07
child. this whole thing about wow what
14:09
is this vibration thing right and how it
14:12
changed with people's voices and with
14:14
vowel sounds and consonants and all that
14:17
kind of thing was very interesting when
14:19
my sister was 6 months old
14:22
go back in 1954 Tomatis
14:26
came to the musical comm the medical
14:28
community to say you know we don't just
14:31
hear by airwaves we also hear by bone
14:34
conduction
14:35
>> one of his big discoveries big discovery
14:38
and since then now that was 54. My
14:41
sister's born in 59 and she was one of
14:44
the first infants to have bone
14:48
conduction hearing aids.
14:50
>> Okay. So it was my job to wake her up in
14:55
the morning by putting her on. So the
14:57
little two oscillators right on a head
14:59
headpiece over the head. a wire came
15:02
down and she had a harness like this and
15:03
here was the little gold microphone that
15:06
you you know picked up the sound waves
15:08
and you'd put those on her in the
15:10
morning and she would just light up
15:11
because she could hear right but she's
15:14
you know it was great because soon as
15:15
you took them off at night she'd be out
15:17
cold right [laughter] she'd be sleeping
15:20
I'm a little bit jealous of her being
15:22
able to do that even to this day she
15:24
just you know but that got my attention
15:28
and then when she was four years old.
15:31
She had a surgery done by a Dr. Richard
15:33
Buckingham in Chicago and the first
15:36
person they did that on died. The second
15:38
person became an imbecile and my sister
15:40
was the third one to go for the surgery
15:43
and hers was successful. So what he did
15:46
was he took some uh muscle tissue,
15:50
cartilage, vein tissue and stuff like
15:53
that and he drilled a hole behind the
15:56
nubbin. He made a canal. He made an eard
15:59
drum. He made the three little bones and
16:03
two little muscles of the middle ear,
16:06
connected them to the inner ear, and
16:09
hers was successful. She had 85% hearing
16:12
out of that.
16:13
>> My
16:13
>> that was a miracle.
16:14
>> Mhm.
16:16
>> And so her speech because of Tomatus and
16:20
this having uh bone conduction hearing
16:23
aids at 6 months old, her speech and her
16:25
singing is perfect. You cannot tell. and
16:28
she's a brilliant person, you know, and
16:29
you can't tell that she had anything,
16:32
you know, all that.
16:33
>> It's a wonderful story.
16:35
>> That got me into it.
16:36
>> Yeah,
16:36
>> that got me into it. So later on, you
16:40
know, I started thinking more about
16:42
sound healing and healing with music and
16:44
vibration and I was reading more and
16:46
more and I read about Tomatus, right?
16:51
And I thought, well, this is really
16:53
fascinating. And you know, it really
16:55
spoke to me because here's this guy who
16:57
said, "We hear by bone conduction." And
16:59
I had all this history with my sister
17:02
and the whole vibration right
17:03
>> aspect of it.
17:05
>> So um I studied uh with an American
17:10
company here in the US run by a doctor
17:12
psychiatrist Dr. Run meon because you
17:15
know Tomatus was also a psychiatrist as
17:18
well as an ear nose and throat doctor
17:20
and uh I had learned about it by going
17:24
to a music healing conference uh in
17:27
Boulder, Colorado for a weekend. I was
17:29
invited
17:31
by a ve a very famous organist and sound
17:34
healer Don I his last name is escaping
17:37
me right now. But I went to this sa
17:39
that's where I first heard about tamatus
17:43
>> and so I went to school to study to
17:47
become a therapist right and that's
17:50
where I learned all about Tomatus his
17:52
development of the electronic ear and
17:54
how the whole thing works
17:57
>> and uh I set up my own studio with my
18:01
own clientele. Now my thing is geared
18:04
more toward music and musicians. other
18:07
people focus more on autism because
18:09
Tomatus' way of doing things was can
18:13
help people with autism, ADD, ADHD,
18:17
dyslexia, PTSD, memory problems, um
18:22
speech delays, um you know, audio
18:26
processing delays. I mean, it does so
18:28
many things and people go, "How can one
18:30
thing just help with all those things?"
18:33
Well, when you learn that the ear is the
18:35
master conductor or the master
18:38
controller of not only your mind but
18:40
also your body through the vagus nerve,
18:43
you start to figure it out. Oh yeah, it
18:46
has a yes it can. There's a possibility
18:49
that it can.
18:50
>> I hear people say for example, if you
18:53
had a choice of being either blind or
18:56
deaf, it's better to be blind because
18:59
hearing is more important.
19:00
>> It is. Hearing is really a matter of
19:02
survival. You know, you may not see the
19:06
gorilla coming behind you, but you'll
19:08
hear the gorilla. [laughter]
19:10
It's a matter of survival. As Tim has
19:12
taught us, hearing is automatic. That is
19:15
our gift as all human beings. Hearing if
19:18
you're unless you're born with a an
19:20
impairment, but hearing is automatic.
19:22
Listening, however, that has a conscious
19:24
choice and that has psychology involved
19:27
in it. And speaking to what you were
19:30
talking about before, so one of the the
19:32
things I do in my therapy is I give a
19:36
listening test to clients that come in
19:39
and [snorts]
19:40
it's you in the listening test, you
19:43
begin to learn what frequencies they're
19:45
taking in and which frequencies they're
19:47
not taking in.
19:49
>> And I can see after we do the test, I
19:52
can see on a graph, Tomatus made it on a
19:54
graph. It's like a hearing test, but
19:56
it's much more involved.
19:58
um you can see what frequencies from 125
20:02
htz to 8,000 htz what kind of a sound
20:06
curve like if it goes up on the curve it
20:09
means that it doesn't take much to be
20:12
able to hear anything which is good
20:14
right if it goes down on that curve you
20:17
got to turn up the decibb to be able to
20:20
hear things and so you can see where on
20:24
the graph and this happens to be the
20:27
case especially
20:28
I have a lot of people who want to learn
20:30
how to sing and they can't match pitch
20:33
>> which is a prerequisite to singing
20:35
>> and they can't tell if the sound is
20:37
going up or down. So part of the test is
20:40
to be able to test the individual on
20:42
which direction is the sound going up or
20:44
down or right or left and things like
20:46
that. Now I can see on the graph where
20:49
they make a mistake. I start at 8,000
20:52
and I go through the different
20:54
frequencies and where they mistake make
20:56
a mistake in determining if the sound
20:58
went up or down determines what year of
21:01
their life the trauma happened.
21:04
>> Really?
21:04
>> Yeah. [laughter]
21:06
>> So I freak people out cuz I go okay so
21:08
let's see. Okay. So what happened to
21:11
you? Did anything traumatic or different
21:13
happened when you were 7 years old?
21:15
>> You mean the pitch has to do with the
21:17
year?
21:17
>> Yeah. The frequency has to do Yeah.
21:19
coincides with the year. Yeah.
21:21
>> Why is that?
21:23
>> Tomatus had that all figured out. I
21:25
never got to ask him. I wished, but
21:27
those were the things I learned in my
21:29
training and I've seen in my practice.
21:32
>> In other words, words, the trauma is
21:35
related to a a deficit in being able to
21:38
hear particular pitches.
21:41
>> Yes. A frequency. Yes.
21:43
>> Exactly.
21:44
>> Yeah. So, that we can fix. And and the
21:46
therapy I gather involves listening over
21:49
and over again to help people rehear.
21:52
>> Yeah. The therapy involved is beautiful
21:54
therapy. Everybody loves it when they
21:56
get into it because it's so marvelous.
22:00
So it's a Tomatus had an electronic air
22:04
stationary instrument. The American
22:05
company that I studied with, they have
22:08
like an iPod, right? And it's attached
22:11
with all the music in And Tomatus liked
22:13
to use the music of Mozart because it
22:15
was organized, it had the innocence of a
22:18
child and it had a lot of high
22:20
frequencies which we really need for
22:22
this kind of therapy.
22:23
>> And so we developed that. And so he has
22:27
all these different kinds of programs to
22:30
help people with whatever frequencies
22:32
they're missing or what their issues
22:34
are. For example, when I have clients
22:37
that come in and they're very depressed
22:40
and they're on medication for
22:41
depression, I look at the curve and it
22:44
looks normal from 125 and it it curves
22:48
up which means good. You can hear it
22:51
softly, right? And it gets to about a
22:53
thousand and suddenly that curve just
22:56
drops straight down.
22:57
>> We're talking about cycles per second.
23:00
>> Yeah, we're talking about the frequency
23:01
and that just drops straight down. So
23:03
depressed people are not getting higher
23:06
frequencies. So we give them higher
23:10
frequencies and over the period of about
23:13
80 to 100 hours is what Tomatus
23:16
recommended of doing it like an hour a
23:18
day.
23:19
>> Slowly that curve changes and becomes
23:21
more of an ideal listening curve that
23:23
Tomatus found in singers and musicians
23:27
all over Europe because he was an ear,
23:30
nose, and throat guy. His dad was a
23:32
baritone in the Paris Opera. And he got
23:36
to do all this testing all over Europe
23:39
to all these singers and musicians. And
23:41
he noticed that they had a certain kind
23:43
of an energy and a clarity about them.
23:45
And they all had a frequency curve of
23:48
listening, a way of listening that
23:50
resembled each other that was special
23:52
for singers and musicians
23:54
because we deal with music all the time.
23:57
It helps you know train the brain,
23:59
regulate the brain and things like that.
24:01
Now, conversely, autistic people,
24:05
>> they have way too much high frequency
24:08
over stimulation of high frequency.
24:10
That's why it's like [gasps and sighs]
24:12
they can't cope with all this coming at
24:14
them, you know.
24:16
>> So, we have to balance them out and give
24:18
them low frequencies which they're
24:20
missing.
24:21
>> So, broad strokes like that. And then
24:23
there's different programs, you know,
24:24
for the dyslexia, for the people with
24:27
reading and, you know, ADD and all these
24:29
different things. But the people that I
24:30
have worked with, it's amazing that, you
24:33
know, they can get over these things
24:35
just by listening to the way that
24:38
Tomatus has acoustically processed the
24:41
Mozart music.
24:42
>> Now, if I recall correctly from from
24:45
your book, you also went through some of
24:47
this therapy.
24:48
>> Yes. To become a certified therapist,
24:50
you have to go through the therapy. so
24:52
you know what's going on. [snorts] And
24:55
it was it was wonderful. Um I don't
24:59
drink coffee, but in my past I have
25:01
drunk a few cups of coffee, so I know
25:04
how intense coffee could be. And I'll
25:07
just say for me listening to 8,000 hertz
25:09
frequency was like drinking five cups of
25:11
coffee. I mean, I was like, "Wow." You
25:15
know, and it made you very creative. And
25:17
I remember after listening to about 20
25:19
minutes of 8,000 hertz, one day I came
25:22
home and I just laid my hands on the
25:24
piano and my fingers just started moving
25:28
and I wrote this incredible piece of
25:30
music in a very odd meter in 13, you
25:33
know, like 13 beats to a bar. And I
25:36
wrote this beautiful piece. I titled it
25:39
First Light on my Color Me Home album.
25:40
And it was just I just sat there and
25:42
kind of watched my hands like, whoa,
25:45
where is this coming from? You know,
25:47
[gasps]
25:47
>> so when you listen to these frequencies,
25:50
are are they just straight tones or
25:53
>> No, no, no. It's Mozzart.
25:55
>> Mhm.
25:55
>> Acoustically processed, either high
25:57
frequencies, low frequencies, taken out
25:59
and different things like that.
26:00
>> I I see. So, it's pleasant.
26:02
>> It's very pleasant. And let's just say
26:05
simply say it's like going to the gym
26:08
for the muscles of the middle ear.
26:10
That's it's like working out like this.
26:12
You were going to the gym, you'd have
26:13
weights and working out. But for the
26:16
listening therapy, you know, you're
26:18
working the two little muscles of the
26:20
middle ear. And so by working all that,
26:22
you are regulating how these sounds go
26:26
into the brain and you're building new
26:28
neural pathways in creating a new brain,
26:33
so to speak, and now you are regulating
26:36
everything that goes into the brain.
26:37
It's really an incredibly marvelous and
26:41
such a pleasant wonderful way to go. So
26:44
that we've sort of summed up sonic
26:46
therapy.
26:47
>> Yeah, that's sonic therapy.
26:49
>> But there's much more to sound in
26:50
healing than than sonic therapy. I know
26:53
for example, singing always makes people
26:57
feel good.
26:58
>> Yeah. Singing always makes why? Because
27:00
you vibrate all the bones in your body
27:02
when you sing. And it's very good for
27:04
your lungs and it's stimulating to the
27:06
brain. Tomatus required people to sing
27:09
[laughter] because he knew how great it
27:11
was for the brain
27:12
>> and the body. So yes, singing is very
27:16
therapeutic.
27:17
>> And on top of that, I've had this
27:19
experience recently, as I try to observe
27:22
my own mind, I realize in the back of my
27:25
mind somewhere, I'm always kind of
27:28
silently, of course, singing a song or
27:31
or humming a melody. It's like I think I
27:35
also am always dreaming as as well way
27:37
in the back of my mind. It's always
27:39
there's a dream happening at any given
27:41
moment and a song of some sort.
27:44
>> Yeah. Some kind of music goes on and
27:46
things pop into your head. At least for
27:48
me, it's like the older I get, the
27:50
stranger songs I haven't sung in 60
27:53
years show up in my brain and I sing
27:55
them and I still know all the words.
27:56
It's a miracle. I don't know. But that's
27:58
the power of music. You know, music
28:01
engages all the parts of the brain.
28:03
Especially if you're playing an
28:05
instrument and singing and reading music
28:08
at the same time, your entire brain is
28:11
lit up. It engages the whole brain.
28:13
That's why music is so powerful as a
28:15
healing tool
28:16
>> because it can bypass, you know, emotion
28:19
and it can evoke emotion as well and
28:23
help release emotion and it can help
28:25
release negative energies and things
28:27
like that, which is something I do. I
28:29
have a whole room at home with 12 tuned
28:33
quartz crystal singing bowls of various
28:35
sizes. Big ones for low tones, smaller
28:37
ones for higher tones.
28:39
>> And a client will come in and lay on the
28:41
massage table fully clothed of course.
28:44
And and I will discuss a little bit,
28:45
talk to the client a little bit, and
28:47
then I will play the music that I intuit
28:51
intuitively feel that the client needs
28:54
to release negative energy. and the bull
28:58
gets spun in reverse or to bring in the
29:01
positive energy and the bull gets spun a
29:04
different directions. So, every client
29:07
has a different sound. I mean, I've
29:09
never recorded the sessions, but I've
29:11
often wondered because every client is
29:14
different. Every every client's
29:15
emotional energy is different. Their
29:17
psychic energy is different. And so, it
29:20
brings me to play different pitches and
29:22
combine different harmonies and things
29:24
like that for the client. Now you have
29:26
become in fact you've won awards in the
29:28
new age music area.
29:31
>> Yes.
29:32
>> You moved from classical to jazz and and
29:35
and to new age music.
29:37
>> Right. That's right.
29:39
>> Which has certainly to me it just seems
29:42
to have a healing component.
29:44
I always feel relaxed listening to that
29:48
type of music.
29:49
>> Yeah. That's kind of the purpose of new
29:50
age music is to relax people,
29:53
>> which is a good thing. It's a very good
29:55
thing especially in our you know crazy
29:58
society we have these days right it's
30:00
just very nourishing and relaxing
30:09
[music]
30:25
>> [music]
30:32
[music]
30:32
>> Heat. Heat.
30:37
[music]
30:41
Heat. Heat.
30:45
[music]
31:04
Heat. Heat.
31:13
[music]
31:27
Heat.
31:29
[music]
31:45
Heat.
31:48
[music]
31:53
>> [music]
31:59
[music]
32:04
>> Heat.
32:06
[music] Heat.
32:11
[music]
32:18
>> [music]
32:23
[music]
32:24
>> Heat. Heat.
32:28
[music]
32:34
Heat.
32:35
[music]
32:59
Heat.
33:01
Heat. [music]
33:11
[music]
33:18
Heat.
33:23
[music]
33:29
>> [music]
33:34
[music]
33:47
>> And what drew you into it? Because
33:50
growing up, the way I grew up, it all I
33:53
had was music of who I was and who I was
33:57
destined to be was the music. And that's
34:01
all I was allowed to do. And it wasn't
34:04
that I was allowed to improvise. I could
34:06
never improvise on the piano either. But
34:10
at least I could hear sound coming out
34:12
of my fingertips
34:13
>> and I could hear sound and feel the
34:15
sound come out of my mouth. Mhm.
34:17
>> And music came to the rescue many times
34:21
for me in many different ways. And even
34:24
like if I'd come home from school as a
34:26
kid, you know, aggravated at, you know,
34:28
something that happened during
34:29
elementary school, I'd come home and I'd
34:32
play my lesson extra loud. Everything
34:34
was loud. And after about 10 minutes,
34:37
then, okay, now we have dynamics. Okay,
34:40
softs and louds. And okay, now I'm fine.
34:43
And I think sometimes I still do that.
34:45
you know, I'll just if life gets crazy
34:47
or overwhelmed, I'll just go into the
34:50
studio or start playing piano and
34:52
singing and just, you know, in a few
34:54
minutes I'm like, "Okay, I'm back to me
34:55
again. Thank you very much."
34:57
>> Do you think music puts people into an
34:59
altered state of consciousness?
35:02
>> Oh, absolutely.
35:03
>> Now, here's something interesting I've
35:05
heard from people. one because I have a
35:06
five octave vocal range and when I go
35:09
way up and sing those really high
35:11
frequencies, I've done that on several
35:14
recording sessions as a studio singer
35:16
back in LA and there was one producer
35:20
who always used to say he always would
35:22
make me write these really high notes
35:24
for me to sing cuz I kind of was the
35:26
only one in town that could do
35:27
[clears throat] that, right? But he go
35:29
he says it's really a trip watching you
35:31
sing those notes because he says your
35:34
whole face changes and it's like you
35:35
whole go into this whole different
35:37
dimension
35:39
and I never thought about it but since
35:40
he brought it up I thought yeah I do I
35:43
do go into a different dimension
35:45
dimension because I'm going into a
35:47
different center frequencies you know
35:49
all lower frequencies as Tomatus pointed
35:52
out go to will correlate it with a base
35:55
chakra
35:56
>> okay And and as you go up to higher
35:59
frequencies, they are coordinate with
36:02
the chakras, you know, the Indian
36:04
chakras. And the higher chakras are for
36:07
the higher frequencies because they have
36:09
to do with not only your head but in
36:11
your aura and beyond into the land of
36:14
spirituality. So yes, to me singing
36:16
certain things u is very spiritual.
36:20
There was a piece that I did on my
36:22
heavenly peace album called Emanuel. It
36:25
was written by a great composer Michelle
36:27
Colombier
36:28
and uh it's a whole if it's a vocally so
36:31
there's no lyric and I did it in one
36:34
take because it just was this especially
36:37
moving melody you know and I could just
36:41
sing and these sounds came out high and
36:43
low but it's the type of high soprano
36:46
voice that floats there's a float to it
36:48
some sopranos there's no float
36:51
>> there's just the notes okay they're
36:53
there And there may they might be
36:55
braviraa and they be loud. Yes, I can do
36:58
that too. But there's a float that
37:00
happens that when people listen to it um
37:05
a lot of people just start weeping. They
37:08
weep from it. I mean I've had
37:10
20-year-old college students go and I
37:12
play it for a music appreciation class I
37:14
was teaching and I was said just listen
37:16
to this and see [clears throat] let's
37:17
see what happens. And half the class
37:20
literally was weeping. And some of these
37:23
people, what did you just do to me? You
37:25
know,
37:26
>> and I used to get, "What did you just do
37:28
to me?" Also, when I had people who had
37:31
difficulty matching pitch and I would
37:32
match their pitch. I say, "You sing a
37:35
pitch, I'll match your pitch." And the
37:37
first time they hear a human vibrate
37:39
with another human at that frequency,
37:43
floodgates, weeping, just, you know, it
37:46
takes them to a whole different part of
37:48
themselves in a whole different
37:49
dimension.
37:50
>> How interesting. It reminds me of I have
37:53
these Peruvian whistling pots. Yes,
37:56
>> they're each each apparently the
37:58
cultures of Peru, pre-Colombian
38:01
cultures, lived in different little
38:03
valleys coming up off the ocean and they
38:06
all built these whistling pots of
38:09
different pitches for each culture and
38:11
but the pitches are very close,
38:13
>> right,
38:14
>> to each other and if you play them
38:16
together, you end up hearing this low
38:19
sound,
38:20
>> right,
38:20
>> which isn't in the room. If you had an
38:23
oscilloscope, it wouldn't even show up.
38:26
But the brain
38:28
processes the sound between the notes,
38:30
>> right? Those are the undertones as well
38:32
as we have overtones. So you might just
38:35
hear me go ba, but that ba has 13 more
38:39
tones in a in a relationship
38:41
mathematically above that,
38:44
>> you know. And there was an experiment
38:45
that was done once with barn owls and
38:48
they played they didn't play the
38:51
fundamental tone. They just played the
38:52
overtones that went with the each of the
38:54
melodic pitches. Song I think they used
38:57
was a beautiful blue Danube
39:00
>> and they did an experiment with Barnals
39:02
and the thing that how the Barnall's
39:05
brains processed it was they heard the
39:09
actual fundamental melody
39:13
even though the brain was fed just the
39:15
overtones.
39:16
>> Barn owls. Okay. Yeah. [laughter]
39:20
>> Barn owls. Yeah. Okay.
39:22
>> So, yes. So, in the animal kingdom,
39:25
>> you know, we're all animals, right? Our
39:28
brain processes that. That's a matter of
39:30
survival.
39:31
>> Yeah.
39:31
>> And it's how we distinguish one sound
39:34
from the other. It's how we distinguish
39:35
your voice from my voice by how those
39:38
overtone frequencies are amplified or
39:41
diminished. That creates the tamber.
39:44
Spelled t i m r e.
39:46
>> The tambber that okay, a violin sounds
39:50
like this. A viola sounds like that.
39:52
They have different tambers because
39:54
their overtone frequencies are different
39:57
and it's the shape of the instrument or
39:59
the shape of the voice
40:01
>> that creates those overtones.
40:04
>> It's there's so much depth in the world
40:06
of sound.
40:07
>> That's wonderful, isn't it? It's so much
40:09
fun and it's so exciting.
40:10
>> Well, I just barely studied it in my
40:14
life. I like to sing karaoke. That's
40:16
about as far as I've gotten. Well, I
40:19
have never sung karaoke. [laughter] So
40:21
there.
40:21
>> And you probably never will.
40:23
>> I never.
40:26
>> But it's a whole universe.
40:27
>> It is. I So it gives a lot of people a
40:30
lot of enjoyment.
40:31
>> It's an opportunity for somebody with
40:34
without any professional experience to
40:37
feel like a star.
40:38
>> That's right. To get on stage and knock
40:40
out a song, you know.
40:42
>> Now, I know you've also had a few
40:44
paranormal experiences.
40:46
>> Oh, yeah. Those are the best. [laughter]
40:49
>> You don't want to forget those.
40:51
>> No, there's two that come to mind.
40:54
>> One happened when I was 7 years old.
40:57
Now, remember, I was born into this very
41:00
strict household and I we got a piano in
41:03
the house when I was seven, but my
41:05
mother said, "Don't touch the piano."
41:08
Okay? I always obeyed my mother. Okay?
41:10
Don't touch the piano. And she started
41:13
taking beginner piano lessons one day.
41:16
and she would always say, "Darlene,
41:17
bring your coloring book and crayons and
41:20
come over and sit under here under the
41:22
piano bench and while I practice." Okay?
41:26
So, I'd sit there and she hadn't been
41:28
that far along in her lessons at all.
41:30
And now, mind you, I never touched the
41:33
piano. Okay?
41:35
She kept playing a wrong note.
41:37
[laughter]
41:38
And I got threw my crayons down
41:40
frustrated. I said, "Mom," I said,
41:42
"You're playing a wrong note. It's this
41:44
note." And I played E above middle C.
41:47
She kept playing the F right next to it.
41:50
And I played the E above middle C. And
41:52
she looked at my finger, looked at the
41:53
music, look at the finger, look at the
41:55
music,
41:57
>> slammed the the cover down on the keys,
42:00
and got up and walked away. She must
42:02
have thought I was a child of Satan or
42:04
something because how could I know this?
42:07
>> How could I know this? I had never
42:09
touched the piano. I mean, I don't know
42:11
how I could know that other than to
42:13
explain there must have been something
42:15
in the ethers
42:17
>> or perhaps someone that had gone before
42:19
me.
42:20
>> A past life,
42:21
>> a past life perhaps,
42:23
>> you know, something was there that I
42:25
would just automatically know that
42:28
>> and I just thought that was so unusual.
42:32
Now, we'll fast forward to another
42:34
really exciting story. So, this is about
42:37
I want to say 2007.
42:40
And I'm on stage performing
42:44
Costa Diva from the opera Norma. And in
42:47
the opera, Norma is a priestess
42:52
and she's summoning the goddess of the
42:54
moon in this area, calling upon the
42:56
goddess of the moon to help uh protect
43:02
um people that were going off to war.
43:06
>> Okay. So she's doing all this and
43:08
there's a long introduction of about a
43:10
minute and a half. It's just a beautiful
43:11
orchestral introduction. She's gathering
43:14
mistletoe and things like this. So I'm
43:16
on stage performing at at a big theater
43:19
in Los Angeles for Cheryl Lee Ralph's
43:22
annual AIDS charity benefit called Divas
43:26
Simply Singing. And the simply singing
43:29
part meant you only sang with a piano
43:31
accompaniment. Okay.
43:34
So I'm I dress up like a goddess. I have
43:37
a big white gown, white stole, 7 foot
43:42
white train going behind me and I'm just
43:45
dressed in the part of this goddess.
43:47
Right. So [gasps] So
43:51
comes time for me to sing. Now I'm in
43:54
the wings ready to go on and the pianist
43:57
has to play first this long
44:00
introduction. Now, I heard my name
44:02
called to go out. I was announced,
44:04
right? I supposed to go out and while
44:07
he's playing, I'm supposed to be mimming
44:10
this gathering of the mistletoe.
44:13
But instead, there were two there were
44:16
volunteers for this whole thing. And
44:18
they were one [clears throat] volunteer
44:20
was here.
44:22
Audience is there. Okay. One volunteer
44:25
is here. Suddenly during this thing, a
44:28
girl from the other side comes running
44:30
across the stage and stopped right in
44:33
front of me and the stage manager says,
44:37
"You're not supposed to do that. You got
44:40
to go around the back of the stage." And
44:43
they start a catfight
44:46
>> really yelling and
44:49
so much negative energy
44:51
>> right in front of me as I am trying. And
44:53
I said, "Excuse me, they don't move.
44:56
They're still like at each other."
44:58
Finally had to raise my voice
45:00
completely. Get out of my character cuz
45:02
I was in my character. Completely get
45:05
out of the character. And I said, "Get
45:08
out of my way." I yell and I push him
45:10
out of my way. Cuz by this time, the
45:14
pianist had already gone through 90
45:16
seconds of this intro. So now I'm comp.
45:20
I walk out on stage and because it took
45:24
so long, he almost had to start over,
45:26
right? And I walk out on stage and I get
45:29
my position and I turn back to
45:32
acknowledge the piano player as if to
45:34
say, "I'm ready." This is a standard
45:35
thing singers do, you know? They might
45:37
just nod, right? And with that, the
45:39
audience starts laughing. They thought
45:42
it was a comedy bit. Oh, [laughter]
45:44
>> because here's this long introduction.
45:48
Here's this diva coming out and I'm
45:50
nodding to him to play all over again
45:53
like you know like that.
45:55
>> So it kind of threw me for a loop but I
45:59
didn't want to show that I was thrown
46:01
right.
46:02
>> So I start singing and now when I sing
46:05
in my opera voice even when I'm singing
46:07
very softly it's a big voice. It's a big
46:11
sound. I do not need amplification. And
46:14
they had a microphone there that was
46:16
jacked up really loudly and I started
46:19
singing because you it's a prayer. I'm
46:21
singing softly. And now this voice comes
46:24
out of this microphone hugely loud like
46:28
you know a stack of Marshall amplifiers
46:30
at a rock concert. You there's this
46:32
voice and I'm like whoa. And I can't
46:35
back up because now I got this 7 foot
46:37
train behind me. So I'm I'm like so now
46:40
I'm trying to sing as soft as super soft
46:42
as super soft as I can which is very
46:45
difficult to sing and I'm struggling
46:47
internally you know
46:50
and all of a sudden I'm singing to the
46:53
audience because I always look at the
46:54
audience when I sing and I see what the
46:57
heck is that
46:59
and I see
47:02
this vibrating
47:04
orb
47:06
with a gold nucleus that is vibrating
47:09
even more and it appeared
47:12
and two or three more appeared and then
47:16
more and more of them and and I thought
47:20
am I having a stroke? Am I
47:23
hallucinating?
47:24
What is this? Because they came from all
47:27
over. I said now I'm singing but in one
47:30
side of my brain is singing the other
47:32
side of the brain is going that be a
47:35
reflection off of people's glasses or
47:37
something. where where is this come?
47:38
What is this? You know, and all this is
47:41
going down. And more and more of them
47:42
came out. And they were just all having
47:45
a great old time watching me sing. Now,
47:49
halfway through the song, there's a
47:52
musical interlude. So, I took that
47:54
opportunity and I
47:57
pulled the skirt back. I stepped back
48:00
from the microphone, a good five feet
48:02
back, way back from the microphone,
48:04
right?
48:06
And I said to myself, "Okay, Darlene,
48:09
get it together. Put your dress down and
48:10
sing." [laughter] Right. Put your dress
48:13
down and sing. I took a deep breath and
48:17
I turned and as I opened my mouth to
48:19
sing the second half of the song, all
48:22
these orbs went
48:25
right into me. Right into me like that.
48:29
All of them just. [snorts] And I felt
48:32
this rush of energy and focus and
48:37
centeredness. It was like they gave me
48:40
all their energy so I could finish the
48:42
task, right? And I just started singing
48:46
and it was like this humongous I mean it
48:49
was the most glorious sound coming out
48:51
of my mouth from these orbs rushing into
48:55
me and stabilizing me. So I get to the
48:58
end of the song and I have all these big
49:02
colorura cadenzas and fancy licks and
49:06
riffs I have to do, right? I was singing
49:08
all this and and I still had another one
49:11
minute of the song to go with this grand
49:14
finale and people in the audience are
49:17
now they feel the change of energy,
49:19
right? They could feel and see the
49:21
change of energy. She said, "All these
49:23
people are going, you go, girl,
49:26
[laughter] work it. Watch, you know, and
49:28
this is the way it's going. Come on,
49:30
girl. Sing it. Sing it, sister." And
49:32
this is the way it was going. I still
49:33
had a minute to go. And so, by the time
49:37
I was done, the whole place just erupted
49:39
in this standing ovation. I had like
49:41
five curtain calls or something like
49:43
that, you know. And uh the next day in
49:47
the magazines, one of the reporters, one
49:49
of the press said, "This is the first
49:51
time in oporadic history where an uh the
49:54
closing of an opera singer's Arya was
49:58
with somebody in the audience yelling
50:00
work it [laughter]
50:05
was just really something
50:07
>> to feel that."
50:08
>> Any other experience?
50:09
>> Well, after that, yes, I could see them,
50:13
you know. I could see them and not only
50:15
pictures but like live like where did we
50:18
go right after that um Lel Observatory
50:22
in Arizona
50:23
>> and I was standing around there and I
50:25
was like oh hi there you are. Yeah, I
50:28
see you guys again, you know, there they
50:30
are, you know, and they were kind of all
50:32
around and then I saw them in my yard
50:35
once again, you know, and I said, "Okay,
50:39
guys, this is great. I know you're
50:41
there. I don't need to see you all the
50:43
time now. It's a little bit distracting.
50:45
So, [laughter]
50:46
thank you. Thank you for your service. I
50:49
know you're there and I appreciate you.
50:52
And now I just got to go on being a
50:54
human because I have to function on this
50:56
planet. Otherwise, it's just so exciting
50:58
to feel them and to see them. It's just
51:01
quite quite dramatic. I see them a lot.
51:04
Different musicians, some not all of
51:06
them. It depends on the music and it
51:09
depends on the person because I've seen
51:11
them come out especially they do love
51:13
music and I've seen them come out and
51:16
see them around different people.
51:18
Sometimes they're different sizes and
51:19
shapes. Mine was a whole thing. They all
51:22
looked alike. Mine was a whole this kind
51:25
of brownish darkish sphere. I'm I'm
51:28
going like this because I imagine they
51:30
were about this big. But then they had
51:32
this gold nucleus that was just like
51:36
that, you know, spinning around. So
51:37
>> like they're alive.
51:39
>> Oh, they're alive and they're there. But
51:40
we we only see certain frequencies.
51:43
>> But see, that's the beauty and the power
51:45
of music and the power of intention,
51:48
right? Because when I sing, I sing with
51:52
the intention and I put out positive
51:55
energy to the audience when I sing. And
51:58
when you have that intention and I try
52:00
and train my singers, I come for voice
52:02
lessons, too. It's not about you. It's
52:04
about that audience. And you have to
52:06
send the message, the power, and the
52:09
intention of the song and how you feel
52:11
about that. That's what makes a
52:14
performance. That is the it factor that
52:17
makes a performance. And as I recall in
52:20
in your new age music, you try to
52:22
project healing energy.
52:24
>> Exactly. Whenever I go to record the
52:27
voice or the piano or write the music,
52:29
my intention when I walk in the studio,
52:31
I'll send up a little prayer and say,
52:33
"Okay, [gasps and clears throat] we're
52:35
going to have some healing music here
52:36
today to the universe. What frequencies
52:40
would you like me to use? What intention
52:42
of the healing sphere, you know, would
52:46
you like me to bring out today?" And so
52:48
that's what I do all the time before I
52:50
go on stage or when before I record.
52:52
>> Darlene Colen Hovind, what a joy to
52:55
share these stories with you. And I know
52:58
we've just scratched the surface.
53:00
>> Scratch the surface.
53:01
>> Your your book has over a hundred, I
53:04
think.
53:04
>> Yeah, there's a lot of great stories in
53:06
there. Great stories.
53:08
>> But I'm glad that we focused in on the
53:10
the ones associated with healing.
53:13
>> Me, too.
53:14
>> Yeah. Thank you so much.
53:16
>> Thank you. And for those of you watching
53:19
or listening, thank you for being with
53:23
us because you are the reason that we
53:27
are here.
53:32
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53:44
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53:50
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