Throughout the ages, people from all cultures have struggled to understand and express the power and beauty of music and explain the magical quality of sound. Although a sheet of music is visible, as is the instrument on which it is played, music itself is invisible, mysterious. There is no satisfactory definition of it; every culture draws the borderlines of sonic events in different places. But everyone agrees that music affects us, moves us, inspires us, and transforms us as human beings. This book is a testament to the power of such sound.
Years ago, when Fred Lieberman and I were researching what were to become Drumming at the Edge of Magic and Planet Drum, we began stumbling on brilliant quotes, epiphanies that happen in an instant, lighting our world with clarity and wit. We gathered and stored these quotes in our information snake, what we called our Anaconda–our ongoing research project in search of the Grail–the explanation for the connection between music and trance.
These wonderful images were full of light and wisdom, somehow speaking the unspeakable, touching the untouchable. In this collection, which is laced with some thoughts and recollections of our own, we try to present the wonder of music in the words of those touched by its magic. Music is a miracle, transforming consciousness, taking the mind and spirit to places unknown.
Using the energy of music to shape that invisible place we call the soul seems appropriate somehow. This dance occurs in a place outside our everyday consciousness, yet it has access to it as well. Good and evil, love and hate, war and peace are all fair game in this domain. All the emotions are courted, and nothing is too weird for the muse. When I think of “spirit into sound,” I realize this is what music is all about. How do we turn spirit, which is a feeling, into a reality and energy that we can harness and use? Transmutation. Take ideas and the feelings that we have, and turn them into sound. This is the great work, this is the philosopher’s stone, this is the alchemy of life. Music is the gold of the sound-shaper.
The Anaconda has once more shed its skin, revealing gleaming treasures that give new meaning to the world around us: these we dedicate to musicians and music lovers everywhere.
This book is not a museum of old ideas, but rather a living, interactive guide to the future. The power of music is still young, its energy only partly realized. We’re continuing to learn to use this gift, to penetrate its mystery, and ultimately to share this knowledge with everyone.
—Mickey Hart
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