The Power Of Sound

Marlee welcomes Lawrence Libert, Musician and Sound Healer, for a conversation on the vibrations and frequencies that make up our world, and the power of music to help us heal and grow. Lawrence shares his journey to becoming a musician and his creative process when developing his tracks and also shares the theory behind sound healing. Looking at the world through the lens of sound will help you shift your perspective and see our world in a whole new way!

Transcript

Welcome to the Shifting with Marley podcast. I'm Marley. Thank you for joining me wherever you are. All that I ask of you, The listener, Is to have an open mind and an open heart. And in return, I offer you myself. Today, We are going to dive into the world of sound, Vibrations, Frequency, And music. And in doing so, We can understand another layer of our world because our world is made up of vibrations and frequencies. Sound connects us. Music unites us and inspires us. And there's a whole dimension of healing available through sound, Which we call sound. Which we are going to talk about today. When we connect with the power of sound, We invite in balance and harmony. I've also been sharing on the podcast lately about the importance of accessing your creativity and imagination as we build a new world. So we are going to talk today to someone who is creative for a living. I am so excited to welcome to this conversation, Lawrence LeBaer. Lawrence is a sound healer and musician and composes and produces his own music. Welcome, Lawrence. Hello there, Marlee. That was a lovely, Lovely intro there. And yeah, I'm excited to be on your podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Marlee. So, Lawrence, Can you let people know where they can connect with you and where they can find your music? Yeah, Sure. I think the first thing to probably say is, Even though I'm from the UK, My service is from the UK, My surname, You pronounce it, LeBaer, But it's spelt as if you're saying Liebert. So L I B E R T. You can find my music on all streaming services, Spotify, Apple, Etc. And Insight Timer as well. The meditation app, Insight Timer. I go live on there as well. I do free live streams, Meditation, Sound healing, And just like live music performances. You can find me also on social medias, Lawrence Lee Bair Music and my website, Www. Lauranceleebair. Com. And you have your second album coming out soon, Right? Yeah, That's right. That's right. Basically, My first album came out last year, Beautiful Earth for Earth Month. And I'm really excited to be bringing out another album in 2022. It will be around May and it's called Earth Prayer and similar vibe. But this time it'll be the Native American flute. Whereas the first album, It was very heavily focused on acoustic guitars. Well, Congratulations. And I can't wait to listen. I'm super, Super excited for it. Great. So Lawrence, To start the conversation today, Can you share with us your journey to becoming an almost full time musician? I like that you said almost full time. I think for all musicians, It's quite very difficult to get the full time, Isn't it? Yeah, Sure. So the journey to becoming a pretty much full time musician, It's also it intertwines with the journey of how I became a sound healer as well and sort of my own spiritual awakening, If you will. So I'll go back to the start. So a few years back. So I'm originally a qualified engineer, A master's qualified engineer. I'm an aerospace engineer by trade. And I was working in the aerospace engineering environment. And don't get me wrong, I still love engineering. It's just I was I was in this corporate environment, The nine till five Monday till Friday, Like a lot of us are for quite a while. And I've always been into music. So I've played guitar since I was 15. And I love rock and blues music. So that's what first got me into music and the guitar. So when I was younger, I was playing all like, You know, Guns and Roses and that kind of thing. Absolutely amazing. So yeah, That got me into guitar. And I've always played acoustic and electric. So I've always had a real love for music, Real passion. And I suppose being in the corporate environment, I didn't have any spirituality whatsoever, I suppose. Being an academic science, Science and academia was was all I went off. And I was completely closed spiritually until a few years ago, When I just had my own spiritual awakening. And I suppose it was a process of years to get there. And as you know yourself, You go through the dark night of the soul phase, You know, You start to learn about things around you that seemingly not fair, Etc. And then I just discovered the whole world of sort of holistic health and alternate therapies. And sound healing was one of them, Meditation and things like that. I'm still on the path, I suppose. But about two years ago, Sort of began to have this awakening. And in doing so, You know, I was at a point where I was suffering, I think, From chronic stress. And that started to manifest physically in the body. And it was at that point I decided to change. So I decided it was a very difficult thing to do, But I decided to take a step away from the corporate world for a while and follow my heart more, Live my life more from my heart. And I wanted joy in my life every day, Rather than stress. And I wanted to do things with my time, Which we don't have a lot of on this planet, Filling myself with joy and following my passion. So it was music, Even though I love rock and blues as well. I just naturally started to create relaxing music. And so this was 2021. So January 2021 is when I first started to create this music, And it was all relaxing music. And it's brand new to me. And I started to create it at first for me. So it was for me, It was an outlet of my own emotions to relax to and to meditate to for me. So it was like stuff that I would want to hear myself, Acoustic guitars and orchestral stuff. And it sort of worked because a few years leading up to this point where I actually left the corporate world to do this, I had been on a few courses and I was teaching myself how to produce music. So I've always been composing and a lot of what I do is improvised, But I've taught myself how to produce. So I set myself up a home studio and I composed all these pieces. I recorded them myself in my bedroom. And yeah, That's it. And I've mixed them and mastered them and I put them out there for the world to use. So it was brilliant. And so I created this small album called Beautiful Earth, And I released it for Earth month in 2021. And they're all songs about the Earth inspired by nature and the planet and sustainability etc. And other people started to enjoy the music. And that's what really surprised me. I didn't think anyone would listen to it. Other people really enjoyed it. It was amazing. And people were sending me messages that, Oh, I use that track to help me get to sleep. I use this one to, You know, When I'm in the bath relaxing. And some people had said how certain tracks had made them cry and I was blown away by it. So yeah, I just carried on, Carried on making music. And it's a beautiful journey. Yeah. And then the sound healing aspect then. So yes, Creating music. But I was also exploring different aspects of different therapies and meditations. And I've still got a long way to go. But this is why I'm drawn to the sound healing aspect because I entered it from like a scientific point of view. So I've already done an engineering degree and I've done music production courses and I'm a musician. So it seemed everything that I read on sound healing just clicked. I understood, You know, What's frequency, Resonance, Vibration, Quantum physics. How does everything interconnect? And then musically as well. So major, Minor, The different bowls, The crystal bowls in C major. And we can create major and minor chords and create emotions. And so, Yeah, All that just seemed to really resonate with me. So, Yeah, It's led me on this amazing journey. And now I'm working with holistic therapists and we're going out doing sound healing sessions with the Native American flutes and being soundscapes, Crystal bowls and all your, You know, Your general sacred sound healing instruments. And it's just an absolutely amazing thing. And I can't wait to see what happens in 2022 and beyond with this. Wow. So you really followed your heart and your passion, Lawrence. That's really inspiring. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, Thank you. It was very difficult to come to that point, Though, Of actually leaving the corporate world. Very difficult, As I can imagine, A lot of people are in that same situation now. It's like you've got the two voices in your head, Isn't it? There's the one that's that wants financial security. And then there's the other that wants to follow your, Your heart's passions and desires. For two years, I was stuck. Now that I'm out of that, Though, I think it gives you a lot of self confidence, Isn't it? When you finally take the plunge and you realize you can do things, You'll always find a way. You know what I mean? You'll always be okay. And along those lines, Have you felt supported by the universe since taking that leap of faith last year and doing what you love almost all the time? Yeah, Great question. Yes. Yes, I absolutely have. Yeah. So when I released my first album, I hadn't left my job at that point. And I slowly sort of built up. I mean, I'm still quite a small artist, Really. But compared to what I was last year, It's amazing the the amount of support that I've had from the universe from from people, Complete random strangers, Going and listening to my music and really enjoying it. And it just fills me with joy. And it really makes me feel like there's a purpose here now for me. Yeah, It's just such an amazing feeling when you've got like a tribe of people that come and they they tell you how it's helped them in some sort of way, Or they've used it for meditation. Fantastic group of people supporting. Yeah, I do feel supported by the universe. Yeah, That's truly amazing. Laurens, I'm so happy for you, Truly. And I hope your story inspires others listening to follow their passions and take those leaps of faith. Absolutely. And I would say, There is always a way even if you feel like you're trapped in some sort of situation, There is still always a way you just need to give yourself some time, Some headspace to just think, Think about how you're going to shape the future that you want. There is always a way to do it. Just have the faith and have the bravery. And there is always a way and the universe and the people around you will support you when you do it. Yeah, I totally agree. Thank you. So can you tell us a little bit more about what it means to be a sound healer? Yeah. Okay. So we were discussing just before the podcast that sound healing is a subject. You can sort of see it as a it's one of the alternate therapies, I suppose it's a form of energy medicine, A form of energy healing. It's an absolutely huge subject. If you think about sound healing itself, Sound itself is so complex. It would be impossible to describe even in a one hour podcast what sound healing is. You need to understand things like sound science, Vibrations and energy, Quantum physics, The ears. So biology, The ears and the mind consciousness, The connection between the mind and the body, Etc, Etc. And it also obviously ties in spiritually as well. But I think a very basic overview of what sound healing is. It's utilizing sound and the vibrations of the universe and the vibrations we can create using instruments and music to alter one's consciousness. So we're trying to alter consciousness, Shift consciousness. However you want to describe it. It's a similar thing to meditation. We're just facilitating the shift in a different way. So meditation we're trying to step one is we're trying to clear the intrusive thoughts from your mind. So we're trying to clear that monkey mind. And we're trying to for those of you that know about the brainwaves, The different frequencies that the brain fires at. We're trying to bring those brainwaves down, The frequencies down. When we do that, We enter into a more meditative state and our body follows and it starts to relax. And yeah, It's very good for our well-being in general, Our wellness in general, Because we as humans, We live in a crazy society. It's very fast, You know, Emails, Texts, Social media. We're constantly bombarded by things. We do a lot of living in the future and we do a lot of living in the past, But not many people do a lot of living in the now. So they're not being a human being. They're being a human doing. What we're trying to do is live more in the moment and just give our brains a break. Our minds a break. Yeah. And with that, Our physical body responds. So it's good for our physical body. Hence the term healing. What healing can also be emotional as well, As you know, From things like trauma, Things like that and sound healing, Meditation, Both things that facilitate us to go into a space where we can begin to work on ourselves. There's also other aspects as well. I suppose there's the, If you look at it from a shamanic practice point of view, So sound healing is something that humans have done for thousands of years, Thousands of years across different civilizations. And I think that it's not something that scientists have studied and confirmed or whatever, But it's just something that has been done by humans over thousands of years. And they, Through trial and error, Just, They know it works. It's one of those things where it's just empirically, They know it works. So they do it. From a shamanic practice point of view, Where they, You know, Like they bang drums and things like that, The whole point of that is to, Again, Is to bring your brain into lower brainwave states. The consciousness is shifted into lower states and we have that more meditative experience. And what they're trying to do is sort of create a connection with the universe and the more spiritual realms, The higher dimensions. Some people say, Some people say it's non-ordinary physical realm, Whatever you want to classify it as. So, Yeah, There's lots of different aspects of sound healing. I think the basic definition of it is just using the vibrations and the frequencies to shift one's consciousness. And what you get out of it is you have to set your own intentions and you have to work on yourself. It's the sound healing is just facilitating that for you. It doesn't just do it. You have to know what you want to achieve from it and be open to it. And yes, It's a form of healing in that respect. That was a really great explanation. Thank you. And at the root of it, Sound healing is vibrational medicine. Yeah, Absolutely. Now this is something that's, It's an amazing thing. And it's something that as a scientist and stuff, You already know this, But it's like, It's one of those things. And someone reminds you of it. It always blows you away. So everything in the universe is constantly vibrating all the time, Everything. So even things like a book in front of you, These glasses that I'm wearing right now, Even though they look completely still, Everything is vibrating all the time. And the vibration is called an object's resonance frequency. So that's what resonance is really. There's different types of resonance, But we'll keep it basic today. So yeah, That's an object's resonant frequency. So everything vibrates. And what sound is, Sound is essentially energy. It's a pressure wave of energy. It's pressure waves. But sound is created by things that vibrate back and forth over and over again. So it's created by vibrations. And the vibrations put the pressure waves into the air, Into objects, Into gases. And that's how they travel. But they're created by vibrations. So we just said, Though, That every single object in the universe, Unless you're absolutely zero, But let's not go there. Every single object in the universe is vibrating with a resonance frequency. Now that means that every single object is giving out a sound all the time. Constantly giving out a sound. And it's firing a sound into this huge web of sounds. So when we're on planet Earth and we just sat in our house, We are constantly surrounded by an absolute web, A maze of sounds, Constantly hitting us, Entering our ears all the time. A lot of these sounds, We can't actually hear them. Am I allowed to go scientific a bit? Oh, Yeah. Oh, For sure. Okay. So let's go a bit into the because, Yeah, Sound healing for me. I entered it from a very science, Sciency sort of approach. But I think it's good for if you're a sound healer, This is good to know as well. So the human ear, We measure that vibration in frequency. So, You know, When we frequencies measured in hertz, That's the unit. So when something moves back and forward 10 times per second, We say it's a it's a sound it's vibrating or resonating at 10 hertz, 10 hertz, 10 times per second. So, Yeah, That's what frequency is. The human ear can hear from 20 hertz all the way to 20, 000 hertz, Which sounds crazy, Isn't it? 20, 000 times per second for something to vibrate is crazy. The higher you go, The higher the pitch of the notice that you hear. But the universe around us on the Earth has sounds this web of sounds that goes way below 20 hertz and way above 20, 000 hertz. So some dolphins communicate, They think up to about 100, 000 hertz, Which is just immense. And, You know, Like dog whistles. So someone blows a dog whistle. You can't hear it, But the dog can. And that's because the dog can hear higher. You know, They can hear high pitch notes. And then there's the at the bottom of the spectrum below 20 hertz, The Earth itself, And the ionosphere vibrates at frequencies below them what we can hear. But you can feel it. You can feel those sounds still. They still penetrate the body and they still resonate your organs. Yeah, Same with the ones that are high as well. So they still hit you and they still enter your body and they still interact with you. I won't go on and on about this. So, Yeah, What's amazing is that means every single object has a resonance frequency. It may be very subtle, Though, So you might not even be able to hear it. In fact, You can't, Can you? Like the book in front of you, You can't hear it resonating. That's because it's doing it so subtly that you physically can't process that. It's non-audible to you. It's too quiet. There's not enough energy, But it is there, Very subtle. So every single object is interacting with every single other object through sound and interacting with your body through sound. So we are literally connected to the universe on an extremely subatomic level. We are connected to everything. So when people say, You know, They say the universe is everything. There's that famous saying, Isn't there? And like everything's connected. This is the example. Everything is connected through sound, Through frequency, Through resonances. And so, Yeah, Sound also has plays a huge part in the mind body connection. So on a really basic level, You listen to a song that you love, You immediately feel uplifted. That's your mind and your ears have just processed the music. Music is just organized sound. They've just processed the music and you just invoked emotions of happiness. And you can do the same with other sounds like the sound of a gong or the crystal balls that are played in a sound bath. So, Yeah, It's amazing. It's an amazing thing. Yeah. And I guess when you're in a sound bath as well. So your body is resonating as well. It's got your organs, Your bones, Your skin. They've got their own resonances and even your brain waves, Your brain waves themselves, The electric signals are resonating at certain frequencies. And certain frequencies are believed to be linked to different emotions and things like that. And when you hear the bowls, The sound of the bowls is interacting with you through your body and through your ears. And it's changing the resonance frequency of your body. Very tiny, Though, Very tiny, Subtle energy this. And then your body resonates with a different resonance and your body can give it to the person next to you and give it to the sound healer themselves. So, Yeah, That's the way to sort of view the world. It changes your entire view of the world, Doesn't it? If you can learn to flow, To flow your body and your emotions to flow with the sound around you, You can feel this ultimate sense of connection to the universe through sound. So it's just an amazing thing. Lawrence, Thank you for the explanation. I could feel your passion. And that's a really big theme of my whole podcast. I want to get that through in every episode that everything is connected and you just did it so beautifully. So thank you. And I just want to add, You know, Sound healing and the new age spiritual music genre that you're a part of and creating within, It helps us slow down, Relax, Unwind and rest, Which I think we are all seeking more and more of these days to disengage from this fast-paced society. Yes. Yeah, Absolutely. So, Yeah, As I think I just mentioned before, So for me, Music is sound. It's just an organized set of frequencies. That's what music is. It's an organized set of frequencies that play together in harmony. But it's very similar to when we do in a sound bath and we play different instruments together. It's an organized set of frequencies all played in harmony. And then they have an effect on our mind and our bodies through resonance and through the sound entering our ears and our body with the new age music genre. Yeah. Why I love the new age music genre is the music genre itself typically doesn't have a beat, So it doesn't have like a drums, Drums and a beat behind it. Sometimes it doesn't even have a time signature. So, You know, Some artists, They'll record to a metronome sometimes in the new age genre. A lot of the time there's none of that. It's literally just improvised and they play through feel. So they'll just play their instruments through the feeling. And a lot of the tracks people create, They don't even know what they're going to create. They just get on a piano or whatever they do, And they just let intuition just flow. Intuition will pull them wherever they're supposed to go with the song. And so, Yeah, I think as a genre, It's a lot more spiritual than something with a beat behind it for me personally. Yeah. Absolutely. Can you share with us if you're comfortable a bit of your mental health journey? How has that evolved as your life has changed recently? Yeah, Sure. So I think I mentioned just before with the corporate sort of world, The corporate world, I found myself, I was suffering from chronic stress. And that was probably through my own fault as well with not knowing things like setting boundaries, Not having tools like meditation. So not having an awareness of that. And I found that I had a very active brain, And I couldn't switch off from work. So I would go home and I would constantly be thinking about it. And that impacted my mental health, I could say, In a way. But obviously you start to feel negative and your default brain gets rewired and you start to have a very pessimistic outlook on the world. And I think I did go through a phase like that, Especially the dark night of the soul part of the spiritual awakening as well, That sort of compounded that. Yeah, It just creates negative feelings. And then obviously with the chronic stress, It sits closely with anxiety as well when you've got a sort of a monkey mind. And I think I was experiencing that as well. And only for a short period of time until I had physical things. So like chest pains and the things that you associate with that. But I won't go too much into that. At that point was when I was just discovering the wellness industry and holistic therapy and things like that and discovered meditation. So luckily I wasn't there. I wasn't in a dark phase for too long. I managed to sort of find a way through it. And now I can honestly say I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life right now. Yeah, I think for me and a message to other people as well is if they haven't explored tools like a holistic therapy or meditation and yoga and things like that, Do give it a try. If you're finding that you are struggling with anything mental health related, Don't have any fear of going seeing a holistic therapist because what they can offer is absolutely amazing. There's a lot of value in that field. Thank you for sharing, Lawrence. Thank you. And I'm so happy for you now that you found that joy that you were seeking. Thank you. And sound healing is such a powerful form of therapy for mental health as well, Right? As you've discovered as is stepping away from societal expectations and redefining success for yourself and following what brings you joy like you've done. Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah, I think sound healing, Like as we said, Sound therapy is it's such a big topic, But one of the key factors in how much you're going to get out of a session is how open are you to receiving it? And you need to set your own intentions as well. When you go in there and work with a sound healer, If you've got specific problems, Find a sound healer that you are comfortable with and that you trust and speak to them. Maybe before the session, Speak to them about your problems, And they may be able to find a way to get you through that. So again, It's facilitating change in yourself. It doesn't change you like that. You have to do the work yourself, But this is a tool to help you relax that monkey brain and enter a state where you can begin to think freely and clearly and start to pick apart. You know, What is it? How am I feeling and why am I feeling like this and what can I do to change and how do I empower myself to change? Yeah, I guess one other thing to just quickly mention is different people can go to the same sound bath and they can have a completely different experience. So someone might shed lots of tears and release a lot of emotion and then feel fantastic afterwards. And someone in the exact same session might just think they might not get anything from it at all. So a lot of it depends on like the emotional state that you are already in, What you are open to receiving, How much you are open to receiving. So your consciousness before you enter the room, Your conscious state and the conscious state that you are in in the room on the day will have a massive impact on how much you get out of the session as well. That's great advice. Thank you. So let's shift gears now, Lawrence. Let's talk about your music and to give people just a general idea. You create soundscapes and instrumental music and your primary instruments right now are guitar and Native American flute. So can you share with us where do you draw your inspiration from? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Cool. Yeah. I make different types of music at the moment. Yeah. As you said, So there's the soundscapes, Ambient soundscapes. So if people don't know what they are, The kind of a label that's been given to this kind of music, It's all the meditation music you hear that's really relaxing and new agey. And that can be described as a soundscape. It's like a landscape of music and frequencies, An amazing view of music. It's in the sonic realm. Yeah. I make I tend to make a soundscapes, Which are synth and warm pianos and my electric guitar sort of bled in there as well. And I also like to put sacred sound healing instruments in there. So I'll record Tibetan bowls and crystal bowls, Koshi chimes, Things like that. And you'll hear them just subtly in the soundscapes as well. And they're all tuned to certain frequencies to match different chakras and energy zones of the body and things like that. Lots of people use them for meditation, Yoga and breath work and things like that. So feel free to check them out. And yeah, I also like to do instrumentals. So acoustic guitar and the native American flute are my two primary instruments at the moment. So they're the kind of music you'll find. I'm into, Like, A lot of rock and blues. That's the kind of music I listen to as well. And there's a bit of a contrast, Isn't there, Between the new age and that. So I listen to some new age as well. There's some really nice artists I like to listen to. But a lot of the sort of songs that I've written, I guess the inspiration, It just comes. I don't know where it comes from. It's like it's given to you as a present by the universe. Sometimes I'll sit there with my guitar and depending on my emotions on the day. So if I'm happy, I'll just grab my guitar and I'll just suddenly come sort of play just random things. And it's like it just flows and it will be like a happy sounding, Like, Chords or happy sounding riff. And then I'll just try and build on top of it. So it's like it's your emotions that drive it, If you know what I mean. But then you might hear in the acoustic guitar solos, There's a lot of rock and blues influence. So I'll use the scales and the scales musically that they do in rock music and blues music. But I'll just play very slowly. And so, Yeah, There is a bit of a bluesy rock influence. That's what I love. But I guess in terms of the creation, It's more the emotions that drive it. I just kind of sit down and it just comes out. And I can't describe some people might say, Oh, It's source energy. Oh, You know, It's source giving you a present. I don't know. But if it is great. Thank you. Thank you, Source. That's amazing. Yeah. Thank you, Source. And I know, Too, A lot of your songs are inspired by the earth, Right? Absolutely. Yeah. So, Yeah, It's a subject that I hold quite close to my heart. And the earth's an amazing place and the diversity of animals and creatures. And we haven't even explored the oceans yet. We've explored more of the moon than we have of the ocean. It reminds you of how precious this planet is. And we've come through thousands and thousands, Tens of thousands, Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to get to where we are now. So let's not throw it away in the space of 200 years. Yeah. And you even have a track on your last album that was inspired by climate change, Right? Can you talk about that track a little bit? Yeah, Sure. So I think you mean there is still hope. Yes. Yeah. On the album Beautiful Earth, They're all inspired by Earth and its beauty and everything. And the journey of reflection as well. That was like reflecting back on how we got to this point. But yeah, There is still hope. So that is a track where I was basically having a moment of sadness, Actually. And you hear that at the start of the track. So the start is quite minor. And it was when I was feeling really sad because I was reading about that there was a certain species of animal. In 30 years, It got from 90% to less than 1% of its population or something in less than 30 years. But then that's happened to so many species of animal. And when you look at these individual species, It's almost always human driven. It just makes you feel really sad. I started to write the song with that in mind. And then a few days later, I was seeing some really positive things like communities getting together to clean up the environment. There's some really good projects in the aerospace engineering world as well going on to hit certain targets to lower emissions. We are pushing more towards technologies where we can start to use alternate fuels as well. The key is there's loads of positive things happening right now. There's a country in Europe that's completely running off sustainable energy now. And those things started to give me hope that actually we have potential here. I know we're on the brink, But if we do this as a mass, We can turn this around as a mass and more people are starting to wake up now, Which is great. So yeah, I think there is still hope. So in that track, It goes from minor and then it goes into more positive, Major, Like uplifting. Sorry I spoke for 10 minutes on that track. But yeah, You feel the journey of like major and minor and hopefully you get a happy vibe and an uplifting vibe by the end. And I thought I'd use the Native American flute as well as it's quite heavy symbolism for destruction, But there's a lot of hope still. Wow, It's really beautiful that you can channel these emotions and all these complex things into these songs. It's really, Really sacred and beautiful, Lawrence. Oh, Thank you so much. So let's talk a little bit more about your creative process. What is your creative process like as you're creating these songs? Oh, Yeah. So the creative process, It does differ. Like sometimes I'll just feel an emotion and I'll just grab the guitar and I'll just start to play. There's different ways to create a song. The guitar is like my go-to where I start with and I'll just play. It just comes out. I don't know what I'm going to play. I just play something and I'll just hit record and maybe I'll play for 20 minutes non-stop and there'll be a lot of that. Maybe 15 minutes of that goes in the bed, But then maybe five minutes of it. I'll listen back and I go, Oh, Yeah, I'm really like vibing on that. It's really good. Yeah, Because when you're playing, You don't know really how it sounds and then you play it back and you're like, Oh, Actually, That sounds awful. So, Yeah, I'll do it like that. So I'll record something and then I'll play back over it and I'll play like maybe a lead part and I'll just build it up. And that's how I develop an idea. It's mainly improvised stuff. It just comes out on the spot, Really. So I can show you if you want. I can grab a guitar right now and we can try something. Yeah, Our own personal live show. That would be amazing. Thank you. Okay, So I don't know what I'm going to do, So I guess I'll just sort of make something up. If you give me an emotion, I'll try and channel that emotion right now. Okay, How about love? All right, Love. So I'll try and think of love or a memory right now. What makes me feel love? And then I'm going to see what comes out on the guitar. All right, So I just recorded that. This is my process. So I'll record that thinking about love and then I'll go back over it now and I'll just add some top line over it with a guitar and then I'll do it again with the piano and again then with the flute and then I might create like a bridge section. But yeah, Let's go back over it with the guitar now. See what comes out. All right. That was beautiful, Lawrence. Okay, So that was like randomly going back over it and playing something. So I'll do that a few times and then I'll add different instruments, Maybe add an orchestra, Maybe add a flute and then I'll create a bridge and a chorus or whatever. And that's just how it goes. That's how I do it. I love that. Thank you for sharing that with us. Oh, Thank you. That was cool. I might make that into a song. Oh, That would be so special. You know, What you're doing is really important and what you're bringing to the world, The sacred music is so, So important, Lawrence. So thank you. And it really seems like as you channel these emotions and these complex topics into your songs that it's Source speaking to you, The universe speaking through you and your intuition flowing. I have no idea what it is, Honestly, Because all I can say is like when I started to learn about meditation, I realized something I realized that I already was meditating my whole life. And it was when I was doing music because I have a big monkey mind, Like an intrusive thought mind where you've got constant thoughts, Lots of thoughts going through it all the time. What am I doing tomorrow? This isn't what I need to do. The to do list, The to do list mind. I realized that when I'm playing guitar, My mind is completely switched off. There's no thoughts going through it and there never was. There's not even really any thoughts of what I'm going to play next. It's just nothing. It's really a moment where I am in a meditation zone in my mind and always was. So it's really nice to learn that. Thank you. Yeah. And I think also it's okay to not know and it's okay to not label it. And I think we're really releasing our ego by not classifying it or just accepting that we don't know everything. So that was really beautiful. So thank you for that. I think that's an important point that as you said, It's you don't have to label everything in life. The quicker we as a human human race get away from labeling things, The quicker we'll become a race of one where we're all one and we're all connected and there's no boundaries and there's no barriers between people and objects and things and states. We can just become one and just enjoy life. Yes. Unity and balance and harmony. Yeah. Yeah, Of course. Yeah. So Lawrence, What are your intentions and hope for your music now that it's out in the world? Yeah. So the music's out and there's a lot more music to come as well this year. So yeah, We've got the Native American flute album on the way, Which is just a beautiful, Beautiful instrument. I just fell in love with the Native American flute. I started to learn it a year ago, Just fell in love with it completely and decided to do an entire album with it. And then I've got a shamanic practice album as well on the way towards the end of the year, Which is going to be really cool. It's going to have like beats and chants and it's going to be heavily focused on the guitar and the flutes, But also the beats. So yeah, Now that it's out in the world that people have been using it, Which is just amazing, Amazing to hear, Honestly. So I just hope that people continue to use it and I'd really love therapists to use it as well. So then I know that it's helping clients. So massage, Spas, People that do Reiki, People that do other things like their own alternate therapies and things like that, Yoga, Breath work. Just I'd just love to know that people are using it for their own benefit, For benefit their own health. Give themselves a break from the crazy reality that we live in today. People are using it for meditation and more, And that means a lot, A lot to me. So that's all I could ask for really. And that's that's my hope. That's really beautiful, Lawrence. And I think that another perspective is having that intention to kind of be of service and have your music help people is really high vibrational and the universe responds in kind to make that happen and support you in that. Oh, Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. So speaking of vibrations, Let's dive into a little bit more of vibration and frequency of music, Because that's where a lot of the power is. And I know you've started to dabble in producing songs at a specific frequency and playing around with the solfeggio frequencies. So can you tell us a little bit about the solfeggio frequencies? Yeah, Of course. Yep. So this entire field of frequency and things like that and how it intertwines with music, It can get very complicated very fast. So I'll try and give as best explanation as I can while keeping it sort of basic as well. So, Yeah, Obviously, Frequency is the basic of music. When you hear a song, You're hearing literally thousands of frequencies all being played together all in one go. It's like an organized mess of frequency. And that that spectrum of frequencies that we call it is constantly changing through the song every single second that the web of frequencies is changing. And that's what you hear as music as a song. But it goes a lot further than that. So traditionally, Certain instruments through time through the last hundreds, Hundreds and thousands of years that are tuned to certain frequencies, And it is intentional that they're not just tuned to random frequencies, They specifically aimed for certain for a certain pitch of note, Certain frequencies, And you will hear that as a pitch of a note, A certain tone, Maybe it's a Tibetan bowl being played or a tuning fork, Certain frequencies and notes have certain benefits for your health or the body, It could be emotional, Or it could be physical. So again, When you play a note, And it's it's, It resonates at that frequency. And if that resonance matches a resonance of, Say, A part of your body, Maybe it's a certain organ, What's going to happen is they will do something we call entrainment. So if you play a frequency next to something else that's got the same resonance frequency, They will swap energy with each other, And they'll begin to entrain and match to each other. Certain frequencies are believed, Believed to have certain healing effects on different parts of the body and release different emotions. And that that's it in a nutshell, You can have like a bowl and another bowl that are tuned to very similar frequencies, But they're not the same frequency. And when you play them together, You'll hear like this effect like a wah wah wah wah wah. I don't know if you've ever ever heard that. You'll hear like this wah wah wah, It's almost like a beat. So this is the concept of like, Similar to what they call binaural beats as well. So that's a similar thing. When you have these two frequencies and you play them together and they go wah wah wah. And the idea is that if you can match that, That wah wah wah effect with the brainwaves, If you can match that with a lower brainwave state, It will aid you into entering into a more meditative state. We've just found out that different frequencies can have an effect on your mind and physical body and your emotions. Now the solfeggio frequencies, But essentially it's an ancient set of tones, Ancient set of seven frequencies, And this knowledge has just been passed through, Passed through over decades, Where they believe that each one of these frequencies has some sort of healing ability, Whether it's physical or whether it's emotional. And you can go online and you can do some reading and you can see different benefits that are sort of connected with each frequency. I've only just started to just delve into this myself. So I have got an EP with 417 hertz solfeggio frequency. I've got a lot to learn on this as well. And I guess it's just a case of you have to go and try it for yourself, See what effect it has on you. When people make music, They'll tune a song down to that frequency and you should hear the frequency. You should hear like a beep like that, Like a note played very, Very quietly underneath the song, And that is the frequency that's playing throughout the piece of music. So you get in that frequency into your ear. The theory of it is that frequency is entering your ear also while you're listening to a nice piece of New Age music. And allegedly your mind should feel the benefits of that frequency. You can look at it in two ways. You can look at it like scientifically like that, Or you can simply look at it from the point of view of I love how this sounds and it makes me feel good. And I like to look at it from that point of view. And then the 417 hertz, That's the music I've made. So it sounds really deep and really earthy and really grounding. So I just love the sound of that music. Yeah, And I think I was reading too about these because I found it so fascinating. Both my scientific and spiritual minds were activated when I was reading about these frequencies and like you said, They are this specific set of frequencies. And I believe we're up to nine. It was seven and now we've discovered nine different frequencies that all have these healing properties. And I was reading since I know that you had produced several songs at that 417 hertz frequency, That frequency is also supposed to help relieve negativity from the body and is also supposed to help in healing trauma. So I think these frequencies have a lot of power and healing capabilities when we surrender to them. Yeah, That's it. I mean, I think as we said, I think that's the best thing to do is just to go and listen to the music yourself and then see if it works on you, Like make your own mind up and see what happens in your body. Yeah, Surrender to the music and let the healing flow. Yeah, That's it. I think that's a good point. The key thing of sound healing is flow. So we just we mentioned about the web of all these different frequencies of the Earth and the resonances. We are living in this huge web of things, Whether it's audible or inaudible. We are constantly being hit by resonances and we're connected with the universe. And one key aspect of sound healing is flow, Like fluidity with the universe. If we can learn to just accept those frequencies and just let them flow through us, You know, It's a really powerful tool because you can also do a really cool thing, Which is to dissociate your emotions from things that would normally wind you up. So do you know what wind you up means? It's an English phrase, Isn't it? Make you annoyed. So, You know, Like a car horn. It normally would get annoyed by a car horn, But you can practice, Let the car horn shift your consciousness. You can do things like practicing to dissociate the feeling of anger with a car horn. And I'm not saying you can learn to create positivity from a car horn, But you can dissociate from the anger and instead just flow. Okay, It's a sound. It's a sound of the universe. I know some guy has just honked his horn at me because I cut him up. Regardless, Though, It's the sound of the universe and just flow with it. And when you can learn to do that, It will change your outlook of the world entirely. Yeah, Yeah, I love that. I'd like to ask you now, Lawrence, A kind of a bigger question. In your opinion, How can more and more people connecting with the power of sound help the world? Oh, Good question. So I would say, You know how we say about raising the vibe. So this is a way that lots of individual people themselves that are helping themselves. If we do that in mass, We will see a better world. I believe music is healing in the same way. Oh, It can be in the same way that sound bath is, But you can help yourself be fluid. You can have a huge appreciation for the earth that can give you the appreciation on another level, And that in itself can give you an overwhelming sense of just relaxation and stillness, Just having that appreciation for the things around you. But then also, As you said, If you've got things that you could work on yourself emotionally or physically that can be obtained through sound healing as well. So if everybody does that, They can start to live more with joy every day. And if everybody's living with joy every day, They treat each other better. With respect, They smile at each other. And that's why we say it's like raising the vibe, Isn't it? Because you know, When someone smiles at you and then you just smile and you feel good. And if everybody's doing that, We can create this mass. It's raising the frequency. Metaphorically, We can create a lot of happiness around the world. I love that answer. Thank you. Sound is such a powerful tool for healing and growth and raising our own frequency and vibration and connecting us to each other and the earth and that universal oneness. And as we heal ourselves, We heal the world as within. So without. Yeah, I think that was a lovely, Lovely way to put it there, Marlee. Thank you so much for being here, Lawrence, And sharing your passion with us and your knowledge and your music today by connecting with sound. We are connecting with the universe. Sound is the power to bring body, Soul and earth into balanced resonance. I'll end today with a quote from Corinne Helene. Man is a musical being. His origin is in the spoken word by sound was he sustained and by music he evolved. One day we will recognize music as a vital factor in the physical, Mental, Emotional and spiritual evolution of the whole human race.

Reviews

Hey Marlee, thank you so much for another fantastic podcast! All of your content that you share is so amazing, and so interesting! I wanted to take a moment to show my appreciation for you, I can always feel the amount of effort you put into these podcasts, and the interesting questions that you ask!

Know that your work is so valued, so appreciated and is changing the world one listener at a time🥰. You chose such an interesting guest this time as well, and it’s always so beautiful to learn about how science and spirituality are so interconnected.

I actually listened to your podcast today with my mom, and she found it really interesting too! She doesn’t meditate much, but I’m hoping that this may convince her! When Lawrence spoke about frequcinies and the noises they make, I remembered a time when I’d visited an exhibition in Singapore about sound, and frequencies. The exhibition combined sound and science too so this conversation stirred up memories of that!

When Lawrence mentioned he was on Insight Timer, I also remembered a time when I did an interview with another Insight Timer teacher, Liz for a college project a few years ago! It was really interesting and there’s so much value in these discussions :).

It was so interesting to learn about these frequencies and everything, and I found it really interesting when your guest gave the example of how we can take ‘annoying’ sounds and flow with them. Thank you so much for all you do, and I look forward to more podcasts from you🥰. Stay safe, have an awesome day!