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Music Reviews - Moksha

By Chiwah
By various artists; www.shubhayan.com; 310-860-5636

Moksha Moksha presents five instrumental tracks, meditation music based on traditional Indian classical ragas. Peaceful and unobtrusive, this is music that doesn’t seem to take you anywhere . . . but instead provides the opening for you to take your own journey inward.

This CD was conceived by Rajasree Mukherjee, an experienced music therapist who has used Indian classical music to great effect with meditation. She has created this ensemble bringing traditional Indian instruments like the sitar, tabla and fl ute together with guitar to help silence the mind so that we can reach the tranquil bliss that lies deep within each of us.

This music may be Indian, but it is also universal. Though there are no vocals, the instruments speak clearly to the higher reaches of the soul. In fact, the third song is nothing if not a top-level conversation between sitar and guitar, and in the fourth song the flute, guitar and tabla are making love to each other.

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Media Release 26

Music – a therapy worth singing about

By Jennifer Harpham
Special to ASIA

If you're trying to get rid of a migraine, don't open the Advil bottle just yet. Rajasree Mukherjee, a singer/songwriter and music therapist, says music can relieve many ailments such as a headaches.

"I had several disorders and had originally started treating myself 23 years back," Mukherjee said. "There came a time when I became very sick and allopathic medicines were adversely affecting my immune system. It was then that I noticed certain musical phrases and compositions had a very soothing effect on my body. This led me to research extensively on the therapeutic effects of music and formal launching of my vehicle – the composition of music for healing."

Mukherjee, with the help of her son, Shubhayan Mukherjee of Shubhayan Entertainment, has released five music therapy CDs since 2005 that have sold more than 100,000 songs online.

"I've been interested in her music all my life," said Shubhayan. "We never thought of it as a business until recently, by accident, because she would send me tapes or little clips and I played it for my friends and they said, "Why don't you release a CD?""

Alhough Mukherjee lives in Kinshasa, Congo, she sends Shubhayan, who lives in San Diego, her music and he produces the music and makes the CDs. Her music can be purchased everywhere from Best Buy to Target and even on iTunes.

Mukherjee, 47, graduated from Lady Brabourne College in Kolkata, India, with a degree in zoology. She then went on to Rabi Tirtha School of Music and Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh where she excelled in her studies of Indian music. She founded the Ma Sharda School of Music in Nairobi, Kenya, where she trained young singers in Indian classical and traditional music.

She has performed in the United States, India, Kenya, Tanzania and Canada to audiences between 400 and 1300 people and written lyrics for more than 125 film and non-film songs. In 2004, she performed for the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

"But more than performing I have found interest in teaching music," Mukherjee said, by "using it to reach deep within the human psyche to heal, using music as a therapy."

Music has a great effect on a person's body because the roots of the auditory nerves are more widely distributed and have more connections than any other nerves in the body, according to Mukherjee. For example, sustained chords lower blood pressure, while crisp, repeated chords raise it; music that has the tempo of a normal heartbeat, 60 to 80 beats a minute, soothes, and fast rhythms raise the heartbeat and excite the whole body, according to Mukherjee's website.

Music therapy has been known to help get rid of stress-related tension, anger and high blood pressure. It has also been effective with the physically handicapped, those suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and people with speech problems or learning disabilities, said Mukherjee.

"I remember [a] Nairobi child . . . a girl of 8 years, with muscular atrophy, paralyzed from the hip down and unable to speak legibly. She started showing improvement after the first dozen sessions and two years later she became a public performer in a wheelchair singing in front of thousands, and not only that, she showed a drastic improvement in her school grades and became a leader and a champion in helping and training young disadvantaged students," Mukherjee recalled.

Shubhayan admitted that some people are unsure the CDs will work.

"I think we had more skeptics at the beginning," said Shubhayan. "They say, "I don't think it works very well." So I send them a free CD and they listen to it and then they change their minds . . . You're going to listen and you'll feel calm and feel good about yourself. Universal acceptance of the CD is high, and after listening, I don't think anyone says they don't like it."

Mukherjee said even though the lyrics are in a different language, Americans with their busy and stressful lives can benefit from the soothing sounds of her music.

"I have sung in several African and Indian languages and have found people responding to the flow and the beat even when the language is totally foreign to them," she said. "Music is a matter of the heart. True music has the power to reach out and join hearts across world."

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Media Release 27

Good vibrations: Therapist uses music to heal body, spirit

By Leonard Novarro
Special to ASIA

For Rajasree Mukherjee, life is one great musical composition. "The blood flowing within the arteries and veins, the movement of air within the body as the state of energy changes emitting electrical charges, that burning of wire sound in the head region – all these make up the various songs within our body," says Mukherjee, a popular performer in India and a musical therapist who is spending the next few months in Southern California lecturing about the advantages of music in doing more than soothing the savage breast, as the saying goes. In some cases, it may even cure some savage illnesses.

In addition to writing lyrics for more than 120 songs, many for movies, Mukherjee is one of the world’s leading proponents of music as a way to tackle many psychological problems, especially stress and depression. She also claims positive changes in patients with high blood pressure, diabetes and other physical ailments, including Alzheimer’s Disease. Her best results have been in altering aggression.

Singing or playing an instrument is not the only form of music. How we talk, the pitch of our voices, the tone of our conversations – it all resonates within us, triggering emotional responses that may alter us physically and emotionally. When a musical note is sung or played, the vibration strikes an affected area of the body, she explained, making muscles and nerves contract and forcing air and blood out of the so-called damaged tissue. The temporary vacuum created by music allows fresh air and blood to fill that space. In essence, like acupuncture, the imbalance of vibrations in the body, much like the blockage of chi, or energy, is at the root of many health problems.

"As we know, everything wants to always be in an equilibrium state; the higher vibrating energy of the universe comes to play here," says Mukherjee. "Thus a musical note can help in increasing the vibration of the ill tissue or organ. An increased energy level and blood flow to the affected area can heal it faster," she adds.

The sages of India recognized such an influence of sound. "When we visit a high mountain range or some place very remote, where no sound can be heard, in that silence a sound can be perceived that is heard as OUM. The reverberating sound goes on and on. We just have to tune ourselves to it," said Mukherjee.

In essence, all organs in the body vibrate, she points out. "For the body to function normally, these organs should vibrate at a specific frequency. The moment the frequency changes, the organ starts malfunctioning and gradually the body gets ill."

One patient with a fused vertebrae tried everything – physical therapy, massage and medication – before coming to her. Mukherjee described what happened next: "After chanting, she sat in an upright position with palm up on her lap. She let her body dictate what she should do next. To her surprise, one by one the vertebra from the joining point of the head to the neck started to bend. Her head was gradually bending downwards and the head nearly touched the ground. Every vertebra was as if massaged on its own and became separate from one another – all vertebrae up to the tail bone. The neck started moving on its own . . . This continued for a few days after chanting, and she never had any complaints about numbness, pain or stiffness."

Mukherjee, 49, didn’t start out as a lecturer, although she studied music as a young age. An honors graduate in zoology from Lady Brabourne College in Kolkata, she turned to lecturing after moving with her husband, Udayan, 56, to East Africa in 1990, which placed limitations on a musical career. Her lectures began in 1998 and have been attracting a wide following ever since.

While she is hesitant about making claims, she does say she has had positive results dealing with Alzheimer’s patients. "If the family knows of some song or music box that the person is familiar with, we play the music and his or her brain will respond to it and memory will come back," she claims.

In a soon-to-be released book, her second, she describes her love for music as being in tune with the universe: "The new bright green leaves are dancing with the playful wild wind of Addis Ababa. The chirping of the brown birds, tiny blue breasted birds and the gray pigeons – they are all part of the symphony. From far, some Amharic songs can be heard intermittently. And if one is very attentive, very attentive, he can hear the music of the universe."

Music, she says, "is the trigger that triggers energy." And she? "A bridge between you and your energy source."

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