 Courtesy Martin Brading |
This chilly, late October evening, the foyer of Woodstock's Mountain View Studio is lined with shoes—60 pairs, at least—as if a temple were on the other side of the door. Lightly stepping into the darkened inner room, one might think something otherworldly is about to take place.
Quietly, audience members are seating themselves on cushions on the floor, wrapping themselves in blankets, whispering to one another, closing their eyes in anticipation. In the center of the room, the eight members of Prana, plus founding father Baird Hersey, have already assembled on their own pillows, forming a circle around a colored array of candles. In this sacred space, the divine will be channeled through music, yet the only instrument present is voice.
The story of Prana begins when Hersey, a young college student in the early 1970s, was drawn to Tibetan monastic music, the mesmerizing, antique, multiphonic chant and throat singing. He resided in Boston, just around the corner from a firehouse. One day, while listening to the Gyoto monks through headphones, he thought he heard a fire engine. Then another. Then another. When he heard the next one, he removed the headphones. It wasn't a siren at all, but a high whistling sound inside the music of the monks. From that moment on, Hersey was hooked.
A guitarist, band leader, and television composer who'd recorded many albums in different genres over the years, Hersey began flirting with overtones, using them sparingly in various musical contexts. He started yoga study in 1988 and made a meditation tape for his teacher using the overtones. He later made a CD of overtone meditations on the chakras for friends. Before he knew it, he was burning CDs like mad at the request of others. "It wasn't a decision I made to follow this," he explains, "but it was something that chose me, rather than something I chose."
Hersey recorded his first official CD in the genre, Waking the Cobra, in 1998, a series of overtone meditations on the chakras. He traveled around the country performing and teaching, but because he sang all the parts on the recording himself, he asked audience members to replicate some of the things he'd done so he could sing the melodies over the top. Unfortunately, 90 percent of the people in the room couldn't match a tone. But the beautiful outcome was the birth of Prana (Sanskrit for "life force"), a group of singers who made their way to Hersey, professionals who could match a tone and more. By using their natural singing voices (not the Tibetan low drone), they learned to use overtone technique to sing two pitches at once, opening up enormous possibilities in harmonics. Eventually, Hersey assembled eight permanent members (there was a certain amount of turnover in the group early on). Monday night rehearsals have taken place for four years.
 Courtesy Martin Brading |
Let's meet the members of Prana: Julie Last, a producer/recording engineer who's worked on albums by John Lennon, Aerosmith, Lou Reed, and Brian Eno, was a Grammy nominee for Best Engineer for her work with Ricki Lee Jones; she's released her own CD and recorded backing vocals for Joni Mitchell and Talking Heads. Bruce Milner made The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his 1967 #1 hit, "Come on Down to My Boat, Baby" with Every Mother's Son. He's music director for the politically progressive TV show, "In Your Face." Jonji Provenzano played with the Beltones, 3 Jays, and Marc Black. A full-time yoga teacher for 15 years, he's been director of The Yoga Studio and River Cloud School of Yoga. Leslie Ritter, a recording artist since 1984, spent 12 years as half of "Amy and Leslie" and has recorded with James Taylor, Dr. John, and Rick Danko. She now works with Scott Petito. Bar Scott has performed professionally for 15 years; she's released five CDs, a children's book, and a video. Scott headlined with Phoebe Snow and Beth Nielsen-Chapman in a show that aired on FOX. Joe Veillette, co-founder of the Phantoms and member of Blind Mice, has worked with Leon Russell, Todd Rundgren, Jorma Kaukonen, John Sebastian, and Soupy Sales. His Veillette Guitars are used by Ani DiFranco, James Taylor, Lauryn Hill, Tom Chapin, and Eddie Van Halen. Kirsti Gholson began her career singing backup, recording and performing with a variety of musicians. As a solo artist, she's moved from the duo of Sweet William to the band Art Can Kill and a partnership with Barrie Maguire, performing at Woodstock '99. Peter Buettner, a member of the Latin-Jazz group Mambo Kikongo, played flute and sax with Futu Futu, Karl Burger and Marilyn Crispell. And Baird Hersey is a National Endowment for the Arts Composition Fellow, has received commissions from Harvard, the New Mexico Council for the Arts, the Brooklyn Bridge Centennial Sound and Light Spectacular, and the HVP Symphony Orchestra, and has performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival and on MTV. He studied with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in India and The Gyuto Monks.
Once Prana fell into place, they began touring with Hersey all over the northeast, appearing at the historic Gatherings and One Voice concerts, and as part of the Woodstock Cycle concert series. Last summer they opened for pianist Philip Glass in a benefit for Karma Triyana Dharmachakra monastery.
The summer also brought Prana's first release with Hersey, The Eternal Embrace, overtone singing meditations on the eight limbs of yoga. This music must be experienced. It is unique, scintillating, gorgeous, astonishing. One might call this a "concept" album, though it's certainly a phenomenal piece of work that can be immensely enjoyed without ever knowing what that concept actually is. To expound: over 2,000 years ago, Indian sage Patanjali stated that yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind and offered eight limbs which produce that mental stillness—external self restraint, internal discipline, postures, breath control, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation, and complete union. The first two pieces on the recording are broken down into yamas (how one interacts with the world) and niyamas (how one interacts with oneself). These limbs are explored on 16 tracks with the pure sound of the human voice, each piece bringing the listener deeper and deeper into a state of relaxation.
Originally, Hersey planned to use instruments on the CD, but decided to use voices to mimic them instead. "Dharana" began as a tamboura drone, but the group produces two simultaneous "tambouras," the men doing one thing and the women another, in a cyclical manner. "Dhyana" imitates the harmonics of a gong, a long drone with the men singing one pitch and the women another. "For many of the pieces, there are parallels to acoustic instruments that I recorded," Hersey explains, "but I came to think, why should I be doing this independent of the group? Why not adapt it?"
"Satya" is interesting to see live, as it's performed like the telephone game, with members of the circle passing tones back and forth to each other, building chords. "Satya means non-lying, or telling the truth, being sincere," says Hersey. "There are four chords we work our way through, so for the chords to be true, to have its fully formed sound, each of us has to pass the tone to the next person, to tell the truth of the tone and give a correct reflection of what they've heard." In representing how we deal with ourselves, the Niyamas—five short pieces—involve only one voice, naturally. At the beginning of "Pranayama" (breath control), you hear the group inhaling and exhaling; the piece goes back and forth between two chords to mimic breathing. "Pratyahara" (turning inward of the senses) has the women singing dynamically rising chords, coming in and out the way our attention is focused to distractions; the men sing overtones, starting with the lowest possible and rising to become more and more evident, the harmonic and its presence becoming a focusing, a pulling inward.
To hear this perfect-pitch recording is one matter; to hear the group live is quite another. It's a miraculous jolt to the senses, and, I dare say, bone chilling at times. Pieces were performed that autumn night by candlelight, without amplification. They'll be performing again at Mountain View Studio on February 6. Also on the calendar is a show at Tibet House in Manhattan on May 12. They'll continue their Easter tradition of Om For Peace, in which the audience is invited to participate in an hour of rising and swelling harmonies of the Om. Rumor also has it that Prana may be collaborating with Krishna Das in the near future. To inquire about overtone singing workshops with Hersey, visit www.PranaSound.com; to purchase The Eternal Embrace, click on www.cdbaby.com.