Paulson Comments: You just gotta read all this to see just how 'far' they will use music to heal)

Toning is the creation of vocal sounds on a single vowel - no melody or rhythm or words, just pure sound vibration. It's a simple technique, accessible to everyone regardless of vocal ability or training. With this powerful tool you can immediately experience the healing effects of sound on your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Toning synchronizes your brainwaves and helps relieve tension within a few minutes. By literally massaging your body and mind from the inside out, toning can help you release negative emotions; reduce stress; and improve stamina and concentration. You can increase your self-esteem and become more expressive and creative in your daily life. Toning is also a wonderful technique for developing your voice-ear connection and enhancing your power of listening to everything around you. Most of all, toning can help you awaken and deepen your sense of self, and align you to the deepest vibrations of soul and spirit. On the path of toning, you move toward the source of your own inner balance, creativity, well-being, and freedom.

Tone Your Whole Body Toning engages your entire being, not just your voice. Whatever specific vowel you may be toning, open your awareness to all physical or energetic sensations, without judgment or analysis. Listen to the vibrations with your whole body, and don't just hear with your ears. For example, place the palms of your hands at various places on your body as you tone and allow your hands to feel the sound vibrations.

Enhance your toning with movement

Sit on a chair or on the floor with your spine expanded vertically stand, either motionless or using intuitive movements  lie quietly on your back, with your hands at your sides  tone while walking, working, driving, doing everyday tasks  experiment with eyes closed or open, focussed or gazing softly  Express the tone with movement, and express the movement with tone.

Let your inner Self respond, free from outer expectations It is very natural and appropriate to experience energy, physical sensations, or emotional releases while toning, and it is not always pleasant. At times you may feel boredom, anger, fear, or any other emotion, positive or negative. Similar experiences are also well known in meditation, yoga, or any contemplative activity! Know that these feelings are natural, and that they will pass. Do not judge yourself.

During and after toning, be open to everything the vibrations may be awakening in you. Simply trust that whatever toning produces it will ultimately transform and heal your body and mind in the most appropriate way. Don't seek a specific outcome or explanation while you tone, just focus on the here and now. Open your awareness, and let your intuition guide you to insight. Persevere, and you will begin to see results, sometimes subtle and sometimes surprising and amazing!

Honor your uniqueness

You are a very complex and utterly unique bio-chemical, electro-magnetic, and spiritual being. No two people experience toning in exactly the same way. Honor and trust your own experience. Experiment, and seek tones which work for you. Allow your voice and tone to bring you into the present moment, and toward self-awareness!

Vowels and the Energy Centers

The power of toning lies in the vowels (like "a-e-i-o-u"). They are much more important to toning than the "pitch" (high or low). The vowels are also intimately related to the the body's major energy centers.

These energy centers are sometimes called Chakras. The sacred teachings of both East and West describe them, and correlate them with specific thought patterns and archetypal effects. As we investigate and explore the relationship of the vowels and the Chakras, we enrich our understanding of the broad spectrum of energies and emotions within our selves. Toning connects us with our own inner vibrations.

Try this for starters: let your intuition choose a vowel for you. Spend several minutes toning it. Begin in the comfortable middle of your vocal range. Then try a lower pitch, then higher, always with moderate volume and without straining. If the vowel feels physically or vocally "wrong" right now, leave it and choose another.  Be open to inner experience and sensation, without seeking a specific "result."

This is a chart of traditional suggestions for you  to begin with.  Your own awareness may be different; that's fine!  There is no 'normal' toning experience, only "your" experience!  With a little practice, your inner wisdom will guide you and tell you what vowels you need to tone. (end of book quote!)

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Paulson Comments!
Any of you former chorus students recognize those exercises?
You didn't now that you were being set up by Satan, did you?

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And if this page isn't too long already, I just have to include the directions on How To Tone.  If they weren't so serious about this, it would be funny.
The sad fact is that there are millions of people who will really believe this stuff.

"Beyond the Mozart Effect" has become their god and that god will send these people to Hell.

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(More book quotes)

Please do not tone for more than 20 minutes at any one time. You are accessing a powerful stimulant of the central nervous system and you need to regulate it. This is important.

The Physical Guidelines for Toning are Very Simple

1) Maintain a relaxed state, especially tongue and jaw; 2) tone at a comfortable and moderate loudness, don't force; 3) always be mindful of healthy posture and deep, full breathing; 4) yawn, stretch, and move occasionally to release mouth and neck tension.

Have a glass of water and some tissue handy; the energy and physical activity of toning can make your throat dry and/or produce excess saliva and mucous. This is common and harmless.

Should you experience tension or discomfort in your mouth or throat, stop for a few moments, breathe, stretch, yawn, and resume. Sip water. Do not force your voice. Stop whenever you need to.

Learning any art takes time, patience, and regular practice. It's more beneficial to tone daily, even for a few minutes, than to tone only infrequently for extended periods. With daily practice your body and mind will quickly learn to respond to the tone and vibrations.

It doesn't need to be pretty. If it's real, it's beautiful.

Toning is not "singing" and there's no aesthetic judgement involved. A healthy voice is comfortable and easily produced. That's it. The sound you make does not have to be pretty; the point of toning is not the beauty of the sound but the experience of the sound vibration. Listen with your whole body, and open to the totality of the sound.

Remember, there's no "right" way or "wrong" way to tone, only your way! Your natural wisdom will guide you. Your sound is unique, and the experience is uniquely yours! Happy Toning!

"You are safe and protected in the sound of your own voice."

(end of book quote)

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Paulson Comments:
It is good to see that you have stayed with this entire Mozart Effect page!
We are now coming to the end.  Do you recall how far we have come?

Nada Yoga means "union through sound." It is the ancient spiritual art and science of inner transformation through sound and tone. Meditation on sound is one universal path to Self Realization, accessible to anyone, and appropriate for people of any religion or spiritual aspiration. The term "Yoga" means to combine, coordinate, harmonize, integrate.

Our mind easily becomes absorbed in sound. This is why we all - even infants and animals - enjoy listening to music. When the mind is fully concentrated on anything there arises a feeling of inner bliss. In Nada Yoga, we learn that the source of the sound may be external or internal. The sound may be "gross" or "subtle." That is, it may be "struck" out loud, as from a voice or musical instrument; or "unstruck" and outwardly silent, arising inwardly as from the subtle currents of energy or prana moving throughout the body.

With practice, concentration on carefully selected outer or "struck" sounds will enable the mind to become calm and transparent. At this point you may begin to become aware of the subtle inner "unstruck" sounds. You might perceive inner sounds that seem like bells, or flutes, or even a hum like an electrical transformer. Some of these sounds are actually just the sounds of your own body: blood pumping, or the electrical energy of nerves and inner ear. Other, deeper, sounds are the "sounds behind the audible sound." It is into this deeper realm that Nada yoga can take you.

Some traditions tell us that this subtle, inner sound originates in the "heart chakra of the subtle body," considered the center of unstruck sound. Yogic tradition connects this inner sound with Kundalini itself.

In Nada yoga you concentrate on these finer and deeper sounds, moving from outer to inner realm, moving awareness from outer to inner sounds (Sanskrit: "nadam"), while all the time gently easing your mind into relaxed concentration and focus. This is a highly enjoyable form of meditation and it's relatively effortless: as you meditate, your entire being, every cell and atom and part of you, is being purified and balanced by the sounds that you are focusing on. Remember, whatever you pay attention to, you become. "Where you put your treasure, there you shall also find your heart." Therefore it is very important that you choose positive and enlightening music and sounds for this meditation.

Paulson Comments:
(Here it comes now - Beyond the Mozart Effect!  The corruption of beautiful music)

One easy way to begin a practice of Nada Yoga is to start with beautiful music. You must choose music which sustains a level mood: calming, quiet, maintaining an even loudness and emotion. This is one fine use of "New Age" music - Brian Eno "Thursday Afternoon" or music by Stephen Halpern or Don Campbell, for example. Eastern music is also a valuable tool - North Indian sitar; Japanese shakuhachi. Native American flute music can also be an excellent choice. Choose Western classical music with care; often the dynamic and emotional range is too great for this meditative use. Whatever you choose, it must be instrumental music - no voices. Voices and words are too "specific" and distracting.

At first, simply sit quietly and focus all your attention on the music for 10-15 minutes once or twice a day. Continue this practice with regularity, listening to the same type of music, always with your fullest concentration. Gradually you may be able to hear subtle sounds that come from within, rather than the audible sounds from outside. As you begin to be aware of the inner sounds, listen to them and focus on them. Then you can gradually change your meditation from listening to music to listening to the subtle sounds.

Go at your own speed with this. Each experience is unique. Awareness of inner sound may happen sooner - or later - but it will happen. Finally, you will no longer need music for meditation at all, and may choose use it or not, as you wish. Then continue listening to the inner sounds for your meditation practice every day. Your perception of the sounds may change as your body and mind become purified and elevated. Just continue to focus on the inner sound or "nadam" daily.

This form of Nada Yoga is actually much easier than it sounds. The wonderful bonus of this practice - meditating with music - is that the process, the journey itself, is highly pleasant. Every step of the way you are bathing yourself in uplifting sounds and music, balancing and healing your heart, mind and spirit. Thus no matter what the specific "meditative" outcome, you can receive only benefits from this pursuit. Your listening skills will also improve, and you will become more sensitive not only to music and sound, but to the subtle emotions and energies within yourself and in others. You will "listen" to others more completely and directly, and you'll find you are able to hear what others are really saying, no matter how loudly they speak...

(end of book quote)

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Some final comments from the New Ager's themselves
and see how they view music and
coming together of this New World...

It's no longer possible for anyone to remain unaware of the global transformation we are experiencing. Global consciousness is undergoing a total revolution - a reharmonization of our priorities as a species. Our individual Keynotes are forming a new Chord. At the center of this shift is the development of the skill of Listening. Not just listening as in hearing sounds, but also inner listening - awareness of emotions, feelings, thoughts, and all the events of the inner life of each of us individually and all of us together.

Spiritual hearing is the understanding of hidden things by listening to hearts, by discerning realities which are the object of our quest and which comprise the signs of the divine present in all creation.

Something miraculous may be happening on this planet, on our tiny blue pearl. Humanity may well find itself on the threshold of an evolutionary step, a step that could happen with lightning-quick speed, a step such as happens only every billion years. And the change that is leading us towards this step is happening before our very eyes or rather behind our eyes in the depths of our own spirits.

Even the Renaissance did not hold the promise of such radical renewal. We are linked by our travels and technology, more and more conscious of one another and open to one another. We are discovering that an increasing number of people can mutually enrich and reinforce themselves and that we are more attentive to our place in nature.

We need a new paradigm. a new vision of reality; a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions and values. The beginning of this change, of this passage from a mechanistic conception to a holistic conception of reality can already be seen in all fields and it would seem, will dominate the present decade.

It would seem that music has a crucial role to play in the advent of this new paradigm, of this new vision of the world. To create the Age of Aquarius music must go beyond the level of naive entertainment to reach the sphere of the spirit. It will be the breath of consciousness; it will become the song of souls by echoing their highest intuitions, it being so true that through it, the souls life manifests.