Alexandre Tannous: "Sound Thinking: Using Music, Resonance, and Harmonics for Human Wellbeing”

Episode 128
June 19th, 2024

(Conversation recorded on May 1st, 2024)  

Show Summary

Music has been an integral part of the human experience for thousands of years, and continues to embody a unique aspect of culture across the world today - yet most people hold only a preliminary understanding of the full range of benefits that sound, resonance, and harmonics can provide. Today, Nate is joined by ethnomusicologist Alexandre Tannous for a deep dive on the evolution of the human relationship with sound and how music could be used as a tool to facilitate personal resilience and healing. How can resonance quiet our reptilian fight-or-flight system and positively impact personal and group consciousness? When grounded in ceremony, how does music enhance spirituality and well-being for communities? What could a world look like in which every human has the access and energy to focus on healing themselves through the powerful tools of sound and meditation?

About Alexandre Tannous

Alexandre Tannous is an ethnomusicologist, sound therapist and sound researcher who holds four degrees in music, and years of experience performing, composing, conducting, teaching and lecturing on music. He has been investigating the therapeutic and esoteric properties of sound from three different perspectives - Western scientific, Eastern philosophical, and shamanic societal beliefs - to gain a deeper understanding of how, and to what extent, sound has been used to affect human consciousness. 

The material he transmits about sound is based on multidisciplinary research conducted over 24 years. Inspired by his findings, he designed a protocol of an integrated experience he calls “Sound Meditation”, raising an awareness to how a specifically designed sound can have the ability to help us to disconnect from habitual patterns while judiciously listening to the overtone-rich instruments he plays. He uses a method that empowers the participants to engage actively with tools that enhance their experience.

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Show Notes & Links to Learn More

PDF Transcript

00:00 - Alexandre Tannous, Sound Meditation

07:32 - Ancient uses of music across cultures

10:31 - Mantra

11:22 - Neanderthal Flute

12:20 - Innate human connection with music

12:25 - Entrainment

14:09 - Acoustics

14:32 - Synesthesia

17:45 - Meditating alone vs in group

19:21 - Importance of ceremony in religion

20:07 - Overtones

21:22 - Social engineering

22:10 - Abrahamic religions

23:35 - Byzantine Chants

24:03 - Harmonics

28:02 - Resonance

29:07 - Evolutionary Psychology

29:24 - Humans prefer right/left symmetry in faces

30:25 - Humans consistently build big grand structures with alignment with astronomical events

31:13 - Mayan calendar

31:30 - The Yugas

32:32 - Logos

33:27 - Ervin Laszlo 

35:25 - Gnosis

36:22 - Carl Jung

36:33 - Episteme

37:25 - Why Buddhism values suffering

37:53 - US opiate addictions

45:10 - Generational trauma

46:55 - The US lacks community institutions

47:25 - Brian Eno

55:32 - People become attached to what they listened to as an adolescent

56:36 - Most people don’t know how to listen to jazz

59:14 - Non-dual state

1:00:25 - Language creates the reality

1:00:46 - Ethos, Pathos

1:07:05 - How physical structure makes our voice

1:12:38 - Primordial Aum

1:13:50 - Beliefs shout louder than facts

1:14:05 - Sounds predates language

1:14:40 - Animals sing for pleasure

1:16:50 - Notre Dame school of music, the birth of western harmony/functional harmony

1:18:13 - Tertian Harmony

1:19:14 - Non-western harmonies

1:21:45 - Inner feminine and the masculine

1:28:10 - Philip Glass, minimalist composers

1:30:08 - Familiarity makes us feel safe

1:35:45 - Westernization

1:41:22 - Recipe for bronze

1:45:25 - Why humans like bells

1:50:40 - We get addicted to anxiety and other suffering

1:52:19 - Tannous’ EEG studies

1:53:40 - Tanpura

1:54:22 - Itabla

1:56:39 - We all have trauma

2:07:54 - Autoimmune diseases

2:10:20 - Gut biome, how it affects everything else, how to support it (beyond food)

2:11:32 - Risks of psychedelics

2:16:11 - Tannous Sound meditation tracks, further recommendations

2:18:45 - Overtone singing

2:20:55 - How instruments get their unique sounds

2:23:14 - The importance of music to advertising, functional music

2:31:18 - Cognitive Dissonance, Leon Festinger

2:35:55 - Rupert Sheldrake, Iain McGilchrist, Isaac Newton

2:36:59 - Science of natural philosophy, McKenna Academy 



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