ARK SOUNDS

History

The morning stars sang together

"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Job 38:7.[21]

People have used sound to calm, pray and celebrate for thousands of years. Here is what is documented, what is tradition, what is legend, and what has no proof.

History documented   Tradition long-held account   Legend story, not fact   No proof claim without evidence

Jubal, the first musician

  • Tradition"And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." (Genesis 4:21, KJV). Scripture, not evidence.[22]

Israfil

  • TraditionIn Islamic tradition, Israfil is the angel who will blow the trumpet on the Day of Judgment. He is not named in the Qur’an; the role comes from later tradition.[23]
  • TraditionTradition also says his beautiful voice makes him the caller to prayer in heaven.[23]

Pythagoras and the Greeks

  • TraditionPythagoreans used music to "purify" the soul and medicine for the body. The earliest witness is Aristoxenus (4th century BCE); the oldest sources on Pythagoras himself say nothing about it.[3]
  • TraditionAbout 300 CE, Iamblichus wrote that Pythagoras used lyre songs and paeans against despair and anger. He wrote some 800 years later, with an agenda.[1][2]
  • LegendPythagoras discovering harmony from the sound of blacksmiths’ hammers: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls the story clearly false.[1]
  • HistoryPlato, Aristotle and Aristides Quintilianus all wrote about music shaping character and emotion.[4]

David’s lyre and Saul

  • Tradition"Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul." (1 Samuel 16:23, scripture, not clinical evidence).[5]
  • History1 and 2 Samuel are part of the Old Testament canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.[6]

Ethiopia: Yared, zema and the begena

  • HistorySaint Yared lived in the 6th century near Aksum, in the reign of Gabra Masqal. Tradition credits him with zema, the chant of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, its three modes (ge’ez for ordinary days, ezel for fasts and funerals, araray for great feasts) and the hymn book Degwa.[7]
  • LegendYared learned his chant from three birds sent by God.[9][10]
  • LegendWhile Yared sang before King Gabra Masqal, the king’s spear pierced his foot. The story comes from Yared’s hagiography (Gedle).[8]
  • HistoryWhether Yared wrote the notation (melekket) is uncertain. Copies of the liturgy from before the 16th century carry no notation, and scholars say church musicians codified it after the wars of 1529 to 1541. The signs are a memory aid, not pitch notation.[7][9]
  • HistoryThe begena is a large box-lyre nicknamed "David’s harp". It appears in manuscripts from the early 15th century and accompanies the Psalms of David during Lent and other fasts.[8][11]
  • TraditionIt is played mainly for prayer and meditation, with a deep buzzing tone made by leather pieces between the strings and the bridge.[12]
  • HistoryThe kebero is a large double-headed drum carved from a hollow log and played with the hands. It is the processional drum at major church celebrations; its name comes from a word meaning "to celebrate, to honor".[8]

Singing bowls

  • LegendBowls as an ancient Tibetan healing tradition: scholars find no hard evidence the bowls are ancient. The earliest written record is the 1972 album Tibetan Bells, and the healing story took off in the 1990s. A catalogue of Tibetan ritual instruments lists no sound bowls.[13]
  • HistoryFor what modern studies of bowls show, see the singing bowls research page.

Nada yoga: the inner sound

  • HistoryChapter 4 of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika calls listening to the inner sound (nada) the chief of the absorption practices. It describes the sound moving from ocean and thunder, to drum and bells, to flute, vina and bee.[14]
  • HistoryThe Nadabindu Upanishad, dated roughly 100 BCE to 300 CE, teaches meditation on the inner sound.[15]

Shamanic drumming

  • TraditionJourneying traditions use a steady drum at about four to five beats a second. Michael Harner coined the modern term "shamanic state of consciousness".[16]
  • HistoryTwo small modern studies found steady drumming shifted attention inward and felt dreamlike, with no larger drop in cortisol than meditation music. See the drumming research page.[17][18]

Gregorian chant

  • LegendThe Holy Spirit, as a dove, dictated the chant to Pope Gregory I.[19]
  • HistoryThe chant was formed in the 8th and 9th centuries under Frankish rulers by blending Roman and Gallican chant; Charlemagne decreed its use in 789.[19]
  • HistoryThe popular story that chant lowers monks’ blood pressure traces to a newspaper report; we found no journal paper. A related BMJ study found reciting the rosary or a mantra slowed breathing to about six breaths a minute.[20]

Rife frequencies

  • No proofIn the 1930s Royal Rife claimed that tuned frequencies could destroy germs. We found no controlled study showing it works. It is told here as a story; ARK Sounds does not offer Rife frequencies.
  • HistoryIn 2002 the FTC sued BioPulse, which sold a light-and-frequency treatment "based on the work of Royal Rife", for disease claims it could not back up.[24]
  • HistoryIn 2015 a California man was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for selling "a so-called Rife machine". The FDA had warned him in 2010 that the devices were not approved.[25]

Sources

  1. Pythagoras. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (substantive revision 2024). plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoras/
  2. Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life §§111–112, in translation (secondary source). sententiaeantiquae.com/2017/06/14/healing-music-pythagorias-therapeutic-songs/
  3. Provenza A. Aristoxenus and music therapy: fr. 26 Wehrli within the tradition on music and catharsis. In: Huffman CA, ed. Aristoxenus of Tarentum: Discussion. Transaction; 2012:91-128. iris.unipa.it/handle/10447/62051
  4. Nikolau I. Music as therapy in Greek antiquity. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy. 2018;10(2). journals.qmu.ac.uk/approaches/article/view/247
  5. 1 Samuel 16:23 (NIV). Bible Gateway. www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2016%3A23&version=NIV
  6. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The canonical books. www.ethiopianorthodox.org/english/canonical/books.html
  7. Sergew Hable-Selassie. Yared. Dictionary of African Christian Biography (from Encyclopaedia Africana, 1997). dacb.org/stories/ethiopia/yared2/
  8. Ashenafi Kebede. A history of music. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church website. ethiopianorthodox.org/english/church/styaredbyashenafikebede.html
  9. Ethiopian service book: manuscript description citing Shelemay KK, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, and Shelemay, Jeffery & Monson, Early Music History 12 (1993). Les Enluminures. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/ethiopian-service-book-91779
  10. The Reporter Ethiopia (2016), article on Saint Yared and the three birds (popular press). www.thereporterethiopia.com/4673/
  11. Comboni Missionaries. Fasts and feasts in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition (2021). combonimissionaries.ie/2021/03/30/fasts-and-feasts-in-the-ethiopian-orthodox-tradition/
  12. Begena. Wikipedia (supporting only; cites Timkehet Teffera 2019 and Weisser). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begena
  13. Grimes SM. Where did "Tibetan" singing bowls really come from? Tricycle, 4 March 2020. tricycle.org/article/tibetan-singing-bowls/
  14. Hatha Yoga Pradipika, chapter 4 (English, 1914 edition). www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/hatha-yoga-pradipika-english/d/doc7977.html
  15. Nadabindu Upanishad. Wikipedia (supporting only; cites Flood and Deussen). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadabindu_Upanishad
  16. Foundation for Shamanic Studies. Shamanic drumming. www.shamanism.org/drumming/
  17. Hove MJ, Stelzer J, Nierhaus T, et al. Brain network reconfiguration and perceptual decoupling during an absorptive state of consciousness. Cereb Cortex. 2016;26(7):3116-24. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26108612/
  18. Gingras B, Pohler G, Fitch WT. Exploring shamanic journeying. PLoS One. 2014;9(7):e102103. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24999623/
  19. Maurer-Dass S. Introduction to Gregorian chant. Medievalists.net, 2021. www.medievalists.net/2021/07/introduction-gregorian-chant/
  20. Bernardi L, Sleight P, Bandinelli G, et al. Effect of rosary prayer and yoga mantras on autonomic cardiovascular rhythms. BMJ. 2001;323(7327):1446-9. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11751348/
  21. Job 38:7 (KJV). Bible Gateway. www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2038%3A7&version=KJV
  22. Genesis 4:21 (KJV). Bible Gateway. www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%204%3A21&version=KJV
  23. Israfil. Wikipedia (supporting only; cites Tottoli, Encyclopaedia of Islam, and Burge, Angels in Islam). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israfil
  24. FTC v. BioPulse International, Inc., et al. Complaint for permanent injunction, U.S. District Court, N.D. California, 2002. www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cases/2002/07/biopulse2cmp.pdf
  25. Times of San Diego. O.C. man sentenced to 18 months for selling fake cures. 5 October 2015. timesofsandiego.com/crime/2015/10/05/o-c-man-sentenced-to-18-months-for-selling-fake-cures/

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