Muse-ic

While it's the beginning of the race season for many of us in the South, I know that many of my friends in the North and Northeast are in the middle or nearing the end of their own race seasons. Lots of fatigue and sore muscles, and unfortunately a few injuries, are beginning to show up in race reports and training logs. I don't have a magical mystery cure for your latest hamstring pull, trashed quads, or "post-marathon depression syndrome," but I do know something that has been a (relatively) cheap road to recovery for me: music!

I never listen to music as part of my meditation practice – I find it’s just yet another distraction getting between me and what is really going on. But over the years, when I’m bone tired and not feeling up to doing much but sinking into a chair and staring into space (usually after a long training run or a race, or recovering from a running injury or an illness), I have found some music that is very conducive to doing just that. More than conducive, really – I find it genuinely helpful, a spiritual massage of a sort that opens the path to true physical healing.

Wow, did that sound sickeningly New Age or what? Bottom line, the next time you’re trashed from running, or simply in danger of general sensory overload, I highly recommend dimming the lights a bit, relaxing in a comfortable chair, and spacing out to any of the following:

Brian Eno: On Land – a subtle and deeply intelligent marriage of ambient sounds recorded in evocative outdoor environments (a marsh, for example) and electronics. This recording has unfortunately given inspiration to a multitude of vastly inferior “New Age” imitators, but On Land preceded the New Age music genre – it’s truly a landmark recording. And it works on any level: I find it effective as mere aural wallpaper, but also remarkably involving if listened to actively. I would be hard-pressed to think of a day over the past 20 years or so when I haven’t run this through the player. Regardless of your mood, the time of day, or where you are, it just plain works. Ambient music of the highest order. A remastered version was released not too long ago.

Oliver Messiaen: Catalogue d’oiseaux – This one could be a stretch for many: atonal solo piano pieces based on precisely notated wild bird songs. For all of the dissonance, I find most of it strangely calming (it does have its wilder moments). There are many silences between the notes, and for the most part the pieces are of the quieter, less busy variety. Amazingly effective at conjuring up wild birds in the wilderness, although that wasn’t Messiaen’s intent – he merely used them as inspiration. My favorite recording (and by far the cheapest) is on the budget classical label Naxos, performed by the excellent Norwegian pianist Hakon Austbo.

J.S. Bach: Die Kunst der Fugue (version for viol consort) – When I’m sick, this is the music I turn to for healing. A masterful series of fugues, developed from a single theme and presented in an astonishing variety of moods and figurations. It’s all surprisingly colorful and emotional, given the mathematical rigors of fugue writing. This works well in a variety of formats: solo organ, mixed chamber ensemble, even saxophone quartet. The version by Fretwork, a veteran British viol consort group, on the Harmonia Mundi label is my favorite – the viols just wash over you, like a warm bath. My bedside companion through more than one serious bout of the flu.

J.S. Bach: Suites for Solo Cello – more Bach, this time written for the best organic Valium around, the cello. My personal favorite recording is Anner Bylsma’s on Sony for its warmth and wisdom, but there are any number of perfectly serviceable and inexpensive versions. Essential.

Bill Evans: The Complete Live At The Village Vanguard Recordings – I don’t mean for anyone to think of the pianist Bill Evans as a lightweight, but this is some of the most sheerly beautiful jazz music ever recorded – the “dream team” Evans trio with Scott Lefaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. If Debussy had written for jazz trio, I imagine it would have sounded much like what’s going on here. It sounds and feels like a soft rain – lovely, lovely stuff. And speaking of Claude:

Debussy: Works for chamber ensemble – This is the only classical recording on the list that I’m recommending only for a very specific recording: a well-chosen, varied selection performed by the Athena Ensemble on the Chandos label. There is something unique about this recording and the performances that feels so natural, it’s very hard for me to imagine them done by anyone else or recorded any other way. A Spring Sunday afternoon favorite, even when perfectly healthy (and especially when sharing a bottle of wine or two) … quietly joyful; life-enhancing.

There are many others – Beethoven’s late string quartets; more of Brian Eno’s ambient work dating from the late seventies and early eighties (especially Apollo: Atmospheres and Sound Tracks); John Williams playing Granados and Albeniz in arrangements for classical guitar; Miles Davis’ early sixties quartet with Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, and Herbie Hancock – all music that, while not necessarily always quiet, is capable of healing mind, body, and soul. Doubtless you will uncover a few favorites of your own, if you haven't already. If you’re not drawn to meditation or just don’t happen to have the energy that seated meditation takes, putting one of these on the player and shifting your brain into neutral isn’t a bad substitute.

Enjoy your runs and races, and even the healing afterwards. Sometimes when listening to Bach’s Die Kunst der Fugue, I have to admit the healing may be my favorite part. But it would be interesting to more seriously explore to see if any serious research has been done on the relationship between music and physical healing. Let me make a note to do that somewhere on this list of 10,000 things I really want to do ...