Learn how and why healing music works.  CJ interviews composer Yuval Ron and Richard Gold about their music, and how multilayered music can help your digestion, sleep, stress and more. Plus, we’ll dig into the science and magic behind how Yuval and Richard compose their work. (http://www.mettamindfulnessmusic.com/)

• What is vision or mission for your work? How do you want to change the healing process?
• What first brought you to concentrating on music as a healing modality?
• To my unsophisticated ear, your music sounds like a lot of other music I hear while I may be getting a massage or the like. How is it similar or different?
• What is your expertise (advances in neuroscience and music therapy research, psychoacoustic) that is embedded in this body of work? How do you work together in creating music?
• Tell us a bit more about psychoacoustics and how they come into play in the creation of your work and inspiring the various elements
• What is the subliminal sound in your music? How does it work?
• Yuval you mentioned something interesting in one of your interviews. You said Language is sound. What did you mean by that?
•  What do we know about how sound effects our brains? What can you tell us about music therapy research?
• What effects do you see your music having on others who have listened?
• There are so many different forms of sound therapy. How do you see your music fitting into these modalities (healing forks, chanting, bowls)?
• How does integrate sound into their healing practice? What albulm should you buy or listen to? (Earth, Fire, Metal, Triple Warmer, Water, Wood, Doshas,Relieve Stress, Relive Belly Ache, Relieve Breathlessness, Relieve Indigestion)
• When do you listen to these? (driving, before sleeping, while working, all above). .
• What constitutes harmful music (techno/heavy metal)? Why is it harmful? How do we know it is harmful? (digital vs. instruments)

About Yuval Ron –  Artist, composer, educator, peace activist and record producer

Yuval Ron is an internationally renowned World Music artist, composer, educator, peace activist and record producer. Graduating Cum Laude as a Film Scoring Major at Berklee College of Music in Boston, he has continuously researched various ethnic musical traditions and spiritual paths worldwide. Among his many honors, he composed the songs and score for the Oscar winning film West Bank Story in 2007, was the featured artist in the Gala Concert for the Dalai Lama’s initiative Seeds of Compassion in the Seattle Opera Hall in 2008, and has collaborated with the Sufi leader Pir Zia Inayat Khan since 2006. His awards include the Los Angeles Treasures Award in 2004 and prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Composers Forum, California Council for the Humanities and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Under his leadership, the internationally renowned music and dance group, The Yuval Ron Ensemble, has been actively involved in creating musical bridges between people of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths and has been featured on CNN, National Geographic, and in the international press and media. Yuval Ron has produced field recordings in the Sinai Desert with the Bedouins, archival preservation recordings of the sacred Yemenite, Moroccan and Andalusian Jewish traditions, and the album of master musician Omar Faruk Tekbilek titled, One Truth – A Window into the Divine Passion and Poetry of Sufism.

His TV and films scores includes the PBS/Nova special, Breaking the Maya Code, Proteus, Oliver Twist, The Spiral Staircase, Golda’s Balcony and Road to Victory and he has collaborated with numerous film directors including, Jeremy Kagan, Ari Sandel, David Lebrun. He received commissions from various international choreographers including Daniel Ezralow (American Repertory Ballet), Ashley Roland (ISO dance company), Oguri (Renzoku Dance Company) and Zen priest and visual artist Hirokazu Kosaka. His original scores for theater productions include Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Yeats’ Amer’s Jealousy and Becket’s Casscando.

Yuval Ron has also collaborated with neuroscientists Mark Waldman, Andrew Newburg and others to explore the connection between sound and the brain and has received commissions from Metta Mindfulness Music to create music for medical and healing use in clinics and treatments centers.

Yuval is a noted lecturer and has been invited to speak at numerous schools including: Yale, John Hopkins University, UCLA, Middlebury College, Brandeis University, MIT, Berklee College of Music, University of Chicago, Pittsburgh University, Texas University in Austin, UCSD, Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School and many others. Yuval Ron has been on the faculty of Esalen Institute since 2009, is an affiliated artist with the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, and a “Guiding Voice” for Seven Pillars – House of Wisdom.

Yuval’s book Divine Attunement: Music as a path to Wisdom, won the Gold Medal Award for Best Spirituality Book at the Indie Book Awards 2015.

Education: 1989 – Berklee College of Music, graduate Cum-Laude.

About Dr. Richard Gold – Acupuncturist, Founder of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine

Dr. Richard Gold is a licensed acupuncturist and holds a Doctorate in Psychology. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1972 with a degree in World Religions and a minor in pre-medicine. He graduated from the New England School of Acupuncture in 1978 and since then has devoted his professional career to the study, practice, researching, teaching and publishing in the field of East Asian Medicine. Dr. Gold has pursued advanced studies in China (1981), Japan (1986) and Thailand (1988, 1989, 1992). Dr. Gold was one of the four founders of the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, a regionally and nationally accredited college of traditional Chinese Medicine with campuses in San Diego, Chicago and New York City. He served on Board of the college for many years and continues to teach there. Dr. Gold was first introduced to meditation and yoga in 1970 during a month long meditation retreat and has pursued mental mindfulness and meditative awareness over the past 40+ years. In recent years, Dr. Gold has studied neuroscience and the evolving understanding of the effects of sound and meditation on the brain. Dr. Gold is a published author and lectures internationally. His best-known book is ‘Thai Massage: A Traditional Medical Technique’ first published in 1998 and now in it’s second edition.