Creating Common Grounds with Music | Community Call Notes 9.7.22
Our September Community Call focused on the transformative role of music in negotiation and conflict resolution. Jonathan Dimmock and Angela Lee gifted us with deeply engaging and soul-inspiring music. Jonathan, a classically trained concert artist and internationally recognized organist, is also the founder of The Resonance Project. Angela, graduate of The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music, is an acclaimed cellist and sits on the board of The Resonance Project.
We shared an experience together that I won't soon forget! For those of you unable to attend, we're happy to share the call recording which includes their musical performance.
The following are excerpts from our time with Jonathan and Angela.
Jonathan - Angela and I started talking about the possibility of using music in conflict resolution five or six years ago when I realized her sister was married to the son of the famous conductor Kurt Masur. Kurt had a vision for how music could be used to help the world find peace and bring people together more than just by feelings. So I started building this organization with the help of Angela. The idea is to use live music in settings where there are negotiations or conflict and allow music to form a common ground. It works in conjunction with what the neuroscience community is teaching us about how when we listen to music together our brainwaves sync together and also synchronizes our heartbeats.
Why not use this where the stakes are the highest - heads of state, corporations, in the United Nations, global summits. What I would like to do today is show an example of what this would look like. The hope of our work is to take people from where they approach a conflict with a particular agenda and point of view and give them a moment to be heard and then an opportunity for transformation. We want to help them move from understanding their own world (egocentricity) to understanding their group (ethnocentricity) to understanding the other person’s perspective (world centricity).
We would like to play three pieces of music with you. First I like to start with something from Bach or the Baroque period because it activates the brain. We know that when someone listens to Bach, the brain actually hears it backwards. So the brain is very active.
What’s important is that we have focused attention. Music as background has a different effect, the same effect as total silence - no effect. When we listen to music and focus on it, then we move into the music in a different way and can start to affect us and create mutuality.
I push for live music because of quantum physics. The observer changes the observed. The observer and the observed are inextricably linked. Performers, dancers, speakers are aware of the audience and the impact they have on the performance. Why? It’s because of what the audience is giving the performer. In a conflict setting, if you are bringing people into a room, you want the musicians to empathize with the people in the room - not to know the whole story, but to be able to feel through the heart and mind metaphysically what the other person is feeling so we can reflect it to them and them to us.
Musical Performance #1 - Bach: Gamba Sonata in G Minor, the first movement [00:09:21]
When we listen to music and focus on it, then we move into the music in a different way and can start to affect us and create mutuality.
Jonathan [00:15:08] Next typically I’d like to move to something that has something more on the heart/ feeling level away from the intellectual level. I often choose something from the Romantic period. The idea behind two or three or 4 people performing together is that it models collaboration. With music the sum of the parts is much greater than each of the parts by themselves. So when we play this piece together Angela has her thing, I have my thing, but then we have our thing. We have each of our own parts but then we have what we’ve created, built together. That’s why it’s nice to use this as a way of people in disagreement to watch two people working together to build something that can’t be built by themselves.
Musical Performance #2 - Edward Elgar: Une Idylle [00:16:30]
Jonathan [00:20:20] After a piece of music that is more on the romantic side that brings up a lot of heart energy, I like to take it to a dimension that is unexpected - something that a beat or harmony or melody isn’t predictable. I like to think of that as moving into a cosmic dimension with the purpose to get this out of thinking about ourselves and move into an expansion, more of a global dimension. Today I have chosen a piece from a French composer from the 20th century, Olivier Messiaen. The piece is a pretty significant piece he composed while in a concentration camp during World War II; it’s called Quartet for the End of Time. The story behind it is he was taken to a concentration camp where there was a piano, clarinetist, violinist, and a cellist. It’s called Quarter for the End of Time is a double pun. It’s the end of time in that it’s the end of the world and it’s also the end of time because there is no time signature in any sort of way. I think you’ll find that it has a transportive quality.
Musical Performance #3 - Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time [00:23:00]
Jonathan [00:31:16] Normally after the music is finished, the musicians would leave the space for the sake of confidentiality. The point is for the music to function, not the people themselves. Often I’m asked, “when has this ever happened? How did you come up with this idea?” This concept is as old as time itself because mothers have been singing to upset children ever since there were mothers and children. They know the music calms them.
We have notable examples of this in history. In 1816 there was the Congress of Vienna. Princes from all over Europe came together for the first time to negotiate from finance to borders. At this congress was Ludwig van Beethoven. I can’t help but think that the reason we had more or less a peaceful Europe for exactly 100 years after that was due to the music.
Our hope with this is that this would be something that you, yourselves would implement where you are. It can be any kind of instrument or instrumentalists, working with the musicians to come up with something that might open up minds and hearts.
I’d like to open this up to your feedback and reflections.
Participant Reflections [00:34:53]
Valerie - Thank you so much for allowing for music to be such a healing power. It’s something that brings us together…what better way to get us involved. In an interview I was once asked, “How do you stop an angry crowd from advancing?” My answer? It’s music. It’s something about the flow, the feeling that you have.
Victor - Thank you both for the music. I’m very impressed. The sound did bring reflections to me. Music creates a safe environment for you to listen and reflect.
Libby - I can attest to the power of what you’re bringing today. Jonathan played for our Jewish-Palenstianian dialogue group in San Francisco. The idea was they would play music for ten minutes and reflect and then return to our engaged dialogue. But after the music everybody just wanted to talk to each and connect. It was an amazing experience of transformation in the moment! I could feel the whole thing again today!
Jenny - Definitely 1+1 feels like a whole lot more than 2 or 3. I’m completely moved by what you are achieving worldwide on international platforms. I’ve been asking a similar question to our interfaith movement - what is our music? We get together and there is immense tension or opposition, but once you harmonize… For me as a mother my instrument is my voice. I’ve helped my own child through panic attacks. I love your neuroscience because I know we regulate each other’s feelings. I’m inspired to bring this into the PPA [Peace Practice Alliance] training we will do in South Africa. Thank you for the transformative impact you are having worldwide!
Zelda - I had a tough day, but listening to the music I am so calm right now. During the apartheid era, when we wanted healing we had what we call goema with different musical instruments. It was a great place for us to be in and it made us feel united and you cannot give up now. It was a space where you could find comfort - not just talk about the struggle but how you feel in that moment. We also have drumming circles. Music is a really powerful tool to find peace and healing!
Sally - I’m still feeling the heart expansion movement. We talk about personal peace and the feeling in our body that is so important. The resonance is felt, the body relaxes. In that third piece I wrote “pained, but not painful.” Considering he was writing in a concentration camp, it melted duality, dichotomy. You don’t divide. It was deeply compelling. There was pain, but it was not painful, it was rich. Music is not just entertainment; it’s a context for going to deeper and higher levels in what we can do in our consciousness, especially in conflict situations.
Jonathan - Thank you for your thoughts. The piece we just played is marked by the composer as “infinitely slow and ecstatic.” Those are opposite ideas, but he puts them together in this piece.
Ronilia - Thank you! You brought a whole new version of music. I already knew music brings a lot of light to people, but in this context it was so awesome. Music heals the body, heals the soul. Today I saw this. [The third piece] brings the form of you have someone in a tense situation and then you have a soothing pattern of high, low, vibrating session. I love classical music. The journey of what you brought in gives a lot more - like therapy. I imagine people in conflict zones, people going through certain issues…bringing them into this space of listening, slowing down, pause, continue talking, listening, accepting, moving forward. I’m so grateful to be here today! Thank you!
Jana - I am so inspired by this! My niece founded Euphrates with this absolute inspiration and vision and it goes on and on! The music today was gorgeous. I’m a professional violinist and fiddle player. We just had my fiddle camp. We had people from all walks of life and styles of music. It is a world movement to bring people together. It’s so uniting. The selections today were gorgeous and inspired. The Bach was centered; the Elgar was so moving I almost had tears in my eyes on the last note; and the Messiaen was beautifully executed! We have people from all over the world working on conflict resolution, world peace. I’m thrilled with Euphrates Institute!
Ellen - Do you have examples of the use of music in large group settings in conflict resolution?
Jonathan - The camp that Libby Traubman was talking about was sort of large - probably 30-40. Libby - No, there were several hundred.
Jonathan - I was there with a flute player. We made music together, we talked about the concepts, we made music separately. And now, there’s a little piece of music that Angela is going to play.
Angela [00:52:50] - Pablo Casals devoted his life to his mission for peace. He protested the Franco regime in Spain. He stopped playing cello for a number of years. Then his friends begged him to come back and play. This piece was a catalan folk song which arranged for cello and used it as an encore, performing at the UN and White House and a number of other places.
Often a new third way becomes visible that hadn’t been visible before through the hearts and brains synchronizing.
Musical Performance #4 - Pablo Casals: Catalan Folk Song [00:53:44]
Jonathan [00:56:49] - Hollister and Katy have a PDF of how one would actually do this that you can print out and use this.
Hollister - sylvia posted in the chat. It can be found in the call notes. (You can click here.)
Jonathan [00:58:17] - This is basically a how to do it yourself - bring musicians and people together. I talk about the basic concept - how it works. And then I go into how to find the place and time for it, having the parties agree. Then choose musicians that are appropriate for the occasion. This requires a real sensitivity to feeling out the people who are most attuned to connecting to people. You don’t even have to be a wonderful musician. You have to be a person that is moved to try to communicate the art of music and beauty. Coach everyone on the need for confidentiality. I talk about how many musicians to choose, the repertoire that's appropriate. Then I talk about the implementation. I set aside a block of time. It could be two to six hours depending upon the intensity of the negotiation, making sure to give everyone time to speak from each side. After it’s over typically the musicians leave the space in respect to the parties. The negotiator would ask parties how this gives new insight into how to find common ground. Often a new third way becomes visible that hadn’t been visible before through the hearts and brains synchronizing.
I would love you to share your stories with us. The Resonance Project started off as a research project and an effort to engineer [these experiences], but it became immediately impractical. Instead we’d like to learn your stories and grow a whole library of stories to share with the world.
Closing Remarks [01:05:00]
Hollister - Thank you so much for sharing with us today. I look forward to seeing how we all infuse this in our work. Are there any additional questions before we close? Here’s one from the chat - Have you moved outside of classical work - pop or otherwise?
Jonathan - Because I am a classically trained musician, my perspective is from classical music, but I think any music from any genre could work, whatever the indigenous music from the community. I would not encourage pop music because it tends to pull one into associations - that was the song during my first kiss, that was my mother’s favorite song and she just died, etc. You don’t want to get into that kind of trap because you don’t want to get pulled into yourself and your emotions, but instead the world outside. Other than that I think the sky is the limit!