John B Levine - a musical biography

Music you're not supposed to listen to ...

John Levine writes music you're not supposed to listen to and while you're not listening, you're being lead along a route cleverly calculated to go ... nowhere. Exposed to this sound, your mind relaxes, focus and concentration improves, muscles ease. Levine suggests this kind of music may even help the body recover more speedily from illness. It is this hope, the most ambitious and yet to be proven, that impels his ambition and fires up his gift.

The music of this unusual Australian composer has spent a long time in gestation. A graduate of the Sydney University School of Music, he studied composition under such luminaries as Peter Sculthorpe and Moya Henderson. By his own admission, the university was at a loss as to what to "do" with him and brought in specialist composers in music theatre simply to tutor him.

Extraordinary flexibility and long-range vision underscores Levine's talent and allows him to see possibilities in almost any form of musical expression. The process of composing original music completely engages and transports him. He turns as easily from avante garde classical to rock, TV commercials to original scores for modern ballet.

In his twenties, he was offered a chance at second keyboard for Dire Straits, then at the height of their fame. You might think this the opportunity of a lifetime, but not to John Levine: "I looked at the band members", he says, "I saw a group of lonely, sad, dispirited men. No way was I going there." He turned down the offer.

Yet, as you track his story over the next two decades, it seems Levine had to take that path regardless.

He set up a professional recording studio and conventional success followed. Levine collaborated on productions with local legends, INXS and Midnight Oil and played with award-winning band, Katmandu. As musical director and composer for the Kinetic Energy Dance Company he wrote original pieces for modern dance productions. He was spotted by the advertising industry and produced material for such major names as Saatchi & Saatchi and McCann Ericsson, on accounts for Max Factor, Coca-Cola and others. A high-octane future seemed about to roll out.

Music, meditation and well-being

But another thread runs through this man's tale. At university Levine became deeply interested in meditation. He studied at the Sydney Transcendental Meditation Center and then pursued a wider, more varied understanding of meditational practices. Alpha Relaxation with Jacob Bloom, Systematic Desensitization Relaxation Techniques at the University of NSW, Mind Language with Robert Murphy.

He was also introduced to the newly fledged "relaxation" or "new age" music and was vastly under-impressed. While he understood the underlying idea, that music can influence and improve emotional wellbeing, he felt the available material lacked emotional depth, intelligence and intent.

At the same time, he discovered the music of Keith Jarrett, legendary composer and pianist. "Just on a meditational, feeling, heart level, Keith Jarrett [has always had] a profound influence on my musical core. I went to a performance at the Sydney Opera House and he played a piece where I felt like he "tranced himself" and the concert hall into another galaxy."

Levine thought deeply and read widely about the palliative role of music in all societies. He felt that if music was properly conceived and executed it formed a natural synergy with meditation. He suspected this combination might not only enhance your sense of physical well-being but also help you focus and absorb information more efficiently and with less effort.

He was energised by Don Campbell's best-seller, The Mozart Effect, which caused a worldwide sensation in the early '90s. Campbell had picked up on a study by US researcher, Francis Rauscher, who suggested that the motoristic music of composers like Mozart and Bach can positively affect learning skills. Though this idea and Campbell's book are now frequently questioned, they galvanised awareness of music beyond pure entertainment and still fuel debate and active engagement in research.

Levine also took on board the work of Alfred Tomatis, a maverick French doctor. Tomatis studied the organic function of the ear and its relationship to the brain. Among many groundbreaking insights, he proposed that the voice cannot reproduce what the ear cannot hear; this concept, known as "the Tomatis Effect", is now generally accepted medical theory. Above all, Tomatis explored how sound brings about changes in our behaviour and mood. He applied his theories to autistic children with dramatic, if controversial results. His methods are used in specialised centres around the world.

More than anything else, Levine was inspired by research into brain waves. Beginning with Dr Hans Berger in 1908, there has been ongoing study into frequencies, or waves, of brain function: alpha, beta, theta and delta waves have been identified. Each of these brain frequencies has been found to stimulate different states of emotional and behavioural excitation or calm, creativity or action.

The more he learned, the more certain Levine became that he could write music deliberately aimed at stimulating the brain to produce the waves we need to function at different levels. For instance, when we want to intensify concentration, retain information and study more productively, we could listen to music that "makes" the brain operate at low alpha-high theta level, optimum for the job.

Encouraged by his discoveries and egged on by friends, Levine wrote, played and recorded a 60-minute composition he called "Silence of Peace". It's a strange title until you consider the amount and volume of "chatter" that crowds our brains every waking moment and how we might feel if there was less inner clamour.

Levine suggests that four minutes into listening to "Silence of Peace", our brain waves may "notch down" to alpha state. This is the same mental calm and freedom we enjoy when we first wake from relaxed sleep. Quite a claim. But tantalising for anyone who battles to balance the sensory and emotional overload of our urban lives!

Everyone who listened to "Silence of Peace" agreed it was special. But no one, Levine included, could figure out exactly what to do with it. So the master recording was filed away and surviving the pressure-cooker of professional life took precedence.

Insight is not change

Levine was brought up in a close-knit, Sydney family. Even after he met and married a Polish interpreter for the Department of Social Services, his bond remained tight with parents and siblings. Three adored children only added to his familial heart-centre.

For decades Levine's dad, Alan, dedicated himself to work and family and led an apparently calm, disciplined life. Jovial, generally well liked, it was only when he would suddenly "lose it" and begin enraged yelling, that Alan showed his internalised stress. Over time, the hidden anxiety also revealed itself as severe heart disease and a phalanx of related illnesses.

After many warnings and many emergencies, Alan collapsed and went into his final illness. Instead of rushing to the hospital, Levine was forced to wait out a "critical" advertising deadline. By the time he reached his father, Levine hadn't slept for 76 hours; he found his dad alive, though barely.

Looking back, he still cannot believe his father's first words to him: "You look so tired, Levine, why don't you go home and sleep?" These would be the thoughts and values of a man who put family and work first, but to Levine they were a terrible revelation.

For so many men, the death of a beloved father marks the changing of the guard. In some, the tide changes then and there and a new path begins. For most, however, conventional responsibilities are shouldered with greater solemnity and pursuit of a true vocation seems less possible.

Looking upon his father's stressful life and painful death, Levine swore not to follow suit. But regardless of this, he was destined to play out the paternal imprint before he could determine and explore his own life path. So, for the next two decades, he lived the adage, "Insight is not change".

He gave away the music career where stress seemed unavoidable. His piano was stored in the garage. Once in a while he composed a nursery song for his children. Occasionally he could be persuaded to play at a family wedding. His real gifts and vocational desire to help others through music, bowed out completely. He found work in regular business and became more sad, anxious and alienated as the years passed.

Ten years after his father's death, Levine "found himself" living in Krakow, Poland. There's a delicious double entendre in this choice of words: he means fate simply took him there, but in the modern context, he was indeed now on the road to "finding himself".

Five years into a Polish life, his marriage was over and his career in tatters. The children he adores beyond anything went to live in Sweden with their mother. He was alone in Krakow, sinking rather than swimming, in the dark blue place so often spoken of by men whose family lives disintegrate.

John Levine takes spirituality seriously and considers it possible that we are influenced by previous lives. With this in mind it is easy to divine a powerful hidden text driving his journey to this point. Because it is right then that Levine "finds himself" living in an apartment overlooking Plaszow, the Krakow concentration camp featured in Steven Spielberg's film,

"Schindler's List"

Christmas. The world seemed bleak beyond anything he could have imagined. He noticed a carton of Santa Clause chocolates, vestige of some promotional work and quite spontaneously decided they must be given to children. With a friend's help he located an orphanage. In suit and bow tie, Levine presented himself as Santa's emissary and delivered the chocolates to the orphaned kids because, he says simply, "Those children had no parents at Christmas".

With this generous act, Levine's "A-ha! Moment" finally arrived. Like all such events, it was synchronous to the point of spookiness.

Three Polish Budgies : Cziko, Czako and Dako

Alone in the apartment, he gazed at the crates of his possessions, sent from Australia where they had been in storage since he left Sydney. The boxes arrived and remained sealed. Twice they were lodged in basements that were burgled, yet escaped tampering.

Now Levine opened one of the boxes and reached in. The first thing he drew out was a cassette tape labeled "Silence of Peace". He listened to it and felt amazed; not only that he had been inspired to write it, but that all these years along, the piece "was timeless and stood on its own merits".

All the same, the flimsy domestic cassette was a relic, a memento of excited creativity.

He reached sadly back into the crate and withdrew the next thing - the familiar, grey pack of an Ampex 12" Master Tape, labeled "Silence of Peace".

With the Master to hand, Levine set about replicating dozens of discs. He distributed them to every appropriate connection he could think of: psychologists and doctors, nursery school teachers and dentists, sociologists and students, musicians and lawyers. He begged every recipient for feedback and soon it began.

As before, he was inundated with praise, but this time he felt less enthused. He feared people were being kind, rather than honest. He felt brought down by self-doubt.

Then, marvelously, if a little humorously, came Levine's second "A-ha Moment". He received a call from a music student who claimed that her pet budgerigars fell asleep in broad daylight while listening to "Silence of Peace".

To an outsider this story might be amusing, but to Levine it is the kind of left-of-field epiphany that most convinces and appeals to him.

So a brace of Polish budgies, delightfully named Cziko, Czako and Dako, become the heroes and lynchpins of this story.

Levine believes if music can cause the little birds to change their innate habits, then there is a power in music that goes beyond aesthetics, fashion, expectation or sentient thought.

The muse, now literally and figuratively out of the box, rampaged through Levine's veins. Music poured from his hands as if it had been coiled on his shoulders, lain under his ears, waiting to comfort him down through the years.

In 2002-3, Levine composed and recorded seven CDs of original music. He wrote three companion pieces to "Silence of Peace", each designed to stimulate the brain in specific ways. "Silence of Spirit", "Silence of Balance" and "Silence of Heart" not only provoke mood change, they represent Levine's understanding of metaphysics, the balance of body, mind and soul.

"Silence of Heart" is Levine's special favourite. He recorded it in one, continuous session where he entered such a profound state of entrancement, that he cannot recollect actually playing the music. Listening to the tapes the day after, he thought the engineer had mistakenly tagged another artist's work onto his!

He also produced "Siesta in the Orange Grove", "Amber" and two volumes of children's melodies, "My Little Sea Shells".

"Siesta in the Orange Grove" was commissioned for Samo Zdrowie (Your Health) magazine. The CD accompanied a cover story about stress in women and went out to over 100 000 readers. The publisher, Hachette Filipacci, is one of the largest magazine producers in the world and also owns Australian Elle and Marie Claire.

Alphamusic

Levine named the rebirth of his musical career Alphamusic, to signify the importance he places on alpha waves. The brain produces alpha waves when our mind is completely relaxed, for instance, as we awaken from deep sleep, or when we meditate. In this state we are most likely to have our most creative insights and experiences.

In 2004, Levine left Poland to live in Cambridge, England.

In the course of 2004, he collaborated with Australian psychologist and journalist, Dr Amanda Gordon, to create a series of guided visualisations on CD. Levine wrote and played the music to underscore Dr Gordon's. It is hoped this work will help to lower stress in both parents and adolescents. The CDs are due for release in 2005.

With great joy, Levine now fosters his passion for working with people. In specialised workshops, he draws together meditation and music to assist teachers and students at all levels, from kindergarten to university. His delivery is tender, candid and highly personal, with content tailored to meet the needs of the group he is leading.

He shows nursery school teachers how to use Alphamusic to calm their kids. With glee, he tells of a phone-call where a teacher reports that one of her 3 year-olds independently chose a John Levine CD and placed it in the player because, said the little one, the class needed to "calm down"!

At St Matthews' Primary School in Cambridge, his music is played during all Math's classes, as well as during exams. According to their headmaster, the school plans to adopt this as a general practice.

Several times a week, there are Alphamusic workshops for university students. Levine shows them how to use the music to focus with more acuity and increase their capacity to absorb information. Students report phenomenal improvements in concentration, directly reflected in their results.

It is natural that our over-stressed and over-stimulated world creates a counter wish for peace, calm and relaxation. The complimentary health industry burgeons exponentially around these needs. John Levine has rediscovered his vocation and gifts in time to make a relevant contribution to this groundswell.

Deceptively simple, powerfully influential, the music of John Levine can settle you down, empower your thinking, stimulate your creative energy ... while you're not even listening to it.

John Levine plans to conduct a number of Alphamusic lectures and workshops. If you would like to know more about an Alphamusic Workshop, or have John make a presentation to your special interest group, please call, +44 08451 302 854 or email John at

John Levine's Music can be ordered through his website at http://www.silenceofmusic.com/ or through Alphamusic UK at +44 08451 302 854 or Alphamusic Australia at 1300 650 347

Naomi Radunski 2004 ©