Music and the Physics of Sound

The American maverick, composer and pianist Michael Harrison is a rarity among musicians. With equal training and rapture in Western classical and Indian classical music, his compositions pioneer a new approach to music. He seeks expressions of universality via the physics of sound – music that brings one into a state of concentrated listening as a meditative and mind-altering experience.

Extending the ancient concept of just intonation, Michael creates structures of pure tuning that derive from musical intervals of perfect mathematical proportions. These harmonic relationships organically determine other musical elements of his music, such as pitch, duration, and dynamics.

Winner of the once-in-a-lifetime Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018, renowned performers such as the Grammy-winning vocal group Roomful of Teeth, Alarm Will Sound, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Cellist Maya Beiser, and many more have commissioned Michael to compose works that give voice to their unusual talents.

One favorite is the highly praised album Revelation, named one of the Best Classical Recordings of 2007 by The New York Times. Listeners often find themselves journeying in unseen realms. Composed for piano in his own tuning system, listen to this podcast to hear Michael explain the WHY and HOW of just intonation. 

Immersion in Pure Sound

What inspires Michael to dedicate his life to this pursuit of excellence and innovation in music? As a young undergraduate student, he met composer La Monte Young. Soon Young brought him to New York as his protégé to study composition, performance, and Indian classical music. In that environment, Michael immersed himself in the world of minimal music and art.

In a matter of timing, La Monte Young and Terry Riley introduced Michael to their music guru Fakhir Pran Nath. Soon Michael became a disciple of Pran Nath, traveling to India with his guru for periods of extensive study and practice.

This early relationship remains foundational to Michael’s spiritual and musical development.

Seven Leading Names of Creation

In Season One, Kabbalah 99 interviewed Suhrawardi William Gebel — astrophysicist, mystic and author of the book — Nature’s Hidden Dimension: Envisioning the Inner Life of the Universe. Seeking to express the vibrational essence of these Names of Awakening, Suhrawardi commissioned Michael to be the composer.

This podcast interview plays the composition expressing the Seventh Leading Name Al-Kalim – the culminating capacity to fulfill the desire for self-knowledge. Beginning and ending this podcast with a few phrases of this piece, we also play it in its entirety as a sublime example of just intonation.

Polyphonic Raga

After more than 40 years of training and practice in both Western and Indian classical music systems, Michael is formally exploring melding the two worlds of Western classical and Indian classical music.

The universal foundation for music, which is vibration, is the software for the universe.

His latest project is a multidimensional art installation in collaboration with the visual and media artist Nina Elder, the astrophysicist and roboticist Suhrawardi Gebel, and other contributors as well.

This interdisciplinary installation will show the relationships between human time, planetary time, and cosmic time — within a 24-hour music cycle. In gradual evolution with the cosmic cycle, a natural connection with Indian raga will become apparent as the installation is unveiled.

Press play now to get an early preview of the forefront of innovation in the world of avant-garde classical music interfused with classical Indian raga.

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Photo Credit: Alarm Will Sound and Four/Ten Media