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Chris James - A Sound Healer from Australia

Interviewed by Jennie Rose

JR: What is it you actually do?

CJ: The first thing I do is teach people who can't sing to sing in tune, and that everyone has the right to be able to sing. We are actually born with a voice that's beautiful. We should be able to use it to sing, to express ourselves clearly and freely and to integrate the voice as a part of our path.

JR: How long have you been singing and how long teaching?

CJ: I've been singing for 24 years and teaching for 10 years.

JR: Why do you think the voice is such an important part of finding yourself?

CJ: It's one of the things we're actually born with. We've got hands to draw, we've got feet to run, we've got a voice that's got this extraordinary range and ability to charge the brain, to bring us into altered states, to do all sorts of wonderful things. That's what it's there for. It's like if you had a hand and you only used one finger. You know if every generation used only one finger it would be very strange, but that's what we have done with the voice. We've got a huge range of tools to draw on in the voice and they are all very powerful.

JR: But why do you think it's got healing power?

CJ: Well when people listen to pure tone, it has a very strong effect, it's absorbed by the body and has a very balancing effect on the body's vibrational energy. When you use the voice to help align the body people can feel it. Even hardened cynics can feel a pure tone through them and enjoy the feeling. That's one aspect of the healing power of the voice. The other side is the actual learning to express yourself. A lot of people have been suppressed. The repression of expression is endemic. So when you start to express yourself that's very healing in itself.

JR: What kind of things do you think can be healed by the voice?

CJ: Ha! a shitty life. Quite often people's whole lives turn around when they learn to actually express themselves. They go from having a life that's not satisfying and with a feeling of down troddeness, to really expressing the truth. When you express the truth you're more on the road to creating your own reality. When you create reality you can have what you want.

JR: How did you get into your precise field of singing workshops?

CJ: I worked with a Steiner music therapist for a few years, then I went off on my own taking a bit of what I had learnt, plus drawing on the rest of my life. I was in an ashram for years meditating. Also I was a bodyguard. I was a marshal artist. So I draw on all these things. It comes out with this wonderful package of a very grounded, fun work about the voice. I learnt more and more about the healing power of sound. I learnt that everyone can sing. Then I learnt about tone, then about harmonics and finally about actually using the voice to direct into people. I saw some of the wonderful things that happened. People's hearing, even their eyesight sharpening as a result of sound, and all sorts of emotional blocks removed as well.

JR: In your workshops and classes what are you trying to help people to do?

CJ: To discover the natural voice that they're born with and then from there to join their local choir, which is a buzz. People who thought they could never sing discover that they can. It's a great aid for meditation as well, which is very powerful. I also teach meditation and Chi Kung. How to breath, how to move. Teaching right through to advanced courses and teacher training.

JR: Do you have any religious beliefs or a particular denomination?

CJ: No.

JR: Is there any kind of religious feeling or spiritual feeling about what you do with your music.

CJ: Not religious. Spirituality is different from religious. Religious usually implies dogma. What this work is about is being as dogma free as possible because you are teaching from intuition. The whole work about what I'm training teachers to do is to work from the inner self and not to work from rote. To actually respond to the energy of a group. To have the skills and tools with which to work and then to let go. It's like a great saxophonist says, once you learn all the scales then you forget them and play in the moment. If you can actually teach in the moment, then you go and teach reality in a sense. That's really important.

JR: Can you tell me something about the Sound Foundation?

CJ: The Sound Foundation is a registered charity in Europe, and it's put together to be an umbrella organisation to help spread sound work, the understanding of sound in places where it wouldn't normally be able to go. People will be able to relate to a charity so we'll be able to get into hospitals. When there are more teachers out there it's going to be more effective. I've set it up so that it can do non profit things. In Australia we do these things called 'big sings'. We have five or six hundred people come along and we just tune them up. We chant and sing nice songs and we meditate and we give all the money to the local green groups. It's a nice sense for the community. We're gong to be doing some big ones of those next year with Kindred Spirit.

JR: It all sounds very exciting. Do you meet many other people like you that are interested in the healing qualities of sound?

CJ: There are many people interested in it. There are a few teachers and a lot of people interested in healing and very much an upsurge of people interested in sound.

JR: Has it been a lonely journey having this belief in sound when others did not?

CJ: Oh very much. Well the experience was that for the first few years I didn't know anyone else in the world was doing it, which was good because I just had to learn a lot by myself. Then I found out there were other people doing this stuff called toning. I found out about harmonics and that was a blast. That's when you sing two notes at once. Then finding the roots of toning and harmonics and that way through history there's an extraordinary depth in the use of sound. As in the religions, when they weren't religions in a sense, when they were just live energies way back in Sufi days or early Christian and Kabbala times, you'll find the use of sound to alter consciousness. So I am sort of drawing on this big reservoir of sound in a sense, but at the same time not to give your power away to a religion, not to give yourself even to a guru or a teacher, so that you are actually becoming empowered. That's one of the bottom lines of this path in a sense. You don't give your power away to anyone. You learn, you think and go away and do your own thing.

JR: Do you find this particular type of healing is more popular in Australia or is it just as popular in Britain?

CJ: Oh no, it's very strong with a long stream of people who know about it in Britain. It is, in a sense, very easy to teach here.

JR: Why do you think there is such an increase in interest just now?

CJ: Maybe because it's just time. I mean it's just like people have been into painting for a long time, or creative dance has come along with lots of different teachers and it seems that now it is a time for the voice. The voice is really important. If you just see how important it has been to explore all of the psyche and how the voice has been ignored, well, its day has come I think.

JR: Can you just tell me what toning groups are?

CJ: Toning groups are groups when people learn how to make those long beautiful sounds, like those 'oooh' sounds. You're learning how to join sound together and all the things that sound can do. You are learning how to heal with sound. Then they like to hang out and do it, you know, say once a week or fortnight creating little groups. People just have them around the world and we network with each other.

JR: I know this is going to come as heavy but I want to quote you from your newsletter 'Sounds Wonderful' you said ' disempowerment is endemic in our society'. Why do you think that is? Why do you say that?

CJ: Well, we can start anywhere. You can start in the teaching system. You can start in how much television people watch You can start with how many people are actually in an incredible, beautiful and nurturing relationship, that is not dysfunctional. How many people are working doing exactly what they want? Not many. Not many people are actually doing what they want to do. That's the bottom line. On top of that there's how we haven't been taught to express our truth. We haven't been taught how to express our emotions. Men are behind the A ball anyway and it gets you know da dee da dee da. You can just build on that. So disempowerment is endemic to our tribe. The more people that get empowered, the more people there are to play with, you know.

JR: Absolutely. 'The Australian Bushflower Essence' what is that?

CJ: It's the Australian version of Bach or (Batch) Flower remedies.

JR: Is it one that is particularly good for the voice?

CJ: Yes, we made up a mix that was nice. You could do the same with Bach Flowers. You can make up a mix that would be really good. Something to help creativity, to let go of fear, help with terror and improve assertiveness. That's what we did with the Australian ones.

JR: What have you got planned for the future?

CJ: For the future? Well last year at a festival in Australia, we tuned up 15,000 people and that was quite exciting, to get 15,000 people toning. Doing it with large crowds is certainly a strong energy and gets the attention of the media. The even more people experience something really nice that comes from not taking anything, not drinking anything and not believing in anything. It is just an experience which is really really beautiful. When people do that then that will help, in a sense, throw off this disempowerment.

The more people that can actually have a beautiful time, the more empowered we are going to get as a tribe. Then this obviously reflects down to , you know, we won't be slacking off old forests and things like that and turning them into wood chips. We won't be sort of stuffing up things. The happier we are as a species, as a race, the better we are going to treat this planet and each other, so in a sense that is the core of the work as well.

With the teacher training programmes being run so there will be more people doing the bottom line work. I have got five albums out now and they are about consciousness, growth ,truth and nice things, well I hope they are not cich. but they are about lifting up the spirit. For me my life is about serving truth and consciousness and having a nice time about it, but being as close to the core as I can. Then I am fulfilling my purpose. Then in a sense my life gets revealed to me.

JR: The green issues are very important to you obviously. You're pretty active in the field.

CJ: Well it's a really essential thing that we just do what we can. I do fund raising for green groups. Some of my songs just won the Accapela award from ABC in Australia. (one of the songs on 'HEART to HEART' called rainforest). Groups are singing that now. Then there's the general thing about raising consciousness and when you raise consciousness you're going to be much nicer to the planet. Then you go out of conflict as well, and when you go out of conflict, you're out of ego. When you are out of ego, then you are going to be sensitive to the planet.

JR: What do you think of 'stardom'

CJ: You have to be incredibly vigilant. I have a little bit of public exposure and I know you have to be very vigilant about your ego, and also people wanting to put you on a pedestal. Then you really have to stress this thing about self empowerment, if you find people doing that - the classical rock stardom then you are up against the wall.

There will be an article by Chris James in October so please check in.