Entrainment is is the process by which two or more physical systems tend to become synchronized with each other over time. This phenomenon happens throughout countless biological, physical, and electromagnetic processes: two pendulums placed near each other will tend to synchronize and come into phase with each other over time, the breathing cycles of two people sleeping near each other in a room will tend to synchronize, their heart rates, women’s menstruation cycles, people’s gestures and facial expressions entrain in conversation, a circadian rhythm is a form of entrainment to the apparent movement of the Sun – there are countless examples of this phenomenon including the entrainment of brainwaves themselves.
Dancing is a form of physical entrainment to music, music which in itself, in listening and performing it, a form of rhythmic and tonal psychoacoustic entrainment occurs – both within the performer and collectively throughout everyone that can hear or feel the vibrations.
I started experimenting with many different instruments and audio recording technology from the age of 2 in the early 1980’s. When I started formal training at age 10, I discovered something while sight reading a piece of music: I found that the concentration required, the rhythmic flow, and physiological awareness of the key tone, induced what one would call a flow state. All self awareness and self-consciousness seemed to disappear as the perceptual field seemed to narrow and reduce to one point – a focal point in the Now.
What I had discovered was the phenomenon of entrainment. It is like the feeling of surfing or mountain biking, any sport or activity that requires concentration in the form of reacting or actively flowing with what is in the now while looking slightly into the future and adjusting instinctively with passive awareness to what is coming – such as synchronizing with an ocean wave or aligning to the trajectory of a tennis ball. Much like is commonly observed with surfers and mountain bikers, I became addicted to that state. It was all I wanted to do, and at the the age of 12, I decided to become a professional musician.
Many people discouraged me from such a profession, but I didn’t care; music seemed to hold so much power, and the ability to play, compose, and improvise it seemed to be a superpower akin to that of a wizard or hypnotist – perhaps a shaman – with the purpose of inhabiting an altered state and transmitting those frequencies to the listener to also alter their psychology for the purpose of joy, catharsis, ecstasy, healing. However, as I entered into public performance and started to be paid for the work, I started to see that many times others would have varying perceptions of music and the profession of the musician: some did it for fame, attention, to attract a sexual partner, or were attracted to the music business because they think it is easy and doesn’t require hard work (it is not easy). I noticed that there was a cultural meme about the profession of the musician – that of “the rockstar” as well as “the loser”. Such attributes seemed completely removed from the reason I played music, entrainment, and over time, decades, I became disillusioned with the business of music and the cultural perceptions attached to it. Although I continued to make an adequate living musically freelancing for other artists, I entered a period of dormancy in my own output and became interested in other things.
I started researching and practicing other ways to achieve the entrained flow state. I studied various forms of yoga, martial arts, other Eastern practices as well as the philosophy and practices of Western Esotericism, various sports, mathematics and physics, psychedelic drugs, as well as machines and media designed to induce entrainment. I became very interested in astrology/astronomy, seeing in the orbits of the planets the large scale application of entrainment: the combination of movement and frequency across time. The zodiac can be perceived as a huge multi-handed clock, with cycles of time four minutes small, to the completion of cycles which last 25,000 years – the music of the spheres. I began to learn that this state can be achieved in almost any context through any activity – it was only a matter of intention and mental orientation. However, I still felt that music was one of the most powerful ways to quickly enter this state as well as transmit it en mass.
Throughout that time, I held onto a spark, the small flame of a vision I had. I had been influenced by the electronic music rave culture of the late 1990’s. Just from attending one or two raves, I was struck by not only the fact that the emphasis was on entrainment – predominately to the time structure, but also the harmonic and dynamic structure of the music – in the form of dancing – and that all kinds of other effects such as lights and other visual media were synchronized to induce this hypnotic, ecstatic state, but that there was more to the experience. The general vibe of the whole event was that of a collective, where everyone was participating equally. It wasn’t like a regular show where a band is playing and everyone is expected to behold the exalted artist before them. At the raves of those times, the dj seemed to be equal to all the other participants and everyone was there to engage in the vibe of the event collectively.
I had already thought about the evolutionary origins of music. How in tribal societies, music is used as a tool of similar function: for special events, religious events, weddings, funerals, to prepare for warfare, after warfare, birthdays, rites of passage, and straight up partying – I imagined it all taking place with drumming, singing, and dancing around a huge bonfire which, along with loud sound and movement, kept what would be the dangerous predators of the night, at bay, cowering in fear from the amount of energy coming from the camp. Most importantly, I perceived how the musicians did not have any special status relative to the dancing participants – that everyone was participating in the experience equally and entraining to the same focal point – creating a sympathetic resonance through psychic energy – an amplification of vibe.
To this I also related the earliest forms of recorded music, hand written music by such composers as Palestrina or Bach, which was intended to be played in large cathedrals during religious services at a time when such practice held a feeling of intense mystical seriousness. Combined with large amounts of incense and incantation, the whole experience surely induced an altered state of consciousness. And again, there was the collective status of the participants – the musicians were not there to be rockstars, everybody was there to worship in awe of something greater.
A similar phenomenon can be found in concerts and music festivals of the late 1960’s – early 1970’s, where the participants, many times assisted by psychedelic drugs, engaged in a collective experience that perhaps had a feeling of purpose and reaction to the status quo culture of the time. I also see the same thing in pre and post war big band jazz and early bebop as well as the jam band scene of the 1990’s.
However, a new status quo has emerged, as music has become more and more commodified. Before the internet it represented a commodity which could potentially afford its purveyor the capacity to purchase their own private 747 and a couple mansions. After the internet it has started to represent a commodity worth less monetarily than corn or wheat. All along it seemed to become more about the cult of personality of “the artist”, with the art only being significant as an extension of its creator’s ego; background music to other lifestyle factors of the creator, and also the listener, rather than a standalone sacrament in itself that is meant to be used, by everyone equally, in the present moment, to achieve transcendent experiences. Napster, Myspace, Spotify, Facebook, Bandcamp, Instagram, the outlets are endless for a large segment of creators to create vanity pieces, purposely fabricated in the fashion of whatever is most likely to be as widely successful as possible. What is needed now – is radicality and rebellion. A movement.
Entrainment Machine is meant to be different. I envision a band that is dedicated solely to the collective pursuit of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual state achieved while writing, performing, or recording the music. The primary goal of the band is achieving this state and transmitting this state; it is what is primarily practiced in rehearsals; it is what is sought onstage. How tightly the members of the band, and audience, can collectively become entrained in the state – where perhaps psychic communication starts taking place? How tight can the resulting sound of the music become, where it becomes irresistible to the organism and consciousness is transcended and transformed?
In this regard, the particular content of the music is just a vehicle to facilitate this practice – it doesn’t matter the style, doesn’t matter if it is an EM original or a cover of a current EDM hit, ancient Indian raga, TV theme song from the 70’s – any style of music is game, any cover is on the table for learning. The arrangements are structurally arranged like big band music but sound like an electric 4-6 piece making EDM sounds, on a spectrum from concrete detailed composition to complete improvisation with a mixture of the two in between. Also explored is music with “no filter” like automatic writing or clairaudient channeling.
The band is meant to philosophically function as a collective (with me as curator/archiver) and any current member can submit any spectrum of material to be developed, curated, and archived collectively. The idea is every band member is credited and compensated mathematically by their percentage of minutes of content written, recorded, produced, or performed including live performances: raves, full/new moon ceremonies, house parties, yoga studios, retreats, festivals, coffee shops, clubs, and bars.
I have been harboring this vision for many years without fully explaining it until this About page. The reason is because the vision wasn’t fully formed. Along the way, I became interested in the other things I studied equally to music: Yogic Philosophy. Hermeticism. Mathematics. Physics. Exercise Science. Biochemistry. Astrology. Sociology and Psychology, Self-Help, Conspiracy Theories, and the Occult Esoteric Meaning throughout the symbology of human religious practices. I like to write and was going to make three different websites to give avenues to these various sides = a self help blog, a freeform expression editorial on reality, and entrainmentmachine.com for music. In the end, due to the shear difficulty of doing it all, I have decided to just make it all one thing – The Entrainment Machine. Because that is what I realized – it is not the entrainment machine you put on your head or the screen you stare at. We are entrainment machines.
