Theravada Monk chanting as Musical Magic

So first we establish that marathon chanting is the most key ritual:


By We I mean - this dude:

The Dhamma as Sonic Praxis: Paritta Chant in Burmese Theravāda Buddhism

Paul D. Greene

Asian Music

Vol. 35, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 2004), pp. 43-78 

 

 Then we discover that in fact it is the MUSICAL quality of the monk that most attracts practitioners.

Just as Bill Porter (Red Pine) emphasizes that Chinese Poetry is traditional SUNG - not spoken - and so too was it of great spiritual value, and ancient preSocratic poetry was also SUNG - similar to Griots of Africa, the Theravada monks go back to the ancient Indian Dravidian tradition of singing as knowledge (epic memorization via the Mozart Effect, 60 bpm).

And revealed are lengthy syncopated rhythmic meanings - similar to Polyphonic West African drumming (i.e. the Dagomba that as John Chernoff says, opens up the Emptiness)....

And so the  Author explicitly states that the Tonal language of Burmese blends in with the melodic syncopated rhythm to enable long epic memorization skills.

Then we get into spirits and the magic of chanting to appease the spirits....this is very much like the Icaros of the Amazonian shamans or the Malaysian Temiar rainforest culture, also relying on spirit communication through singing.

Solo chanting is more melodic than group chanting:

 And so the "arc" of the chanting melody - also reminds me of black (African) American preaching:

It's like when Qigong Master Jim Nance said to me:

"Throw that Sleep thing at me again!"

haha. What was my trick? Rhythmic monotone. This chanting is doing the OPPOSITE. It is waking people up - and so is syncopated and melodic - at least with a minor third difference. I noticed recently this activist lawyer giving a lecture on cable t.v. and I was shocked to notice he blatantly did a melodic contour - a repeated regularly contour of an octave - and he would frame the octave span difference with Perfect Fifth phrasing. Nobody seemed to notice that he was literally SINGING to his audience! It was quite shocking that he could get away with that and still be considered "lecturing."

https://www.linktv.org/shows/thomas-linzey-earth-at-risk-2014/episodes/earth-at-risk-thomas-linzey

Here's the lecture if you don't believe me! I could transcribe the "melody" of his talk if people want. haha. Here it is in full

Oh just when I thought I was on a tangent - the SAME phenomenon occurs in Buddhist Theravada chanting:

And thus my Acoustic Alchemy Elixir Field research is further corroborated.