Crown of Eternity brings soothing Sound Journey to Mt. Lebanon
Mike and Gallina Tamburo with their array of instruments at Mt. Lebanon Public Library
Gallina Tamburo plays a monochord during the Crown of Eternity Sound Journey.
Mike and Gallina Tamburo perform as Crown of Eternity at Mt. Lebanon Public Library.
Mike Tamburo displays a Nepalese singing bowl, which resonates when struck.
Hearing the invitation to lie down and relax, Faye Silver was one of the first to take up the offer from Mike and Gallina Tamburo as they prepared to play music.
“I met them a couple of years ago at a program I’m involved with across town,” Silver said. “They were so great that I actually did a private session for my husband and myself.”
And so she was enthusiastic to learn that the Tamburos, who perform together as Crown of Eternity, were coming to her hometown, on July 28 as the first program in Mt. Lebanon Public Library’s Finding Presence series for 2016.
”I like the way it makes the energy moves through your body,” Silver explained after the program, during which the Highland Park couple made full use of their array of about 50 instruments. “It loosens everything up in you, energetically.”
That’s the intent of what they call their Sound Journey, to integrate relaxation techniques and healing practices with improvisational music.
“The sound works with us in a number of ways,” Mike Tamburo said at the start of the session. “We think about it as just being something that we’re listening to, but what we’re starting to find is that we’re actually able to take in more sonic information with our physical bodies than we are even with our ears.”
He elaborated with a brief anatomy lesson:
“We have mechanoreceptors and dermatomes all over the skin, and these connect to nerve endings, and this sends information to our brain. So these types of situations affect us in a lot more ways than something we just listen to,” he explained.
The musical performance began with Mike on hammered dulcimer and Gallina playing monochord, a 34-string instrument that produces tones reminiscent of a sitar, as she provided relaxation suggestions in a soothing manner.
“Begin to bring your awareness to all the points where your body is touching the support beneath you,” she told the room full of participants, as Mike made his way to the massive percussion rack. “Just begin to consciously release the weight of your body to those points.”
Soon, Gallina joined him there, and the couple proceeded to play a variety of custom-made gongs, along with bells, triangles and other percussive producers of sound, including an arrangement of Nepalese singing bowls.
“All these instruments have something in common, in that they have a lot of harmonic possibilities, or what I would call the harmonic spread,” Mike explained.
The Tamburos both teach sound therapy and Kundalini yoga at their vibrational healing and yoga center, also called Crown of Eternity. They often travel to conduct workshops and retreats throughout the country, but they also host regular events in the Pittsburgh area, including group sound healing sessions.
“You get to lie down with lots of cushy blankets and props and things like that,” Gallina said. “In addition to the gongs, I walk through the room and play some singing bowls and vibrate them on your body. So it’s a really deep experience.”
As musicians, the couple have released three albums as Crown of Eternity, and on another, Mike performs solo on hammered dulcimer. “Earth in Space: Sacred Gong Meditation” probably is the closest sonically to the program presented in Mt. Lebanon, they said.
After hosting the Tamburos for “Finding Presence with Sound,” the library plans two more programs in the series: “Finding Presence with Yoga” on Aug. 18 and “Finding Presence in Art,” Sept. 15.
For more information about Crown of Eternity, visit www.crownofeternity.com.