Books by Allaudin Mathieu
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| Harmonic Experience |
The Listening Book |
Bridge of Waves |
The Musical Life |
The Shrine Thief |
Order from Author
These titles, along with his large music cataloge are available to order directly from the authors' website bookstore; books also available on Amazon
Harmonic Experience: Tonal Harmony from Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression
An exploration of musical harmony from its ancient fundamentals to its most complex modern progressions, addressing how and why it resonates emotionally and spiritually in the individual.
W. A. Mathieu, an accomplished author and recording artist, presents a way of learning music that reconnects modern-day musicians with the source from which music was originally generated. As the author states, "The rules of music--including counterpoint and harmony--were not formed in our brains but in the resonance chambers of our bodies." His theory of music reconciles the ancient harmonic system of just intonation with the modern system of twelve-tone temperament. Saying that the way we think music is far from the way we do music, Mathieu explains why certain combinations of sounds are experienced by the listener as harmonious. His prose often resembles the rhythms and cadences of music itself, and his many musical examples allow readers to discover their own musical responses.
The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music
The Listening Book is about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation. By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds and for making music, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Mathieu offers suggestions and encouragement on many aspects of music-making, and provides playful exercises to help readers appreciate the connection between sound, music, and everyday life.
Bridges of Waves: What Music is and How Listening to It Changes the World
Music is, in one sense, merely a series of fleeting vibrations that arise and subside. How could it be that something so insubstantial fills us, and calms us, and makes us weep? Because, says W. A. Mathieu, music bridges mind and heart, self and other, and affirms our place in the world. Everyone uses the bridge of music, from casual listeners to devoted professionals. Mathieu's delightful and trenchant prose asks you to question what music is, how it works, and how to understand its value in your life, in the life of your community, and in the evolution of the cosmos.
The Musical Life
Everyone, according to W.A. Mathieu, is musical by nature—it goes right along with being human. And if you don't believe it, this book will convince you. In a series of interrelated short essays, Mathieu takes the reader on a journey through ordinary experiences to open our ears to the rich variety of music that surrounds us but that we are trained to ignore; such as the variety of pitches produced by different objects, like glassware, furniture, drums—anything you can tap; or sounds that hover on the border of music, like laughter, the clinking of glasses in a toast, or the unintentional falsetto produced by yawning. Along the way the author teaches aspects of music theory that nonmusicians might ordinarily shy away from. He reveals the way of music to be a profoundly spiritual path—one that is everyone's birthright.
The Shrine Thief
In this entrancing memoir, timeless questions about music and life are explored by a master musician in his 85th year. The stern father who built an empire of words; the solipsistic uncle whose hypnotic voice calmed millions: these are just early glimpses of Mathieu's memory. Soon he is crimped into an overhead baggage rack in Stan Kenton's tour bus as scenes of scotch-soaked melancholy play out below; he is sharing late-night quarts of ice cream with Duke Ellington in his hotel room; he is co-inventing improvisational theater at Chicago's Second City with Alan Arkin and Mike Nichols; he is receiving the title of Sufi sheikh from an heir of Inayat Khan; and he is gleaning wisdom from a woman bundling firewood in Bali.
In prose at once wry and lyrical, Mathieu carries the reader through the adventures and misadventures of a scintillating and deeply examined life.
By Asha Greer - This is a visual history of a forty-day retreat Asha did in the winter of 1989. "I decided to chronicle my experience daily as I had so few maps myself of retreats. None of the experiences I had read or heard about gave me a sense of what actually happens. This is my experience as honestly as I could chronicle it...Learning to be alone is not easy. Loving one's self enough to overflow love to others is not easy. Exploring our shadow is not easy. Developing a realistic version of reality is very hard. There are so many wonderful results of this hard work. A respect for life itself and its awesome mystery being among the greatest."
Richard Power - Joe Miller was an authentic American mystic who taught in many ways, the most famous being the Thursday morning walks through Golden Gate Park. Joe never charged for anything. On the contrary, he treated everyone to ice cream at the Ocean Safeway near the beach. This is the exploding love story of Joe and Guin, with a generous helping of his deep-hearted harangues. "There is a great song, a great music happening in life at all times. So be the true note you are." - Joe Miller.
By Mariam Baker with illustrations by Habiba Cynthia Dollard - Sacred Voices is a beautiful collection of stories, interviews, prayers, practices, and poetry, illuminated women's wisdom and history within the Islamic and Sufi tradtions. This book is a rich tapestry that weaves these elements together with evocative art and succulent recipies to create a truly unique record of the ancient and ongoing tradition of women on these paths.
In this exposition of The Sacred Dance, Miss Ruth's deep insights come alive in movement, the body, and in visions of physical expression in sacred time and form which transform our lives and the world we share.
Goddess. Prophetess. Saint. Witch. Divine Mother. Spirit. Essence. Shining Light.