Using Music To Channel Positive Spiritual Energy
Using Music To Channel Positive Spiritual Energy
Meytal Bracha Karni and Rony Iwryn from Kula Baraka are making deep connections with music
Music has deep spiritual power. It brings people together, transforms emotional states, and reawakens lost or forgotten memories. The musician makes that happen, and is a conduit for that power—regardless of whether or not he or she is conscious of it at the time—although the musician’s most important job is to stay out of the way.
“That is my prayer,” keyboardist Meytal Bracha Karni from the band, Kula Baraka, says in our interview below. “Before we go on stage, we pray that we will be a like a vessel of light, to bring out the music in a pure way.”
Kula Baraka came together when Karni was a student at Mizmor, a music school in Givat Washington, just east of the Israeli coastal city of Ashdod. One of her teachers, noted percussionist Rony Iwryn (Yemen Blues, Ofra Haza, Idan Raichel, and many others), was taken by her music, and soon they were jamming and collaborating. They recruited another student, drummer Einat Harel, plus bassist Lihi Eshel, and began the immersive process of becoming a band. “We played a lot together and explored Meytal’s music,” Iwryn says. “We played hours into the night, and that was our first encounter with this music.”
Kula Baraka’s music is a loose, improvisatory fusion of modal jazz, Middle Eastern rhythms and tonalities—Karni also plays the santur, which is like an Iranian dulcimer—and a heavy spiritual vibe. They are a tight, cohesive unit, and enjoy working together as a quartet, although they have also collaborated with numerous artists like Daniel Zamir, Lea Shabbat, Mark Eliyahu, Ravid Kahalani, and others.
“We’ve done many collaborations, both live and on our record,” Iwryn says. “We love to do collaborations, and we’ve done them with many people. But what we really love is to play just the four of us.”
I spoke with Karni and Iwryn from their respective homes in Israel about their group’s special bond. We also talked about incorporating Middle Eastern colors and sounds into their original music; global interest in world music, and how that’s paralleled renewed interest in Israel of music from the Jewish diaspora, particularly from Mizrahi and North African communities; the artist’s role in channeling spiritual energy through music; and how music awakens long-dormant spiritual voices.
What’s the genesis of Kula Baraka?
Rony Iwryn: I was born in Uruguay and I came to Israel in 1984. At first, I went to the study at the Technion [the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa], but saw that it wasn’t for me, and went to study at the academy of music. I’ve played music for most of my life, and I play guitar and percussion. Ten years ago, I started to teach at a place called Mizmor, and it was there that I met Meytal Bracha. She was a student there. She came with her music, and asked me to produce her music. I started to love the music that she wrote, and we started to create music together. That became our band, Kula Baraka, with another two members. Einat Harel—she’s an amazing drummer—she was also a student in Mizmor. We also have an amazing bass player, Lihi Eshel. We’ve played a lot together and explored Meytal’s music. We played hours into the night, and that was our first encounter with this music.
Meytal Bracha Karni: I started playing music when I was four years old. My parents were not religious when I was little, but became ba’alei teshuva [embraced religious observance] when I was eight. Music was always a way for me to express myself, but they didn’t think of sending me to a high school for music or anything like that. But I was playing a lot, and I had private lessons from when I was four years old. Music has always been a very important constant in my life.
How structured is Kula Baraka’s music, or do you do a lot of jamming?
Iwryn: The music has a lot of structure, but we can express ourselves. We do a lot of improvisation inside the music. But there is structure, it’s like jazz, you have a structure, but also the possibility to improvise.
You also draw from a lot of different influences. The music has a modal jazz vibe, but you also incorporate a lot of Middle Eastern musics and folk styles.
Karni: I was always I very interested in ethnic music. Even at an early age, I remember reading about all kinds of cultures, and I was listening to very different kinds of music. That’s why I wanted to learn an instrument—the santur—so that I could express myself in a different way and with a different sound. I was studying for a years with a teacher who came from Tehran, and that has influenced our music. I also went to Morocco, which is another musical influence. My first time there was five years ago. Omri Mor, the pianist, was my teacher, and I traveled with him when he was playing at the Gnaoua Festival. He was playing with Karim Ziad, who is one of the most amazing drummers. I went to the festival, and then took a month and a half to see the country.
Does the santur use notes that you don’t find on a piano?
Karni: The santur has a quarter tone, but in our music we don’t use it much. We tried to do it, but it didn’t sound good. Although I recently got a new keyboard, which you can program to play quarter tones and things like that, and I think we will try to incorporate that in the future.
Iwryn: On the first album, there are some flavors from different places—rhythms and scales—and we use those different flavors, but not in a traditional way. We use instruments and rhythms to express the music in our way. We don’t try to be Persians or Moroccans, we express ourselves through the music using these different flavors. But it’s flavors, we’re not trying to do an authentic interpretation of those other musics. Maybe in the future we’ll try to incorporate makams and different scales, too, but we’re not trying to be something that we aren’t.
How complex are the different rhythm that you experiment with?
Iwryn: The rhythm is very developed in Kula Baraka, although I think we have just have one piece that isn’t in 4/4. Everything sounds very comfortable, and you can move and groove within those meters.
You and Einat seem to have a very natural playing relationship as well.
Iwryn: We’ve really found our communication, and try to create a special sound together. We’ve played together a lot to get to that. When you have both drums and percussion, you have to be very smart about leaving space, because you’re making so much rhythm together. You can’t play just drums, and not leave any space of another percussion instrument. But we find that each one has his or her own space, and we’re working together to create one rhythm. It’s like one drum, but with many different colors of rhythms.
In terms of exploring different Middle Eastern styles, that seems to be really big in Israel now, especially with music from the Sephardi diaspora. Why do you think that’s happening?
Iwryn: That’s been a movement in Israel for over the last 15 years or so, but it’s not just in Israel. Peter Gabriel started with that, bringing world music center stage. In Israel, 25 years ago, the music on the radio was only western music. There was no Mizrahi music, for example, but that’s changed. Mizrahi music is at the forefront of Israeli pop music now. That’s true with Israeli music, and Jewish music, too. In the last few years, Jews of Moroccan heritage, for example, have started orchestras that play Andalusian music. That’s a movement that comes from the inside. It is people who come from places like Iran, Morocco, Iraq, and they brought those cultures with them, which are so strong. But I think it is a combination of both world music becoming more popular on the outside, as well as, internally, in Israel, the especially the strong culture of the Mizrahi community.
Karni: It’s like a kibbutz galiot [קיבוץ גליות, ingathering of the exiles] in Israel, especially with Jewish music. There is a very strong essence. In Israeli history, these communities, the Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Moroccan people, had many difficult years here. Their culture wasn’t accepted like other cultures were. But now we’re starting to see that change. Even in the schools, students are starting to learn about Moroccan history and Moroccan songs, and that’s a thing we didn’t have before. But there’s more to it, too, people have a kind of passion to find themselves, and want to go back to their roots. They’re more proud of their roots, and it wasn’t that way before.
Iwryn: And I also think that it is happening in conjunction with what is happening all over the world. As world music became more relevant, in Israel, the Mizrahi, for example, also had that opportunity [and an audience] for their music. So it’s a combination of many things.
There seems to be a deep spiritual side to your music as well, and you’ll often quote biblical verses. Is that spirituality something you’re trying to convey?
Karni: Music has a strong influence on people in general, and I feel strongly about that. I believe in God, and I believe that being connected to Him can heal the world. It can heal people. But I don’t want to say that in my music like I am telling it to you now. I don’t want to tell it to people who are hearing music. But internally, I know that the intention [kavana כוונה] that we put into our music—or that’s behind our music—is very deep. We don’t want to get in the way, we want to put in something that is much higher than we are. This is a higher energy. You can call it whatever you want. I call it God. Everyone will call it something else. But this higher energy, I think it is expressed in the verses. This connection to God comes naturally, and the verses take the music higher.
When you’re playing music, do you see yourself as a channel, as if the music is coming through you?
Karni: I really try. That is my prayer. Every time before we go on stage, we get together and pray. We pray that we will be a like a vessel of light, to bring out the music in a pure way.
Meytal, are you the main songwriter? Do you show up with compositions or is it a more collaborative process?
Karni: I bring the essence of the music, like the melody and chords. It is something that we can start to work with. Then we have a very deep process together with Rony, and we arrange it and produce it.
For your recordings, do you pare it down? Will you take a song that could be 15 minutes when playing live and do a four minute version for the the record?
Iwryn: No. Not so much. It’s not pop music. Our songs have a beginning, middle, and end. But between the different parts there might be a piano solo, or percussion, or whatever. We have a structure, but in between it is open to play.
You’ve also collaborated with a lot of great people.
Iwryn: We love to do collaborations, and we’ve done them with many people. But what we really love is to play just the four of us. We love that. As a band, we really have a lovely chemistry. But now we have the COVID-19, and music has become like a dream. I really agree with Meytal that the purpose of our music is not just to play a concert. It is the connection with the people. I think music is really healing. I’ve heard that in the Temple [the ancient Jewish Temple that stood in Jerusalem], that the Levites were able to cure people with music and scales. Music isn’t streaming, and in a concert, it isn’t about the musicians. The best concerts are when you put yourself on the outside. You’re not important. The magic happens when you become a channel [צנור]. We really pray for that. I am praying for a return to playing music—to connecting to people—and to being a part of that.
When you’re playing, you’re not just feeling a connection to each other, but to your audience as well?
Karni: It’s happened more than once where I get people coming up to me with tears in their eyes. They tell me how much the music got deep inside them, and how it really did something to them. I’ll tell you a story. We have a very special song that we sing every concert. We play it as our last song. We took the melody of the Birkat Cohanim [the Priestly Blessing] that they sing in synagogue. I remember it from when I was a little child. I remember hearing it, and it did something to me. [Traditionally as well], the Cohanim [priests] served as messengers to bless the people. I was very connected to this prayer, and I wrote another part for it as well. At one concert, we were singing this song, and after the concert—it was in Tel Aviv—a young man came up to me, and he had tears in his eyes. He didn’t look like someone who had a connection to his Jewish roots. He had tattoos and he looked [spiritually] distant, but he told me that when he was young, he came from a very religious family. When we played this song, he remembered how his father would put his hand on his head on Friday night and would bless him. It was a memory that was very far from him. But once it came, it took him back many, many years, and he was very emotional about it. I saw how it had impacted him. It is a just little story, but it made me realize how much music is really able to do in the world.
Photos courtesy Kula Baraka
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