Waking The Cobra

Baird Hersey

Waking the Cobra is an overtone singing Chakra meditation CD recorded by Baird Hersey who later went on to form his Overtone Singing Choir PRANA. The only thing other than reverberation on this recording is the sound of Baird's voice.




The CD opens with a piece called "Atha", a Sanskrit word which means, "May the following have an auspicious beginning and successful end". It is the opening word of Patanjali's Yogasutras.




Next, is the title piece, "Waking the Cobra " which is in fact a collection of seven short pieces. They are meditations on the traditional shape, color, element and sound for each of the chakras. Hersey first recorded a multi-layered vocal background drone or moving harmony. Then, singing two pitches at once, he recorded the high melody parts.




This is followed by an extended piece called "The Conch Shell, The Wheel and the Sword". These words are taken from the invocation chanted before beginning the practice of Ashtanga Yoga. Call and response, rising harmonies, vocal textures, and overtone melodies, are used in this extended piece to investigate the symbolic meaning of the objects.




The CD concludes with "Between Sthira and Sukha. This is a phrase from Patanjali's Yogasutras which means between alert steadiness and relaxed comfort. This piece searches to balance those qualities by alternating low Multiphonic voice overtone singing and high falsetto harmonies.