About ToneStream
ToneStream is a live stream of slow-moving, harmonically tuned and balanced sound. It plays all the time, it’s arranged as it plays and no moment ever repeats exactly.
As functional sound, it may be a context for multiple possibilities––although ToneStream receives no direct (electrical) feedback from listeners, its unfolding can feel responsive to the act of listening. ToneStream is sound art, not sound science. It sits close to, and may be experienced as contemplative prayer.
That ToneStream can feel responsive to listeners’ attention, though this not be explained rationally, does not diminish the wonder of the experience. In a way, this is similar to not having an explanation for the tender feelings that arise when witnessing a young child snuggle gently with their beloved cat as it purrs in contentment.
We call it The Evolution of Peace. This is a metaphor and a hope: that peace is still emerging, in people and in the culture, and that evolution is as an effect of peace itself. A virtuous circle.
What you’ll hear
When you tap the Solu arcs, you join ToneStream wherever it happens to be. Hundreds of hand-played recordings are chosen and layered in real time: metallophones, reed flutes, bowed and fingerpicked guitars. Metallic-woody strike tones bring impact then glide away. EBow guitar and reed flutes swell, change and dissolve. Some sounds may seem familiar, but the combination is always new.
Listening together
Listeners around the world hear the same moment of ToneStream at the same time. We find something companionable in that, a shared but distributed sound space. We feel it’s unity-making.
What we know is simple: The same ToneStream is presented to everyone, yet each person feels it in their own way.
What ToneStream is for
ToneStream is made for pause, rest and attention in ordinary life. You don’t need to meditate or learn anything. Listen when you can, when you want, for as long as feels right.
How ToneStream is made
Every sound is a real instrument, played and recorded by Solu founder and sound artist Michael Joly, with creative direction from Alene Sibley. No AI is used to make the sounds.
Michael records in an unhurried, quiet state of mind. He sets aside the urge to “make music” so the sounds can find their own arrangements in ToneStream. Does that state carry through the recordings to you? We can’t say. We can tell you that’s how they were made, and we invite you to listen and tell us what you notice.
In addition to sounds being arranged in the moment of listening, new sounds are added and some are retired as the seasons turn. ToneStream keeps responding, changing and being present, now.
Built on the harmonic series
ToneStream is tuned with the simplest ratios of the naturally occurring harmonic series, the octave (2:1) and the perfect fifth (3:2), mainly in Pythagorean tuning with A at 432 Hz.
The harmonic series isn’t a human invention. Every vibrating string and column of air produces it, and it was sounding long before anyone was on earth to hear it. People have been writing about these ratios since ancient Greece. There’s something moving about building with relationships that are older than humans. Michael Joly says “a simple expression of naturally occurring harmonic ratios may be the way to reset from our present discord“.
Where Solu began
Solu began in 2017 with the n.o.w. Tone Therapy System, a handheld, two-speaker device of pure tones made for a brief, focused pause. ToneStream grew out of that work into a live stream made for longer, open-ended listening.
We’re a small team building simple, lasting and easy ways to make room for peace. ToneStream is the sound field. You, the listener, are invited to play with life there.
Give ToneStream
We’ve worked to keep ToneStream affordable, both to subscribe and to give. If it becomes part of your day, a gift subscription is an easy way to share it.
We hope for a day when peace is so ordinary it no longer needs a name. Until then, thank you for listening with us.
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW AVAILABLE!