Beyond mainstream... Shamanic Music in Prague

The music scene in Prague is very diverse and has a lot to offer. Fahima Khail discovered shamanic music and talked to Prague´s ´Shamanic Orchestra´, who have just launched a new CD this week, about their music and the alternative scene in the Czech Republic.

Shamanism is a range of traditional beliefs and practices involving the ability to diagnose or cure, especially through rythmic drumming or dancing.

The Band ´Shamanic Orchestra` uses this philosphy as inspiration. For Lubomir Holzer, band member and music therapist at the Palacky University in Olomouc, this kind of music is a language to express oneself.

"The origins of the music that we are playing are not from a particular part of the world but the music arises from our roots, our inside. It is intuitive music, free music, free improvisation that develops here and now."

The band works with natural sounds and specially made instruments, explains bandmember Vladislav Sosna.

"Basically it's all kind of different instruments from all over the world, some are originals, for example from Africa as the djembe that Lubos plays. But most of the instruments are developed in the Czech Republic. A friend of us produces them himself.

"Initially I had the idea that the instruments should have a special sound not like generally known instruments. That's why we play African drums, or more specifically the djembe or darbuka. These are instruments which are typical for certain regions of the world."

I asked Lubomir how his music is related to the Czech Rupublic.

"Why Czech? I think it is a worldwide culture and when we play our music we conjoin with the universal energies around us, and our music is not supposed to be a confrontation but rather the opposite, it´s supposed to connect everything, to connect the world ."

But what do the audience think?

"It´s a way of living, it´s not only music, it´s not only you play something and then you go home, or not only music, it´s about shamanism and things like that. And I can say there should be more of this musik in Prague."

"This music is fantastic because, how can I say, it has a certain natural potential which mankind has been creating since time immemorial, and it includes shamanic rhythms."

"When I was listing to this music, I just found out that I really missed the music in my life."