Stay Alive Suicide Prevention and Meditation Music Composers, Frank Kilpatrick and Rayko

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What's your P.I.?

When you want to reflect with music playing in the background,

what do you listen to?

Here's a thought provoking question.

Why does music bring on certain emotions for you?

Is it the beat, the instruments, the words.

The Vocals?

Today's guests are all about creating a mood with their music.

Frank Kilpatrick is a long-time producer, songwriter and music

composer who collaborates with legendary composers, performers

like ARIF HODZIC, Rayko, Scott Page, and many other talented artists.

With everything going on in our world Frank explores the deep questions and

thoughts that we all have as humans.

And he composes music as a means to help us find meaning

through his musical compositions.

Frank hopes to convey positivity and reflection with his music.

And also featured on today's episode is Rayko.

Rayko was born in Tokyo.

She wrote her first full length song at just four years old about her mother.

Since then she has composed dozens and dozens of songs heard in movies,

national and international events, and of course, through her band Lolita Dark.

Her hypnotic voice transcends across the continents.

Frank and Rayko collaborate musical compositions as well as videos

and movies based on many topics, including the environment, gratitude,

joy, and suicide prevention.

Their positive imprints abound.

Frank, Rayko.

Welcome to the show.

Thank

you so much for having

us.

Oh, absolutely.

I have listened to your music.

I have read so much about you and you have amazing backgrounds

in music, but also advocacy.

You have this way of wanting to bring about positivity globally through

music, as well as through other means.

So again, welcome.

I kind of want to gear our conversation today for the listeners towards why is

music so important to bringing about emotions and change within ourselves.

Well, I believe that music is a soundtrack to every living being,

for instance, what is the Movies without music, the emotional scenes,

the sad scene, the exciting scene.

There's always different music , to match each of the scenes.

It's kind of like the same thing for our lives and What we go through in our lives.

Music is so therapeutic when, especially going through such a

trying time, like right now, I mean, pandemic is not over yet.

knows when it's going to end.

but during that time a lot of people have come to us, actually requesting

us to write meditational, soothing music, to calm their spirits down

and their anxieties and fear down.

And what other way to do that than music.

And so that's why I'm very motivated to write the music that

touches people and helps people.

And it's true from a scientific standpoint as well because

the research shows how much certain vibrations have a remarkable, invisible

effect, even on people's attitudes on your anxiety on your comfort.

And actually, as we have done tracks having to do with meditation.

We've explored that.

And as I say, the science, the science confirms it.

We did an interesting program a few months ago through Stanford university.

That was a actually called Artful Leadership and it tied the the whole

theme of music to the states that it creates in people which can make them

more successful in business or whatever they're doing in their everyday lives.

So there's been a tremendous amount of research done and there's more

being done that shows that music is much more than just entertainment.

That is so true.

And I'm so glad that you mentioned the university and all the studies.

I had a guest last year, actually, around this time, Mack Bailey, who

is a music therapist and he does study how music rewires our brain.

. He's working right now with people with PTSD and not just veterans.

Anybody can succumb to PTSD, but how does music rewire the brain?

And as you talked about the vibrations and how those can bring

us to a melancholy or sometimes

something different just depending on as I said in the beginning,

the beat, or now we can include vibrations certain sounds even.

So they've also shown that being in nature is musical with the birds,

the trees, the leaves,the water.

Remarkably.

So in fact, one of our collaborators initiative, the folks, you mentioned

the fellow by the name of Alex Wann.

He actually won a Grammy a couple of years ago for his work in microtonal

music, which is interestingly the part of the scales that are

between the notes, so to speak.

And those also have some pretty magical qualities that are worth exploring if

you're interested in that kind of the science of music along with just plain

taking it in for personal enrichment.

Yes, the personal enrichment.

And that's so important as Rayko was saying earlier, and about where people

are at in their lives and, and, you know, music changes for us throughout our lives.

When you're a teenager, you aren't reflecting a whole lot.

. I was more, , just wanting to move with the beat but, but things in

lives change as Rayko mentioned, and right now the pandemic, and of course

we have other things that you have talked about in your compositions and

from the environment to the beach, to love and to simple meditations.

And don't forget emptiness.

Oh yes, yes.

I spoke to him about

that with somebody earlier today, but that's

often the theme of our music.

And in fact, in this context, it's about emptiness as a beautiful

Zen place to form to find peace and to form new possibilities.

Positive imprints are everywhere and Rayko soon learned that her

piano teacher became a legacy for Rayko's own future and her own positive imprints.

I think it was four or five.

I had this piano teacher that was really progressive and she was a Senseishe,

and, you know, Japanese teacher that I call her progressive because she

was very cutting-edge at that time.

What happened was I, one day I threw a tantrum and told her that I will never

want, I never want her to come ever come back to the house and, you know, put

me in this, lock me in this piano room.

I would rather be outside playing with my friends and she said,

okay, so let's play this game.

And she saw something in me that not really many teacher will pay

attention to, which was my insight how I felt and how I emotionally

felt about the notes and chorus.

And some, I don't know how.

Until this day, it's a mystery, but she said, let's play a game.

I want you to first follow me to your backyard and we're going, gonna burn all

the texts, sheet music and everything.

And Oh, my gosh, this teacher is the coolest teacher.

So we went to the backyard and we burned everything.

And, and then we came back to the room and she faced the piano.

And I said, why are you facing the piano?

We don't have, to do a lesson anymore.

She said, yeah, we are not going to do a lesson.

We're going to play games.

And then she started playing all those chords and she said, I just want you to

turn around, do not cheat.

And I want you to start naming all this chords.

So I started like, you know, thinking that was a game.

So I started like playing this game and got myself familiarized

with all those chords..

And then two weeks later, or whatever later, she said, okay, you're going to

come back to the piano and whatever you felt with no sheet music or nothing,

whatever you feel about your mother

I want you to start playing.

I don't know what happened, but I was possessed or something.

I started just composing the entire verse and the chorus and then intro

and outro of how I felt about my mom.

And then after that, she said, okay, look outside, you see this

beautiful Japanese maple tree.

I want you to write a play about it.

And I want you to play about school and that's how I became a composer.

Wow.

Some positive imprintts

upon you.

Yes.

She definitely helped me with that.

And, and look at where those positive imprints have taken you to this

absolute musical place in your life.

With a generation that separates the two artists, they celebrate five

years of collaboration this year.

They met on LinkedIn.

And so we connected up from there and carried forth to this day.

Let's talk about the five years of your collaboration.

I think Frank talks about a more progression of human need to ask

questions and reflect upon not the answers, because answers are hard to

find, but reflect on what we are thinking about with regard to these questions.

So talk about that and how important that is to society.

Well, the questions are always more important than the

answers because that's where the real internal reflection occurs.

We were talking a moment ago about being empty on the inside and, and

that sounds kind of like a negative perhaps , to some folks, but really

that's what we found is a good foundation for all of the work we've done.

And sometimes we've been more explicit in telling the story

along the lines of Of that theme.

We have a song called "you gave me nothing," which does that sound a

kind of bitter well it's not at all.

It's a song of giving the other person the opportunity to, to

be with their their blank slate.

So those are the kinds of, of starting points and interesting departure.

Interesting how the evolution takes place, but I'd have to say that it's it's, it's

pretty hard to know on the front end, but it's always rewarding at the back.

Oh, that that's true.

And yes, and I love questions are more important than the answers.

When you think about it, the exploration that we go through in finding answers is

all part of that questioning , not just intrigued, but the seeking and sometimes

we will never find specific answers.

Frank's impressive and extensive career within the music industry as

a composer and singer extends several decades and he continues to work in

the industry with other well-known artists and groups, including.

Beach boys, Chicago and many others.

One of the fellows who plays with played

with the beach boys traveling band for many years, Billy Hinchey has

performed on a number of our songs.

He's played piano, he's written a couple and sung and played 12 string guitar.

So there's a nice connection there.

And for anyone who's a Beachboy fan, that means you're Brian Wilson fan

he's one of the real geniuses of popular music from the last, however

many years, somebody really knew how to blend harmonies and this wonderful

production values that he had mastered and, and bring a lot of eclectic

elements together in a way that works.

So that's the connective thread that's tied it all together for me.

Wow.

That's very interesting.

, you obviously have collaborated with quite a number of people,

and, of course Rayko.

I think the two of you are continuing the meditation piece.

Every time we do a podcast for that's based on meditation we

have numbers of P number of people asking about how do we meditate,?

We've always wanted to meditate, but we just don't know how to meditate.

I'm going to be one of them too, because I have a problem with

emptying my mind in order to meditate.

Yeah.

You start thinking about, the dinner has to be put on at six or like, you

know, all the kids are coming home and we have to get the kids or like, oh,

I forgot to work out all those things.

, you have so many things that you started thinking, and then , the meditation

becomes kind of like an obligation and, you know, like people can't focus.

Meditating is just so important.

Taking the time out for yourself in the busy day is so important.

Like grounding yourself and kind of like your guest, a music therapist said music

really reground, and reprogram your brain.

So I found that people say the music help them so much to get into

the meditation, meditative p lace because music kind of takes over

and music helps to empty minds.

So I think that's why the meditation and music just goes hand in hand.

I would say too, that even you've mentioned a moment

ago, it's a challenge to meditate..

I think a lot of people set it up to be a little tougher than it is

because meditation can be anything from a few moments to hours.

It can be total silence.

It can be facilitated with music.

In our case, what we've done with we've put together, as Rayko says, we

put together music, we put together some beautiful scenes in our videos.

We actually have affirmational words on the screen, so they, connected a

number of levels if your eyes are open, Meditation is whatever you make it.

And I think people can be gentle with themselves and

say, yes, I meditated today.

And they don't have to be a hundred percent sure about it.

They don't have to prove it to anyone.

They can just enjoy the richness of their own disconnected spirit for a few moments.

And they can benefit from

that.

Oh, that's good.

I like that.

And that, that allows yourself to be a truer self.

And yeah.

And then to continue to dive deeper and deeper into that meditation as we improve

indeed practice and, and it's it's really a never-ending process.

A trip down the Nile river changed Frank's perspective on life,

including his music compositions.

The most specific catalyst for really, for me and for,

for Rayko too, was a trip that I took with my wife down the Nile river.

And we saw these many generations of people who are living in many cases

at a subsistence level economically, and yet they seemed happy.

And so without over romanticizing their circumstances, we saw

that simplicity could lead to to comfort, to peace, to calm.

And I reflected on that and the many generations of people who had been

there and erected these remarkable structures that we still see today.

So all of that kind of a powerful catalyst to coming together

with this type of message.

And then Rayko brought her beautiful music and beautiful voice.

It was a complete package.

Wow.

So there was your time where the questions were much better than the

answers because with you being out there in the Nile, you obviously had a

gazillion questions about why they were happy and how they were meditating.

And all of this led to a discovery within yourself to want to compose music

because it made you feel good out there.

It inspired you.

It did it, it, even to the extent of wondering how they

many, many, many years ago, centuries ago, how did they come to have the

knowledge that would enable them to build these remarkable emphasis

and, and to communicate with and build a civilization that was really

known to them.

So it was eye-opening to think about how they live and how they excelled when it

didn't seem that there was so much of a way for them to have come to that point.

And that was truly magical and inspiring to me.

Absolutely.

I would love to, to experience that and within a culture

that I'm not familiar with.

I am beginning to love your little quote more and more.

. Questions are more

I love that too.

. Yeah.

I think that's

a few shekels for that.

So Rayko, how did you get a vision in your head with

Frank was trying to get across,

My husband actually a long time ago when we were still best

friends we had a band house and we will compose music all the time.

And then he was just play thing, a line from guitar.

And I'm like, got it.

He's like, what do you mean you got I'm like, I got it.

I got you.

I am an emotional conduit, so I visualize all the time when there

is a note or like even a measure.

I see the whole entire scene behind that thought..

I remember till this day specifically when Frank was either emailing me or

texting me from, Egypt and he was in a hotel room when he was writing to me.

And then he was explaining all these things that he saw that day.

So my imagination is pretty off.

I'm sure he was in this five-star resort, but I see him like in the tent and the

camels outside and there's this desert and like, you know, pyramid in the back.

And he is underneath this just immensely beautiful Milky way.

And he is writing to me with the the feather pen..

And I just started thinking all the scenes and then before

I knew it, there was a music.

I never sit down and write.

I always come to me and I'm like recording myself and onto the

iPhone or, Android, I should be politically or politically, correct?

Yeah.

So it's really helped

papers all over the floor.

So he came home, he came home from the trip, and then we had like,

where you're seeing his beautiful studio, the floor was covered with papers and

papers and papers of material he had.

We were reading his journal and we just started picking the lines and

it was just such a fun meaningful, potent calm, exciting process.

Oh, a romantic for sure.

Which is how I am with my visualization.

I was actually, it's funny that you were talking about

the, the pyramids and the tent.

That's what I was visualizing.

And, but I was, instead of the pyramid, , I was visualizing the, the river

and , the rainforest and the tents..

Well, what a great way to get inspired in to the world of

composing music for meditation and.

It makes it even truer for yourselves because of the experience

that you had down in the Nile.

And now we all want to experience that hat.

Where, were you Frank.

I want to go there.

So

let's,

Frank and Rayko also advocate and educate.

They are part of a suicide prevention documentary that is free to the public.

I tried to watch it on prime video on Amazon, but it said

it's not available in my area.

But I could watch the trailer.

Oh,

I'm glad you got a little piece

of it.

I am anxious to see the whole thing.

I'll give you the URL.

You can find it at stayalivevideo.com and you can see the whole documentary

there about hour and a half.

And it's free..

What a great, great title also.

And it's a very good video.

And as Frank said, it's free for everyone.

Because again, especially we just went through a trying time and

we were still going through an uncertain moment of our lives.

And as, as a world, and we worked with a Kevin Heinz who jumped off

from Golden Gate Bridge and survived by the seal seal and speaking of nature

he or she took him to the shore and that's how he survived literally.

We worked with the very renowned psychiatrist, Dr.

Mark Goldstein, who actually helped Kevin a lot.

And it, it is a very, very much needed program that a lot of people who are

ever in that situation where they're thinking about ending their, their

lives or even contemplated or even thought about it for whatever reasons,

it's a free for you free for all.

And there is a lot of information that you can get out of that videos.

That's a great resources there from Dr.

Golston and from Kevin and from you too Rayko.

Rayko is featured on the video too along with her music.

Oh, see, and, and you have both of you have composed so much music

that is available in movies and on of course the internet and television shows

and events that you've written music for.

We're going to go back to stay alive here in a second, but have

you ever thought about the positive imprints that you are leaving

every time you collaborate with somebody or you compose

a song or you answer an email?

Every time Frank and I collaborate, we cannot say that to each other enough.

Like we are so grateful.

It all starts with us, right.

With, within us.

And if you don't have the positive influence or positive attitude,

positiveness, or motivation to be positive then we cannot possibly bring

that out or have people feel that.

And every time I collaborate with Frank and we do music session,

it's like an essential time.

It is so therapeutic to write together.

like It's really important for us to share our fears, anxieties, the positive, the

happiness and all that before we get into writing music, collaborating on music.

So, I think that is a positive imprints for myself and for , my collaborator.

And, you know, we believe that this is our calling, so we will never stop.

We'll, keep on going.

Thank you.

It's a gift for me as well.

You know, we were all leaving imprints at home all the time and sometimes

we know how they're going to be received , but oftentimes they go off

and they're kind of echoes in a canyon.

And so it's just an interesting phenomenon to consider that how powerful we are

in that sense and to make the most of it and to make sure those imprints

are positive and that they count.

Yes.

Once they're left, they're there forever.

He has some deep, deep thought here, and I appreciate that Frank, quite a bit.

And Rayko you as well.

So with Stay Alive, how did the pivot take place where you decided

to start moving into advocating?

Well, I don't know that for us, it was really that much

of a pivot or a big step, because again, where the music we've done is

intended to have a core of perhaps introspection or certainly meaning.

And so it's, it's just another expression by, in this case, the film that you

mentioned stay alive was just an extension of caring and recognizing

that people can be in dark spaces.

Some of our music reflects that, and yet it also shows that the other

side of that tunnel can be joyous.

And so we carry that through with our music.

We carry it through with with this project and perhaps others in the

future.

When it's time for you to wind down, relax, reflect, or meditate, Reiko

and Frank put together Gratitude Video.

Every song of gratitudevideo.com have two versions.

One is an energetic version that gets you going for the day, be

positive and fearless and go.

And nighttime version is the same song that is a relaxing version that get you

ready for a peaceful sleep and relaxes you and get yourself ready for the next day.

And, you know, we believe that this is our calling, so we will never stop.

We'll keep on going.

Frank, you want to add to that?

The one thing I'd add to that is that these are designed

as videos as I was saying before.

There's affirmations on screen.

There are a number of simple yet majestic scenes and from around the

world on the video, however, for people who are, let's say walking and they

don't have a a video player with them, they can certainly listen to the audio

version, which is also powerful..

And they can listen to it on a variety of different podcast channels.

So it's accessible a lot of different places and again, it's no charge.

We'd love people to dial in then use the gratitude video series.

And of course we're constantly adding more to the series, but use it to

start your meditative practice in a way that facilitates it, that takes

you by the hand and introduces you.

And as I suggest.

Gives you the opportunity to to have a little success.

So you can say I meditated today if only to yourself.

I did the soothing one..

I'm thrilled with so much that you offer the global society to better

themselves for today and for tomorrow.

And that's what your positive imprint is really all about.

It's what we're doing for each other, for the future.

And not just for the today.

Yeah.

So, is there anything else that you would like to add before we

get to your last inspiring words?

I would say that maybe these are my last inspiring

words, but I would say that the joy is really for us, is in creating as, as

my collaborator, who has said a few minutes ago, it's the, it's

such a joy for us to feel like we are making a little ripple in the

stream and imprint that's being felt.

And so that gives us tremendous satisfaction and just having done a

little, something that can maybe push the world in the direction of more

connection, more happiness, more love.

Uh, Those are beautiful words, Frank and so

much appreciated for living life.

Thank you for those inspiring words and Rayko?

. Rayko: You know, coming from Tokyo, Japan,

everybody else in two different languages.

I cannot stress.

I cannot say enough that music is so universal.

Music is the bridge to connect the world.

And I am just so inspired.

See, you know, even like in the person, in the Nile that listens to, gratitude some

meditation piece one day and, you know, feel something without us ever knowing.

That possibility alone is just so inspiring.

Oh, absolutely.

Frank Kilpatrick, and Rayko I appreciate the two of you and the

positive imprints, again, that you're bringing to the global community.

We will end with 'questions are more important than the answers.'

well, they can find your video@stayalivevideo.com, but they can

go to your meditative channel gratitude, video.com or on most podcast platforms.

Thanks for sharing this message.

Oh, absolutely.

And I appreciate your questions.

They were right on the money and they brought out things in both of us I think

that were not always what we talk about.

So that was great.

So, so

thank you.

We'll keep on making a positive imprint.

That's I guess that's the key isn't it?

You're both such gracious people.

I, I enjoyed it.

Well,

and you as well.

Thank you so much.

See you later on

the documentary film website is stayalivevideo.com.

And Rayko and Frank's meditation site is gratitudevideo.com.

Next week's guest takes us into nature.

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