Music
Streaming Meditational Music
These free online radio stations are perfect "music therapy" to include in your meditation sessions, yoga practices, spiritual events, or just for entertaining friends or loved ones. I'm usually listening to one of these stations when I'm working on this website!
Mind Your Intention - In addition to uninterrupted, streaming meditational music, this site has links to classes and other resources related to establishing and maintaining an ongoing meditation practice.
AOLRadio.com - This link takes you to the Meditation category of this website. But while there, you can also choose from a huge array of music styles, including Ambient, Nature Sounds, New Age, etc.
Deuter Radio - This is primarily music by Georg Deuter, a German New Age instrumentalist and recording artist known for his meditative style, with other musical artists featured as well (Note: this station will pause every 20 minutes or so to "check" if you're listening, which is a pain).
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Other meditational music:
The participants of a meditation class I facilitated really loved this cd. Here's an Amazon.com customer review of it:
"This is amazing and very moving music. In fact, there has not been a recording like this that I know about since Paul Horn was doing his solo flute pieces back in the 70's. Suzanne Teng, a classical and world music flute player based in California, has achieved a remarkable and deep resonance in this recording. If I had titled this myself, I would have named it Opening the Heart. The theme of Suzanne's playing is love, spiritual awakening and opening of the heart chakra. Suzanne is not just a very technical player, but also a deeply spiritual and meditative one. Her music opens the door to a deep perception of the nature of being, and of the process of surrender to nature and awakening....
Some will hear this music as beautiful background music, but for serious listeners, this is a deeply spiritual work. It is full of boldness and compassion. It is soft yet strong. I hope Suzanne records many more times in this style. Solo flute playing (there are supportive instruments as well) is one of my absolute favorites. But for now, we have this jewel to treasure and to refer to. And for all of us who wish to open ourselves, this is the soundtrack for the deepest and most profound flowering."
Brenda McIntyre, Medicine Song WomanSeptember 17, 2009
Brenda's music is soulful and moving. She is of Native Canadian descent, and works tirelessly in sharing First Peoples' spirituality through voice and music.
Medicine songs are resonances with health, not illness. In fact, in most indigenous healing systems, such as Chinese medicinal herbal therapy for example, there is no concept of "illness." Rather, there is the concept of "imbalance."
Balance and imbalance are ongoing processes, ever-present with the living. A medicine songperson will identify, clairaudiently, with the health of a person or group, and intonate the words or sounds she deems necessary, through the consultive advice of her spirit guides, to encourage and restore the balance of the person or group.
Click here to hear her medicine songs: Brenda's MySpace page May your spirit find healing in them.
Music and the Brain
August 6, 2009
Seems there's quite a bit of interest in sound therapy research. Just fyi, some interesting things I stumbled upon in my research for a workshop I helped facilitate recently:
Here's an article that focuses on the work of Petr Janata, a professor at my alma mater, the University of California at Davis. Dr. Janata specializes in research involving the psychological effect of music on humans:
Dr. Janata's interesting research website is: http://atonal.ucdavis.edu/
These two books, written by researchers Oliver Saks and Daniel Levitin, both cover the interaction and impact of music on the brain, and the resultant effect on humans. However, they differ on many points, such as the fundamental reason humans create music in the first place. Is it necessary for our survival, or is music just an "evolutionary parasite" of our existence?
It was interesting to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in thought, which presented a more well-rounded discussion of the overall subject.
Finally, I found this documentary video very entertaining! It features Janata, Levitin, the musician Sting, and others: The Musical Brain
Enjoy!
Get mp3 downloads of your favorite music here:
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Great tips for care of the voice!
See: Musical Theater Audition.com
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