Meditation Music

Meditation music is a big category, with many different interpretations about what constitutes meditation music. In general, there are three major groupings, divided by intended use. Those three types are music for meditation practice, music as meditation, and music for healing, relaxation and stress relief.

Music for Meditation Practice

While meditation is often a silent practice, music has played a part in meditation both East and West for centuries. From Hindu and Buddhist music in the East to Gregorian and Byzantine music in the West, this is a highly specialized area of meditation requiring dedication and considerable education for the composers and performers.

While some meditation teachers insist on silence as the rule, others have themselves produced music for meditation. A famous example of this is Sri Chinmoy, a meditation master who also produces meditation music. Drawn from traditional Indian music, his works feature sitar, flute, and harmonium, as do many traditional Indian compositions intended for meditation. Through his books he provides specific instructions for the use of music during meditation.

Eckhart Tolle, author of "The Power of Now," on the other hand, encourages silent meditation, but also recommends a number of artists on his website as producing appropriate music for meditation.

Music as Meditation

Music can also be a form of meditation in itself. In some circumstances, music can serve as a type of guided meditation, leading the listener into and out of meditative states of consciousness. The LovingKindness (Metta) meditation, for example, has often been set to music.

Some artists, Deva Premal for example, have developed chant-based music that, through rhythm and the application of advanced vocal techniques, can have a profound effect on the mind of the listener.

Another approach to music as meditation has arisen from developments in brain science. Kelly Howell's Brainsync and Centerpointe Research's Holosync are two well-known examples of this approach. Combining music with binaural beats, research has shown that listeners achieve brain states equivalent to those of experienced meditators. This type of high tech meditation lacks some of the qualitative components of meditation, but they are quick and effective, especially for stress relief.

Music for Healing, Relaxation and Stress Relief

Research has shown that simply listening to relaxing music has benefits, including reducing stress and anxiety. There is a growing catalog of relaxation music based on traditional meditation music. These recordings generally do not feature instructions, or meditation guidance of any kind, but rely on time-tested concepts of applying music to health and healing.

A large body of healing meditation music exists in Chinese traditions, with musical compositions aligned with principles of Chinese medicine. These have often been combined with Qi Gong, and the combination of Qi Gong and music plays a role in Chinese hospitals.

Throughout the East, music has been developed which is appropriate to particular health conditions, aligned with the seasons or designed for general health and well-being. Examples can be found in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan and Indian (Ayurvedic) traditions.

In the West, Hildegard of Bingen and others theorized that particular musical notes, instruments and sequences of notes could positively affect health and increase healing. Native American traditions have also often applied music as a form of healing.

Sources

Meditation music is available in many forms, including CD's, MP3's and streaming music. While any form may be appropriate for relaxation music, many types of meditation music are complex and involve sounds almost at the limit of human range, and suffer when converted to compressed digital forms.

In general, CD's are often the best choice, especially for music that integrates binaural beats or other high tech techniques. Some MP3's provide sufficiently high quality as well, though if you are purchasing or downloading a 60 minute meditation in a 1 or 2 megabyte file, you are getting a very low quality product. For example, a high quality download of a 60 minute meditation including theta wave binaural beats requires over 40 megabytes in MP3 format. Streaming audio is the lowest quality music, but often has the advantage of being free of cost.