Meditation music includes music played with
or listened to during meditation, music the performance of which is a
meditation, or music which is meditative. Music may distract from or
enhance meditation, and meditation may involve music making.
Meditation music should be simple and soothing. There is an esoteric
branch of yoga called Nada yoga. In Nada yoga it is said that advance
meditators hear divine "unstruck" sounds that arise from within the
heart. Some of the sounds heard in meditation are said to be in nature
or have been duplicated by human beings. Some of the classical sounds
include the rumble or thunder, the buzzing of bees and the deep sound
of the waves. Some of the instruments that are inducive to meditation
are the tamboura, tibetan singing bowl, the flute and the sitar. Some
of the trailbrazers in producing meditation music have been
organizations such as the Sanata Society, Sounds True and Inner
Splendor Media.
Musical training is similar to meditation and musicians may study
meditation for the benefits during performance, such as deep breathing
and concentration. According to Claudio Naranjo, "the essence of
meditation is also the essence of art" Some composers have combined
meditation and music, for example, John Cage, Stuart Dempster, Pauline
Oliveros, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young others have written
meditative pieces. Some examples are Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mantra
(1970), Hymnen (1969), Stimmung (1968), and Aus den sieben Tagen
(1968), Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time (1941), and Ben
Johnston, whose Visions and Spells (a realization of Vigil (1976)),
requires a meditation period prior to performance. R. Murray Schafer's
concepts of clairaudience (clean hearing) as well as the ones found in
his The Tuning of the World (1977) are meditative (Von Gunden 1983)..
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