The Whole Music Experience

photo by Patricia Herlevi I woke up this morning with thoughts about how I've used music at various times in my life.  While I mainly focus on the healing aspects of music in the guise of sound healing and music therapy on this blog, consider that we heal ourselves by bonding to others, by feeling excepted by a peer group (as in the case with rock and pop music), as a form of identity, as courting ritual, and educational purposes.  We also still use music for ritualistic purposes. If your soul purpose is to heal your mind, soul and body with music then sound healing and music therapy will work best.  If you are working on raising your vibration then sound healing and listening to higher vibrational music such as Mozart, Bach, Brazilian samba, etc will help you reach this goal.  But if you're trying to bond with your teenage son or daughter, then pop, rock, and hip-hop might be the best approach, unless your teenager listens to jazz, classical, and traditional...

Depending on what level you find yourself, meditating with music can foster a relaxed body and a clear mind when done right.  Let's start with the beginner's meditation and end with an advance music meditation. Beginner: First thing you need is a piece of music performed on one instrument such as a piano, flute, or guitar with a duration of 3 to 5 minutes.  If you get easily distracted try listening to the piece of music on low volume through headphones, otherwise listen to the music on another type of device. Similar to breath meditation, you'll employ a singular focus, this time on the music itself.  Ask yourself is the music falling or rising, ascending or descending or are you listening to clusters of notes? Is the music soft, slow, fast, and hard around the edges? Listen for dynamics, tempo, tone, timbre, and emotions. Do you connect with the performer or do you only notice the music? Do you connect with the composer. Next, what images come up into you...