Meditation music is music performed to aid in the practice of
meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally cal ...
. It can have a specific religious content, but also more recently has been associated with modern composers who use meditation techniques in their process of composition, or who compose such music with no particular religious group as a focus. The concept also includes music performed as an act of meditation.
History
Modern meditation music in the 20th century began when composers such as
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
,
Stuart Dempster
Stuart Dempster (born July 7, 1936 in Berkeley, California) is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improviser, and composer.
Biography
After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at th ...
,
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Cente ...
,
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
,
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
and
Lawrence Ball
Lawrence Ball (born 17 September 1951) is an English musician and composer who lives in North London. He produces multi-media compositions, performs in concert, and also works as a private tutor in mathematics, music theory and physics.
Musica ...
began to combine meditation techniques and concepts, and music. Specific works include
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
's ''
Inori'' (1974), ''
Mantra
A mantra (Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ma ...
'' (1970), ''
Hymnen
''Hymnen'' (German for " Anthems") is an electronic and concrete work, with optional live performers, by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in 1966–67, and elaborated in 1969. In the composer's catalog of works, it is No. 22.
The extended work is ...
'' (1966–67), ''
Stimmung
''Stimmung'', for six vocalists and six microphones, is a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1968 and commissioned by the City of Cologne for the Collegium Vocale Köln. Its average length is seventy-four minutes, and it bears the work nu ...
'' (1968), and ''
Aus den sieben Tagen
''Aus den sieben Tagen'' (From the Seven Days) is a collection of 15 text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed in May 1968, in reaction to a personal crisis, and characterized as "Intuitive music"—music produced primarily from the in ...
'' (1968), and
Ben Johnston, whose ''Visions and Spells'' (a realization of ''Vigil'' (1976)), requires a meditation period prior to performance.
R. Murray Schafer
Raymond Murray Schafer (18 July 1933 – 14 August 2021) was a Canadian composer, writer, music educator, and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book ''The Tuning of th ...
's concepts of clairaudience (clean hearing) as well as the ones found in his ''The Tuning of the World'' (1977) are meditative.
Stockhausen describes ''Aus den sieben Tagen'' as "
intuitive music
Intuitive music is a form of musical improvisation based on instant creation in which fixed principles or rules may or may not have been given. It is a type of process music where instead of a traditional music score, verbal or graphic instruction ...
" and in the piece "Es" from this cycle the performers are instructed to play only when not thinking or in a state of nonthinking (Von Gunden asserts that this is contradictory and should be "think about your playing"). John Cage was influenced by Zen and pieces such as ''
Imaginary Landscape
''Imaginary Landscape'' is the title of a series of five pieces by American composer John Cage, all of which include instruments or other elements requiring electricity. The series comprises the following works:
* ''Imaginary Landscape No. 1'' (19 ...
No. 4'' for twelve radios are "meditations that measure the passing of time".
Relational effects
Music can provide many psychological benefits including
stress reduction, improved memory, and general improvement to
cognitive
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
performance. Research shows that the activity of listening to music can aid in detaching a person from their surroundings and help focus on their own thoughts and actions. When applied specifically to a meditative setting, music can aid in
mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention to the present-moment experience without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training. Mindfulness derives from ''sati'', a significant element of Hind ...
, visualization, and
contemplation
In a religious context, the practice of contemplation seeks a direct awareness of the divine which transcends the intellect, often in accordance with prayer or meditation.
Etymology
The word ''contemplation'' is derived from the Latin word '' ...
. According to the
NHS
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
, these qualities can increase personal awareness and help identify signs of stress and anxiety. Practicing mindfulness can help a person be more observant of their present thoughts and actions. Research shows that meditation music can improve confidence during the practice of meditation.
In a July 2018 study, volunteers between ages 60–80 who were listening to healing music and meditating for 1–2 hours a day and eating a sugar-free healthy diet exhibited sharper memory and cognitive skills with happy and cheerful behavioral patterns compared to those who were not.
Meditation music can help improve focus while doing mechanical tasks. A June 2019 study that observed
neurosurgeons
Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...
performing microsurgical training bypasses with and without meditation music showed a slight improvement in the total time utilized by novice surgeons. While the total time utilized by experienced surgeons remained unchanged, the thread length used in the training bypasses was significantly different for both surgeons.
Meditation music can have positive effects on people recovering from
drug addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use of ...
. In general, spiritual meditation may promote addiction recovery as well as improve the psychological and mental health outcomes of drug addiction; this includes reducing depression, anxiety and stress symptoms. In a January 2020 study, it was concluded that meditation music conducted by
Young-Dong Kim can be useful therapy to prevent the reinstatement of
methamphetamine
Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamph ...
addiction during abstinence in rats.
Christian meditation music
Some Christian faiths, particularly the Catholic Church, reject meditation practice from outside their traditions, particularly new-age music. However, the Olivier Messiaen piece referenced above is explicitly Christian, and Messiaen himself was a practicing Catholic and a church organist.
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically ...
's ''
Quartet for the End of Time
''Quatuor pour la fin du temps'' (), originally ''Quatuor de la fin du temps'' ("''Quartet of the End of Time''"), also known by its English title ''Quartet for the End of Time'', is an eight-movement piece of chamber music by the French composer ...
'' (1941).
Zen meditation music
Specific works include
Tony Scott
Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was an English film director and producer. He was known for directing highly successful action and thriller films such as ''Top Gun'' (1986), ''Beverly Hills Cop II'' (1987), ''Day ...
's ''
Music for Zen Meditation
''Music for Zen Meditation'' is a 1964 album by jazz clarinetist Tony Scott.
The album is considered to be the first new-age record. ''Music for Zen Meditation'' is mostly improvised by Scott, Shinichi Yuize (koto) and Hōzan Yamamoto (shakuhach ...
''.
See also
*
Aesthetics of music
Aesthetics of music () is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of art, beauty and taste in music, and with the creation or appreciation of beauty in music. In the pre-modern tradition, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics expl ...
*
Avant-garde music
Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elemen ...
*
Introspection
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's s ...
References
Cited sources
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Further reading
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{{Meditation
Meditation
Religious music
Concepts in the philosophy of mind