Wil Wheaton talks about his love for reading whilst using ambient music as background ambience in this article. And why not I say!
Read the article here.

Go straight to Ambient Music Garden’s music here.
Hi! Here’s some new music from Ambient Music Garden for Spring / Summer 2008. We have a new category as well: Dark Ambient has been added to our collection and begins with two albums listed below.
New Ambient Relaxation Music
Asoma: Many of you have already listened and downloaded Asoma’s new offering: Spa Music which is two long pieces offered as an album for relaxation, mediation and therapy.
Lazy Hammock: Island Lover. Lazy’s latest warmed up offering is popular with chillout lovers. Island Lover brings some diversity and some gorgeous tracks together in a single chillout album.
Dave Ross: Half of Skywirters brings us a haunting relaxing dark ambient album named Midwinter. Cool for meditation and moody atmospheric ambiences.
The Colour Of Time: offer up their first full album to Ambient Music Garden in the shape of Neon Waves, A dark ambient collection that is the second of our dark ambient category albums.
Graphite: Graphite has three great new tracks / mixes: Mysterious Girl, I’m Me Again and Beautiful Nights to compliment his down-tempo collection here..and moving a little into ambient too!
Nick & Gerald: The transatlantic duo have created a new ambient piece called ‘In Absentia‘.
A quick reminder: last season we offered up Paul Adams and Dave Hoffman for the first time but weren’t able to bring you more details at that time.
For starters check out the New Age / Nature Inspired Ambient Album ‘The Property Of Water ‘by Paul Adams …
…and also Dave Hoffman’s downtempo ‘Prairie Skies’.

Click here and check out Ambient Music Garden’s music here.

Here’s an interesting article by Michael David Crawford. Mike talks about the mp3 download industry and the issues around illegal downloading of music and the effects on musicians. Its a long read but its worth it and there is a great list of other legal download sites out there.

Go see it at:

Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads. Enjoy free music without getting in trouble by downloading the legal MP3s many musicians provide as a way to promote themselves.

Do you feel sleep deprived?

“Power naps supported by relaxing music may be your answer.”

Go check out this article at Daniel Kobialka’s blog

Go see:

Creating Successful Relaxation & Meditation Music; Sound And Composition

Recently I gave a positive critique to a talented musician who had submitted a piece for my comment with regards its suitability for therapeutic environments. The piece was lovely, however had a number of points about the piece that inspired me to consider what elelements in my opinion make a successfull relaxation and meditation music piece. Here’s my opinion.

I must say I am not trying to be an expert here. After all, the therapists themselves know what works for them specifically within their own therapeutic environment and discipline, and with each specific client of there’s. Not everyone is relaxed by the same type of music. However, generally, and in my experience the following does provide a good list of considerations. Please let me know if you have any additional thoughts on this list.

Key Point: Consider You Are Making Music To Communicate With The Unconscious.

Unlike popular music (and others) that aims to engage your mind, relaxation and meditation music aims to connect with your unconscious, so less is more. Less Instruments, less notes and less melody as well.

Beat & percussion

Percussion has to be subtle if it even exists within the composition at all. A beat provides a link to your heart beat so if you introduce a beat; you need to be careful what heart rate you may be inspiring. A beat is also engaging. A beat can wake up and stimulate rather than relax. Percussion can provide ambience but once it forms a beat it may raise the consciousness of a listener at the time when the therapist is trying to relax a client and move closer towards unconsciousness.

Its great for sitting at home chilling out but my opinion is that percussion can be just a little engaging of the mind, its like it puts you on a treadmill in some sort of way rather than keeps you in a timeless space that other sounds can create. When I think of soundtrack music, the percussion comes up when its time to move on within the storyline, get on your bike and peddle. So, without percussion, I think you are left in a timeless space where the sounds bounce around a room that reflects nature and so relaxes.

A subtle introduction of a percussive beat can help to wake a client up at the end of their session. So if timed for the ending of a piece of music, this could be useful to suggest subconsciously to a client that its wakeup time and their heart begins to pump slightly faster.

To engage a listener in therapy music is something I am quite passionate about. Read on to hear more.

Sudden noises or instrumental chords

Anything sudden is definitely not right for relaxation. Don’t even think about it. It’s not even useful for waking people up since it is too much of a sharp wakeup call.

Choose your tones well to blend

Much like any composition arrangement you need to think about the collection of sounds that your instruments will be making. Make sure you take some time to spread out your sounds in the audio spectrum and so avoid making everything muddy and unclear. Conversely, don’t try to cram so much into the dynamic range that it complicates what is going on and is too busy and not relaxing at all.

Consider the sound of each instrument and the contribution it makes to your piece. Avoid high sounds particularly as they are not felt by most tastes as relaxing but are more stimulating (hence the use of violins in horror movies!!)

Focus on warm flowing low sounds before you layer on more specific higher sounds such as bells and flutes.

Instruments

Look for a set of complimenting instruments that are played calmly and not with passion. For instance, a violin tends to focus on high frequency notes and is often used to represent high emotions. Conversely a tenor saxophone can be relaxing but also arousing, both best avoided in our therapeutic environment. A bass, particularly a double bass can have a woolly ‘rounded’ deep note that doesn’t ask for a lot of concentration nor forces its clarity onto your mind to interpret. Distant flowing strings (as long as they aren’t too high frequency) can lay a background for other more gentle sounds to sit on. Bells and flutes can risk creating a stereotype but if used sparingly and not flooding a piece of music can offer up some melting relaxing feelings for listeners.

Sounds

Generally, people find the sound of trickling water a calming sound. Too fast a trickle and you might be inspiring someone to go to the bathroom instead! Likewise the sound of waves against a sea shore can take someone away from there current environment to relax but more stormy waves will raise their consciousness that they might be listening to an oncoming storm

Birds twittering, trees rustling both connect us back to nature and anything that does that calmly, like the trickling water above, will provide as good a relaxing feeling as a shot in the arm with something less natural.

The sounds of voices can tend to relax, however the spoken word engages the mind with its lyric which isnt good for keeping someone in the unconscious, unless you are delivering a guided meditation piece in which the objective of the piece is to take someone on a guided imaginary journey and facilitating this journey from beginning to end.

Melody

As hard as I try, I continually fail on this one myself. I am always looking for an engaging melody in my compositions. Therein lies the fault; therapeutic music in my opinion should not be too engaging. Avoid strong melodic pieces that connect with the mood of the listener too much. Consider ballads for example. They aim to express love and passion; too strong an emotional connection for relaxation and therapy music.

One needs to look at a composition in a totally different way from the aim of most music, which is to engage the listener and draw them in more and more into the flow and storyline of a musical piece.

Almost (but not quite) the opposite is required for therapy and relaxation music. You need subtlety in everything. You are creating an ambience, and environment for therapy and relaxation, not a soundtrack to the latest blockbuster.

Arrangement

A relaxation and therapy piece of music needs to not differ too much as it flows from beginning, to middle and then to end. It shouldn’t have changes in tempo, nor changes in the subtle melody.

What is important, and very useful for therapists is to have a piece of music that begins slowly and forms a relax-down for 10 minutes. This helps the therapist relax the client for the therapy. So a slow build of instruments towards a plateau where the therapy takes place, and then at the ending, a slow removal of instruments leaving the lower noted instruments ending last.

Duration

A 40-minute piece with 10 minutes relax-down and 10-minute wake up gives a client a full 20 minutes of focused therapy. Add more to the middle to give therapists options of longer therapy sessions but no more than 50 minutes in total is the norm, unless a therapist specifically requests it. For example, A therapist might be interested in commissioning a piece that flows throughout a longer introduction session with a client where he gets to understand them before then moving into a therapeutic session. In this way, a piece could be continually playing from when a client enters the room to when they leave. This could enhance the therapeutic experience considerably.

Lastly, all I can say is, give it a go. Don’t be shy. If you are a musician looking for ways to sell your music then music within therapy is a real opportunity. Contact me and tell me all about your piece and send me a sample. I promise to respond as soon as I can.

Guy

Click Here AmbientMusicGarden.com. The ambient relaxation & meditation mp3 download music site.

Here’s some more thoughts on the subject of composing music for therapeutic practice. Located at Dr Harry Henshaw’s Blog titled “The Therapeutic Nature of Therapeutic Relaxation Music.” Thank you Dr Harry Henshaw for this article.

Copyright Kesseny ltd 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Relaxation, we all know is healthy for us. But to some its not so easy to find. When we are stressed we think and act differently.

A recent BBC article on stress comments, “Learning to control your anger may may also speed up the healing process after surgery, US research suggests.”

“Your body prioritises and sorts one thing out at a time, so if you are stressed your body works through that before it gets on with the process of healing”
(Steve Bloom Imperial College London)

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7252415.stm

Its a basic instinct. If you are being chased, or are ready for a conflict your mind and body prepares for that occurrence as best it can and leaves less immediate issues until later. If you are stressed for long periods of time your mind and body will begin to suffer from the results of not being looked after.

Its not easy sometimes to find relaxation, especially in the western world were we have eroded our society and find that there are so many things that complicate a peaceful existence.

By finding some time each day where you can relax with others or just spend some time alone and away from the stresses that are always there you will be better prepared for them.

Take a look at the relaxation music and meditation music categories at Ambient Music Garden. Download some, find a peaceful place to listen and relax.

Pozdrav od Branka
 Let’s meet on the weekend! I’ll be swimming in my HEART:)

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February  9 + 10 , 2008 original airing time

 This weeks artists!   Wynton Marsalis, Tina Malia, Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale, Dechen Shak Dagsay, Branko Isakovic, Marcomé, Milagro Acoustico, Rivertribe, Burkhard Wolters, Kara Johnstad, Yulara, Micropixie, Vladiswar Nadishana, Paul SEQUENCE Ferguson, Mariza, Circles and Spirals, Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny, Wendy Lands and more….

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Album: Island lover

Genre: Chillout

Artist: Lazy Hammock

Deep and warm vocals over breezy melodies take you to the hot beach of your dreams.

Lazy Hammock’s Island Lover is a collection of works covering a number of years. I first heard some of these pieces a year ago as Lucie (Lazy Hammock) begun to complete and publish the first of the albums collection. The project named as Lazy Hammock came to Lucy as part of a meditation one day. “Whilst chanting one day I decided to dedicate myself to music 100% whatever happened, then the Lazy H inspiration came to me”, Lucie says.

The album presents a chillout style almost all the way through but also delivers some surprises and alternatives to that genre’s cool rhythms.

The album starts with Star where Lazy’s soulful lyrics tell stories of the mix of good and bad times, following dreams. The deep bass warms and follows the melody where Lazy’s own deep and smooth vocals lead.

The sunny days of summer continue to be presented with Freefall, an upbeat tight rhythm with plucked guitar giving visions of med sunsets, great for listening to in the winter!

Lost in Dreams sums up the album for me. Dreams to keep us going through hard times, and through darks times of the year. A relaxing yet engaging rhythm with twinkling key work and soft vocals shimmering across a calm sea at night.

We skip a little to Sunset Dreamer coming across with a well produced mix of warm bass and energetic rhythm with warm soothing vocals of different tones.

Red Skies Blue Skies: Possibly the best vocals of the album, syncing backing with lead, with character coming through almost as if sometimes sung with a smile. Interesting and character-full small melodies fitted in to neat spaces.

The subtle swing shifts the album a little from lounge style towards something more unique and possibly developing within Lucie’s compositional skills

Gratitude: Its great to hear an English artist singing with an English accent rather than a false American one. Americans do their own accent best, the brits should sing with honesty, like Lucie does. Again, a development in the context of this album for Lazy Hammock by using a reggie rhythm with an upfront rap about her life complimented by her own backing vocals, illustrating the variations in Lazy’s vocal abilities. Gorgeous strings lift the track towards the end mixing styles as the bass appears occasionally and guitar play off beat.

Lazy Hammock is available at AmbientMusicGarden.com today

Author: Guy Lewis

Copyright AmbientMusicGarden.com

Ambient music artist Les Hewitt needed to create an ambient background to block out the intrusion that the busy city was having on his relaxation time.

Les, also known as Uncarved Block, found he couldn’t concentrate on anything in when he moved to a new apartment along a busy city street.

“The road was so noisy I couldn’t think!” Les commented. “So I decided to produce ambient music that wasn’t engaging enough to consume my concentration but created a background ambience to wash away the sound of the street below without distracting me from reading a book for example”.

Guy Lewis, founder of Ambient Music Garden said, “The relaxation & meditation music pieces at Ambient Music Garden music aim to relax without engaging your mind. This music focuses on connecting to the unconscious to relax us ready for therapy or simply to relax or meditate to after a long day. We have wide range of artist styles that are ready to be downloaded and used right now.”

Uncarved Block’s collection of ambient pieces, from 3 minutes in length to 28 minutes are now available to all therapist and lovers of relaxation music as mp3 downloads at Ambient Music Garden.

Web: www.ambientmusicgarden.com

Email: via the Ambient Music Garden Contact Page