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.
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