How to Meditate with Music

By Javier Ramon Brito

I will offer you a guide on how to meditate with music, summarized in 10 easy steps to make the most of this kind of meditation.

1. Choose a good piece of meditation music or meditative, inspirational, instrumental music. Why instrumental music? Because instrumental music stimulates your right brain’s activity (the intuitive side of your brain). Music with lyrics involves your left brain’s activity (the rational side of your brain), because linguistically spoken words makes you think. When you meditate, what you want is to quiet and transcend your rational mind, which is usually overtaxed by hectic modern life styles. So choose an instrumental song when you want to meditate with music. Songs with choirs are fine as long as the voices do not utter linguistically spoken words. A notable exception to this might be the so called sacred sounds coined in ancient languages, which are used as mantras along with the music, as in the case of Tibetan music.

2. Go to a quiet, peaceful place. Take the phone off the hook. Make sure you will not be disturbed or interrupted. Find a comfortable, relaxed position to sit or lie for a half hour. The more relaxed you are, the more beneficial your meditation with music will be because you will grasp better the music vibrations. This is due to the fact that, as you relax, you become more sound sensitive. So before you listen to your piece of meditation or inspirational music, you may wish to spend some moments focusing your quiet attention on each part of your body, starting with the feet and moving up to the top of your head, while you breath deeply but slowly.

3. Next, listen to your meditative music with headphones, at a comfortable volume. You can use a cassette deck, a CD player or an iPod to meditate with music, but the use of a pair of good quality headphones is necessary to better receive the musical vibrations. It does make a difference. If you use an iPod, make sure that your selected music has been converted by your iPod system to the highest possible bitrate (ideally to Wav or Aiff music files) to ensure maximum sound quality (you can edit your preferences in the advanced/importing menu; then right click on the song and choose “convert to”).

4. while you listen, use a natural (not forced) diaphragmatic breathing to meditate with music. This is the so called “belly breathing”. On inhaling through your nostrils, direct your breath into your abdomen and feel it rise. On exhaling through your nostrils, feel your abdomen fall. If you want to center even further, lightly press your tongue against the roof of your mouth while you inhale deeply (but slowly) through your nostrils and exhale not through your nostrils but through your slightly parted lips.