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Author Topic: Music  (Read 7287 times)

Klaw

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Music
« on: July 14, 2019, 07:33:22 pm »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

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Re: Music
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2019, 02:16:17 pm »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

Most music ranges from annoying to sensory offensive IME, but the relatively small percentage that I can enjoy really seems to open me up spiritually a lot, as does the related act of dancing, which may or may not be connected to my being a natural synaesthete.   That tends to fall mostly under the heading of electro/synthpop/industrial and related subgenres.  It may not be most people's idea of "spiritual" music but it works for me.

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Re: Music
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2019, 04:33:13 pm »
Most music ranges from annoying to sensory offensive IME, but the relatively small percentage that I can enjoy really seems to open me up spiritually a lot,

I don't do well with guided meditation or music during meditation. Something like drumming though really affects me.

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Re: Music
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2019, 08:08:36 am »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

In a whole bunch of different ways, depending. (I do pretty much every option mentioned in this essay on my website at some point in the course of a couple of months.)

Ritual:
My tradition's practice includes, by preference, singing before or during specific parts of the circle cast - most of the chants used come from the broader community, but a couple have been written over the years for the tradition or specific rituals.

We've been doing less of this than I'd like in my current group work, because we're still a fairly nascent coven in this iteration, my students don't know the chants as well, and there are some ritual steps where I can't be the primary person making the singing go *and* the person doing the ritual step at the same time and do both of them competently.

We also often tend toward using music for the actual magical working (to raise, focus, and direct energy), again, usually fairly musically simple chants, though I've also played with a form of polyphonic toning that works really well.

I do feel pretty strongly about using Pagan music, or Pagan-friendly music (not music from other religious traditions) in circle. (More about that in this essay). I taught a workshop locally a year or two ago, and pulled together a list of musical groups and musicians (as well as a playlist, illustrating some of the common chants in the larger community.)

Personal circle casting:
I don't generally do those chants when I'm casting circle on my own (it about doubles the set-up time, and one of the reasons for including the chants - that it helps get a group in the same mental place reliably and quickly - isn't nearly as relevant on my own.) And of course, the same issues of 'some specific ritual steps are harder to do while I'm also singing'.

Playlists
There's one specific tradition ritual that I do yearly that involves a series of transitions and introductions. When I started doing this on my own (after moving away physically from others in the tradition), I started creating playlists of 2-3 songs per big step in the ritual (there are three of those). When I get to that point in the ritual, I spend some time listening to the music, seeing what it brings up for me as an area of focus, and then going on to the next step, and that works really well for me and substitutes for being able to share the work with other people.

I also have, as part of my daily practice, a playlist of about 70 songs that I use as a 'what should I pay attention to today' divination. I listen to that in the morning (usually when I get to work on workdays, while I'm settling in).

I regularly build playlists for specific long-term magical workings or projects or goals, that I listen to most of the time when I have music on while I'm working on those (except if I'm focusing on writing, because I am a 'can't listen to music with words in languages I know or sort of know while writing' person.)

Other times
I don't routinely use music during trance and meditation in the sense of composed music, but I do like a number of the tracks from MyNoise for 'cover the miscellaneous noises in the background'. I have extensive musical training (multiple instruments in childhood, and I was a music major in college) so a lot of music will get my brain going off on analysing the music rather than doing the meditation work. I'm particularly partial to the one called "The Pilgrim"
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Re: Music
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2019, 03:29:19 pm »
I do feel pretty strongly about using Pagan music, or Pagan-friendly music (not music from other religious traditions) in circle. (More about that in this essay). I taught a workshop locally a year or two ago, and pulled together a list of musical groups and musicians (as well as a playlist, illustrating some of the common chants in the larger community.)

Have you listened to Gary Stadler, Hagalaz Runedance, or Faun?

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Re: Music
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2019, 03:15:56 pm »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

I've kind of an odd relationship with music (with polar extremes of tuning it out altogether so it's as though I'm not even listening to anything, to the opposite extreme of becoming so emotionally affected by it that it has me in tears & nothing in between).  Therefore to date it's not something I've incorporated into my practice at all, beyond making a Yule playlist that is.

Something like nature sounds, especially watery ones, is much more useful for me when it comes to meditation and even relaxation, so I'll be bookmarking the MyNoise site (thanks Jenett!).
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Re: Music
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2019, 12:18:26 am »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

Music is such an integral part of who I am that I can't fathom doing anything spiritual without it. Granted, it's not what others might call spiritual (quite a lot of metal, industrial, trad goth and synthwave gets used) but I use it for everything.

Singing, too, or at least making singing noises.

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Re: Music
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2019, 09:55:10 pm »
Have you listened to Gary Stadler, Hagalaz Runedance, or Faun?

Enough to figure out they're mostly not my thing (music is such a personal thing, isn't it?)

(On a more complex level a lot of music in the ambient folk/folk metal/related stuff neighbourhood tends to hit my migraine trigger issues hard if the wind's blowing the wrong way - or more accurately, the weather triggers are wonky again - for musical reasons I can't always pin down, so it's a lot less likely to make it into regular play list rotation for me than stuff that doesn't for what are probably obvious reasons.)
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Klaw

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Re: Music
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2019, 10:06:45 pm »
Enough to figure out they're mostly not my thing (music is such a personal thing, isn't it?)

I listen to such a variety depending on my needs. Although I do admit that Classical is my go to for creative endeavors. I especially like Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky.

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Re: Music
« Reply #9 on: July 22, 2019, 10:49:19 am »
I listen to such a variety depending on my needs. Although I do admit that Classical is my go to for creative endeavors. I especially like Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky.

Yet another place where personal history matters.

I was a music major in college (emphasis on theory and composition), and my senior spring took a conducting class that broke my ability to listen to almost all common-practice-period (aka 'Classical') music for more than a decade. I never lost Mozart, but ... pretty much everything else, yeah. I've slowly gotten some of it back, but because I've got a lot of 'how to analyse this music' in my brain, it still doesn't work well for me for creative work.
 
(It was a very very badly designed class in about ten ways.)

Most of my listening is folk (mostly Celtic and Scandinavian), ranging from fairly traditional to modern and folk-rock (though it depends a lot on the musicians) and Pagan musicians, mostly in the same range of styles. I discover a lot of new-to-me stuff from the Tunes for a Monday Morning posts Terri Windling (editor with a longtime focus on folklore and fairy tales) posts on her blog. I listen to things with words at work (also podcasts when doing some tedious not-mentally-demanding tasks), but for writing, I need things without words in any language I sort of vaguely know.
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Re: Music
« Reply #10 on: July 22, 2019, 02:39:57 pm »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

This isn't anything super fancy, but I listen to Legend of Zelda music in the car, and it is so relaxing and beautiful to me.  It moves me to pray on my way to work, and I usually pray for family and friends.

That's about the full extent of my incorporation of this particular form of pop culture into my spirituality, though I'm going to work on something else on the side and will probably use the music to enhance the mood.  There is something about this music that is very sacred and moving for me.
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TsundokuTeaTime

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Re: Music
« Reply #11 on: July 23, 2019, 12:11:43 pm »
I was wondering how music is involved in your practices? or maybe not at all. If you find it beneficial for meditation, raising energy, prayer, services, or maybe trance work? If so, what kinds of music works the best for you?

Sometimes I'm pretty sensitive to noise/music with talking or speech. I frequently end up making use of white noise generators, usually end up with something that has rain sounds in it or some type of water noises. I've made customized soundscapes for when I'm working with the elements or certain kinds of energy- but when working with Divinities I typically let them request what they want. With spirits, I offer them something similar.

I've found that some Divinities will have rather odd choices, but they end up working well in the end.

My everyday listening might include soundscapes, or I might simply use RainyMood over a random Spotify playlist.
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Re: Music
« Reply #12 on: July 23, 2019, 06:25:27 pm »
Sometimes I'm pretty sensitive to noise/music with talking or speech.

A lot of the time I can't stand any kind of sound, music or speech, for long periods. Though if I'm trying to sleep during the day (like when I have the flu) I put on a talk-only podcast or something, which isn't exciting and keeps my mind away from worrying about whether I'm sleeping or not.
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Re: Music
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2019, 09:18:17 pm »
Though if I'm trying to sleep during the day (like when I have the flu) I put on a talk-only podcast or something, which isn't exciting and keeps my mind away from worrying about whether I'm sleeping or not.

Unrelated, but I like to play audiobooks when I go to bed. They help me sleep.
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Re: Music
« Reply #14 on: July 26, 2019, 01:36:05 pm »
Unrelated, but I like to play audiobooks when I go to bed. They help me sleep.

Really? That doesn't keep you awake? It would have to be so quiet that I couldn't understand the words. I can't hardly sleep with music either.

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