Review of Garko Factor Concert
This was the review the host sent me this morning…
“Personally, I loved the whole thing…your concert was perfect…meaningful, rich and deep…C.”
“Spirits In The Silence” CD Reviewed on Jamsphere
On “Spirits in the Silence,” I found the sequence of the 14 tracks to be as strong as any that I have heard.” Full Review Here
How music for meditation can be a lifestyle
While it’s fun to recommend lots of pop music for meditation to others and suggest artists to support, what would be optimal to make such music integrated into one’s life routine? Should one be listening to Simon and Garfunkel, Bruce Springsteen, or Dylan 24/7? Or mixing it up with an assortment of eclectic sounds, from Enya-like New Age music to Gregorian chants? What if you don’t have an endless, or even meager budget to be spending on all this music? And what if you want to retain a Western flavor to your meditating, instead of going all the way into lotus position, pursuing the The Path of the Chakras?
Well, the first thing to realize is that ‘music for meditation’ can only be only part of what meditation is, as it is useful to discuss only as a way to perform the act of meditating. The best approach is to structure a schedule so you can call “training sessions,” where you will practice obtaining a state of tranquility as such while using the appropriate music of your choice, from folk rock to protest songs to whatever, to facilitate reaching that state. This will eventually lead you getting better at meditating, as time goes on.
For those lacking the funds, the Internet is your friend. Endless examples of every type of music now available to people through video sharing sites like YouTube. Schedule time to listen to the samples that help you reach a relaxed or tranquil state, and it will provide you the raw materials that will easily help you utilize music for meditation. You may optimize this practice by downloading the videos, using anyone one of many programs available for this purpose. Armed with this downloaded music you will have primary materials needed to settle into a meditative state whenever you need to, without pauses or buffering.
Don’t just restrict yourself to using music for meditation, mix in poetry, visual art, remembering special moments, and similar triggers that will lead you to an internal state of peace. Whatever you do, keep the activity regular, and keep on training, in order to reach the tranquil state faster and deeper. Eventually the meditative state will come naturally, and will not need music or other hooks and make it happen. Even so, music meditation technique almost instantly alleviates the practitioner from stress-related problems, deeply relaxes the mind and rejuvenates the system.
Best of Folk rock and Meditation
Something about playing of best of classic folk rock music naturally puts one in a hypnotic state, and I don’t mean nostalgia over “where you were” when this what that was when you first heard those protest songs. This look at some of the most famous examples of the genre will show how it can serve as music for meditation:
The Judy Blue Eyes suite by Crosby, Stills, and Nash isn’t Lambert song that always chokes me up inside. It doesn’t just send a person’s memories back to Woodstock (most of whom now weren’t even born when that concert took place). Such is it takes you to an inner place that’s always somewhere between Friday evening and Tuesday morning of the mind, where you can “tell it like it is.” The ability to transport you “deep inside” is the essence of folk rock.
Maggie May by Rod Stewart is the ultimate storyline song about the free spirit latent within us, and it’s rhythms and instrumentation is literally based on some Irish and English folk music. In some ways folk rock is simply traditional British European folk music enhanced by some power sound (vocals, electric instruments) to give it an active rather than passive tone. The foundation of it is nonetheless meditative and reflective.
Tangled Up In Blue by Bob Dylan is also a song that floats along much like Maggie May, and goes almost the end of what the genre can do before it turns into the blues (a non-meditative type sound). The difference, again, is reflection, as clean or electrified folk music gives the impression that a whole generation is singing a song, not just one person. Songs that make you think, and along ‘free spirit’ lines are meditative and spiritual in their impact and affect.
California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas is the closest thing to a secular apocalypse type song as exists in folk rock, in the soundscape it creates about California in winter. I have thought sometimes they might as well be singing about Judgment Day or the rapture, as only a few lyrical tweaks could turn it into a sermon. The song title gives away that this is a California that exists in the mind, and that state of mind is inspired to seek peace by its dark yet breezy tone.
The Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel, especially when performed by the duo live, without the heavy instrumentation that exists on the single, is an amazing piece of chamber music that somehow made it into the top 40. The stillness invites the soul to partake in examining injustice and hypocrisy, and invites the listener to purge those two things from their own soul first, even as it references outside world issues in order to do so. It is the best of folk rock, and (in the higher sense) new age music at its finest.
How New Age Music Therapy is a Powerful Healing Method
Music therapist Anna Driscoll, from Music Therapy in Motion, states “Music truly is the universal language. Whether or not we have the ability to communicate in the first place, music has the ability to bridge the gap. Music is able to express feelings we can’t ourselves.” New Age music particularly helps because of its ability to still the soul and bring the mind to a place more receptive peace and liberty. Millions have experienced that from listening to certain songs from a variety of genres, from folk rock to reggae, protest songs and other music for meditation.
The use of spiritual music of this type is growing more and more material dollars to support its use as a therapy. Music therapy organizations are getting more grants to sponsor performances that use the New Age music and similar soundscapes for a wide range of positive therapeutic uses, at venues as wide ranging as hospitals, and retirement homes, juvenile detention centers, nursing homes, halfway houses in prisons. “Music For All Seasons is very proud of its contributions over the past twenty-one years,” Director Brian Dallow states, “as we go about our work of healing through music in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and California.”
But hey, what about us challenged regular adults, don’t we need the same kind of healing for what we’ve been through? Well, what we can do is support the music artists who will give us this type of enriching sound, whether it goes under the rubric of New Age music, or other genres. We should financially support music for meditation whether it comes from Van Morrison, Enya or Garko. The private sector can match or exceed government subsidies in promoting deserving artists. It is hoped that this site contributes to adding to that archive of sponsored music that promotes the healing process.
There are several songs on this CD that measure up to the description as therapeutic new age music
Protest Songs — Why I Like Them
2012 marks the 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie, and recently the Globe and Mail has appropriately discussed his importance in a story titled, “A protest singer for the age of Occupy.” Their point was his music persists in importance, such that Guthrie would be quite a busy man these days were he alive and active: “In America, this is the era of Occupy, the age of income inequality and a season of renewed racial tension. Guthrie, a protest singer who seemed to write on command, would have had his pick of causes and inspirations.” The Nexus between the soothing music for meditation he made, and the peace he advocated for is one of the reasons I love protest songs.
The list of reasons for Guthrie being remembered and re-evoked, says the article, derives from “his ability to celebrate America will simultaneously questioning it.” Many point out protest songs like This Land is Your Land point to a thoughtful patriotism that notices the flaws in the country and asks, as Guthrie does deep into the song, “is this land made for you and me?” Such folk music (much of which would be electrically amplified if originally performed today, and thus be called folk rock) times in very well with recent reform trends such as Occupy Wall St,, and the liberty movement.
Classic protest songs and singers like Guthrie always had the dual gift of making you feel peace and liberation within, while advocating for it without. Some have speculated that most popular music nowadays, by contrast serves the interests of the 1% in distracting people from exploring and acknowledging problems both in the world and within themselves. It’s pretty hard to reach a posture of inner peace, to the sound of staccato rock, rap or dance music booming in the background. Has the recording industry been designed or manipulated to largely frustrate making people think, from a point of view of personal strength gained through reflection, meditation and stillness?
If musicians en masse can be brought back from such misdirecting commercialism to deliver more new protest songs in genres as disparate as folk rock, reggae, rap or new age music, it could be enough to amplify the impact of the above discussed movements to a new quantum level. Labor activist Joe Hill, circa 1915 asserted that “a pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.” With that mental soundtrack playing in the mind of a whole culture, it’ll be much easier to make both political change, and deliver personal development.
On this CD the primary protest songs are LEver9 Rap and the Big Brother Song
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