Can anybody recommend any prog that would be good for meditation? Also, please feel free to share your experiences in meditation.

Peace!

Steve Hillage is among my favourites to meditate with. I have just bought a tonne of Tangerine Dream, so I'll try that too. Thanks everyone.

If you can find time to make one thousand and seven hundred posts in a forum about prog music, you can find time to meditate mah man.

Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Ashra and anything to do with Berlin School. I use it myself actually, and the lack of "explosions" and noisy rocking segments, does tend to lull you even further down the rabbit hole.

Other than that, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, Pepe Maina, Jade Warrior and maybe Taj Mahal Travellers(they do work for me).

 

Thank you ... I was gonna say ... the album that was made for meditation, was the one not mentioned ... that would be very strange and weird.

 

This is a tough area for "progressive" music of any kind. and you are going to find that many people dabble in it and play with it a lot ... and Stiv is one ... but then, it's absolutely bizarre that Daevid Allen is not mentioned and he used to do seminars on meditation with instruments! BUT, some folks would say that is not "prog".

 

In general, most "prog" music is not very good for meditation, as it has a tendency to interrupt you, rather than help guide you through the spheres ... but if you are looking for music that is trippy and far out, and leads to inner quiet that you can wind up a large dose of visuals with ... then you would want to use the word "music" for that, instead of "prog" ... because any "style" will be subjective and not objective enough, or open enough for you to be able to fly off with it.

 

So, my list is not "prog" because the term is not on par with meditation, and I will list some meditation folks, that are "pure" meditation, not talk ... make sure you understand that, before you call me a jerk!

 

1. Klaus Schulze -- his long pieces are magnificent ... music for the adept, not kids!

2. Frank Perry - Absolutely powerful stuff with bells ... there is no better!

3. Wolff and Hemmings - Original Tibetan Bells stuff ... very good

4. Amon Duul (one) -- their early stuff is just a "drum circle" so to speak ... but it is good for meditation within a modern format, even though you might think you are re-living a Grateful Dead moment!  With one bad little thing ... some idiot/or acidholus decided to play a gag on a couple of the albums, and they are really bad, and distracting ... and break the flow badly! Though it is funny, the continuity is fine ...

5. Ash Ra Tempel - Specially Join Inn, although it tends to come off a bit on the sexy/sexist, but it is a nice flow, in general

6. AshRa - Continuation but more musically/theme minded than other wise and the music flows nicely.

7. Annubis Nights - Nik Turner's original thing was hardcore meditation music ... very tough to stay with, if you are not musically induced and tripped.

8. Popol Vuh - No one spent more time making sure he could bring music to that realm than Florian. Some of the prettiest things ever, despite some of it being used in film, the material still stood out on its own as well.

9. Kitaro - Folks love to tear him down for being too new-agey ... but in reality he is actually very with it and very good musician and he has done some nice things along the way.

10. Deuter - The first album fits as a bit of "prog", but the rest of his music is all about meditation and inner stuff, despite his connection. And very good too!

11. Roach/Riley and such -- Roach is specially nice, and quite experimental, but with very nice moments. Riley is a bit more classical in his approach, and very electronic compared to the stuff we're used to ... sometimes I consider this old-time hard analogue.

12. Tangerine Dream -- Lately, the cuts have gotten smaller ... and not as neat ... but any 20 minute non-stop trip they have is magnificent ... though it tends to "tell you a story" just like you had when you were a kid!

13. Paul Horn -- Enogh said!

14. Some Keith Jarrett ... put on "The Koln Concert" ... more prog than most prog will ever be!

 

I have a couple of others that I like to listen to during quiet moments ... there is a lot of work from Anthony Phillips that is very pretty, quite soft, and stands out ... and it allows you inner peace and space.

 

I am an "avid" collector of music that colors the further levels and experiments within the mind ... and as such, no music will ever be conducted/composed that fits your desctiption ... because the inner thing ... is not really a rock thing, and in the end, talking to you or anyone here about a ROCK RAGA, is a total and complete dead end ... and there are rock groups in India, that we will never discuss that DO rock ragas and very well, too! BUT, we have a problem here ... if I show you an African band doing a raga, you are going to say ... that's not prog ... and walk away ... then you are not into meditation, but into an idea of the music you want ... and you will never find it ... why? ... only you would be able to illustrate that idea with music! If you knew how to play!

 

More as I remember it!

 

 

 

 

I have everything on this list! It's a pleasure to meet you! I am a different circadian rhythm of the world that values purity in life. This list means everything to me.

 

I think that is very fair to say ... because there is music that I hear that I have not heard yet ... and what's more ... it involved folks that I have met and spent time with every now and then!

 

Adding more ... as I remember them!

 

Stomu Yamash'ta - in his later incarnation has some outstanding things.

 

Eberhard Schoenner - More experimental, and a bit on the academic side, but if you put on "Trance - Formation" ... you will learn real quick that Enigma was a fake! 20 years too late, too!

 

Vangelis - In general his "theme" pieces are pretty but not as nice as other things ... for example, you can put on "La Fete Sauvage" and have a really nice safari in your head! Just from the sound effects themselves ... and we might say ... that's not meditation! You can put on El Greco, Beaubourg (specially!!!!!!), and many other albums that are more "classical" for him, and they are very nice trips. I happen to love his first album .. "Earth" ... a LOT!

 

Mike Oldfield - to a degree. TB, I would say no ... but when you hear "Voyager" or "Songs of Distant Earth" ... or "Incantations" ... I would say ... Ohhhhh yeahhhh!

 

Egberto Gismonti -- His early solo days are magnificent ... welcome to my accoustic jungle and that guitar flies for many minutes ... very pretty and quiet. Later he did this in a more jazz'y confine (Sanfona) and classical confine (No Caipira --- a MUST get album!!!!!). Since then, he is more piano oriented, and for my ear and taste not as nice, but his stuff in those early days is meditation in the middle of the forest ... very accoustic!

 

(I'm running out of mentions!!!)

 

On the esoteric side, and not something that everyone can understand or appreciate ... Walter Wegmuller's "Tarot" is actually magnificent .,.. with one problem ... we do not get or understand the "vocals" as a mystic authority, instead of a silly rock singer! The music interpretation is magnificent, btw, although totally off the wall and non-conventional!

 

(more as I remember)

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite electronic albums is Sonic Seasonings by Wendy Carlos. It's endless soundscapes and on the remaster there are 2 extensive meditative pieces crying to be heard. Sonic Seasonings and Gandharva are both innovative concept albums that influenced Electronic artists globally. Many of these artists were consulting with Bob Moog before releasing their music.

One album, actually 2 cuts, not the whole album, that would fit the "prog" description, would be from Gong's You album ... the two long cuts together is actually a very nice meditation, though I am not sure that Stiv or Daevid would call it that!

 

On a different kind of meditation that would fit the "prog" idea better, I like the excursions that some bands take ... for example, you can listen to Djam Karet's The Trip, and I don't even feel like I am inside the Fillmore West ... it is a very nice out in the country trip for me, with a creek to take a swim on, and such.

 

In general, this kind of "tripping" is good to help you learn something about meditation, but in the end, you will finally learn that the one and only important thing in "meditation" is the inner silence, which helps create the healthiest state for your body to live on! Any external music, would be counter that process, regardless of your appreciation for it, as it would distract you from the "center", which is the only important thing at that point!

There are some masters who say the highest state can only be reached through music but it certainly was not Glass Hammer they were talking about.

And Peter Michael Hamel went on to do several hard core meditation albums, and then write a book that trashed all of the western culture's obsession with bad music in the western world!

 

It was nice stuff.

Funny! 

 

I don't think that any of us, can get a handle on the definition of that inner music for meditation. I kinda look at what Klaus does as his meditation, or what Edgar does as his meditation, what David Parsons does as his meditation, and what Deuter does as his mediation ... and I don't really think of it as "music" as much as I see it as a visionscape of the artist.

 

The main problem I have with the pop process is the lyrics, and people thinking that just because they tell you something that it is what they are saying ... and that is not true, and more than 50% of those lyrics are mis-leading and not even representative of th einner thing ... they are an idea, or that person's idea of how things are.

 

That said, even things like "Close to the Edge" or "Tales from Topographic Oceans" are massive mediational pieces, specially when considering one is taken almost directly from Herman Hesse's Sddhartha book! But we still look at thos pieces as a "song" ... not as something else about life ... the inner life ... and until we stop considering all these just another song, or music, I don't think that we stand a chance of finding that inner medium.

That depends, since the voice is ALSO, an instrument ... but we have not heard many things in music that show the voice as an instrument, instead of thinking that the lyrics are more important than the instrument, and it must be what it is about, kind of thing ... it's almost like a child's story, and you come to believe it!

 

If you hear some of the vocal things in the ECM label, and some others, or hear the stuff with Khan (sorry, have never remembered his full name!), you will find that ... you don't get it ... this is not like a song, that we know ... and the main reason why folks won't listen to it a whole lot! It's so different, from the topical and repetitive pop music design that most folks do in rock music ... why? it's the easiest and you don't have to pay a teacher for it! It's easy to say, there is no apreciation to take it any further in their life, other than make more money. It lacks depth and soul behind it all!

 

Now, who, can we say, uses his/her voice as an instrument, and in many ways, you don't even hear the lyrics, and you already know ... that it's true! For me, a lot of Peter Hammill is a vocal meditation, and the other one is Kate Bush's Snow album ... that is almost pure music in the Hindu definition of it ... it just flows and goes ... it stops when it does ... and you don't feel empty, or missing out on something! You know right away, this is what she was looking for ... something that was not pop music, but was pure poetry, from beginning to end ... and there it is ... as progressive as any music has been for 30years ... and we don't even realize it! It's a perfect "meditation" and leaves you very quiet inside ... you wish you could do that ... with yourself even, let alone with a matey!

Must admit I haven't listened to any Kate Bush since The Sensual World so can't comment on her Snow album; however, the only two vocalists that I feel were able to use their voices purely as an instrument rather than as a vehicle to deliver words are Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance and Diamonda Galas.  In both cases, I don't hear the words but react emotionally as if listening to a soaring David Gilmour guitar solo.

The "trigger" to get one inside, can be anything ... a tuning fork, music, words, chanting, just about anything.

 

The issue/problem with it all, at times, is finding the right wording for documenting and expressing what it was like and what you felt. Sometimes, that part is totally secondary to the actual feeling of "being there", and the energy and effort to explain to anyone ... most of which do not listen anyway ... is a wasted effort and you stop doing it after the first or second effort.

 

There are some excellent books on these, and the "different" ways this stuff works. Robert Monroe, calls it out of body experiences, but they accumulate the same thing, and he is very good at the talking point ... though I think people will get confused when he describes the earth's aura and its pull, not only magnetically, but also physically, and what it does for our minds and bodies. Carlos Castaneda, used some psychedelics, and later had a great joke about it ... "were the drugs necessary? Of course not stupid, we just had to shut you up long enough to get something done!" ... and a lot of people don't like don Juan's strength and attitude, but his stories and theories are excellent and "The Art of Dreaming" is one of the very best books EVER on dreaming! I like Tahisha Abelar and Florinda Donner, both from the Castaneda camp, and they are far better writers than he is! And their work resonates better with your physical space, than his, which comes off as too mental!

 

The finding of an avenue for you to meditate is an "individual path". It only works for you. Sharing ideas and concepts, and what not, is (at times) frustrating, since what you say usually comes off as imcomplete, and folks have a tendency to doubt the veracity of the information. It's hard to describe something from another world or experience that has no "language" like ours does ... but there are a lot of little exercises and things we all can do to help us get there.

 

Music is a good one, however, like everything else, in the end, you have to find the box to get rid of the boxes, and that is harder. IF you understand that going in, you realize that music is but one way you can resonate with "your father" (as it is known biblically), and this is where things get tough ... people tend to mix and match ideas, theories and bad translations and more often than not ... stop!

 

There is only one path, and it has your name on it. You just have to get on it! Regardless ... but you will not be able to take cd's or ipod's with it! Thisis about you, the message, not the medium that tricked you into something else.

I mentioned the Berlin school of electronics earlier in this thread, and even if the ambient "style" still were in it's pyjamas, there are literally 100s of records that'll have you spiralling inside yourself until you reach a form of zenith, where everything turns white and peaceful(I'm just relegating how meditation works for me here - I don't believe in recipes for the mind)

Albums that work for me include:

Klaus Schulze - Moondawn, Picture Music, Timewind

Tangerine Dream - Ricochet, Rubycon, Quichotte

Didier Bocquet - Voyage Cerebral

Anna Själv Tredje - Tussilago Fanfara

Redshift - Ether

Steve Roach - Empetus

Personally, I love moving meditation--especially spinning like the Sufi whirling dervishes--and there's aTON of music that gets me spinning--gamellan, Magma, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, Krautrock, TD/Schulze/Froese, the Gordon Brothers & Buddha Lounge (Sequoia Records) or Ibiza/Paul Oakenfeld rave music, too. 

But, I agree with others who think the purpose of meditation is to find the "space between" life, reality, and stimuli.

   

Thanks. If you enjoy Moondawn, then you gotta pick up Body Love pt 1 at some point. Probably his most melodic album to date, plus it features drumming like Moondawn kindly provided by Santana drummer Mike Shrieve, who plays completely unlike himself, but it works.

Haven't heard Anastasis but my fave DCD albums are the 1st one "Dead Can Dance" (my CD also includes the EP "Garden of the Arcane Delights") and the live one "Toward the Within" (I also have the accompanying concert video).  I love the 1st one because they use a more standard rock instrumentation than subsequent releases when they go for more accurate period instruments.  Also really like Brendan Perry's solo album "Eye of the Hunter".

My very first experience with music meditation happened when I was about 12 years old. I had been reading a book on yoga that described a meditation in which you do not listen to music, but you create a song in your mind. Not an improve, but an existing song. Sort of like visualizing a mandala but with sound.

I think I chose "Jet" by Paul McCartney because it was a big hit at the time, and I was a Beatle freak.

I lay down, closed my eyes and started the meditation. It started out pretty normal I guess. Now I either fell asleep and had a sort of psychadelic lucid dream, or I went into some sort of trance, but it ceased being "Jet" and became a sort of free form fusion thing with guitar solos, all accompanied by mostly purple visuals. (I should also mention I was not using drugs at this point in my life ) I came out of it knowing it was a fairly transformative experience.

I am for the last 20 or so years, a practicing Buddhist and a sort of lay Sensei at a local Temple. It is not a meditation based sect though, it is Jodo Shinshu (Japanese Pure Land) however I also practiced Soto Zen for many years.

It is true that in Soto Zen the practice is Shikan-taza, which is "nothing but sitting" No mantra, no visualising, no music....nothing to attach the mind too. I think it is a wonderful practice if you want a very pure sort of thing with no connection to concepts or any sort of contrivance, but it is difficult.

For me to use music now it would have to be some sort of ambient type of thing, because if it is melodic or structured, I immediately start figuring out how to play all the parts. (I earn my living as a music teacher so I am very accustomed to learning songs for each instrument)

Electronic music is good for that, but also some traditional chant music, and ethnic music for meditation, like Indian and Japanese music.  I find Sitars, and Koto's good for that sort of thing. Shakuhachi is popular, but I find it distracting sometimes.

 

 

It's impossible to gauge the intent in the creation of any art, for an audience!

 

What you think you meant, someone or an audience will say something else. And there is too much doubt and misunderstanding, even for the clarity of the "great ones" that have been in time over the millenia!

 

In "reality" of the "truth", there is only one center, and everything else is around it, but we assuming that everyone sees the same thing or expecting the audience, me or you, to think this and that?  Sorry ... I rebel against a social mold! And no ... that would not be correct I do not believe, based on my own experiences.

 

There are NO WORDS that can aptly describe the inner side of meditation, and thus thinking that this or that or music or whatever is ... is just western idealism and has nothing to do with ... "meditation".

 

IT IS what it is. No words necessary!

I love his voice.  My fave DCD song of his is "American Dreaming" and off his solo album the opener "Saturday's Child".  She's wonderful too...especially with her made up language