As a yoga teacher, I find music to be an incredible tool in facilitating the movement of energy. Music has the power to bring a swell of sadness to the surface, to sweep you up in joyful waves, to jolt you back to a specific memory and experience, to trigger the powerful release of adrenaline, to soothe and cradle the busy mind, or to inspire a myriad of other responses. But, it can’t be just any music; it has to be the right music at the right time.
There are two camps in the yoga world: some feel that music is as much a part of practice as mats and blocks, others feel it is a distraction and that silence is the better way. In my own experience taking classes, I have often felt that the music seems to be an after thought- something that is thrown together without much planning and put on in the background simply to fill space. In other words, it can absolutely be a distraction from the breath and from the quieting of the mind. However, in other instances, a well-crafted and planned play list has taken me places in practice that I have never been- it has been the fairy dust that cracks me open and allows me to feel what I have been keeping under the surface.
The best advice I received for bringing music into the practice was from one of my teachers, Dana Flynn: she said simply, to ‘bring your friends’. What is the music that inspires you to let loose and dance, to shake silly, to soften and surrender, to move into what scares you, to cry and let go, to find greater strength and power? I continue to be a believer in the power of music to move, inspire, heal, and release the things that may need a little help becoming unstuck. The right song during sun salutations, backbends or svasana can be that touch of magic to take you to the next realm.
And on that note, here is my most recent play list. Enjoy.
1.Light – Dr. Toast
2.Ego – Burial / Four Tet & Thom Yorke
3.Gooey – Glass Animals
4.Hanging On – Active Child
5.Wicked Games (feat. Anna Naklab) – Parra for Cuva
6.Arcadia – Apparat
7.The Silence (feat. Jinadu) – Om Unit
8.Jahta Dance – DJ Drez
9.The Cold In You (Feat. Soundmouse) – Phaeleh
10.Son of Shiva (Omstrumental) – MC Yogi
11.Sweet Tooth – Blue Hawaii
12.Wings (Floating Points Remix) – The Invisible
13.Rena Jones – Deeper – Dr. Toast
14.Mountain Range – Majestic
15.VIII. Juliet – Matthew Bourne Late Night Tales: Bonobo
16.The Southern Sea – Garth Stevenson
17.Meditation of the Night – Benjy Wertheimer