Dec 16

Yoga Music Philosophy

Years ago, when I was interviewing for my first yoga teaching position at a local health club, the woman running the group exercise department asked me if I used music in my classes? It probably didn’t help my cause any when the blank look on my face gave away the truth; I hadn’t even thought of that yet. The woman was not a yoga expert nor did she end up hiring me, but her casual comment stuck with me: “People like music in classes.” The day of my first ever class as a teacher, I ran out and bought two CDs to play in class. I have been selectively gathering yoga music ever since then.

The music I choose for my classes comes from an array of genres (new age, trance, world, alternative, electronica, rock…), but mostly new age. Trust me, there is a lot of bad new age music out there. There is so much bad music that it could not possibly all fit on all the bad CDs. Therefore, some of it had to be squeezed into the good CDs as well. Therefore, it is very difficult to find a purely “good” yoga CD. The CDs I have recommended on my website are (in my humble opinion) good enough to be played in entirety. From the website, you can listen to each song then choose to (1) have the entire CD mailed to you; (2) download the entire CD in MP3 format; or (3) download just the songs you want from any particular CD.

In the many cases where I kept only a song or two from a CD, those CDs are not recommended. Eventually, I hope to make most of those songs available via MP3 and/or class “playlists”. But we are not there yet (and some songs will never be available because the come from obscure artists or out of production albums).

I categorize all the music I play in class into either “yoga” music (which I play during most of the practice) or “meditation” music (which I play during our final relaxation “savasana”). Many artists/CDs overlap into both categories. For presentation purposes, I tried to include the CD in the category it best fits.