In 2018 one event shook the electronic music scene- Avicii had committed suicide, shortly after his close friends reported how happy and inspired he seemed. He retired from playing shows and instead of getting better, it looks like he got worse. The event was quite a shock, but it lead to numerous other electronic musicians to take a break from music and focus on their mental health. Last year Eric Morillo (49) and i_o (30, one of my personal favourites) both committed suicide, along with countless others- the list is too long. What is behind these events? The trend is worrying and uncovers a dangerous truth hidden behind the DJ desks…
Mental health has always been a big issue in the music scene, especially after the rise of popularity in drugs. This is especially prevalent in the electronic/dance scene. The deadliest part of the whole story is the lack of sleep. DJs can sometimes play daily shows up to months at a time, leading to dangerous lack of sleep. They take drugs and drink alcohol in order to keep u with the crowd and also stop themselves from crashing. This is a vicious cycle that leads to many dying and those who survive experience total mental depletion. Burnout, depression and anxiety creep up onto touring DJs, especially on comedown from drugs, and this gets worse and worse with prolonged chemical abuse. On top of that, people in the industry do not seem to have proper support from experts, or refuse to listen until it’s too late.
A big problem in the music industry is that it is heavily populated with 2 high-risk groups- young, inexperienced people and people with previous mental health issues. Living such a high-paced life filled with dangerous temptations will quickly exaggerate mental disorders and on the other side overwhelm the young and developing mind, breeding many insecurities and mental struggles.
Having a public life is a very hard thing to deal with. The most notable example of this is Britney Spears’ breakdown. Though she is a pop star and not an electronic musician, this is quite relevant to this article, as Britney is a musician under heavy public scrutiny. She is a prime example how badly negative press can impact someone’s mental health. On top of that, she is still being controlled by her family and management to an extent. DJs are also heavily directed by their management and this often leads to them feeling powerless, even miserable.
i_o once mentioned in his Tweets how during the times of the pandemic, we can truly see how many people care for us. Those who do will check in on us daily and offer help in any form they can. Unfortunately, one of his last posts on instagram, with a caption “do u ever question ur life” wasn’t taken as a warning sign that he needs checking up on.
This documentary gives an insight behind the scenes and showcases interviews with iconic DJs, like Carl Cox, Pete Tong, Eric Morillo, Seth Troxler, Luciano and other, giving us an insight in how they feel being part of the business:
This second documentary is about the world’s “craziest” DJ, Fat Tony, who claims he had spent over a million pounds on drugs, during his 28 years of using. He clearly shows us how much problems drugs cause to DJs and multiply their mental health struggles:
This article is a reminder to frequently check on your loved ones and make action, don’t just leave them with a few empty words.
Raves are an integral part of today;’s Dance Culture. But how did they come to be? What resulted in a need to “get down” on the dance floor and forget reality for one night? This articles explores the unique and crazy history of raves.
The term “rave” was first used to describe wild bohemian parties in the late 1950s, but it wasn’t until the 80s that the term gained lasting popularity. It still took a few years until the late 80s, when Acid House was born in Chicago, which marks the beginning of raves as we know them today. These raves started out as illegal warehouse parties full of attendees of enhanced states of mind influenced by drugs. Today, raves are much more common and much less often illegal.
In 1985 DJ Pierre (Nathan Jones) bought a Roland TB-303 bass synth at a second-hand shop and experimented with it until he accidentally got the squelchy bassline, which is such a characteristic sound of Acid House. From there on, the number of raves exploded, causing so much late-night ruckus that they attracted police. Laws in England particularly resulted in more and more illegal raves, which made it hard for promoters to organise events in Clubs.
This new sound began with a record produced by Phuture, a group founded by DJ Pierre, Earl “Spanky” Smith Jr., and Herbert “Herb J” Jackson. Newly turned on to the unique sounds of the TB-303, the trio released a demo of ‘Acid Tracks’.
Acid house hadn’t really made a big impact, until a group of four DJs (Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker) took a trip to Ibiza to visit the acclaimed club Amnesia. This is where they heard resident DJs play the “balearic” style- a blend of multiple genres, including the Chicago Acid House. This inspired Danny to start a rave called Shoom in a gym. The sound system used was provided by Carl Cox, another DJ who went on to become a House legend. Ravers were obsessed with a then-new drug called ecstasy. This drug went on to become tightly related to the rave scene. One of the Shoom part tickets had a smiley face on it, which went on to become a trademark sign of the Acid House scene. The late 80s and early 90s was when the era of “dressing down, not dressing up” started. Club-goers were dressing increasingly tribalistic and laid-back.
Teenagers and young adults in a warehouse, dressed up in the recognisable Acid House Smiley gear, as well as other psychedelic-looking outfits.
Organized by production companies, raves began to gain press attention. A popular fanzine written by Paul Oakenfold called Boy’s Own was responsible for publishing the first article on acid house . Boy’s Own also held the first documented outdoor acid rave in 1988. Legend has it that the young Norman Cook – aka Fatboy Slim – was turned onto house music during one of their parties.
Sunrise and Revolution in Progress groups started making bigger parties. They brought raves out of the darkness of illegal warehouses into the light of big public events. Freedom to Party was a huge campaign in Trafalgar Square which influenced the loosening of UK’s licensing laws. Clubs and dance venues were finally allowed to stay open all night long.
The rise of use of drugs and psychedelics in parties gave them a lot of negative press. During the backlash, a UK acid house record managed to break into the mainstream. Produced by a mysterious artist called Humanoid, ‘Stakker Humanoid’ reached #17 on the UK charts in 1988.
During the early 90s, it became much harder to hold one-off events due to new bylaws. However, organizations such as Fantazia, Universe, N.A.S.A. (Nice and Safe Attitude), Raindance, Amnesia House, ESP, and Helter Skelter still managed to hold large-scale legal raves in warehouses and fields.
Genre styles started developing in the scene, and thus happy hardcore was born. In 1992 a bill was passed that allowed police to stop open air parties, or events organised by more than one promoter, as well as people on their way to raves. After 1993, most raves took place in licensed venues, including Helter Skelter, Life at Bowlers, the Edge, The Sanctuary, and Club Kinetic.
During this time, drum and bass emerged from a combination of techno, house and hardcore genres, originating in the UK. Records like The Prodigy’s ‘Jericho’, Rebel MC ‘The Wickedest Sound’ and A Guy Called Gerald ‘Anything’ helped to shape the sound of this genre.
After 1995, DnB got more and more often into house-oriented clubs, starting from the Ministry of Sound. However, the rave as it was back in the day was on a decline due to bad press. An organization called World Dance put on their “last” rave at Lydd Airport. “Here is your last chance before another chapter in ‘Rave History’ comes to an end!” the adverts posted around London proclaimed.
Meanwhile in the US during the 90s the timeline was as follows. A rave scene legend, DJ Scotto, made Manhattan’s first rave at Studio 54 (the Ritz back then). Frankie Bones started his famous Storm Raves in Brooklyn, with DJs Like Josh Wink and Sven Väth. Franky may have been the person behind PLUR
Frankie Bones would go on to start his own successful series of raves in Brooklyn, Storm Raves – where future international DJs like Josh Wink and Sven Väth got a chance to perform. Frankie also allegedly was the man behind the concept of PLUR, having once famously yelled on the microphone during a fight at a Storm Rave: “If you don’t start showing some peace, love, and unity, I’ll break your faces.”
Global Underworld Network was the most famous rave promotion crew. They are behind the OPIUM and NARNIA Festivals that were attended by an astounding 60.000 people. Narnia was featured on MTV and Life Magazine, as well as winning event of the year in 1995. It was dubbed the “Woodstock of Generation X”.
In the 80s and 90s raves were extremely popular in the Bay Area. There was no curfew and soon enough venues had up to 20.000 visitors every weekend. ‘Homebase’, and ’85 & Baldwin’ were two of the biggest venues that raves were held in the Bay Area. California also became notorious for raves.
After a few tragic incidents, the scene was brought to an end- watch this Fox News report from 1998. Even though illegal drugs were part of the scene, most people were there for more than just non-stop partying. It was an experience in its own: seeing your favourite DJs live, as well as MCs from abroad.
The rave scene influenced the emergence of electronic music and made it more mainstream. Even though the golden rave era was back in the 80s and 90s, we still carried over most of its principles into the new age. It is not the same, but all the core principles are still. there. People will always gather in unity to let go of worries and dance together like the unhinged animals we are.
The topic of Dance music culture is incredibly wide and rich in content. This article is the start of a blog series exploring and touching on different point of this Dance culture, ranging from history, geographic differences, external influences and even the consequences of drug presence.
Firstly, the most apparent difference between Europe and the States is in which genres are popular within Dance Music. In Europe, techno, trance, Drum and Bass, and House are way more popular, while in the States, the most popular genres are Future Bass, Dubstep and Trap.
Two festival goers exchange beaded bracelets during the Electric Daisy Carnival, Friday, June 20, 2014, in Las Vegas. Many of the attendees make the bracelets, known as “kandi” to exchange with others at the festival. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Privacy is taken way more seriously in European clubs. I remember from my own experiences (excluding Ibiza) having to sneakily take photos or videos, because camera use was not allowed in a lot of the clubs I visited.
Photo from an indoor festival at Printworks, London. Due to filming restrictions, the atmosphere is free from cellphone flash pollution.
There is a bigger segregation present in the US Clubs. VIP areas are always quite nice and big. Meanwhile, this is much less common in Europe and personally I prefer this type of experience. Money should not be the determining factor of how good a clubbing experience is. The reason for VIP segregation is that there is an obsession with celebrities in the US, while in Europe, people are more down to Earth and do not give so much significance to famous people.
Another significant difference is how hard Europeans “throw it down” in clubs. A lot of the clubs accross Europe are open 24/7 on the weekends (sometimes even workdays) and there is a party going on non-stop. It isn;t uncommon to hear stories of people being in raves for 36 hours straight. most I could handle is 24 hours back home in Bosnia! Meanwhile, most official venues have to close until 4:30 a.m. in the States.
Finally, there is a different in how people dress up, especially in club atmosphere. In the US, one can find numerous ravers dressed in crazy clothing, wigs, etc. In Europe, the most popular clubbing attire is “all black”, which is sort of the unspoken suit of the Techno scene. When it comes to festivals, one specific accessory- Kandi bracelet exchanges are extremely popular in the States and signifiy the PLUR movement, which is a huge part of rave culture. However, these bracelets cannot be found in most European festivals. In general, any type of exchange of items is way more common in the states.
Everybody thinks online marketing is an easy job due to all the social media that are available to us. Just share your releases on Facebook and Instagram, they say. But there is actually so much more work behind a successful promotional campaign, especially if the budget is tight/non-existent. This article will discuss all the possible ways of free promotion, including the timeframe for one campaign. Before starting this process, it is essential to have a digital distributor (for self-releasing).
The first 2-4 weeks of a release promo campaign are what comes before actually releasing anything. The artist should upload their work through their distribution service as a pre-release and set a later release date. This time during the pre-release will be used to garner Spotify saves that are beneficial for the algorithm, as well as pitching your work. It will be important to find promoters, playlists and curators who are willing to include your release on their channels in order to gain you a bigger following post-release. The reason why we leave so much leeway before the release date is because it takes promoters time to come across your submission. Sometimes it can take even 6 weeks. My favourite submission networks for this are LabelRadal and SubmitHub. The first platform gives you access to both labels (if you have unreleased music to pitch) and promoters with YouTube channels, who will share your work if they like it. On SubmitHub, you will find different types of curators- Youtubers, instagram influencers, and Spotify Playlists. Both of these networks allow you to pitch to a certain extent for free, but better features come with a subscription. However, most of the time, I could get away with sticking to the free version, especially on SubmitHub.
The next step is to figure out your social media campaigns. Have a total of 3 announcements- the day of pre-release, one day before the official release, and then finally the day of release. This way you will build up hype and interest. Also, make sure you are always active on your social media and have quality content that grows your following, as well as keeping your engagement up. If your social media is a bit dead, you won’t generate many streams from promotional posts.
Now it’s time to think about Spotify specifically. I focus on this platform because it has shown the most results for my efforts. After the official release date, you will have to search out playlist curators and build real connections with them. This way, you will have someone to come back to time and time again for each next release. Make sure to offer some sort of value proposition to curators, not just blindly begging them to playlist your tracks. Start with smaller playlists and build your way up as your streams grow.
The next thing in mind is to always keep up with how streaming platform algorithms are changing. For example, Spotify recently announced that they will be pushing out artists who agree to forgo some of their streaming profits in return for promotion. This could actually make the popular artists even more popular and the smaller ones will stay small, because they cannot afford to cut their already small profit.
TikTok has become a really important gateway to potential fans. Adding your tracks to their library opens up the possibility of your track going viral. For example, tiktokers tend to come up with trends that are copied by many other users on the platform. Often, these trends include a specific track or song. It is important to make sure that music you are submitting to TikTok is either “memeable” or that is has a potential for popular appeal.
Lastly, if all of this seems too complicated or like a lot of work, I would suggest one more step that is paid. This step may help you get much further, as it takes away the promo burden off of you and let’s you focus on music production instead. Get yourself a virtual music manager. One great example is https://www.thevirtualmanager.co.uk/ which have a monthly fee of 24 GPB, or 240 for a yearly plan (2 free months + a free 1-on-1). Personally, I consider this the next step after self-promotion, which will open many more doors for your music.
For all of the steps to work, be realistic to yourself and objectively determine whether your music is of high quality or not. Quality comes before anything else.
Using our voice or even any other random sound as an instrument is not really a new thing. Music producers often make synths by sampling their own voice, which is a fun approach to sound design. Moreover, beatboxers are capable of creating quite realistic drum sounds with their voice. But, have you ever wondered if it is possible to turn any sound into an actual instrument- like a trumpet, violin or such? Well, now you can!
Two teams within Google Research- Magenta and AIUX collaborated on creating Tone Transfer, which took over a year to develop. This little software allows you to transform everyday sounds into instruments, like the trumpet, violin or flute. The way the algorithm works is by transferring the formants of the selected instrument onto the sound recording that is fed into the software. The results vary, but are sometimes very accurate. However, even if they give a weird result, most of the time the newly synthesised sounds are quite cool for integration into electronic music.
The project is based on Magenta’s Differentiable Digital Signal Processing (DDSP) technology. AIUX helped make it user-friendly, so that it can be used by a wider audience, not just experienced developers. Their current online web app has a limited array of 4 instruments, with the possibility to upload your own and train the algorithm yourself. The algorithm was trained with 10-minute long samples for each of the instruments that are currently available.
There is still a long way to go and the research teams state that this is just the beginning of their plans. Tone transfer is not perfect yet, as it struggles with volume/dynamics of samples it is fed with. It also cannot superimpose attenuations of each specific instrument on the input sound, so it may not always sound realistic. The trumpet sounds the best with vocals. I presume it is because pushing out air into trumpets and while signing produce similar dynamics and volume changes.
This project is a great example of how useful machine learning can be in a multitude of situations. Software like the Tone Transfer could open up possibilities of unique live performances with generated instrument sounds that cannot be achieved with traditional instruments. Below you can watch a demonstration of how this software looks and works:
Or in other words: How to correctly pitch your songs to professionals
Due to a recent achievement, which is having my newest song being played on radio FM4 multiple times and giving an interview on it, i thought I’d share my knowledge.
Tools that help pitching
Before talking about pitching to FM4 or in general to radio stations, I’d like to show you two of the most known alternative options, which require far less work.
SubmitHub
This site lets you submit to bloggers, labels, YouTubers, playlisters, influencers and radio stations (small ones though). When creating your account you get a few credits which then can be spent on different people and networks – usually the bigger ones cost a little more. This site might look overwhelming at first but has a lot of great features! Unfortunately, you can’t really send your music to many outlets without purchasing some premium credits. The average approval rate on standard credits is 4%, as opposed to 18% on premium. So, the free credits don’t do as well but still, they do something. And if you only want to target a specific YouTube channel for example this would be perfectly sufficient.
LabelRadar
In contrary to SubmitHub, LabelRadar is far more minimalistic and easy-to-use. Now, don’t get fooled by the name – of course you can send your music to labels, but to promoters as well! Like the previous one, this website gives you a few credits when you start out, but you can send you music into a general pool where the labels or promoters don’t get notified but can browse through. And if you spend all of your credits, they will send you 5 new ones once a month.
Pitching to big radio stations
Okay, so get your pen and paper ready – you’ll want to follow this as closely as possible. I have heard of cases where radio stations did not listen to a track simply because it was in a zip file. This is understandable considering they have to listen to huge amounts of tracks every day. So, as artists it is our job to make it as easy as possible for them to listen to our songs. And we can do that with email and a link to a Dropbox folder. More on that later. Below is a list of what you need but I will get into detail anyway.
the song (obviously)
artwork
either a classic Press Kit
or an EPK
professional press photos
The song
Obviously your song has to fit in the radio station’s program. Ideally you have heard something similar in the past few weeks, which is something you can then refer to in your email. In your Dropbox folder add the file as an mp3 and as a wav (one for listening and one for actually airing it). Be sure to add as many id3 tags as possible. This can be done with software like AudioShell. As wav files don’t really support much tagging I always provide a flac file as well so that the tags appear as well as it being a lossless file. If your mp3 is smaller than 10MB (with id3 tags) then you can add it as an attachment to your email.
Artwork
The most important Artwork is your cover – including this is a must. Any other stuff you have might work as well. Don’t add your “coming soon” banners, but if you have a Spotify Canvas or something then they might look at it and maybe even share it.
Classic press kit
This is a one page A4 document containing all the information for your release. At the beginning of the press kit you’ll want to show all the basic info like your release title, cover, artist name, release date, label name, IRSC and UPC/EAN. Then add a short biography and a list of previous releases. Finally add some contact info. In my case including my phone number resulted in a spontaneous call where we did an interview.
Here is an example showing the press kit for my latest release “With You”:
Press Kit for “With You” – right click -> view image to make it bigger
And one more thing: don’t shift the design around too much. The radio stations will want to open a press kit and just look at a certain point rather than searching for the info!
EPK
EPK stands for electronic press kit. If you have a classic press kit you won’t need an EPK but I usually to do both. Essentially the EPK is the same as a classic press kit, but it being online comes with a few advantages: You can embed your music and let it autoplay when opening the webpage. Your songs can directly be downloaded with a button. And you can make fancy galleries with your press photos!
Here is an example, again for “With You”:
Screenshot of my EPK for “With You”right click -> view image to make it bigger
Whether you want to offer the complete song as a download or not is up to you. If you are concerned about other people finding this page and downloading your music I have a suggestion for you: Either you use a file sharing service and just don’t offer it on your site. Or you do the more elegant way and use some PHP coding / WordPress plugin installing. I’m using Members to create a custom group for press, promoters, etc. Then I’ll set up a temporary login link for that user group. Finally, to hide the page from normal users, I’m using Visibility Logic for Elementor (and Elementor Page Builder obviously).
Press photos
There’s not much to talk about this one but be sure to have them somewhere ready to be viewed and downloaded!
The email
Now that you have all the parts prepared let’s talk about the email. The most important thing to remember is the KISS Principle (Keep It Short and Simple)! Describe your song in about one to two sentences and then add the link(s). Then thank them for listening and that’s it! As mentioned above, if your mp3 (including id3 tags like the artwork) is smaller than 10MB you can add it as an attachment.
Now about the links: If you have an EPK you should add the link to it here. The other link will be to your folder on Dropbox or other providers and this should contain the audio files, the cover, the press kit and if applicable a txt with the lyrics. I also like to include a shortcut to my EPK but this is probably not very useful as the link is already in the email.
And that’s it. If you have done everything correctly send you music about 1.5 to 2.5 weeks before the release date. And then you’ll have to play the waiting game – with a bit of luck you’ll have your music on FM4 (or any other radio station). Let me know in the comments if this was helpful to you and whether you plan to send something to a radio station or if you already had something played on air!
Music is a big part of almost everyone’s life. We all listen to at least one song a day. So, why do we choose specific songs over others and add them to our playlists? Of course, it mostly has to do with personal taste, which is shaped by our life experience, culture and what we emotionally resonate with.
When we listen to music, we often generate multi-sensory experiences that come from the stimulation of our creativity. Most often, people yearn for a visual output for music, hence why we created visual shows. Good visuals make music even more gripping and stimulating to the senses.
So, what role does synaesthesia play in the perception of music? In its self, it’s an interesting concept, but once put into practice, it makes music much more attractive for listeners.
Synaestietic musicians see notes as colors or vice-versa. Chords can also each have their own specific colour.
Many famous musicians say that they have a form of synaesthesia, which makes a lot of sense. Synaesthetes build their art around their multi-sensory experience and thus make music a bit more unique.
An example of how synaesthetic music is different is when an artists “hears” colour and integrates this experience into their work. The synaesthetic experience is slightly different for each person, which leads to different musicians producing different interpretations of their conditions. Someone might see music in colour, like Mary J Blige, and someone, like Billie Eilish, might first start making music and then connect it to colour.
Why does music produced by synaesthetes have a competitive edge? Jamie Ward (cognitive neuroscience, University of Sussex) explains that synaesthetic music can have an impact on the listening choice in non-synaesthetes. He has observed how people always seem to prefer a synaesthete’s work over a non-synaesthete. Most people simply find their work “more aesthetic”. The following video gives more details about this phenomenon.
Resources:
Gordon, Eden Arielle Gordon Arielle. “15 Iconic Musicians with Synesthesia.” Popdust, 6 Jan. 2020, www.popdust.com/15-iconic-musicians-with-synesthesia-2643790427.html.
You have just released your new Single, are super proud of it and now want to share it with the whole world. So how do you do that? Posting 20 different links for Spotify & co isn’t really an option. Especially when Instagram only allows you to post one link in your Bio. Creating your own website which providers all the links wouldn’t be that much work. If you know some HTML and CSS you could have a basic layout very fast. And using libraries like W3.CSS or a CMS like WordPress gets you there even faster.
That would actually be a good way to go if you didn’t have to do the whole process of looking up your release on every major platform, copying the link and pasting it into your website. Now repeat this for every release. But of course there are stores like Pandora, which are not available in your country, which means you’d need to set up a VPN to get a link from there.
There is a better way to do this: smart links!
What are smart links?
Smart links are a tool that takes all the work described above away! They provide you with one link and show all the shops you’d want to list. And the best part: They collect the links automatically, so you just enter your info once!
Here’s the catch: The most popular services, have fees like linkfire‘s monthly $10. And with those 10$ you can’t add your own stores. Your distributor might offer a similar service. These are most of the time included in your plan. Below are two examples using my own songs.
“Hyperfollow” – The smart link system by DistroKid
“Link-it!” – The smart link system by Feiyr
Smart link systems by different distributors
The big problem with both, paid and free services, is the branding. At least the URL will always reveal that this is some third party product.
And now that you know what’s out there we can talk about my approach!
Smart links without branding: the Black Paper Songlink Plugin for WordPress
First let’s talk about the name: Black Paper was one of my labels at the time of creation and I actually initially developed this plugin solely for it’s website. Black Paper has since been replaced by fs7 Audio. Songlink was a free smart links service, which since got a rebranding. It works the same but is now called odesli (On Demand Smart Links).
Okay. So how does it work?
First of all: Here is the GitHub page where you can download the code as a zip. Right now this is very rough – but it works! So I currently do not have any plans to further develop this. The way it works is that it accesses the odesli API once and saves all links into a json file. You can then access this json from anywhere on your site with a shortcode and it displays all links. Here are two images showing the magic:
When EditingHow it’s Rendered
Let’s look at how to create such a json
When you have uploaded all the files and activated the plugin, create a new private page. It’s important that this is private because it just serves to create the json files and nothing more. You probably do not want your vistitors to see this. Add the BP Songlink Widget to your site and you can start filling your details in. The “Widget Title” field will be the name which is later called by the shortcode. And in the “spotifyuri” you can paste your songs link from any platform – not just Spotify!
This is how your Widget should look like when filled out!
The fileds “beatport”, “juno” and “traxsource” have to be filled manually as these links do not get collected by odesli. And in the “class” field you can add any CSS classes you have defined in your child theme’s stylesheet. This is where you can get creative and customize everything to perfectly fit into your website!
And now you are done! Head over to wherever you want your links to be displayed and just add a [songlink title=your-title] shortcode!
It is widely known that music can make us feel good. However, it can actually do much more than just that- it has healing powers when used strategically! Sound healing is a branch of alternative medicine that uses certain types of music for the purpose of physical and emotional healing. This can be done with the help of a trained professional.
Healing music dates all the way back to ancient Greece. Since then, it has been used for a slew of reasons- to boost soldier morale, improve work efficiency and was even believed to offer protection from evil spirits.
Sound healing and meditation go hand-in-hand. Professionals heavily encourage meditation and laying down when in a sound healing session. The deeper the patient is in their meditation, the more vibrations they can feel. One time, I experienced such a deep vibrational state, that I floated on clouds and felt my body vibrating for 3 days. It felt as if I had a shield to protect me from all outside stressors, and I could absolutely not act in any way other than calm. It was tear-jerkingly beautiful.
Nowadays, as our life becomes more fast-paced and stress increases, it gives rise to anxiety and depression. People are also decreasingly connected with nature and our instincts. Technology is taking over our life. Sound healing helps combat these conditions and also widens our perspective and reactivates our inner primal world. Sometimes, not thinking and not planning- simply existing can be better for our mental health than anything else.
In this post, you will find videos on some of the many exotic instruments that are used in sound therapy. Some of the most famous sound healing instruments include: Tibetan signing bowls, koshi bells/chimes, handpans, the kalimba, gong, tuning forks, rain sticks and ocean drums.
The first healing instrument I had experienced live were the singing bowls. There are two kinds I ran across- the crystal bowls and the Tibetan bowls. The first video showcases the classical Tibetan bowls and the second one includes crystal bowls:
My favourite healing instrument is the hang drum. It comes in 2 different variations- the PanArt hang drum (the more expensive and better-sounding one) and the Rav Vast. The following video is the first ever hang drum video I discovered when I just got introduced to healing music. It is perhaps the most famous hang drum performance on YouTube.
This video is a meditative piece made with “Water” Koshi bells- one of the four types of tuning available for these bells (water, fire, earth, wind).
The Bajinn looks quite unusual- it consists of tubes, a round frame and strings that hold it together. Here is a little demonstration of its sound:
Sources:
Santos-Longhurst, Adrienne. “The Uses and Benefits of Music Therapy.” Healthline, 27 Jan. 2020, www.healthline.com/health/sound-healing.
Estrada, Jessica. “3 Ways to Bring Your Body Vibrational Balance Using Sound Healing Therapy.” Well+Good, 26 Mar. 2020.
