2018 — Meditations

NV means no vocals.

In this year I am developing a new form of music. I don’t really know what to call the process I’ve developed. It might be Telepathy Music, Clairvoyance Music or a musical form of Automatic Writing Music.

1. I sit down with my keyboard already hooked up to my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation—Cubase Pro 11).
2. I close my eyes and do my best to stop thinking. I especially don’t want to think of any music.
3. I open my eyes, click RECORD and just play. I don’t know what I’m going to play in advance, the music just comes out of nowhere. I think of these events as being contacted by my Muse or musical guide. Sometimes I think (but don’t know) that one of my Muses is the departed composer John Barry. I could be wrong—but I don’t think so considering the nature of the melodies.
4. Later I listen and try to perfect the idea a little.
5. For Meditations, I use libraries of nature sounds to give the portion I create a “bed” or a “home.”

Clicking “Play The Meditations,” (above) will open a new browser window and display all the meditations sound files. Clicking on a sound file will open a black window with an mp3 player playing the selection you clicked. While listening, you can switch windows and otherwise use your computer. If you want to skip a meditation, return to the player window and click the browser’s BACK button and click another selection next.

These are VERY long “songs”—25 minutes or longer in most cases. If you have a set of speakers on either side of your bed and play these mediations at whisper volumes using an mp3 player you will enter dream-land fairly soon according to our experimentations. If you have noisy neighbors, just turn the volume up.

I did these mixes using an Envelope Follower I invented inside Cubase Pro 8. When the nature sounds get slightly louder, the music instantly gets slightly louder too. When the nature sounds fade some, the music fades too.

To me, it sounds like living in a guest house on a peninsula where there’s surf on both sides, wind, rain and sometimes a running brook. The mellow sounds from the “main house” are just barely coming through under the sounds of nature. I find the effect very reassuring and calming. I hope you do too.

Enjoy!

These recordings are available only on a flash drive (thumb drive). To purchase all of them, use the “Add to cart” button below. The songs are WAY too big to fit on a CD. With the flash drive, you can put the songs into your computer or iPod. Unlike a CD, you can reuse the flash drive you receive.

— Sherman Barry —