A student in my class this week asked me to recommend some music for her home practice. She liked some of the ambient sounds that I use in class and disliked some others. That was fine with me; choice in music is such a personal, visceral thing that it’s hard to always explain why a piece of music pleases you. I shared with her a few ideas and cautioned her that just because you like to listen to a certain piece of music does not mean that it suits your yoga practice.
Later that night, I was reflecting upon this conversation and found that it was quite a strange thing for me to be talking about music in a yoga class. I began my yogic studies with teachers of Iyengar yoga, who are, in my opinion, the most learned and best trained teachers in the world. For years, I attended classes, workshops and trainings where there was NO MUSIC at all! Since this was my formative experience, I did not find this to be strange at all. Years later, I began attending Vinyasa and other Hatha Yoga classes where the teachers played music: chants, sounds of nature and traditional Indian songs. At first, I found it distracting! I could not hear the instructions from the teachers and I felt that the rhythm and energy of the music was forcing my mind to pay attention to something outside of my practice. As time went on, I became more comfortable with the music and learned how to use it to help rather than hinder my asana practice.
When I practice at home, however, I do not play any music in my space. The silence is very powerful and acts as a great foil for the thoughts that come and go during the yogasana. I am certainly not opposed to having sounds in the background, but I find that for my intensive, introspective work at home, the music is not only unneeded but can be distracting. I like to hear the sound of my breath resonating in my skull; I like to hear any sounds that my body makes in space.
For my public group classes, I have taken to using music about half of the time. Most often, these are instrumentals and are frequently more sedate tunes rather than fast, rhythmic pieces. The choice to have music or not really depends on what I am doing in class; a flowing, dynamic class lends itself well to musical accompaniment and my instructions are minimal, so are not as easily lost. When I am conducting a class that is heavy with attention to alignment, I want the students to hear me and hear me clearly, so the music may be too distracting.
While living in Los Angeles, I attended a class taught by a hugely popular teacher at a hip yoga studio. The class was huge and we were crammed together with mats touching when the class began. The teacher strode in with some haste, plugged in his IPod and the music started as the class began. I had to fight back the laughter as U2 echoed out of the speakers. The soundtrack of the class was contemporary popular music. I felt like I was at a singles club and that we had all traded our cocktails for yoga mats. Weird. This, I thought, was not a good use of music! I never returned to that class.
I would advise that you try practicing both with and without any music during your home practice. Also, experiment with a variety of musical styles to see how they affect your practice. You will find that you have a strong preference for silence or sound, but each has something unique and beneficial to offer.
Peace!
Trent