Yoga Music Blog

If you appreciate Yoga Music that is evocative of peace and spaciousness, then you might consider adding Om Deeksha to your Yoga music collection.

Om Deeksha offers ten tracks that range from uplifting celebratory chants, to meditative moving soundscapes. Om Deeksha is a blend of vocals, keyboards, strings, percussion, Indian instruments, nature sounds, and more.

Featuring the gentle influence of Maneesh de Moor's production style and the voices of Deva Premal, Sudha, Sri Anandagiri-ji, Yogini, Sri Krishnaraj-ji, and Anette Carlström, Om Deeksha gives you a aural taste of the spiritual phenomenon known as deeksha. But even if you are unaware of, or don't resonate with the deeksha movement, this album is an excellent musical tool for your Yoga practice, meditation, healing, or even as a sound track to a romantic evening.

Born in the Netherlands, Maneesh mastered the art of sound synthesis and sound sculpturing after studying in the classical and pop/world genres of music. He specializes in the fusion of ethnic styles and contemporary atmospheres and grooves. Over the years he has collaborated with many musicians from around the world. (Sudha, Praful, Bahramji, Deva Premal & Miten, Prem Joshua amongst many others)

Maneesh is a specialist in creating and manipulating sound and draws on a huge collection synthesizers and effects as well as infinite sample libraries to achieve his signature sound. "Anything is possible... I love the cutting edge as much as I love the pristine beauty and purity of a great acoustic recording. In music production, there's a wide array of possibilities to choose from...These days more than ever, with all new technology being developed every day. As a producer and arranger, I take on the responsibility to make the most qualified choices in sound and arrangement, in full, flexible and easygoing communication with my clients."

Click on the link below and preview the tracks on Om Deeksha. I'm sure you'll agree that these are a collection of Yoga music tracks that are at the same time diverse, and yet interconnected.

The Yoga Music Blog wants to take this opportunity to let you know that YogiTunes.com was unveiled at Wanderlust Yoga Festival recently. YogiTunes is a new Web based concept with downloadable music in many genres, including a unique feature, downloadable Yoga teacher playlists. The site will also offer Yoga clothing, mats and other products to support the Yoga lifestyle.

I've watched my friend Alex King-Harris (performing solo and with Desert Dwellers as Rara Avis) work his butt off over the past couple of years helping to get all the pieces in place for this great Yoga music Web destination. It's off to a great start, and promises to continue to evolve into a place we can all count on for some of the best Yoga music tunes available anywhere.

The Press notice below layous out the details better then I could.

Alex King-Harris, Craig Kohland, and Amani Friend, three of the nation’s most prominent yoga music composers and performers, announced today the launch of YogiTunes, a digital download store featuring US and world music specifically selected to complement yoga, dance, meditation, massage, and a wellness-based lifestyle.

“Yoga has seen such explosive growth over the past few years, and so there is a real need for a service like YogiTunes that provides the curated focus that we do”

The co-founders bring over 15 years of industry leading experience in creating and recommending music for top yoga instructors. Their custom designed digital music store will appeal to health and sustainability enthusiasts who want specifically filtered content to complement and enhance their lifestyle needs.

With thousands of handpicked albums and artists, YogiTunes launches with a huge pool of music that will be constantly evolving with fresh deliveries from a wide array of record labels. YogiTunes fairly compensates artists and record labels with prevailing rates in the digital download industry – encouraging news for music fans who want to sustain a broad based wealth of great music.

One of the highlights of YogiTunes is the Yoga Teacher Playlist – a selection of songs picked by yoga instructors for use in their classes. What makes a good yoga playlist is its ability to follow and support the various intensities of a yoga routine. Health and sustainability enthusiasts are typically first exposed to the music attending classes or workshops, but often don’t know where to buy the compilations of their instructors.

YogiTunes solves this by featuring the playlists of certified yoga instructors across the country for students and other teachers to purchase and download. A broad group of the most highly respected teachers in the country and around the world have signed up and will be creating playlists on a regular basis. Shiva Rea, Sadie Nardini, and Hemalayaa Behl are just a few of the world-renowned instructors featured on the site.

“Yoga has seen such explosive growth over the past few years, and so there is a real need for a service like YogiTunes that provides the curated focus that we do,” said Alex King-Harris, CEO and co-founder of YogiTunes. “The value we bring is our seasoned ability to both create and recommend contextually specific songs for teachers. As well, YogiTunes is run and supported entirely by active members of the yoga community who are dedicated to fostering community and positive social change through the power of music and yoga.”

The founders have collectively produced, contributed to, and recorded over 70 releases under various names including Rara Avis, Shaman’s Dream, and Desert Dwellers. They frequently are featured at major yoga retreats and gatherings. YogiTunes was unveiled at Wanderlust California in Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, among the nation’s premier yoga and music festivals.

"Total treat – we now have an actual music headquarters for the yoga community, where we can all share and listen to what's inspiring our colleagues,” said Elena Brower, founder and co-owner of ViraYoga in New York City and the 2010 Global Yoga Ambassador for Addidas. “YogiTunes will undoubtedly create more cohesiveness and creativity in the yoga and wellness space. It really is a privilege to be here at the inception of this incredible concept."

In addition to yoga-inspired music, YogiTunes offers unique, music-inspired merchandise and yoga apparel with a focus on eco-friendly, competitively priced products. Their goal is to infuse the creative energy of the music community into products that blend the essence of both yoga and music into an on-going YogiTunes signature series of goods.

The site was created with the support from some of the leading developers and strategists in the music and yoga industry, who have collectively been behind successes such as Earthdance International, eMusic.com, WhiteSwan Records, Six Degrees Records, YAMA Talent, LA Yoga Magazine, Wanderlust, and other leading niche music services.

Asudha, is translated as Bliss, and the title is more than appropriate for this musical yogic journey.

Temple rhythms, trip hop and downtempo beats, angelic melodies and open, trance-based arrangements provide an excellent bed for yoga and other wellness practices, or for just simply chilling out to as a soundtrack to your daily existence.

Everything on this release is great, but track highlights for me are:

Bhodi Tree Dub (Visions Mix) by Desert Dwellers - evocative flutes, tanpura, tabla, chanting voices and electronica create an exotic aural tapestry for yoga or movement.

Temple Gateway by Shaman's Dream - rich pads, tasty percussion, sensuous flutes, perfectly placed electronica and female voices echoing throughout the mix.

Waves of Reflection by Desert Dwellers - this is classic Desert Dwellers with slow hypnotic arpeggios weaving in and around percussion, flutes and synth motifs.

In Asudha, music producer Amani Friend (Desert Dwellers) has woven together a yantric tapestry of pranic elements, along with fellow Yogitunes collaborators Craig Kohland (Shaman's Dream) and Rara Avis (Desert Dwellers). Cave Dwellings, a track by Liquid Bloom is also included.

The album Selwa is a collection of beautiful, haunting chants that evoke an ambient peacefulness and inner calm. The instrumental arrangements are appropriately sparse, creating a perfect vehicle for the expressive voice of Choying Drolma.

It continues to remain in my mix of favorite yoga music because of the timeless quality of the arrangements, and also because it's clear to me that this is more than just notes and melodies.

This music creates a serene atmosphere for yoga or reflection, and is also perfectly suitable for just listening in front of a good sound system.

Choying Drolma, was born in Kathmandu to Tibetan exiles who fled the Cultural Revolution in 1959. She was accepted as a nun in a Tibetan Monasterey at an early age where she was instructed in monastic rituals and meditation, which included chants. (Tibetans do not regard this as folk music, but rather perceive the depth of meaning in these chants as capable of enhancing understanding and transforming ordinary experience.)

In 1994 guitarist Steve Tibbetts visited her remote monastery where he recorded the music, brought it home and later added the guitars and other instruments that resulted in their first collaboration called Cho.

Marc Anderson provided the percussion.

On the track, Misty Mountain from the album DownTemple Dub: Waves by Desert Dwellers, they push the boundaries of Yoga music into a new realm of musical fusion they call “Yoga Dub”.

This track is a prime example of their electronic devotional music blending rhythmic ambience with traditional instruments such as subahar, tabla, udu, erhu, cello and voice. To give a listen to this and other tracks from the album on iTunes, simply click the button below.