Speaking of music

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for music for prayer and meditation--gregorian chant and the like. So far I've been stuck with Enya.

Don't mock--Enya and the Celtic Christmas CD's enabled me to get through childbirth. That and the epidurals, of course.

But I need more variety.

but I am going to back you up on Enya, I love her voice and music style.

I have her on my MP3 player.

Also, There is something powerful about Gregorian chant.
Sound is very important to how we operate as human and effects us greatly.

Have you ever read Anam Cara, by John O'Donahue (sp?). He talks about Celtic spirituality the soul's need for music.

but a quick preview chapter from amazon showed that it would/will be interesting reading, thank you.

I am big on Sound and it's effects, from a scientific view as the Law of vibrations and from the Emotion and spiritual in it's effects
on our Being but, I don't want to hijack your thread as you asked a question of which I do not have an answer.

no mocking coming from me. I enjoy Celtic music. Have you heard of Celtic Woman? They had a special on PBS:
http://www.celticwoman.com/trellis/Homepage

the works of the Taize community. Excellent music.

cradlerc wrote:I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for music for prayer and meditation--gregorian chant and the like. So far I've been stuck with Enya.

I mentioned in another thread that I have been listening to a lot more classical music lately and oftentimes I feel spiritually moved while listening to it. Although I can't think of many times that I deliberately made it part of my prayer or mediation time. The one exception is a few times that I have been in the adoration chapel and needed to quite my mind down a little bit, or drown out the outside noise, and turned to my mp3 player.

One composer to consider would be Bach. He seemed to write a lot of music that had spiritual connotations. I found this old article from the NY Times that offers some information about him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/arts/music-coming-to-fresh-terms-with-the-sacred-in-bach.html

Peace.

:cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

...Country and Western. (anybody seen the Blues Brothers?)

A couple of songs to listen to that have wonderful harmonies are: Linda Ronstadt, "By the Rivers of Babylon", a song about Jewish captivity in Babylon. This was on her "Hasten Down the Wind" album. Another is by Allison Krause, "Down to the River" (think I havethe title right), an old Southern gospel song. This song is on the "O'Brother Where Art Thou'" sound track. It is sung acapala (sp).

I will have to listen to Austen's suggestions. I haven't heard much Christian music done well.

I really like harmonies.

would qualify as Christian music if you are thinking of that as lyrics set to rock beats. John Michael Talbot, is, of course, a Christian. He is a Catholic who founded a mixed community of Catholic people under vows. The words of the songs are based on scripture as well as writngs of St. Paul, Theresa of Avila and others. The Taize community was started by a man who was RC, but the community is interfaith now, I believe. Their music-which sounds like it grew out of an apprecaition for Gregorian chants-is based on a number of Psalms and other parts of services from the Benedictine tradition. I have never seen Taize in your average CD store. I think you need to order it on line. Talbot is more generally available as he is the best known Catholic recording artist in the world, I think. His personal story is very inspiring.