Welcome!
Welcome! The purpose of creating a webpage of music is that I found I wanted to have a separate home for the music of Sound After Silence. I used to have this music on streaming, but I took it all down, and now someone else uses the same name, it appears. That is not me. This is the only place to find this music.
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One more note before reading on: given that most people don't have tics, many people do have racing minds. I do believe that (for the purpose of this music applying to others) there are somewhat similar qualities between tics and racing or ruminating minds. I believe this music could help those with racing minds as well, so if it speaks to you more, feel free to replace the words "tics" with racing or ruminating minds as you read on.
Having said all of that, I just wanted to give this music some space to be more of an intentional listening experience. I think that too often we turn on the radio and just want to be entertained. I wanted to create a safe place for people to really wind down. I realize not everyone needs to wind down by turning on their computer, going to a website and listening to music. However, if a song on this site is relaxing, and you accidentally fall "half-asleep" (or fully asleep), you won't have a loud commercial following to alarm you, or another random song following. Just soak up that stillness with your silent headphones hugging the ears. (It should be noted that the music on this website may have very little impact or resonance if listening from the built in speakers of the smartphone or computer, although you still could. But in that case, I think the main point is being missed).
Note: I find there is a "sweet spot" of volume level for each song, where it can either feel hypnotic or annoying. Or, if some notes or sounds feel aggravating, you might just have it playing a bit too loud than it was intended to be heard. Each song is a little bit different too, with how it was mixed and mastered. So play with volume levels and what feels most intuitive.
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If you pressed play on "Dreaming in Melody" and are listening, and wondering where the music disappeared off to, well it did not disappear. It went into the ambient distance of Mono sound, or the center of our perception and away from hugging the ears constantly. Then it came back to your ears, especially if you are wearing headphones, you'll hear it or understand it more. A good analogy is with massage therapy, a therapist pulls the fascia apart or sometimes stretches or lengthens it. The music, when it moves away from your ears and into the forward distance away from your third eye, is almost "stretching the brain", or stretching into new perception. This is mostly for someone with tics, where the energetic of the tics are lodged or stuck, or "dammed" in one place in the brain. This is just one aspect of my audio engineering for rhythmic healing purposes. Not only are there rhythms every second with guitar melodies on repeat, but there are often also slower rhythms present behind the faster ones. I find that if I can create rhythms that ebb and flow, stimulate and then travel far away, or move from side to side, then the music can sort of polish the mind in a way. This has really helped me to heal and understand my own tics better and what they respond to. Each song that goes on this site was made for the purpose of engaging with and helping to heal this phenomenon in my head. The tics actually inform the music for me, and the music cancels the tics out, at least while I am creating the tunes, or listening back again. Sometimes while I am creating the base layer of song, I almost fall asleep during creation. But a lot of them are "one take" so I can't allow myself to fall asleep when recording.
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As I see that it applies for everyone else, this is just an experiment. But I know that for myself, it is very real, and I often feel tangible immediate results when I listen to a song. The music is maybe just an open door, or an entry point to experience something new. I want to be clear that this webpage is for all people. All are welcome here to experience whatever they may. The pieces of music should feel relaxing. Sometimes, by laying down and using headphones, it could potentially enhance the passive meditative experience. At the very bottom of the website, there are pieces of rhythmic sound and tune from a Moog Matriarch.
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There are hidden "play button" tracks throughout the site, and many behave like shooting stars!
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Researching Melodic Sound Patterns for Involuntary Tics
The music is an evolving research experiment more specifically aimed at using myself as a guinea pig for study.
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The music I have created also morphs in a nonlinear fashion, much like tics also morph and evolve (over time). The goal is to have an extra tool (in this music) for temporarily re-patterning the brain's fixed rigid state and encourage elasticity, or movement. It is almost the same thing when you sink into meditation and feel really relaxed. A person who has never experienced life without tics, however, would probably struggle with any sitting in silence or meditation. That's half of the reason why I wrote this music, aside from other personally spiritual reasons. I had to match the nature of the tics with a soothing form, thus creating elasticity, stretching the mind, or making new pathways. When I created this music, I was typically engaged in an internal process with my own mind, and I was listening to myself for what settled them while I was creating it.
If at any time, any of the music aggravates you in any way, please stop listening to it immediately. Everyone is unique and not all types of sound will be good for everyone. This is why I am researching in the first place, and I have never interacted with anyone else with tics, or talked about it (with someone who also has them). So I only have my own experience to work with.
A Homeopathic Approach
Aside from learning how to ground oneself, and working with experienced energy practitioners, oftentimes I find that I need an entry point or something to grab a hold of my actual brain, and pull it back to normal functioning. Music has always helped me to cope.
A sense of chaotic "soothing" stimuli is often what does the trick for me, matching the quality of the tics. For instance, an array of chimes or bells jingling together to "catch" or "match" the mind of someone with tics, and then drag the mind into soothing calm tones, or something more peaceful. I find that sometimes, the tics are so loud in my head and so dominant that I need to "match" them with even more dominant and homeopathic sounds. A good example of this type of "loudness war" would be heard in "Meditation Journey: Part 2". To a listener without tics, I could imagine it may sound chaotic at times, and maybe not even relaxing (I'm not really sure). But this is all geared more toward catching a hold of a chaotic mind, and slowing its gears down.
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I find soothing repetition to be deeply healing. If we can say, "hey tics, over here," by mimicking them with certain repetitive sounds, it gets their attention. Then the tics say, "well, what can you show me? Show me something new." The tics monster just wants to be shown something new (The experience of tics is sort of like having a monster living inside your head, attacking you). So the repetition evolves. It changes. It morphs into a steady bass tone. It takes someone's mind with tics, and brings them on a journey somewhere new. But the person with this type of imbedded neurological issue can't just start out in that calm place. Its a journey. First, they must be seen and acknowledged, or matched by the sounds coming out of the speakers or headphones. Then they can move onward to something else, and hopefully, even for a short amount of time, maybe it brings some relief. If we can then find relief repetitively, we can begin to learn how to heal ourselves on a deeper level.
Use of Stimuli, Trauma-Based Therapies, and Long Tide
In "Meditation Journey: Part 2," I did not make use of repetition very much, but I attempted to make use of some of the theories of trauma based therapies, and an underlying sound layer of 50 second "inhalation and exhalation" cycles of Long tide rhythm in Craniosacral therapy. It sounds relaxing, but even so, I think that some parts of the music can feel mildly intense with stimuli. But again, that is to "trigger" or match someone with tics as I have stated before with the Homeopathic Approach. With EMDR, there is a side to side phenomenon (I think this is actually called "Bilateral Stimulation" with regards to sound), and this piece of music (and other songs) routinely moves around in different perspectives, sometimes side to side, and sometimes stereo to mono. Or stretching out "overstimulating" frog sounds with delay and reverb. This is to reprogram the stimuli. Its as if to say, "hey, you can live your life with stimuli, but we just need to reprogram your mind to understand the stimuli differently." That is the purpose of stimuli within the music I compose.
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After I created this website, I realized that there is so much music out there, and I have been in my own bubble of creation for so long (partly because researching other music online was just one out of many things that caused tics). Needless to say, I've become incredibly unaware of other musicians out there. I have taken an interest in some artists using the Moog Matriarch synthesizer in a soothing repetitive way. A lot of the relaxing music online just doesn't address the monster in my head. But I have found these pieces of music and visuals (links below) to be effective if I am having a hard time.
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OTHER Artists (YouTube LINKS BELOW) Making Music that Resonates
For Tics and Racing Minds
With analog synthesizers, the patches are loaded in very specific settings, and then maybe the artist presses a couple of keys, and the machine is off and running infinitely, just to give a basic explanation of what you are hearing and seeing. For someone suffering with tics, I believe this could be listened to as a general calming rhythm of waves. The repetition is present, and it is much slower and calmer. I find that wave-like patterns can be very healing for tics. More specifically, in the second YouTube listing, some of the sounds really "cut" through the mind of having tics, without overstimulating or actually triggering tics and thus instantly settling them. This is a difficult and very specific quality of sound for me to find.
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I find this visual helps if you have some intense tics or activity in your head, or have lost sense of your body or where you're at in space. It seems to give way toward a quality of eye movement used with EMDR. These are not cures, but rather try to chip away at "tiny successes" of learning a new pattern of how your mind could function differently, even if its only just for a few minutes. Again, if it starts to feel overwhelming, simply stop watching. I watched this one again when I did not have intense tics, and it felt a little overwhelming or dizzying to me, but still had a positive effect again regardless now that I stopped. I think this one works best for matching or "neutralizing" more of a higher intensity of an issue.
I find that resting my eyes on this repetitive visual, alongside the nice music with a degree of repetition of its own, really hits the spot for me to calm a tic spell when I'm by myself and at a loss of what else to do. I find it to be restoring.
I think the goal is ultimately really to find a more fluid or elastic state of mind, like a buoy floating on the water, but not forgetting that we are on planet Earth to be grounded and rooted on planet Earth. There are many ways towards this fluid state of mind. I thought this was a really nice YouTube visual with music.
I find this one incredibly effective. If you have speakers, the bass is really soothing out of a good set of speakers. For people with tics, let it soothe your vision and head space first. Then, after that settles, and as the site is saying regarding its intention with Sacral Chakra cleansing, just allow yourself to feel your sits bones first (sitting upright in a chair, feet flat on the floor), and then just like water disappears down the drain, let gravity pull your pelvis downward. Let gravity pull the tics down and out of your head while you're at it! What does this feel like?
Let the Floodgate Open
So that the River
Saturates the Mind
Headphones recommended for a person with tics listening to "Meditation Journey Pt 2", in order to access any of the sound stimulation properly. Also, someone with a current spell of tics may want to listen to Part 2 first, for its more homeopathic design, in order to then be able to process the softness of part 1. But it was written as one whole piece, Part 1 and then Part 2. I just had to break it into two parts because the file was too large for the website.
When the mind is tense
Due to a floodgate blockage
Something in the sound opens
The floodgate at random
A river of mental flow
Polishes and Saturates
In your down time
Melt the analytical time clock
In your head
To See Without Fear
Of Being Seen
Is a Gift
Get in Touch
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For more information, or any feedback,
feel free to send a message:
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info@soundaftersilence.com
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