These two instruments float above a foundation of deeper sounds; warm, sustained tones encourage feelings of comfort and safety, and a heart-beat tempo that gradually slows down over time. Quietude encourages “bio-rhythmic relaxation” – it will gently reduce your heart rate and breathing rate. You may even feel a sense of euphoria as your nervous system relaxes and your body increases its production of endorphins. Quietude now also features a Subtle Edition – an incredibly gentle version of the music which blends perfectly with the original edition and is perfect for hypnosis and sleep meditations.

The Complete Collection includes the following 3 tracks and is 40% cheaper than purchasing each individual track:

1. The 60 minute version of Quietude
2. The 60 minute version of the Subtle Edition
3. The Awakening track

Composer’s Commentary

A psychologist and healer named Sky wrote to me in late 2013 asking if I had any music that would “support a breathing pattern”. Sky wanted her students to follow a pattern of inhalation – 4 counts, and exhalation – 6 counts.

I thought this was a really interesting request and it got me thinking about how I could create “breathing music”.

My first thought was that the music would need a discernible tempo that the listener could follow in their mind without effort – a gentle sense of rhythm to keep their breath moving.

Further contemplation of tempo and rhythm got me thinking about human biorhythms, or “biological rhythms”…

• Biorhythm – “A recurring cycle in the physiology or functioning of an organism, such as the daily cycle of sleeping and waking.”

Your heart rate and your breathing rate are two more examples of biorhythms, and these are the ones I am most interested in when it comes to relaxation music.

• Your heart rate is your circulatory biorhythm
• Your breathing rate is your respiratory biorhythm

It will come as no surprise to you that the tempo of a piece of music can have a very powerful effect on your biorhythms. We humans have a tendency to synchronize, ‘attune’ or ‘entrain’ ourselves to rhythmic stimuli like music. We tap our feet to the beat; we want to dance, and our mood can quickly change. Music can make all this happen in seconds – it really is a powerful tool for effecting rapid changes on an emotional, psychological AND physical level.

Brainwave entrainment music also relies on the principle of entrainment to induce a state of relaxation. But whereas brainwave entrainment music acts directly upon your brainwaves to induce a state of relaxation, tempo-based relaxation music like Quietude focuses on relaxing your physiology rather than your brainwave activity. It does this by encouraging your breathing and heart rate to gradually slow down.

The average resting heart rate for an adult is around 70-75 beats per minute (bpm). Stress will often cause an increase in heart rate, constricted breathing and a faster breathing rate. Conversely, in a relaxed state your heart rate will slow down and you will breathe more slowly and more deeply.

Listening to gentle music with a tempo of around 60 bpm is an effective way to encourage one’s breathing and heart rate to relax. This is exactly where Quietude begins. It starts with a tempo of 60 beats per minute – a nice, gentle pace that encourages your biorhythms to start slowing down.

Think of it as “biological deceleration”.

During the first 10 minutes of this music, the tempo gradually slows down from 60 bpm to 52 bpm. You’ll barely notice it happening on a conscious level, but the relaxation effect is undeniable. Between the 10 and 15 minute mark, it slows down a little more – down to 50 bpm. For those who listen even longer, the tempo drops one more time between the 45 and 50 minute mark – down to 48 bpm. A change of 2 bpm might not sound like much, but you sure do feel it.

Other changes to the music also take place as time passes. Can you hear that deep, rhythmic tone pumping away in the preview? That’s the ‘heartbeat’ of the music. Over time this beat is slightly reduced in volume and softened in tonality. It stays strong enough to keep reinforcing the relaxation effect, but becomes less obvious to the ear. In the hour long version, the final 10 minutes is devoid of any flutes or pianos. The music becomes more fluid and softer in that time, allowing for a final, super deep phase of relaxation. For many listeners this will be a time of sleep.

The music itself evolves slowly throughout the entire 60 minute performance, but never strays too far from the theme you hear in the preview track.

Should you choose to breathe in time with the music – and you can choose any inhalation/exhalation count that suits you – your breathing will gradually slow and deepen as the tempo of the music changes over time.

Of course, you don’t HAVE to time your breathing with the music. Just listening in a casual manner will still give you a strong sense of slowing down and a deepening feeling of relaxation. It’s quite a lovely experience.  Your heart rate and breathing will slow, your blood pressure will be reduced and your brainwaves will change as your entire nervous system attunes and responds to the music.

This is one of the reasons why Quietude is a powerful adjunct to massage therapy. I get tingles just thinking about it actually! Massage treatments have a very powerful effect on one’s biorhythms. Working directly on a client’s body is one of the most effective ways to encourage relaxation on a physical level. This music will dovetail perfectly with these types of treatments.

Comments on The Subtle Edition

The Subtle Edition of Quietude retains the deliciously deep, warm, enveloping drone sound that is the foundation of the original version, but dispenses with the electric piano, the flute and all of the chime sounds too. I’ve also removed the heartbeat tempo from the subtle edition, which essentially makes this version of Quietude “tempo free”.

This is a free-flowing, dreamtime version of the music that’s wonderful for whenever you need a gentle musical experience with a dreamy atmosphere. The subtle edition will work wonderfully for hypnosis, for sleep meditations, or for any other kind of audio production that requires soft music that stays well and truly in the background. This music is so gentle that you can listen to it for hours and hours on end … or should I say, you can ‘try’ to listen to it for hours, but I doubt you’d manage to stay awake that long.

I have to say that I think there’s something special about this Subtle Edition. Speaking for myself personally, listening to this music will often give me genuine feelings of bliss. There’s a certain luminosity to it that I find quite elevating. And so even thought I earmarked this music for use in hypnosis and sleep meditations, I also think it will work just as well for spiritual meditations, angelic meditations, and any other type of meditation in which you wish to encourage feelings of positivity and inspiration.

If you use both the original version and the Subtle Edition of Quietude, you’ll find it quite easy to fade from one track into the next in a seamless way. This will allow you to ease your listeners into a more subtle musical experience without any auditory disruption. Please scroll further down this page for a video tutorial on how to blend the different versions of Quietude together.

Comments on The Awaking Track

I created The Awakening track to be used at the conclusion of guided meditations and hypnosis recordings, though this is such a lovely track in its own right that you can use it for any audio or video production that requires ambient music.

This track starts very slowly and opens with the sound of twinkling glass chimes. I used these same chimes at various times during the original version of Quietude, so if you are transitioning from the original version to the awakening track then they will feel familiar to you. These chimes are a great way to signal a change in the musical atmosphere and help to trigger a gentle awakening in your listeners.

The Awakening track is a very atmospheric piece of music that features light, cinematic orchestration. It will certainly provide an interesting and elegant conclusion to your recordings. The Awakening track works with both the original and subtle editions of Quietude. To use this final track during the “return” or “awakening” stage of your recording, all you need to do is fade out the music of Quietude while fading in the Awakening track. I’ve created The Awakening track in such a way that you can overlap the two (this is known as crossfading) at almost any time. You don’t need to wait for the main track to come to an end, just fade it out whenever it suits you and fade in The Awakening track simultaneously. This provides a seamless transition that sounds like one continuous song. Both tracks are in the same musical key so the transition from one to the next will always sound natural.

The combination of the three versions of Quietude will provide you with a really flexible arrangement of songs that will blend together easily, thereby helping you to structure a complete musical journey that is tailored to fit perfectly with your spoken words.

Crossfading Tutorial

In this video I demonstrate how to blend the three versions of Quietude together with crossfading.