![]() ![]() In 2018, he released Sleep Better, an eight-part suite that unfolds with lapping waves, chirping birds and sustained synthesizer chords designed to line up with your circadian rhythms and encourage deep REM sleep, which is thought to help facilitate memory consolidation. “I like to see robust, rigorous evidence to support why I’m making a production decision,” he says. Relying on similar research and working with neuroscientists at sleep labs, Middleton began devising music in which each element-harmony, rhythm, frequency, environmental noise-was chosen based on scientific underpinnings. “We can see respiration rate and pulse settle down. “We aren’t medicine or a cure, but we help progress towards a better sleep quality for people in pain or anxiety,” she says. One trial in a Taiwan hospital found that older adults who listened to 45 minutes of relaxing music before bedtime fell asleep faster, slept longer, and were less prone to waking up during the night.īarbara Else, a senior adviser with the American Music Therapy Association, has worked with victims of several disaster situations, including Hurricane Katrina, and seen how music can play a crucial role in quelling racing thoughts and establishing sleep routines. Studies have found that relaxing music can have a direct effect on the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body relax and prepare for sleep. When Middleton studied sleep science and began working with neuroscientists, he found that the benefits of music on sleep weren’t just spiritual, but based on empirical evidence. ![]() Read More: Why We Buy Into the Big Business of Sleep Science meets streaming “I wanted to train as a sleep science coach to understand it better and to see if I could hack my own sleep.” “My sleep was pretty messed up, and it was impacting all parts of my life,” he said. The electronic musician Tom Middleton had created lulling ambient music as a member of Global Communication and and other bands in the ’90s, but had never seriously considered the connection between sleep and music until he developed insomnia after years of touring the globe and partying all night. While Rich, Basinski and others pushed the bounds of convention, others entered the sleep music space for more practical reasons. “But it allowed me to fall in and out of time-to get some peace, daydream.” ![]() “I would have loved if people got more what I was doing-but it took quite a while,” he says. Initially, there was little interest in his work beyond his Brooklyn bubble. At the time, Basinski was toying with generative music and feedback loops-music that unfolded slowly over hours. ![]() William Basinski likewise approached sleep music through the lens of minimalist experimentation. “The intention was not to make music to sleep more deeply, but to enhance the edges of sleep and explore one’s consciousness.” “I was fascinated by the idea of using music for trance-inducing purposes,” he tells TIME. His audience settled into their sleeping bags in a dorm lounge while Rich created drones with a tape echo, a digital delay and a spring reverb for 9 hours. One of the acolytes of this scene was Robert Rich, who, as a Stanford student in 1982, staged his first “sleep concert” to about 15 dozers. Riley was inspired by Eastern mysticism and all-night Indian classical music events, and aimed to provoke rather than soothe: “It felt like a great alternative to the ordinary concert scene,” he said in a 1995 interview. More recently, a Western fascination with sleep music reemerged in the ’60s, when experimental minimalist composers like John Cage, Terry Riley and members of the Fluxus collective began staging all-night concerts. Sleep and music have been intertwined for centuries: a creation myth of Bach’s Goldberg Variations involves a sleepless Count. ![]()
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