Whether you are in peak health, have been struggling with severe mental health difficulties or find yourself somewhere in between, this article is for you and it might just help to save someone’s life. In this article I am wanting to highlight some of the most important numbers, websites, and online chat services aimed at helping people with their mental health. Some are for emergency situations, but the majority are there to help out when life gets difficult and you’re not sure where to turn.
What you must keep in mind is that you may not need to use this information, but I can guarantee that you need to know this information. One of the most important reasons for having easy access to these facilities is because if you find yourself in an emergency mental health situation, such as dealing with someone who is suicidal, then having quick access to these numbers might save their life. As well as this, the last two years have taught us that anything can happen. Â Mental health problems are bought on by hundreds of different reasons; having this knowledge might just lend you a helping hand one day.
Through this article I would like to share 31 musical meditations. One for you to practise every day of the month. Most of them are really quite short, a few of them require a little bit more time but I’ve designed them to fit into your day no matter what. You can try them at your desk to give your mind a rest whilst at work or save them for the evening to help you rewind and relax. As with all of our mindful practices, if and when you find your mind wandering off, simply acknowledge where it’s gone and bring it back to the focus, whatever that may be. I hope you have a wonderful month, whatever may be in store for you.
When I invite you to listen, all I want you to do is listen. Try to avoid multi-tasking. Make time to focus on just listening.
With the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow coming to a close I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about the important connections between climate change, music, mindfulness and meditation. Below I focus on six important and interesting talking points about how we can all do our bit to help our planet. Alongside this, I have added some links to some wonderful charities and organisations that are out there on the front line helping to make our world a better place.Â
I personally believe that through music anything is possible. To describe a wonderful piece of music in words is near impossible but I’m sure we have all had those goosebump moments where our hair stands on end, perhaps you have even been moved to tears? Our greatest adventures are usually accompanied by a soundtrack. Music can transport us, be used as a tool for expression and help us through our darkest days.
In February 2021 I was really pleased to be invited onto The Mental Music Podcast as a guest speaker. I joined Max Thomas (founder of Mental Music) for an afternoon to talk about mental health, the work quiet note is doing highlighting music in the practise of mindfulness and meditation, Â as well as the importance of being pro-active about self-care. It was a lovely afternoon and I am really please to share the podcast as well as some words from Max himself.
As part of my final year at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire I undertook a module entitled ‘Composing Music of Minimal Means’. I had the pleasure of collaborating with four other musicians to create two separate pieces of music, one in the style of Drone Minimalism and the other in the style of Wandelweiser. The reason that I am sharing this with you today is because I realised that both pieces had a meditative and ‘deep listening’ quality, very much in keeping with quiet note. Having spoken with the musicians they kindly allowed me to share these pieces on quiet note. Both pieces can be found in the ‘exercise’ section on your home page or by clicking on the pieces below. It is there that you can access ways to listen from a mindfulness and meditation perspective. This article however focuses on the context and creation of the music.
