The Music of Yoga by Lisbeth Scott Singer, Songwriter and Composer To me, yoga is dancing. It is embracing breath and moving it through your body. It is discovering blocks in the road ahead and the road behind, and gently sweeping them away. It is simultaneously quiet and thunderous, depending on what comes up at any given moment. It is plunging your hand into a dark closet and rummaging around to see what you find, and then examining it and putting it in the trash. It is scary and exhilarating, stubborn, somber and joyous... my friend, my guide, my enemy, my teacher. It is the family member that pushes your buttons but you love them so you find a way through. Some days it's the medicine you don't want to take but you know you should. Other days it is the lover with whom you could spend eternity. Music and yoga are my gurus. In my life, I have struggled and flown and smashed into walls and been ushered through giant gates and I have come to learn that I can choose some things and not others. And so I celebrate the things I can choose! Most days, I choose to do my yoga practise to music. In my experience, each supports the other. Yoga and music are my two great teachers and loves. It makes sense to experience them together. In my own yoga practice, I find I gravitate to teachers who treat the music they select for class with as much respect and adoration as they do the poses with which they structure a flow. A voice can open the heart in backbends, a gentle guitar can release the hamstrings in forward bend. Sitar and tabla or cool and funky rhythms can drive me through dancing warrior, soft piano with a grounding beat can help me float up into half moon and stay balanced. The infinite tones and harmonics of prayer bowls can both melt my body into the floor and lift me to the sky in savasana. When I hear music, I feel the intention of the person who made it. A little movie plays in my head. I see the guitarist on a chair, head bent, eyes closed, dancing with the muse. I see the singer before the microphone, headphones on, body swaying, soft light behind her or him. I feel the emotion that was in the room. Sad, deep, intoxicated, blissful, introspective .....and as I listen it all flows into my like a river. Needless to say I choose the music I listen to carefully! When someone else chooses a piece of music with as much discernment as I would, and that music is combined with a blissful pigeon pose or tree pose... presto ... I experience nirvana. And nirvana is addictive!! And also as elusive as a butterfly! A long while ago I saw a film by the late Spaulding Gray called "Swimming to Cambodia". At one point he was describing a late afternoon dip in the ocean. He'd floated out beyond the waves and closed his eyes, letting the sea water support him. He tuned into the bird song, felt the sun on his face and the lapping of warm water on his skin. He went on to define this as a perfect moment. He was in the now, simply experiencing the moment. Not thinking, or worrying or planning. I knew exactly what he meant. Rare and special are those scenes in our lives when everything lines up. The body feels relaxed, the mind is at ease, friends and family are well, animals are curled up and happy at your feet, the sun is shining or the rain is gently tapping on the roof. You breath easily and feel at peace. For years my life was spent trying to create and recreate perfect moments... until I decided to let life be what it wanted and needed to be, and sigh in gratitude for those perfect moments when they stopped by to visit. Both yoga and music have taught me this. Every yoga class holds challenges and effort and decisions. Just like life; just like composing or playing music. And every yoga class for me holds a few perfect moments. Just like life and creating music again. I feel my back release in a twist while I'm listening to the heavenly resonance of a simple cello melody on top of spacious guitar.. and that music loosens my emotion, transforms my breath, plugs me into joy when I may have been blue.... and that helps me to release even deeper into my pose. Perhaps the music plugs me into a sadness which I may need to release in order to move forward in my life and suddenly my hips are looser. And so it continues. The music feeds the movement, which feeds the music again and a beautiful and infinite circle of life is in me. When I look around the class, I realize each person is going through their own version of what I'm experiencing, and suddenly we are all one, all connected in our unique experience. Therein lies the immense power of these ancient and exquisite art forms. Music speaks to us, yoga speaks through us. Together they help us to heal, balance the many parts of ourselves, and experience the world as one. Listen to a sample of Lisbeth's music for yoga at this page. For more information about her yoga CD "Om Sweet Om" and to hear samples see this page. Lisbeth Scott is a vocalist who was featured on the soundtracks for the films The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Munich. For the first film, she co-wrote and performed the song "Where." She also co-wrote and performed "Good To Me" in the movie Shutter. For Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, she contributed to John Debney's score by writing and singing lyrics in Aramaic, based on Psalms and other biblical material. In addition to this, Scott also provided the vocals for the ending theme of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, "Here's To You", which is a cover of the song of the same name that appeared in the 1971 film Sacco e Vanzetti. She collaborates with Harry Gregson-Williams, Hans Zimmer, Alan Menken and Paul Schwartz and has been featured vocalist on 4 of Schwartz's releases which spent 10 weeks in Billboard's top ten. She also co-wrote and performed a song used in HBO's True Blood entitled Take Me Home featuring composer Nathan Barr on cello. In 2010, she wrote lyrics for Iron Man 2's film music, scored by John Debney. Lisbeth is one of several featured lead vocalists on two Globus albums, "Epicon" and "Break From This World". She lives in Venice California with her husband and dog and practises at Exhale Venice, and Santa Monica Yoga. Visit her website at lisbethscott.com. Also see youtube.com/lisbethscott, hopeisathing.com and facebook.com/lisbeth-scott. OMPLACE HOME