Classical music for yoga

Some of my rubberbands were tight after yesterday’s hike; yoga was a perfect solution. I spent about an hour stretching and breathing and that felt really good.

Sometimes I like music when I yoga, and I turned to Amazon Music for some variety today. They had a station called “Classical for Yoga” and that seemed like a good idea– and for the most part it was, it lent itself to relaxation and good long breaths.

The station was a mix of light classics – Bach, Beethoven, Fauré, Debussy, Massenet – and modern piano and string pieces. And this is the point where I get picky.

I grew up studying music; I took 10 years of piano lessons as a kid and played flute in my school band along with a lot of ensemble and solo work. I’m not a total High Classical nerd, but it’s safe to say that I have an appreciation the breadth of the Western musical tradition. I have opinions about interpretation.

So following up Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.12 (the first movement, the Andante) with some reverb-laden, muddily-played modern pop classical made of a simple 4-chord progression repeated for 5 minutes that sounds like my old smoked-up housemate noodling on the piano was a little jarring. But the repetitive stuff was less distracting than the more classic stuff, which I wanted to listen to more closely.

Oh, that Beethoven recording is nice– every note sings out. :) I encourage you guys to click over and give it a listen!