What do you think?
Rate this book
In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness
In our noisy world, music is the key to inner silence
Richard Wolf first tried Zen meditation in his teens, but no matter in what posture or for how long he sat, transcendence proved stubbornly out of reach. It was only years later that he found the bridge that could take him music.
In Tune charts twelve “bridges”—skills and sensibilities refined in musical practice that carry over to mindfulness and meditation, among
This inspirational guide offers a wealth of music-based exercises to enhance daily meditation and creativity. Plus, Wolf shares personal anecdotes of eminent musicians—from Miles Davis to Dr. Dre—to illuminate points along the intersection of music and mindful living.
As you begin to move fluidly between these two transformative disciplines, you’ll notice the focus, composure, and peacefulness that comes from practice—as well as the joys of tuning in to the music all around you, and to the symphony that plays silently from within.
Richard Wolf first tried Zen meditation in his teens, but no matter in what posture or for how long he sat, transcendence proved stubbornly out of reach. It was only years later that he found the bridge that could take him music.
In Tune charts twelve “bridges”—skills and sensibilities refined in musical practice that carry over to mindfulness and meditation, among
This inspirational guide offers a wealth of music-based exercises to enhance daily meditation and creativity. Plus, Wolf shares personal anecdotes of eminent musicians—from Miles Davis to Dr. Dre—to illuminate points along the intersection of music and mindful living.
As you begin to move fluidly between these two transformative disciplines, you’ll notice the focus, composure, and peacefulness that comes from practice—as well as the joys of tuning in to the music all around you, and to the symphony that plays silently from within.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published April 2, 2019
32 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 20, 2019
Wonderful. Many of the practices within worked for me, make for wonderful meditative experiences.
July 2, 2019
Some books make unforgettable connections. Music is a mystery, first an internal throbbing which is translated into notations, perhaps, then instruments and song. Mindfulness and meditation are mysteries of similar order, first internally sought in mind-chatter and silence, and then actualized. This book by a decorated musician notes the relationship between music and mindfulness. It provides a bridge to meditation by imitation of music mastery.
If you wish to meditate this book will help you as it did me. If you are a musician, all the better. The similarities of sound and silence mean allow you to follow the simile to actual practices and mastery. And since mindfulness entails the envelopment of sound and silence within each other, this book offer the music-minded a high road to mindfulness. Unlike humorless and self-important spiritual books, Mr. Wolf is a story teller, alive to the laughter at the heart of a koan, and the wisdom of anecdotes. Imagine a cookbook of soul food which is more than instructional; it is fun to read and teaches with the gentleness of the born teacher.
If you wish to meditate this book will help you as it did me. If you are a musician, all the better. The similarities of sound and silence mean allow you to follow the simile to actual practices and mastery. And since mindfulness entails the envelopment of sound and silence within each other, this book offer the music-minded a high road to mindfulness. Unlike humorless and self-important spiritual books, Mr. Wolf is a story teller, alive to the laughter at the heart of a koan, and the wisdom of anecdotes. Imagine a cookbook of soul food which is more than instructional; it is fun to read and teaches with the gentleness of the born teacher.
September 28, 2019
I was always curious about meditation but my few attempts failed miserably. I’m really not into new agey spiritual stuff, but after reading about “In Tune” in The New Yorker I decided to pick up the book. I was pleasantly surprised what an easy, engaging read it was, filled with humor, pop culture references, and a clear lesson plan. Wolf details his own initial difficulty with mediation as a relatable gateway to explain the technique he eventually develops, based in part on various disciplines and abilities from his musical background. But you don’t need to be a professional musician to master this technique. He explains how even fans of music, accustomed to focusing on sounds and patterns, can use his methodology. If you’ve ever been curious about meditation, and standard literature doesn’t seem right for you, then check out “In Tune.”
June 4, 2019
I was deeply moved by this book. Wolf's writing makes it easy for everyone to understand something we often write off as "too complicated". Mindfulness and meditation can be intimidating or tricky, but this book made it accessible and easy. It motivated me to meditate more - even when it was difficult. It's filled with meditation techniques and tips. I think it would be great for anyone curious about getting into mindfulness, and any level of musical background can be helpful. I think the book is super necessary for all stressed-out musicians, and opens up a beautiful new perspective into life for any non-musicians too.
May 31, 2019
This book is a great read for anyone interested in music, mindfulness, meditation, or all three. It’s an honest, unvarnished account of a prominent musician’s struggles with mindful meditation, how he came to succeed in the practice, and why that success was important. The book is full of timely tips to help jump-start or improve your own practice, and cogent arguments for why that’s worth doing. As an added bonus, the book contains fascinating anecdotes about prominent musicians and writers, many of whom—Allen Ginsburg, Miles Davis, and Ravi Coltrane—the author knew personally.
July 1, 2019
This is not the kind of book you necessarily read from cover to cover in several sittings. At the end of every chapter there are instructions for meditative/ mindfulness techniques- as this is at heart a guide book- and I found that I would rather stay practicing a method for days if it was working before moving on. Aside from what the author calls "a repertoire of techniques" there's a lot of interesting information so for a relatively small book it took a while to get through but it was worth it.
June 30, 2019
I was expecting to learn how to meditate by listening to music when I bought this book. But the more I got into it the more I realized that the author has a lot more knowledge and wisdom to offer than simple tips on how to listen to music mindfully. What he teaches can have an effect on many aspects of your life, from the way you understand art to the way you see the world.
December 30, 2022
A handful of good meditation techniques:
- Tuning the drum
- FF - PP - FF (i.e., audible breathing)
- The Little Refrain
- Healing/Grateful breath
As other reviewers have said, the book is ... fine. My first irritation was the incorrect description of the movement of the diaphragm when breathing (this appears more than once). Some stories (with famous musicians) seem to be included to ... assuage his own ego? I didn't find all of his connections between music and meditating convincing, and some passages toward the end got a little bit woo-woo, even for me.
- Tuning the drum
- FF - PP - FF (i.e., audible breathing)
- The Little Refrain
- Healing/Grateful breath
As other reviewers have said, the book is ... fine. My first irritation was the incorrect description of the movement of the diaphragm when breathing (this appears more than once). Some stories (with famous musicians) seem to be included to ... assuage his own ego? I didn't find all of his connections between music and meditating convincing, and some passages toward the end got a little bit woo-woo, even for me.
January 27, 2020
This book teaches the reader how to meditate by focusing on the breath using techniques of listening and creativity that musicians also use.
As a professional pianist, I didn't quite find what I expected in this book. I thought it would be a book about USING music as a way to meditate, but this is mostly about how music practice and meditation practice share the same techniques and characteristics. I guess I was looking for advice about meditating WHILE playing an instrument or listening to music, but the author advises meditating in complete silence.
The writing is clear and interesting, but verbose and repetitive. The writing style is beautifully lyrical, but quickly becomes tedious as each paragraph is overloaded with words. Each chapter is a restating of the same meditation ideas that have already been introduced in previous chapters with just a slight difference in the perspective. All of the meditation guides are very similar: focus on the breath, think of a mantra, imagine a sound. I would have preferred more variety.
It's all excellent advice on meditation, but it's the same concepts through twelve chapters. This book could have been much shorter. I enjoyed the first chapter, and my enjoyment diminished with every chapter because I got tired of reading the same things over and over. Each chapter has a slightly different focus, but not enough to warrant an entire chapter as if it was a new concept.
There are also some strange ideas about spirituality and enlightenment that I didn't agree with, but those were few and far between so I just ignored them. Those things did not influence my enjoyment of the book.
The author also includes some stories and anecdotes of famous musicians, rap artists, and rock bands that he has known in his career as a composer and producer. I didn't like a single one of those stories. They had nothing to do with the topic of meditation, and they were full of drugs and ugliness. Those DID influence my enjoyment of the book. In a negative way.
There are some really good ideas in this book about meditation and about the characteristics it shares with music. I think many musicians would be inspired to try meditation and deepen their meditation practice with the concepts in this book.
All the elements for a good book are there, but the execution left me feeling bored instead of inspired. However, that might just be from my own mood and expectations while reading. Other people might enjoy the book much more than I did.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.
As a professional pianist, I didn't quite find what I expected in this book. I thought it would be a book about USING music as a way to meditate, but this is mostly about how music practice and meditation practice share the same techniques and characteristics. I guess I was looking for advice about meditating WHILE playing an instrument or listening to music, but the author advises meditating in complete silence.
The writing is clear and interesting, but verbose and repetitive. The writing style is beautifully lyrical, but quickly becomes tedious as each paragraph is overloaded with words. Each chapter is a restating of the same meditation ideas that have already been introduced in previous chapters with just a slight difference in the perspective. All of the meditation guides are very similar: focus on the breath, think of a mantra, imagine a sound. I would have preferred more variety.
It's all excellent advice on meditation, but it's the same concepts through twelve chapters. This book could have been much shorter. I enjoyed the first chapter, and my enjoyment diminished with every chapter because I got tired of reading the same things over and over. Each chapter has a slightly different focus, but not enough to warrant an entire chapter as if it was a new concept.
There are also some strange ideas about spirituality and enlightenment that I didn't agree with, but those were few and far between so I just ignored them. Those things did not influence my enjoyment of the book.
The author also includes some stories and anecdotes of famous musicians, rap artists, and rock bands that he has known in his career as a composer and producer. I didn't like a single one of those stories. They had nothing to do with the topic of meditation, and they were full of drugs and ugliness. Those DID influence my enjoyment of the book. In a negative way.
There are some really good ideas in this book about meditation and about the characteristics it shares with music. I think many musicians would be inspired to try meditation and deepen their meditation practice with the concepts in this book.
All the elements for a good book are there, but the execution left me feeling bored instead of inspired. However, that might just be from my own mood and expectations while reading. Other people might enjoy the book much more than I did.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. All the opinions stated here are my own true thoughts, and are not influenced by anyone.
April 19, 2020
Wolf's book In Tune is a breezy amassing of analogues between musical practice and meditation practice at its core. Once it develops those commonalities and expounds upon them, Wolf also adds several suggestions of how to incorporate Deep Listening practice, "inner" pitch, and musical ability into breathing practice. I'm more than happy to re-explore, thanks to his re-introduction, the genius of Pauline Oliveros.
This book is an important tool to help develop a more relaxed breathing practice, especially for people for whom mindfulness of breath can be a triggering point since a lot of people only check in on their breath during periods of high anxiety. It also raises some possibilities to explore in terms of how the treatment of one could augment or benefit treatment of the other.
Since music and meditation are things I'm interested for similar reasons, it was perfectly enjoyable to see someone draw those connections and then further elaborate on deepening those connections so that both practices can enforce the other. I also wrote my own ideas into the margins because the book is an open platform for more connections and inquiries. My only objection here and there are the extraneous stories about famous people behaving in ordinary ways, or many aside rhapsodies that aspire for something adjacent to spiritual profundity. Those acrobatic moments make the prose feel like it's "striving" toward something, maybe just delicious prose, but the consequence is a sense of "striving" in a book that ought to more often than not, reject the object of "striving" considering it's mired in Buddhist ideology. Some of Wolf's attempts at terse profundity don't land the mark, but this is not a serious critique. Ultimately, the book didn't need to be any more than what it needed to be.
This book is an important tool to help develop a more relaxed breathing practice, especially for people for whom mindfulness of breath can be a triggering point since a lot of people only check in on their breath during periods of high anxiety. It also raises some possibilities to explore in terms of how the treatment of one could augment or benefit treatment of the other.
Since music and meditation are things I'm interested for similar reasons, it was perfectly enjoyable to see someone draw those connections and then further elaborate on deepening those connections so that both practices can enforce the other. I also wrote my own ideas into the margins because the book is an open platform for more connections and inquiries. My only objection here and there are the extraneous stories about famous people behaving in ordinary ways, or many aside rhapsodies that aspire for something adjacent to spiritual profundity. Those acrobatic moments make the prose feel like it's "striving" toward something, maybe just delicious prose, but the consequence is a sense of "striving" in a book that ought to more often than not, reject the object of "striving" considering it's mired in Buddhist ideology. Some of Wolf's attempts at terse profundity don't land the mark, but this is not a serious critique. Ultimately, the book didn't need to be any more than what it needed to be.
January 22, 2023
I recently discovered this book when I was facing a scary and potentially life-altering situation. I have practiced meditation in the past, although without true discipline, and this was the call I need to pick up the practice again. It helped to keep me calm during a very scary time, and I am going to do my best to keep it up. I got a lot out of the musical comparisons even an a non-musician, and I found the book both inspiring, entertaining, and quite well written.
April 12, 2019
Meh...is the best way I can think of to describe it. Not terrible, not revolutionary, it was just...meh.
June 21, 2019
Repititious
February 13, 2020
So glad I found this gem of a book.
January 28, 2019
In Tune is written by a professional musician who is an award winning commercial music composer and producer. He also is a lifelong meditator and mindfulness practitioner. I have a degree in voice performance and have continued to sing as well as teach voice and direct choirs, although not as my primary profession, so I was very familiar with the musical examples used throughout this book. The book is a good introduction to mindfulness for me, or anyone with a musical background. It gives comparisons, which the author calls bridges, between aspects of both music practice and mindfulness practice. For someone without a good musical knowledge, this book would likely be overwhelming.
I received an advanced review copy from the publisher on #netgalley.
I received an advanced review copy from the publisher on #netgalley.
November 21, 2020
Interesting take on meditation and how to make it more interesting combining it with rhythmical counts. I'm not clean on how that would help when one is aiming for silent zen meditation.
Interesting read though.
Interesting read though.
September 25, 2024
Basic meditation tips for anyone interested in music, mindfulness, meditation, or all three.
June 28, 2019
I mean...it was fine. It just wasn't what I was expecting. I think I was hoping it would be a book about including music in your mindfulness practice, but instead it was a book about mindfulness and meditation for musicians. So advice like "you must practice mindfulness the same way you practice your instrument" wasn't really that interesting or valuable to me, personally. As someone who played and taught piano for many years of my life I certainly understood all the musical references and jargon, but since I don't consider myself a "musician" it wasn't really my cup of tea overall.
February 23, 2019
I found this to be an interesting book, but somewhat pushed myself to finish it. I do think what the author is pointing out in the book is important. But I do think it depends on your reading style when going into it.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews