If you are in the process of creating a guided meditation or guided relaxation recording of any type, you may be wondering where you will get background music for it. In this article I will introduce you to the benefits of royalty free meditation music and I’ll compare this type of music with another popular music resource – original music composition.

As a meditation music composer I’ve been creating background music for guided meditations and hypnosis productions for many years. I have worked with a wide variety of meditation teachers, hypnotherapists and holistic healers during that time, and I’ve noticed that many of them have never even heard of the phrase "royalty free meditation music". Many of them are under the impression that when they create a guided meditation, they will have to track down a composer and pay to have original music written just for them.

Sure enough, it can be an exciting and rewarding experience to contract the services of a composer to develop music for your recording, but it can also be quite expensive! You’ll be paying an hourly rate for your composer to work for you, and good meditation music can take quite a bit of time to produce indeed! Don’t be fooled by the idea that meditation music is "simple". Meditation music is less complex than say, a full orchestral composition, but the creative and technical processes involved in composing and producing original meditation music are not simple at all.

"Royalty free" meditation music is a great alternative to original music composition, and it’s an option that many people overlook. Royalty free meditation music is actually the most cost effective and efficient way to get your hands on quality background music for your recording.

Now it might seem like I’m shooting myself in the foot here, given that I compose background music for a living, but in all fairness I really must explain the concept of royalty free music to you. For some people, the cost of original music composition is quite prohibitive, so the royalty free path can be a real life-saver.

What is royalty free meditation music?

Perhaps this is best explained by first describing what royalties are...

When an artist writes a piece of music, they own the copyright to that music. They may then license that music for use by others, but demand "royalties" – a commission payment if you will, for the ongoing use of their music.

For example, yoga studios that play music during their classes usually have to pay ongoing royalties for the public performance of that music. Practitioners who create a CD for commercial release may have to pay royalties in an amount that correlates with the number of CD’s they sell.

Most people who are creating a guided meditation or a hypnosis recording are thoroughly repelled by the idea of having to pay royalties on an ongoing basis, and rightly so. This is why royalty free music is such a good option for them.

In a nutshell, "royalty free" means that you only pay a one-time fee for the music you purchase. You can use that music in the background of your guided meditation and you can sell as many copies of your guided meditation as you like without ever having to pay any royalties/commissions to the artist that wrote the music.

The artist who wrote the music retains the copyright to the music, meaning that he or she can then sell the same music to someone else. This means that your guided meditation might be a little less unique than it would be if you had original music composed just for you, but it also means that the price of the music is dramatically reduced.

In fact, royalty free meditation music usually costs between 5 and 15 times less than it costs to contract the services of a music composer.

So if you are creating any kind of guided meditation, hypnosis or guided relaxation recording that requires background music, then royalty free meditation music may be just what the doctor ordered. You will save a lot of time and money during the creation of your recording, and you will not be burdened by complicated license terms and ongoing payments.