This week, Apple and Universal Music Group announced a partnership to bring Sound Therapy to the Apple Music platform for free for all subscribers.
This collection of albums, which includes remixes of UMG artists’ tracks from artists like Glass Animals, Imagine Dragons, and Katy Perry, is designed to help you focus, relax, or sleep.
To do this, the instrumental tracks have been adjusted by scientists and audio engineers to include soundwave profiles that might help your mind achieve your desired state.
I’m no sound psychologist, but I am an Apple Music subscriber, so I thought I’d try Apple’s Sound Therapy to see what it can do for me.
As I’ve mentioned already, there are three tiers of Sound Therapy on Apple Music.
The most ‘energetic’ – at least based on the playlists I’ve sampled so far – is the Focus category. Apple explains this collection “harnesses the power of gamma auditory beats and white noise to support concentration and cognitive performance.”
I’ve usually relied on lofi tunes – or instrumental tracks (usually from a film or videogame) – to help focus while I work or study, and this collection certainly fits my needs. Listening through a focus mix, you can make out a distinctive white noise hum in the background of tracks, but while it’s a little distracting when you first spot it in the mixes, it quickly fades into the rest of the noise.
I’d liken it to breathing. If you focus on the white noise hum, then, like breathing, it becomes more apparent. Drift into focusing on whatever task you’re working on, and the hum becomes part of the beats soundtrack, and becomes as unnoticeable as your breathing.
Though much like the next category, Relax, I’m not yet convinced it’s any better than the playlists I already have.
Relax sets infuse the original music with theta auditory beats, which are meant to help you loosen up.
There’s a fantastic, relaxing remix of Heat Waves by Glass Animals, which extends the song to a little under an hour across 19 parts.
I’ve found they’re ideal background noise when you’re trying to read, cook, build Lego, or whatever you do to unwind after a long day’s work.
While neither category so far will be a complete replacement for my existing music options, these Sound Therapy tunes are definitely in my music rotation. However, when it comes to sleep, Sound Therapy has wholeheartedly taken over my bedtime.
A great night’s sleep
My fiancée and I like to fall asleep to sound. For me, it’s usually a YouTube video from Wendover Productions, Atrioc, Last Week Tonight, or WolfeVGC – something fun but informative (even if that information is in Wolfe’s case about competitive Pokémon).
She instead prefers listening to a show like her nineteenth rewatch of The Good Place or Dragon’s Den clips (the UK’s Shark Tank).
Playing both at the same time leaves us both unhappy, and we each find each other’s videos massively grating. My usual technique is to wait for her to fall asleep, then switch her video choice to one of mine.
But since testing the Sound Therapy sleep tracks, we’ve finally found a solution we both love.
Admittedly the pink noise of vampire crackling or rain on a tent isn’t anything new in the audio to sleep to world, but the ability to listen to the whole playlist ad-free through our Symfonisk lamp speaker – so we can both easily control the noise through the Sonos app on each of our smart phones – has been a massive upgrade.
It’s the easiest I’ve fallen asleep in months, and I think I’m feeling a little better rested each morning to boot.
Admittedly, I’m only a few days into my Sound Therapy tests, but I’m definitely loving the feature. If you have Apple Music, it’s well worth checking out.
You can easily find the whole Sound Therapy collection by tapping on the Search icon and then tapping on the Sound Therapy box.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
