I highly recommend having some soothing music playing in the background while you’re drawing. It’s a wonderful Zen addition to your Zentangle® time.
Update 2020: my original recommendations got lost in the website coding mists of time. I’ll see if I can come up with a revised personal list but in the meantime check the comments below for some specific suggestions from fellow tanglers.
Here are some of Amazon’s suggestions for laid back tunes. They’re great any time!
How about recommending some of your favorites? If they enhance the experience of Zentangle®, please share with us all in the comments!
I was wondering is there any Zentanglers in Missouri or Kansas area whom teach class? I just found this art and I am in love with it! Thanks Joyce
Hi Joyce, visit this page http://www.zentangle.com/teachers.php for the list of Certified Zentangle Teachers – I see one listed for Missouri. But a new class just finished and it takes them a while to update their list, so check back there in a week or two.
Welcome, and in the meantime, enjoy practicing with the patterns here!
For wonderful tangling music you absolutely can’t go wrong with anything Kevin Kern does. Check him out I highly recommend him!!
Thanks for the recommendation, Terry. You’re right, and another piano artist. Yay! I’ve added his “Best of” to the tunes above.
Though i’m not adding any songs, I must say that i like to listen to certain types of songs to inspire my zentangles. I give certain themes to my tangles so if i’m doing something more gloomy, i listen to a more somber song; likewise for a tangle that is more vibrant, i’ll listen to a more joyous song thats uplifting. just some help if someone doesn’t know quite what to listen to! 🙂
I use pandora and the zen garden music for my background. It’s very nice and soothing.
I just put this on my Pandora. Lovely!
I just discovered Pandora. Is this Zen Garden the artist or the Zen Garden tranquility series you’re talking about? I do love peaceful, meditative new age music.
I have found liquid mind music to be very good music to listen to while tangling. The music can be found at http://www.liquidmindmusic.com.
I’ve only just discovered zentangling, although I’ve always doodled and I find that some of Medwyn Goodall’s music really works for me – particularly his Medicine Woman cd. 🙂
I love tangling to music called Dubsteb; it makes me get lost in my art.
i live in georgia and is there any teachers here
Hi Devante, please check the list of Certified Zentangle Teachers (CZTs) here.
Hi there is Teachers here in sunny South Africa – Johannesburg
Hi Cathy, please visit the “Teaching Zentangle” page for the link to the list of CZTs.
u should listening to irish and native american indian music
Why am I not surprised that there’s a Labyrinth music selection in there? Why would I not be surprised to learn that somebody had created a Zentangled Chartres labyrinth?
Also recommend:
–Taize chants. CDs and MP3s are available in a variety of languages.
–A Feather on the Breath of God: The Music of Hildegarde of Bingen
–Iona: Book of Kells (I recommended this one to the head of my local SCA Scribes guild. He tried to emulate St. Jerome and steal my copy.)
–Pretty much any Native American music you can find that includes Walela, R. Carlos Nakai, Joanne Shenandoah, or Radmilla Cody. But be prepared to be startled. Native American music + classically trained voices and instruments = breathtaking.
I love to listen to http://www.gregdgoss.com/
it helps that he is a friend, but his music is mostly instrumental, a few lyrical.
Hi, I bought some drawings by a street artist doing this sort of work, back in the early 2000s, in Pasadena, California. He signed his work “Joel Piller” I believe.
I tried web searches for him but never founds him. I wanted to get him up on a website. Anybody heard of him or seen his work? I’ll try posting shots of them.
All my best to him and all the zentangle artists.
Greg
Lately I’ve been tangling to the Indian Classical channel on Pandora. It consists mostly of very long (10+ minute) ragas performed on Sitar. Think Ravi Shankar. It’s such repetitive, soothing music that it hypnotizes my mind and I find I can make deliberate strokes in time with the beats.
Hi Greg: I Googled “Joel Piller, Pasadena CA” and came up with a few results.
http://www.myspace.com/pillerart is just one. But there was also a Facebook listing — his work is beautiful! His address in FB shows Kilua, so don’t know if it’s the same person. Good luck!
Judy
Pink Floyd-“Dark Side of the Moon’ does it for me. “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in particular.
I would like to recommend a few artist
lisa gerrard(dead can dance) – what a powerhouse singer and my fave singer with a haunting contralto voice, which she uses as an instrument in itself. http://www.lisagerrard.com
Azam ali(Vas,niyaz.)again another fab singer
who uses her voice as an instrument.
http://www.azamalimusic.com/
william orbit.great producer of futuristic electronica.
http://www.williamorbit.com/
yungchen lhamo – a haunting tibetan singer with a angelic crystal clear voice.
http://www.yungchenlhamo.com/
steve roach – amazing for ambient landscape music always come to him for silent drawing or meditation .
http://www.steveroach.com/
i also find listening to nature sounds helps with tangling too..
and also instrumental sounds
didgeridoo
sitar
Oud
shamanic drum
veena
armenian flute
harp
tibetan bowl
crystal bowls
ting shas
i also sometimes go for healing sounds of
ancient gregorian chants ..mostly the organic stuff not the stuff they do with background music.
ravi shankar is good to explore .
i will come back if i can think of anything else 😀
Eckhart Tolle’s cd “Music for Inner Stillness” is very appropriate! Enjoy.
I usually listen to classical music, but to get into the “zone” for painting or zentangle, I listen to Enya or Leonard Cohen. I find I can just feel and not analyze, as I do with classical music, perhaps my previous life as a pianist and music teacher needs to be tuned out.
I prefer Mozart – espacially his concerts for piano or violine
i discovered the “New Age Relaxation” Genre in Amazon Prime Music is perfect for Zentangle. It puts (and keeps) me in the right zone to appreciate my new experiences with Zentangle
I have several “go to” artists and genres I listen to when tangling. My faves are Tim Janis (mostly instrumentals), Dan Gibson (instrumental with nature sounds) and then Ah Nee Mah (Native American). I will also just put on New Age or classical at well.
I listen to Classic Rewind on Sirius XM. Sometimes I like drawing to Disturbed.
I listen to a lot of Yanni, Enya, David Arkenstone, Jeanne Michele Jarre (I don’t know if that’s spelled right…) and that kind of thing while I tangle. If I want something a little more upbeat I go with Lindsey Sterling, The Glitch Mob or something similar. Both moods have fun and unique vibes that can inspire so many things for me & my family.
I love new age classical and especially piano – David Lanz, John Tesh, Yiruma, Jim Brickman, Secret Garden, Paul Cardall, Thad Fiscella, George Winston – just to name a few. I have my own “piano only” station on Pandora that moves and soothes me. 🙂
I tangle along to contemporary gospel (just music, no lyrics) with Dan Musselman on piano. Shalom.