Ancient texts set to new music to help deepen your experience and heighten your Awareness. Jewish, Christian, Sufi, and other texts; fresh and timeless music.

18 MP3 Songs
NEW AGE: Meditation, GOSPEL: Contemporary Gospel



Details:
I was introduced to chanting on my first week-long meditation retreat. The place was Elat Chayyim, a Jewish retreat center in the Catskill mountains in New York. Chant was our form of morning worship. For each chant, one of the teachers would provide a reflection or teaching about its meaning. Then we would sing. For five minutes or more, we would repeat a short text set to a beautiful melody. Then we sat in silence. It was powerful. For many, it was the highlight of the day. Though the meditation practice was central to the retreat, I also recognized how chant helped to deepen our spiritual experience. Chanting can be a way of experiencing God through song.

This album grew out of my desire to bring this experience beyond the retreat center and into worship services, rituals, and our lives in generalâto help bring us a deeper experience and greater awareness. Recording a CD was not originally part of the plan. Experiencing God Through Song began life as my senior project at the Wake Forest University Divinity School. The project was one of music compositionâto write new chants and create a songbook that people could use for worship in their churches and synagogues. Everyone I shared the chants with loved them, but wanted them in a form they could listen to. And so this CD was born.

The chants themselves are based on the some of the worldâs ancient spiritual traditions. The texts come from the Bible; the Tao Te Ching; poetry by Rumi, the 13th century Sufi mystic; and other traditional sources. (The source of each chant is listed with the tracks on the back of this insert.) Iâve set these words to beautiful new melodies to open the heart and awaken the spirit. Listen, sing along, and share the chants with others in your spiritual community. Blessings on your path of awakening.

For more information about the book, the project, and chanting in general, please visit my website, www.pastorhal.schnee.com. There, you can download the chant book, which contains the sheet music, a reflection on the meaning of each chant, and guidance on how to use the chants in worship. Printed copies of the book are also available.


About the artist:
Meditation practitioner, musician, mystic, and more...as of July 2006, I am a student at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, expecting to complete my Master of Divinity degree in December. My spiritual path has taken me from Judaism through Atheism and Unitarian Universalism, to a meditation and chanting practice that has transformed my awareness and my life. I see myself as a spiritual teacher, and hope to soon discover the form and setting my teaching will take. I hope this music can serve to convey some of what I have discovered on my journey.