Right off the bat, however, I confess I’m not a music critic. Like everyone, I know what I like, but I don’t necessarily have the vocabulary to describe the music or to articulate what I like or don’t like about a particular piece of music, or the knowledge of music that allows me to make sensible comparisons with other musicians you might have heard of. And Dhamma Gita is very, very varied, representing genres from Hip Hop to jazz to contemporary classical, to soul.

Fortunately, the website for the CD (which is also available as a download) has samples you can listen to if you’re none the wiser after reading my review.

Ed Gabrielsen has spent his life trying to marry the body and the mind, first as a singer and later as an instructor of yoga and meditation. He has worked with people touched by cancer at the Dempsey Center, teaching a class titled “Music and Meditation.”

He currently teaches at Healthy for Life Wellness Center in Norway, where his wife, pediatric doctor Jill Gabrielsen, also has a medical practice.

Name: Ed Gabrielsen

Age: 47

Hometown: Norway

Single, relationship or married? Married

Children? We have two children.

You’ve been a musician for a long time. What does music do for you? Music is an art that expresses thoughts and emotions in a way that goes beyond words. I feel very fortunate to be a musician because my life …

Although this CD was suggested to me as yoga or meditation music, I don’t do yoga and don’t hold with the notion that meditation is (just) about relaxing, and would never have music on in the background while I’m sitting. Nevertheless, I loved the music.

Kitarō, a Grammy and Golden Globe award-winning Japanese musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist, composes luscious sound-scapes incorporating the sounds of both western and traditional Japanese (and sometimes middle-eastern) instruments, along with natural sounds, such as birdsong and water.

“Sacred Journey of Ku-Kai, Vol. 4″ is the latest in a series of a collection of albums inspired by the Buddhist monk Kukai’s classic pilgrimage to …

Every time Sunada watches Bobby McFerrin or Yo-Yo Ma perform, she’s left in awe. It’s not just their amazing musicianship, she says. What uniquely comes through in their music is their generosity of spirit and totally engaging way of expressing their individuality. As a musician herself, she muses on what it takes to cultivate that kind of open-hearted spontaneity and creativity.

I recently read an interesting discussion that’s given shape to my thinking on this subject. It was about the difference between spontaneity and impulsivity. While the two terms are often used interchangeably, there are some subtle but important differences.

Vajradaka looks back on a meeting in a smoky Jazz club and explores the mystery of empathetic communication between artist and audience.

I once had a chance encounter with a jazz musician that had a big effect on me and characterized some of the important qualities of living a creative life. At the time I was living up in the hills of Wales and coming down to London periodically. During one such visit I went to a jazz gig at the old Vortex in Stoke Newington, as part of the London Jazz Festival. It was smoky and dark with only a dozen people in the audience. We did not need much empathy to …

When life pulls the rug out from under us, we have a choice. We can either look backward at it as a disaster, or look forward through it as an opening toward something new. Sunada tells her own story of how she woke up in the midst of a personal crisis.

This week, I closed a major chapter of my life. I watched as my beloved Bösendorfer grand piano, which I had just sold, was wrapped up and carted off to its new home. This piano had once represented my dreams. It was no ordinary grand piano. It was a top of the line, artist’s instrument. Beautiful to the eyes as well as the ears. But …