What Are Binaural Beats, How Does Binaural Music Work, and Where Can You Download Binaural Tracks for Your Project?

Binaural beats (and binaural music) are very popular in the meditation and mindfulness community. But what are they, how do they work, and where can you get your own binaural tracks to use in meditations and other projects? Read on to find out!

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What Are Binaural Beats?

Binaural beats are an effect that is created by your brain when two tones of different frequency are heard, one in each ear. Your brain makes up for the difference between these tones by creating the binaural beat (via the superior olivary complex, which processes sound input from each ear). So, instead of hearing two separate tones, you hear this special beat. This is a form of brainwave entrainment.

It is believed that listening to binaural audio, or binaural music, will cause your brain activity to match the frequency of the beat being used. By doing so, listeners are able to use brainwave entrainment to unlock various benefits and sensations.

How Does Binaural Music Work?

Binaural music (and audio) works by creating a difference in frequency between both of your ears. For that reason, you will need to use headphones and to have two fully-functional ears to experience the binaural beats. Binaural music is created by incorporating the difference of frequency directly into the piece of music. It is also possible to experience binaural beats through long tones or drones.

Literally, “binaural” means two (“bin”) and hearing (“aural”). Therefore, we need both ears to create this sensation and effect.

If the frequency heard via your left ear is slightly different than your right, it will create a binaural beat of some kind. There are different kinds of binaural beats: delta waves, theta waves, alpha waves, beta waves, and gamma waves. We can create these different types of waves by making sure the difference of tones (in hertz) between each ear is within the threshold for each binaural beat.

Here are the Hz differences for each binaural beat and brain wave:

Delta Waves: 1-4 Hz Difference
Theta Waves: 4-8 Hz Difference
Alpha Waves: 8-14 Hz Difference
Beta Waves: 14-30 Hz Difference
Gamma Waves: 30-100 Hz Difference

Here is an infographic that illustrates the different binaural beats, the frequency difference between each ear, and the effects of each.

Download this infographic.

Examples of Binaural Beats

Below you will hear audio examples of music with each type of binaural beat (and also an example without any binaural beats). If you listen without headphones, the higher binaural beats will likely sound a bit wobbly (especially the larger frequency differences). However, if you listen with headphones, you will experience the full sensation of the waves and how it affects your brain.

NO Binaural Beats

Delta Waves – 2 Hz Difference

Theta Waves – 6 Hz Difference

Alpha Waves – 12 Hz Difference

Beta Waves – 22 Hz Difference

Gamma Waves – 64 Hz Difference

It’s amazing just how different these examples sound with and without headphones. You can truly hear how much work your brain is doing to fill in the frequency difference from ear to ear (while wearing headphones).

When I listen, I can really hear the back and forth of the waves. It almost sounds like I’ve adjusted the music to auto-pan back and forth or something, but I haven’t! That’s your brain creating the beat.

Personally, I find the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma waves very extreme and difficult to incorporate into music. In the examples above, the tonality of the music really disappears with the higher frequencies. That said, there are definitely ways to incorporate these beats into more simple tones and drone-like music.

See below for an example of some music that I created which contains all of the binaural beats it is entitled “Binaural Journey”.

Musical Example That Includes ALL The Binaural Beats

Here is a piece of music I created that contains all of the binaural beats. It begins with delta waves and cycles through all of the beats and returns back to delta waves. Be sure to listen with headphones in order to fully experience this binaural content.

What Are the Benefits of Binaural Beats and Binaural Music?

There are many reported benefits of binaural audio and binaural music. Here are a handful of effects that the brain waves (matching the binaural beats) are said to bring out:

• Relaxation
• Deep Meditation
• Deep Sleep
• Stress Reduction
• Creativity
• Positive Thinking
• Focus / Attention
• Cognitive Function
• Memory Improvements
• Energy
• + many more

Do you know of any other benefits? Have you had a good (or bad) experience with binaural beats? Please let me know in the comments below!

Where Can You Download Binaural Tracks for Your Project?

If you are looking for binaural music for your guided meditation, course, or other project, I can help you with that! Here’s my shameless plug of my music! 🙂

I offer a large library of easily-licensable meditation music, which includes many binaural tracks. If you’d like to use binaural music in your project, you can browse my archive of tracks and purchase an affordable license to use the music in your project according to my terms of use.

Binaural Music Options

Thank you for learning about binaural music with me. I hope this has been helpful. If you need some binaural music for your project, I hope you’ll keep me in mind. Thank you!

Blog featured image made using stock photo by Debora Pilati — Thank you!