I am really not a fan of music being played during yoga class. Although fun and motivating, music diminishes the meditative aspect of yoga that makes yoga so much more than a workout. Below is an open letter from a fellow yogini that illustrates the distractions that playing music during yoga class create.
Open letter to yoga teachers
Please please please yoga teachers,
if you must play music in your classes PLEASE find music with no words, a polyrhythmic beat, and avoid anything that was ever in top 40 charts. Allow your students to absorb your words that suggest drawing energy into the practicing self, instead of challenging them with lyrics that suggest misogyny, beats that are reminiscent of frat parties, and the calling up of specific memories attached to endless radio replay of popular songs. It is disappointing at best to be in the ‘yoga zone’ following the graceful and articulate instructions of a good teacher to find myself crashing back into the mundane world and have a song I don’t like stuck in my head all day. Eulogizing the sad passing of your favorite rock star is a noble gesture but for many sensitive yogis music is impossible to ignore- and personal tastes are widely divergent. With all due respect to creators of and listeners to music everywhere, in this case I gotta agree with the Dude –“Oh no, not the____! I HATE the_____!”