ASMR is a big deal these days on YouTube. People want to relax, relieve stress, and ASMR is an easy way to do so. When you mention ASMR, you mainly think about soft voices and whispering, but we tend to forget music. Music can be an effective way to create a great relaxing video, coupled with your voice. But which music should you use? Choosing the right sound for such video is crucial, but that can sometimes be tricky. “Won’t subscribers be disturbed by that music?”, “Do I have the right to use that music?” are some questions you may wonder, and we’ll try to answer them. Let’s learn how to select ASMR Music for my video!
We selected 4 types of music that can perfectly match an ASMR video:
- Piano
- Binaural Beats
- Tibetan bowls
- Karimba
What is ASMR?
First, let’s start by defining ASMR. In 2010, Jennifer Allen creates the abbreviation which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Back in those days, a few people like Jennifer were attempting to depict that tingling sensation they felt on their scalp when hearing or seeing specific sounds and images. She obviously wasn’t alone in wondering what that satisfying sensation was, depicted as “brain-gasm”. In the end, she coined that term, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, to give a name to that phenomenon.
Something triggers the ASMR , and the “response” is what we feel. That sound or gesture at the origin of ASMR is called a “trigger”. And it’s likely that you have already experienced it without knowing what it was. Hair brushing, whispers, chewing noises, finger tapping, soft hand gestures are the most popular triggers. And a lot of ASMR artists use those triggers for their YouTube videos. From a few minutes to hour-long videos, millions of viewers appreciate ASMR, making it a very popular genre. The most trending ASMR artists like Gibi ASMR, ASMR PPOMO, or ASMR Darling have 2.7M, 2.2M and 2.5M current subscribers respectively.
What kind of music should I choose for ASMR videos?
ASMR videos are quiet and some ASMR artists choose to keep it simple with sounds and voice only. But adding music to your ASMR video can be interesting too. Whether it is to add an atmosphere, context, or simply a soothing background soundtrack, adding music will enhance your video. There are several types of music that can be used for meditation or relaxing videos. We will try to give a quick overview of some ideal background sounds.
Piano
First of all, piano is an instrument that perfectly suits a calm atmosphere. When searching on YouTube, you’ll find tons of relaxing videos of piano. They’re often very long videos of several hours of piano songs. These are compilations of soothing piano ballads. People seem to be very fond of such videos, whether it helps them sleep, study, or both. People praise the benefits of listening to piano for your health. Piano therapy helps you relieve stress and brain overactivity. The slow tempo of piano ballads (around 60 bpm) will naturally slow down your mind and pace a bit. Piano music can also improve sleep quality.
Binaural beats
If you ever went on YouTube looking for relaxing sounds, you have probably already have seen this term. It describes a specific kind of sound when two different pure-tone sine waves of low frequencies (under 1500 Hz) play through each ear. Those two tones’ frequencies differ slightly from each other. The difference has to be less than 30Hz for the binaural beat to work. Such sounds help reduce stress and increase focus. Although there are no conclusive proven clinical benefits. Binaural beats allegedly reproduce a brainwave pattern similar to what happens during meditation. Use headphones to make the most out of this experience. Differing frequencies create various “zones”, that are specific to particular types of meditation and remedies.
The Delta Zone (0.1Hz to 4Hz) is allegedly best for deep sleep and pain relief. The Theta Zone (4Hz to 8Hz) is for deep relaxation and meditation. The Alpha Zone (8Hz to 13Hz) is for stress reduction and relaxed focus. The Beta Zone (13Hz to 30Hz) is for focused attention and active thinking. And finally, the Gamma Zone (30Hz and above) is best for high-level cognition and memory recall.
Tibetan bowl
Also called standing bell or Tibetan bell, the Tibetan bowl is an instrument which originated in China. Tibetan bowls are originally used for religious purposes, with Buddhist meditation being the most common use of this instrument. The relaxing sounds of those Tibetan bells are more used for meditation rather than real ASMR video. But ASMR artists took on this instrument to create their own relaxing videos. The pure sound of this instrument is calming and helps you to relax.
Karimba
Wood and metal slats of various sizes are what makes the Karimba or Kalimba, a traditional African instrument. It originated from several places in Africa, thousands of years ago. This small instrument creates a gentle sound. Thus, the use of Karimba went further than traditional music, and it is now widely used in western countries. Children’s music commonly uses it, but not only! More rarely used in ASMR videos, its sound is a classic soothing melody for meditation and other types of relaxing videos.
Where do you find ASMR music?
There are different places where you can find ASMR music for your videos. If you’re looking for the easiest and cheapest way to find such music, I’d recommend you to visit copyright free platforms. From the YouTube Audio Library, use the filter option and apply “calm” in the mood section. There you’ll have all the sounds from the library that potentially suit an ASMR video. Browse those sounds and perhaps you will find the relaxing soundtrack for your content. You can also go to the Facebook Sound Collection and select the “zen” mood in the filters. With sounds from those copyright free platforms, you’ll be able to upload your content online. However, the quality of the music might not be the best.
If you want to take your content further in terms of quality and success, you might want to look at higher-quality sources of music for your ASMR video. Music licensing companies are there to give you the sound that perfectly suits your needs, relaxing soundtracks included. Some have dedicated categories such as “peaceful”, “relaxed”, “meditation” or simply “ASMR”. From there, you will be sure to find what you’re looking for! The price of the licenses can vary according to the music license company and several other factors we already mention in here, but you’ll definitely get a better quality than what you can find on copyright free platforms.
Find your type of relaxation
ASMR is an interesting field to explore and music can play an important role in enhancing a relaxing video. It is up to you to find which one works best in your case. Hopefully, you now have an overview of which types of music you could use for your video. For some of our favorite soothing music, check out this Moments of Zen Playlist from BAM Music! All of the tracks can be streamed and downloaded by registering for free. Don’t wait to be the next successful ASMR artist!
