Inside the studio using breathwork to inspire creativity in musiciansMaking music can be a fragile process. So often, the mind disrupts creative flow even for the most experienced artists —Sting, the legendary frontman of The Police, famously had writer’s block for eight years. However, there are ways to abate such internal barriers, and one of them is simply to breathe.
The practice, known as breathwork, might sound like spiritual woo-woo, but there are various proven scientific benefits for focus and managing emotions. Angelica Hay teaches these techniques at her aptly-named studio in Los Angeles, Breath/Work.

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Angelica runs the studio with her husband, Ryan. She is the primary practitioner of the breathwork courses, and she and Ryan collaborate on the second core element of the studio: sound healing. Breath/Work tailors the approach to creatives by combining evidence-based techniques with their expertise in music production and live performance.
In addition to being musicians and visual artists who collaborate on the project Pink Sky, Ryan and Angelica have backgrounds in education and science. Angelica was a microbiologist, and Ryan is currently serving as the academic director of the music production school, IO Music Academy.
Breathwork has complemented their creative pursuits for over a decade. One of the techniques Angelica teaches in her course, Breathwork for Moving Through It, uses a system called pendulation. It’s often used to help people deal with trauma. The exercise involves spurts of active, faster breathing, followed by brief rests before actively breathing again.
“It’s building pressure within you to let something go, but instead of letting it all out at once, you’re training your body to get used to experiencing discomfort,” Angelica says. “You let go of little bits at a time, so that when in your everyday life you experience something activating, instead of going into full-blown panic mode, you recognise it, and you have the tools to go back home.”
Inside the Breath/Work studio. Image: Press
Other classes use different styles of breathing for different outcomes that are based on scientific studies. The courses offer in-depth engagement with breathwork, but overall, anyone can use these techniques in any setting, including when you’re beating yourself up because you can’t get the snare to sound just right.
Breathwork to Calm the Mind involves mostly taking deep breaths through the nose to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, commonly known as the ‘rest and digest’ system. When this system is active, stress and anxiety are reduced. Breathwork for Creatives involves circular breathing — breathing in and out of the mouth without stopping — to reduce anger, depression, and confusion that can be hindrances when artists are creating.
“Life stuff can occupy space that could otherwise be filled with creativity,” Angelica says. “Breathwork can be a helpful tool for setting down the mental and daily clutter, getting back to the core of why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
While breathwork is a tool to refocus and calm down, their sound healing events offer the means to permanently reduce mental noise by using music to address deep-seated emotions. The idea that lying on the ground while someone plays gongs and flutes can be medically or mentally beneficial might seem farcical, but music has been used for healing purposes for thousands of years. Breath/Work uses modern tools for the same purpose.
“We’ve found [sound healing] to be a highly effective tool for processing the entire spectrum of emotions. From total bliss and joy to grief and loss. It’s a medium through which we can acknowledge and release the experiences,” Ryan shares, and they’ve designed their studio as a safe space for such an experience.
When I meet them at Breath/Work, ambient music with rippling electronic pads is already playing. Their visual art hangs on the walls above shelves filled with different books, from David Foster Wallace’s classic encyclopaedic novel, Infinite Jest, to Becoming Supernatural, the seminal work from neuroscientist and healing practitioner Dr Joe Dispenza.
Angelica and Ryan. Image: Press
Paints and journals are spread across various surfaces. Their two music stations are at the far end with an arsenal of over 20 instruments, including traditional pieces such as a gong and singing bowls, and coveted synthesisers, such as a Moog Sub 37 and Elektron Octatrack.
Similar to how a concert can relieve stress and other negative emotions, Breath/Work takes elements of live electronic performance and integrates them into the realm of traditional sound healing, which is something Angelica and Ryan felt other sessions didn’t deliver.
Most sound baths they attended served the purpose of relaxation, whereas their electro-acoustic sound baths are stimulating. Rather than relying entirely on calming sounds, they use contrived sonics and effects that guide attendees between comfortable and uncomfortable emotional states based on music theory.
For centuries, music has been built around tension and release; moving from dissonance to consonance; melodies and harmonies resolving. Ryan and Angelica induce that concept within the body.
“I love being brought into a liminal state by sound, but I felt that musically [previous sessions] lacked an emotional depth that aligned with the intensity and character of my experience,” Ryan says.
Most sound baths guide attendees into liminal states by using singing bowls and gongs because of their resonant sound around specific fundamental frequencies. These focused tones can decrease brain stimulation, which results in less emotional reactivity. But with a full range of synths, Ryan and Angelica can lead attendees into a wider variety of mental states.
Electroacoustic soundbath setup in Breath/Work. Image: Press
“I wanted something that was a vehicle for us to create that liminal state through drone sounds and more traditional instruments, but then be able to introduce tension and emotional release through melody and chords floating in and out,” Ryan says.
“There’s something about the sounds not being able to be produced naturally that makes them feel mysterious,” Angelica adds. “The addition of the instruments allows us to build more of an arc for the full session.”
Their setup is completed with a Rhodes, electric guitars, and Native Instruments’ Noire Piano, giving them an immense range of acoustic and alternative sounds.
Each instrument has a specific role in the sound healing sessions. A Moog Labyrinth is for rhythmic textures. The Novation Bass Station II is for leads and occasional arpeggios. Various groove boxes, such as the Volca FM2, create repeating patterns to introduce a hypnotic quality — similar to what clubbers can feel on the dancefloor after listening to hours of techno.
The strain begins with a faint sub-bass that Ryan expands with filters and noise effects. Once it’s reached an amplitude where everyone in the room can feel the lower frequencies in their bodies, they remove the bass to create a void for the uneasy emotional state to exist.
From there, Ryan and Angelica build a foundation from a root note that eases or stresses the current emotions. They’ll build soft melodic motifs to lessen the intensity, but then also alter them slightly with different rhythms and pitches to sustain the engagement. They also use effects such as delays for a modern version of the same function.
Angelica and Ryan. Image: Press
“We bring more musical elements in to facilitate the emotional release and then provide total safety and surrender through a really soft, lush, full-spectrum experience,” Ryan says. “We’re feeling the bass in our body. We’re feeling the stability of a drone, and we’re being given the ear candy.”
Ryan also shared a piece of feedback he received from a sound bath attendee that captures their precise intention. After the set was finished at one of their events, someone asked him:
“As I was lying down during this set, I was almost reliving some very difficult, complicated experiences. Then, in the last several minutes, I felt an overwhelming sense of safety and release. Is that normal?”
Such a visceral experience may not arise while working on a mixdown for a new track, but emotions and memories can often distract us. Breath/Work might seem woo-woo, but if the techniques lead to better music, they’re worth a try.
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