250. Cure Tinnitus Naturally with Music: The Power of Binaural Beats - Wayne Altman

Hello and welcome to the meditation conversation. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin. And today I'm joined by Wayne Altman. Wayne is an entrepreneur and founder of melody clouds. After suffering from tinnitus, he eventually found long sought relief through the sounds of bimural beads that led him to creating melody clouds to offer vast selection of binaural beads and sulfago tones to users for a modest price. So welcome, Wayne. I'm so excited to talk to you today.

Feeling is mutual. So thank you for having me. I've been really looking forward to this.

Yes, well, I wanted to just start with your journey from journey with tinnitus and how that led you to melody clouds.

Yeah, back last May, I have suffered with tinnitus or tinnitus for 30 years. I spent eight years in the military, and loud noises, whether it's music, whether it's explosions, whatever it is, loud noises cause damage to your ears. And what you're hearing, whether it's a whoosh or whether it's a ringing or a screeching, is the damage that you've caused. So I suffered from this for I still do, I'm hearing it right now. But for 30 years, I never heard silence until a friend of mine said, hey, have you ever tried binaural beats? And I'm like, look at me, what are you talking about? You know what I mean? I don't even know what that is. And he said, well, we'll put one frequency in one ear, we'll put one frequency in another ear, and your brain will create a third frequency that it will actually hear. So I'm like, okay, cool. And the third time we tried it, I heard nothing.

Really?

And I mean, when I say nothing, I mean, I heard it was like I was in a hole. I had not heard silence in over 30 years.

Wow.

And that was so powerful to me. I'm getting emotional now, and I thought, what did you just do?

Right?

I wasn't deaf, I could hear other sounds and stuff, but I did not hear that and it was very odd feeling. So that was kind of my introduction.

And I'm curious because there was that you tried it three times and it was the third time that that happened. So was it a matter of getting the frequency, like listening to different frequencies or frequencies?

Basically what happens is and there's a whole list on melody clouds, there's a whole list of frequencies and what they do. Now, kara, I am the least woo woo crunchy person on the planet, okay? Forgive me, I am just not that guy. But the science of what we're talking about really makes sense once you get into it, once you dive into it. Okay, yeah. Melody clouds, our tagline, our motto is take charge of your mood. And that's what this music does. It allows you to, if you're feeling sad, to not feel sad, to take charge of that. And we can get more into that. But I'm beginning to get to see a little bit more clearly the benefits of certain things. I'll tell you this. So this happened in the middle of May. By June 1, I bought the domain melody clouds. And where we sit today is 300,000 files, a website, two apps, one on the iOS, one on the Android, and we were going headlong. I mean, yeah, everything. I've got 8000 hours of old time radio that's being uploaded to the website right now because I really want people to relax. That's what the whole thing is about. So it's not just the binaural beats and the sulfagio. It's guided meditations. It's nature sounds. I've got a lot of content on there.

That's amazing. So tell us more about you've talked a little bit about how binaural beats work. Talk about sulfago tones. It's fascinating when we start talking about me, too.

Look, I was just learning about this stuff as well. And in the 11th century, a monk named Guido Diarezzo made the observation that even though you can't play a musical instrument, you can tell when it's out of tune. Okay? I don't play a guitar. I don't play a piano. I don't play a musical instrument. But I know when someone's doing it poorly. I know that guitar needs to be tuned, or that singer. I recognize that I can't sing.

Yeah.

Sophagio is that ability to recognize when things are in tune and the vibrations are pure and a better word for it, but healthy. Okay, so Faggio helps you bring that back into focus, in other words. And it does the same things, calming, if you want to relax. Sulfagio frequencies are very good for relaxation because it brings all of that back into a sharper focus, a sharper balance.

So would you say that because we humans have frequency, we have frequency within us, we are energy beings. So it's that the audible frequency that we're hearing that's kind of resonating with the frequency that we are. And that's where the map.

Okay, so that's how our brain communicates, is electrical impulses, brain waves. Those brain waves are at frequency in different frequencies. So what we're finding out is, when you're angry, it's a different frequency than when you're communicating at a different frequency than if you're happy. That's why a binaural beat works as well as it does. You go from one frequency to another frequency in your transmissions. And look, I'm not a doctor, but I read enough and I know enough that this is what the literature that's where they're trying to go. Once I started thinking about this, here's the proof. Here's the proof. So if you and I go into a Catholic church or any church where there's an organ play, we don't even have to know what was going on in that church, right? You and I could go in, we would know automatically to lower our voice, to become very reverent. We hear that music, and without even looking at one another. We'll know, lower your voice.

Okay?

But if we left there and went directly across the street and we went to a Southern Baptist church where they're singing praise music, there's no way that you can help not being uplifted. Your hands go above your head and you feel that euphoria, that praise. Or this is how far back it goes. Let's say that we're in the Middle Ages or we're even further back than that. We communicated to other tribes, other civilizations. We're about ready to go to war. How? Through drums, through chanting, through music. So this communication has been with us forever. And you can take someone from heavy grief to them being okay or to be euphoric, to be happy just through those do that music.

I love it. So I know that you were mentioning when we started where you're like, I am not woo woo. You're very grounded if you ever want to scratch the woo woo itch. Have you explored the chakra system at all?

Because what I want to do is I want to provide a lot of these things for other people in that journey. I am starting to learn a bit more, open myself up a bit more to other guided meditation. For example, we have 3000 hours of guided meditation. I realized how important that was. A lot of people don't know they want to meditate. They've heard about meditation. They know that it can relax and calm. You know how to get started, right?

Absolutely.

And a guided meditation is perfect for that because you have someone who can lead you.

Right?

I have another story about guided meditation. I had absolutely no idea, and again, no crunch to me at all. I have like, super. I get breakout in hives and I see birkenstocks or smell incense burning. Okay, that's just not me. All right? But I go into this men's group that I belong to, metal. And Art Geyser is really good at this. And I played along. I was okay, I'll play along. And immediately I see that the sound of his voice really the first time was a very disconcerting feeling, to be honest with you, because it worked so well subsequently, I've understood, I understood exactly what was going on. And it's become, I won't say a regular occurrence, but I definitely know when it's become a benefit to me.

So you mean like you heard his voice and you were able to go into a meditative?

We did a guided meditation. It felt like to me I was slipping and not at the same time. So it felt like I was moving. And I came out of that the first time. I got to say it was very interesting, to say the least. The other times that I have done that with Art, I've gotten a lot of clarity.

How's that?

I've been able to think way more clearly. I've been able to focus my intellect to a pinpoint. And it's really been a benefit to me.

That's amazing. So are there any side effects to using sound to help with healing?

Yes, we are very but none of them bad. If you're asking about negative side effects, we've yet to find those. We've been listening to music for thousands of years. If anything is settled science, they like throwing that word around. If anything settled science, then that should be it.

Yeah.

But the side effects, yes, you become calmer, you may be able to adjust your mood according to where you want it to be, rather than your circumstances. You may be able to sleep a lot better. So those are all side effects. That very pleasant side effects, if you ask me. But as far as Binaural beats or sofasia specific, I've not heard or read of any negative long term side effects for many of those things. And I will also say that this doesn't work the same way on every person. And that to me, also screams reality and screams science. Because what works for me, if it worked for everyone, I would really be questioning that thing.

And it makes sense, right? Because every person, because we are energy beings, and again, I might be going to Granola for you, but because we are energy beings, we all have different frequencies within us, and some of them might be more like out of alignment or need work. One person who might be dealing with depression, for example, their frequency is not going to be the same as somebody who's experiencing anxiety. And so if we're talking about trying to affect them with frequency, you would need two different frequencies for two different because you're addressing two different frequencies, two different things.

Right, that is very true. Our brain is what determines where our resources go in our bodies. So in order to heal, you have to take yourself out of the fight or flight, mentality or mental state. You follow me?

Yeah.

If you're constantly on the run, if you're constantly in fear, under stress, you're not going to heal your body.

Okay, right.

Okay. That is so fascia. And that is binaural Beats in a nutshell right there. We are transporting those brainwaves. We're putting that person in a state of relaxation and focusing those energies, that body, those resources to specific things for you, basically, or helping you get there.

Yeah, I love that. That's wonderful. So what about optimizing your health as one ages? Is this something that sound is good for? Do you have any thoughts about that?

The reason that I laugh is right before we started this, I was telling you, look for me, look, I'm 55 years old, I feel 85 years old. I need all the help I can get. Okay. I wake up in the morning and I feel like reporting whoever beat me all night to the police. It is horrifying. Getting older really is terrible. But what you can do though, is you can do maintain, you can stop doing the damage that you've been doing your entire life. I mentioned to you I spent eight years in the military before that, and during that, I was in the rodeo. I did a lot of rodeo when I was younger. Trying to keep your weight down, trying to keep exercising and keep everything moving, those are paramount if you plan on or even if you don't plan on living a great number of years. Right. So for me, right now, it is a race to maintain as much of what I have left as long as I have left. How's that?

I love that. And I love what you're talking about with that foundational, kind of because it really is about getting the most out of our experience, you know, whether whether we're 20 or 55. You know, it's it is I mean, you mentioned something, I don't think we were recording yet, but how we feel bulletproof when we're younger, we might be told, don't listen to loud music, and we can understand it conceptually, but we also feel like, well, I'm not a 60 year old person. I can hear just fine.

Look, I've got three girls, and the one thing, every time I see them with headphones in or those earbuds in and stuff, I let them know it is a serious thing. Or dennis Melody Claus we've been getting a lot of feedback, and the feedback that we're getting mainly positive. And one group that has been most positive has been the dental community.

No kidding.

Yeah. What's going their assistance because of those drills seem to have operated at a frequency that's done a lot of damage to people's hearing.

Really?

Now they've got a lot of silent drills, but for the generate the people my age, the dentist my age and a little bit younger before those things came out, there's a lot of tennis, a lot of tinnitus in that community. And so we're getting a lot of feedback from them going, whoa, this is awesome. Thanks for pointing this out to us.

Yeah.

But look, until we come up with treatments, there is no cure for tinnitus. There's no treatment for it, even. This is mainly used to kind of I won't say mask it, but definitely it puts you in a space where you can hear that silence again.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, the minute that you're not listening to the binaural beat, here comes the screeching again. So I hate to burst anybody's bubble, but that's where we are.

It'd be interesting to see over time. I mean, that is a limitation. Currently. It's one of those things like, I'm fascinated by the fact of a four minute mile and how that was impossible for so long and then somebody did it, and then people just started doing it all the time, one person after another. It was like once that threshold had been opened, it was like, oh, it's possible. And then people started almost like they just gave themselves permission. This is not a problem that I have. When I used to run, I was lucky to get a nine minute mile or a ten minute mile, but anyway, so hats off to anybody who can get anything close to that.

Look, they use a calendar to time my mile. I don't know, nine minutes sounds like a really good time to me.

Oh, that's hilarious. I love that. But it makes me wonder, maybe we don't know exactly what the possibilities are yet for sound, where it's like at the moment, it's not a long term. It's one of those, like, kind of a bandage that you get the benefit while you use it, but who knows? If you were to use it a lot, it might be something that you slowly do get some healing through it.

Yeah, there's absolutely look, 100% look. I don't know that there's anything better that I could be doing with my life right now.

Absolutely. And the thing that I love, I mean, you talk about medication anytime in my opinion, that we have something like sound. I mean, sound is the basis of what the universe is created on. It's sound and light. And these are foundational parts of this reality. And so if we can use that to help us come more into wholeness and to help us to get relief, it's like, it's helping us to align more to our natural state rather than like, okay, let's just throw some chemicals at this problem.

It's like I couldn't agree with that more. I don't think that that could be the final answer. All of those drugs that we are constantly prescribing people, I just don't know how that is a permanent long term answer. Now, I will say there's miracles in pills as well. There's a lot of people that are no longer suffering from depression or it's not as crushing because of the prescription that they've been given. I know what uplifts me, and I know what uplifts millions and millions of other people, and I have never taken any kind of medication for that at all. What I've done is turned on the radio, I've turned on, put in a CD or listen to me, but I've downloaded music. Make that happen.

I love it. And, you know, I as a as a meditation teacher, you know, I teach some meditation classes in addition to the other work that I do. And I had a client I mean, it's been a couple of years ago now, but I am often talking to my clients about sound and just how powerful sound can be and how we can use sound in our healing. And this one particular woman had a desk job. She was at her desk from, say, nine to five. I think it was more like seven to three or something like that. And she listened to pop music all day long. Like, just that was her thing. She worked I think she was a help desk, support desk kind of person. And so she was there all the time, and she always had music going in the background. And I told her about sulfago tones in particular, and I told her how to find them and just to get a playlist going. And she reported back that she'd been listening to them all day long. So, you know, 8910 hours a day in the background. So she's not like she's, you know, in meditation. She just has it on in the background.

Yeah.

And she did that for a series of days or weeks or I can't remember how long she did it, but she felt a profound shift within her, and it really was a beautiful illustration of the power of sound. Because, again, she's working, she's talking to other people. But if we think about these waves, it's energy. It's waves of energy. So even if we're not focused on it, even if we're not consciously attuned to it, these waves of sound are coming into our being, our waves of energy, and they're affecting them. They can't not affect them. So it's very powerful, and it's a testament to how you are spending your time right now and what you are delivering to the public to make these things easily accessible. I can't remember now what the monthly price is at 599 a month.

I was just going to say this was a great segue. I was just going to say. And doing that at a price point where I really make people feel foolish for saying no.

Yeah.

We're doing 299 for 60 days just to try it.

Yeah.

And then after that, it's 599 a month. Now, my closest, if you want to try it with someone else, the closest to that is triple that price. So I think we're heading into a place where I didn't think that it was necessary to charge people an arm and a leg. This is not about me. A Wayne is going to go get rich. That's not what this is about. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I love that saying. And that's what I'm doing. Right. I'll go back and I'll say to you that, yes, you can even take someone with binaural beats. They don't necessarily have to. After a while, after you've gotten yourself used to listening to these frequencies where you play a binaural beat, and they can discern each frequency on their own without earphones, without it being directly delivered in each ear, and achieve the same thing.

Really?

Yes.

Oh, wow.

I have a lot of people that are doing that now. And I will also say that anyone that doubts this, the sleep, okay. I get so many people contacting me going, hey, what did you do? Because if you are a mind racer, if you lay in bed and you're thinking all of these thoughts, which is me, I mean, that is 100% me, I will go to bed every single night. And then my mind kicks into high gear and it makes it very difficult to sleep. But I can put in a sulfur or most likely a Binaural Beat and drops me like a sack of potatoes. It is crazy. And I'll sleep very deeply.

Wow.

And those frequencies again, those frequencies are detailed in melody Clouds. And one thing I will tell you, that one of the things we are working very hard at right now is being able to take those frequencies and putting them in every type of music. So any song you're listening to, being able to cover that with Binaural Beat, because the way that it is now, you can't do that. You have to listen to a specific type of music. And maybe you don't like listening to that type of music. Maybe I want to be able to listen to whatever type of music I want to listen to and have my Binaural Beat or my sulfur frequency covering that.

Wow.

We're working very hard. It's a very technical thing to do, working very hard to make that happen for people. And then I expect to see a pretty big explosion as far as melody clouds go, if we can pull that off. Right now, what we're about to release is nature sounds. So you'll be able to create your own environment very shortly with melody clouds. Go in. If you want to listen to nature sounds, you'll be able to pick and choose fire or Ocean or river and create all of these sounds together, put a Binaural Beat with it, and a lot of fun playing with that. I've had so much fun creating my own environments and stuff.

That's amazing.

But already, again, there's 300,000 files that are on there right now, and it certainly I have not had anyone tell me that it's not worth the price. That should have been the first thing out of people's mouth if I wasn't hitting that correctly.

Right.

And I will mention two other things. Number one, neither the Android app or the Apple, the iOS app allow for anyone to collect your data while you're using that app. So not only do I not want your personal data, but I'm not allowing anyone to collect your data while the app is going. That's put your money where your mouth is. Do you want people collecting your information? If not, this is a way I'm not interested in it. You know what I mean?

Right.

And the second thing that I would say is I forgot. What the second thing I would say? There you go. I got to go back into my notes.

How about that? Well, why don't you tell us how people can find Melody clouds and more information about you.

Okay, so Melodyclouds.com, that's our website. They can reach me at Wayne Altman@melodyclouds.com. I have a very full email box, but I get back to everybody.

You do. I've been in touch with you, right? Yes.

I'm pretty good about that.

You are.

You can also get in touch with me through the Android app or the iOS app okay.

Through the support.

Yes.

Wonderful. Well, Wayne, this has just been such a delight. Thank you so much. And thank you for your dedication, for bringing this natural solution for these very real and debilitating, in a lot of cases, issues that people are having in terms of their mental health and their physical health as well.

Yeah. Aside from the tinnitus, really being able to help uplift people that may be feeling depressed, that really is a driving factor. Destressing people and helping them through when they're a little sadder. Grief, being able to block someone's grief is a very good feeling.

Yeah.

And I hope that people will give us a chance.

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Wayne. Thanks for being great talking to you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'd love for you to do me one quick favor, which is to think of one person who would benefit from hearing this content. Let them know you're thinking of them by sharing this episode with them right now. Thank you. And I look forward to the next meditation conversation.