In effect it is an auditory illusion.
For sure a lot of people reading this already have been playing around with this either as a way to aid in meditation or in high hopes of emulating the experience of illicit substances. For the ones that have not heard about binaural beats it is worth taking a look at the phenomena.
It is basically a way to program the brain into different states and a session with binaural beats can entail going from one state to another. Normally people use it for meditation but one of the more spectacular claims is that it can get you high. this have not been working for me but maybe you are one of the lucky ones! Then it is supposed that it can help your brain being more receptive for learning and many other things.
So being a meditator since a early age (sporadically I admit, maybe a month or two every day then a year can pass...) I always had an interest in this and tried one machine in a store in the late eighties. It was in a store full of people and there was roadwork going on outside. They were drilling holes into the asphalt. Still I did get into a meditative state!
Never could afford the machine but soon with computers being cheaper I have been playing with it once in a while mostly trying to get an out of body experience! (This still being an experience that have eluded me unfortunately!)
Last year was getting into heavy meditation for about four months and meditated for about one to two hours daily. Then started using binaural beats for about two weeks. After stopping this and going back to normal meditation practice I noticed that it kind of had phucked up my meditations. The quality of the meditations were worse and it was hard to get into it. Just want to mention this if any readers are meditating regularly. This probably is different from person to person but just to put it out there.
If there is an interest in meditating or at least to have some experience of what it kind of feels like it is a great short cut. Start with ten to fifteen minutes programs and sit comfortably with a straight back. And yes there is no need for sitting in a lotus position or anything else just try to empty your mind and listen to the tone being generated.
This is frequencies and tones being generated so it can also be used in music. What probably is the first thing to come to mind is mixing it into ambient music as it can enhance the listening experience and aid in getting the listener into a semi-meditative state. But why not in for example minimal techno as well or any music aiming for a trance like state.
There is a lot of binaural beats apps for Android and most of them come with already made presets, in wav and with publicity. My recommendation is Gnaural. There is a main program that is very easy to use, setting the length and the frequencies in a time chart.
Then there is a Android version that have a full working version with no publicity for free or a paid version for the generous person. It is not possible to program it and it just plays the presets that have been made already. The good thing is that it is synthesizing everything in real time so it does not take any real space on the device being used. There is a lot of presets to download from the website to start to experiment with but like said to make your own is very easy.
So to change your brainwaves, read some more and download the program go to:
http://gnaural.sourceforge.net/
If you use some binaural beats in your music please let me know- musicalandroid@yahoo.com