Nothing beats music as a universal language. Music knows no boundaries and is an integral part of man’s culture and higher sensibilities. Music, being timeless in nature, bridges the past and the present, the body and the spirit, the old and the young, the masculine and the feminine, the rich and the poor, the world and the heavens. Because of this almost magical quality of music, it has been used as a healing instrument by people in all places since time immemorial.
Chinese Music Therapy
In China, traditional music therapy is adopting itself to modern diseases and disorders. Albums entitled Obesity, Constipation, Insomnia, Relaxation, Stress, and Liver Heart make use of traditional Chinese instruments and are selling briskly in the market. A growing number of medical doctors are now integrating music in treating their patients to the great benefit of the latter because music offers a non-invasive treatment, which may even be more effective than drugs. Kung Tai, a young man who practices music therapy, combines rhythm and qi gong exercise movements and lyric writing. Meanwhile, in Japan, there are several compilations of classical and romantic music with prescriptive suggestions. For insomnia, you can try Debussy’s “Ondine”, or Bach’s “Goldberg”; for headaches and migraines, Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” is perfect. There is a piece for every malady.
Indian Healing Music
Across the Himalayas, India has a long tradition of merging music and medicine. This tradition is as old as the Vedas and the Upanishads, the sacred literature of India extending back thousands of years. In Native American, sacred music songs are believed to be a gift of the gods. Through the ages, distinctive genres and schools have evolved, among them the ragas of the Alvars in the Tamil language of South India. A raga is a traditional composition of religious music with improvised tonal progressions, rhythmic patterns, and melodic formulas. Unlike most western music in which the notes are distinct, the tones in ragas and most other Indian music tend to blend together, creating a soothing, unifying sound. Traditional music is used in hospitals, universities, and healing centers throughout India. In Madras, the Raga Research Center has assembled an interdisciplinary team of doctors, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and musicians who experiment with different ragas for use in music therapy. They have found two particular ragas effective in treating hypertension and mental illness.
An Argentinean Muse
South Americans are particularly adaptable and in touch with their creative nature. Because of their intense struggle to survive, the families are closely knit and participate more frequently in musical and artistic activities than families in wealthier, northern regions. Music has helped people here cope with hunger, homelessness, and other features of modern urban life.
The Power of African-American Music
Traditional African music was dominated by the ring, a circle around which people moved and sang, danced and shouted joyfully to the accompaniment of rhythmic drumming. For Africans, song and dance was religious affirmation; they were urgently compelled to perform music and dance as a means of keeping in contact with their ancestors in order to retain the power of self-definition or perish. For African-Americans, the spiritual was the musical vehicle within the ring for this affirmation and unity, for these songs were masterful repositories of African cultural spirit and through the shout and its developments; they proved central to the maintenance and perpetuation of African cultural values. In Africa, drumming is a high form of art. Black folk songs, love songs, children’s songs, hymns, and other music were spread by “music doctors”, escaped slaves who fled north with only a fiddle on their backs and who served as the bards, journalists, historians, humorists, and chroniclers or the early African experience in America. Although the circle dance eventually gave way to couple and solo dance, elements of traditional musical forms, and their healing rhythms remained.
The Music Lover in Every Filipino
Filipinos are among the world’s greatest music lovers and genius. From the indigenous people to the present generation, music has been an integral part of life. For this naturally romantic race, “The world will be a lonely place without music”. The aboriginal people use music and chants when they hold rituals to communicate with their gods. In the urban areas, music is used for church worship, entertainment, and relaxation. In the celebration of important occasions in the life of every Filipino, music can be heard. It is through music that Filipinos are able to express their fears, joys, and aspirations in life.
How Does Music Affect Us?
Music masks unpleasant sounds and feelings
A visit to the dentist may cause you to feel uneasy and tensed. The sound of quiet Baroque music can disguise or neutralize the agitating vibratory sounds of the dentist’s drill. This may also be used to affect calmness in the operating room.
Music can slow down and equalize brain waves
Just like praying or meditating and other activities for mind and body relaxation, music with a pulse of about 60 beats per minute can transform consciousness from the beta waves which vibrate from 14-20 hertz to alpha with cycle from 8-13 hertz that can induce a feeling of respite and quiet.
Music affects respiration
Breathing is rhythmic. A deep, slow rate of breathing is optimal which brings calmness, better control of emotions, reflective thinking, and healthy metabolism. Gregorian chant and ambient music will produce this effect.
Music affects the heartbeat, pulse rate, and blood pressure
The human heartbeat resonates with sound frequency, tempo, and volume. Lively music can energize us while rock music can deplete our energy. Soft music creates less physical tension, relaxes and heals the body and mind. Excessive noise may raise blood pressure by as much as 10 percent. Loud noise may trigger the release of adrenaline and norepinephrine, two powerful hormones that can speed up the heart and strain the blood vessels. Listening to Mozart music can calm you.
Music reduces muscle tension and improves body movement and coordination
Music may be used in rehabilitation centers to restructure repetitive movements caused by accidents or certain illnesses. In Norway, a therapy called “vibroacoustic” where children with physical and mental disabilities were immersed in “musical bath” using ambient, classical, and popular music helped decrease muscle tension.
Music affects body temperature
All sounds affect our body temperature and hence, our ability to adjust to heat and cold. Listening to transcendent music can make us feel warm while loud music can raise our body heat. On the other hand, soft music can lower it. Music does this by influencing blood circulation, pulse rate, breathing, and sweating. Percussion and bass music will keep you warm while detached, abstract music can cool you off.
Music can increase endorphin levels
Endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers. Listening to good music can make one feel euphoric and the healing chemicals released by the feeling of joy and emotional well-being in music enable the body to create its own anesthetic and enhance the immune function.
Music and sound can boost the immune function
Certain types of music, singing, chanting, and vocalization can oxygenate body cells. This helps induce blood and platelet production, lymphocyte stimulation and cellular protection against diseases. Mild jazz, classical, and impressionist music can produce this effect.
Music can change our perception of space
Music is sonic wallpaper. It can make our environment feel lighter and more spacious and make our space feel more orderly, active, and efficient. In hospitals, music can reduce feelings of anxiety and confinement. Mozart and Halpern’s music can improve the brain’s ability to perceive the physical world.
Music changes our perception of time
Brisk, repetitive, or marching music can fasten our pace. Music of Baroque nature provokes more ordered behavior. Highly romantic music helps soften a stressful ambience. In clinical setting where even a short time of confinement seems endless, lively music can make time seem to pass more quickly that can relieve boredom.
Music can strengthen memory and learning
Mozart and Vivaldi music can heighten one’s concentration when studying for long periods. Listening to Baroque music can enhance one’s ability to memorize spellings, poetry, and foreign words. Music can boost productivity.
Music enhances romance and sexuality
Music can inspire passion or extinguish it. Sweet, mellow music can help create the intimate mood where feelings of love and romance can be experienced.
Music stimulates digestion
Rock music causes people to eat more and faster while slow string classical music makes them eat slowly and consume less.
Music fosters endurance
The use of strong beats – about 90 per minute – gives strength, especially if combined with physical exercise such as walking, cycling, or dancing.
Music enhances unconscious receptivity to symbolism
The movie soundtrack is essential in creating and maintaining the excitement of a film better than what’s being shown on the screen, invoking archetypal symbols and appealing to the audience’s unconscious. In the same way, relaxing music can help tap into the unconscious and release traumas that have long been trapped within a person’s body.
Music can generate a sense of safety and well-being
Music must provide a haven for the listener. The contemporary music must not only express the people’s concerns but also create a sonic sanctuary where they can understand themselves and the world better as they listen to varying music of the times.
Music is not only ancient, it is eternal. It has played a great part in the drama of life, whose end and purpose is the complete perfection of man’s nature. Through music, human nature has been uplifted and refined. Its myriad of voices and instruments is known even to the deaf if they but listen to the voices of their own souls. Music is the food of love that has taught men gentleness and peace and led them onward to heroic deeds. Music harmonizes the discord of life.
Chinese Music Therapy
In China, traditional music therapy is adopting itself to modern diseases and disorders. Albums entitled Obesity, Constipation, Insomnia, Relaxation, Stress, and Liver Heart make use of traditional Chinese instruments and are selling briskly in the market. A growing number of medical doctors are now integrating music in treating their patients to the great benefit of the latter because music offers a non-invasive treatment, which may even be more effective than drugs. Kung Tai, a young man who practices music therapy, combines rhythm and qi gong exercise movements and lyric writing. Meanwhile, in Japan, there are several compilations of classical and romantic music with prescriptive suggestions. For insomnia, you can try Debussy’s “Ondine”, or Bach’s “Goldberg”; for headaches and migraines, Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song” is perfect. There is a piece for every malady.
Indian Healing Music
Across the Himalayas, India has a long tradition of merging music and medicine. This tradition is as old as the Vedas and the Upanishads, the sacred literature of India extending back thousands of years. In Native American, sacred music songs are believed to be a gift of the gods. Through the ages, distinctive genres and schools have evolved, among them the ragas of the Alvars in the Tamil language of South India. A raga is a traditional composition of religious music with improvised tonal progressions, rhythmic patterns, and melodic formulas. Unlike most western music in which the notes are distinct, the tones in ragas and most other Indian music tend to blend together, creating a soothing, unifying sound. Traditional music is used in hospitals, universities, and healing centers throughout India. In Madras, the Raga Research Center has assembled an interdisciplinary team of doctors, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and musicians who experiment with different ragas for use in music therapy. They have found two particular ragas effective in treating hypertension and mental illness.
An Argentinean Muse
South Americans are particularly adaptable and in touch with their creative nature. Because of their intense struggle to survive, the families are closely knit and participate more frequently in musical and artistic activities than families in wealthier, northern regions. Music has helped people here cope with hunger, homelessness, and other features of modern urban life.
The Power of African-American Music
Traditional African music was dominated by the ring, a circle around which people moved and sang, danced and shouted joyfully to the accompaniment of rhythmic drumming. For Africans, song and dance was religious affirmation; they were urgently compelled to perform music and dance as a means of keeping in contact with their ancestors in order to retain the power of self-definition or perish. For African-Americans, the spiritual was the musical vehicle within the ring for this affirmation and unity, for these songs were masterful repositories of African cultural spirit and through the shout and its developments; they proved central to the maintenance and perpetuation of African cultural values. In Africa, drumming is a high form of art. Black folk songs, love songs, children’s songs, hymns, and other music were spread by “music doctors”, escaped slaves who fled north with only a fiddle on their backs and who served as the bards, journalists, historians, humorists, and chroniclers or the early African experience in America. Although the circle dance eventually gave way to couple and solo dance, elements of traditional musical forms, and their healing rhythms remained.
The Music Lover in Every Filipino
Filipinos are among the world’s greatest music lovers and genius. From the indigenous people to the present generation, music has been an integral part of life. For this naturally romantic race, “The world will be a lonely place without music”. The aboriginal people use music and chants when they hold rituals to communicate with their gods. In the urban areas, music is used for church worship, entertainment, and relaxation. In the celebration of important occasions in the life of every Filipino, music can be heard. It is through music that Filipinos are able to express their fears, joys, and aspirations in life.
How Does Music Affect Us?
Music masks unpleasant sounds and feelings
A visit to the dentist may cause you to feel uneasy and tensed. The sound of quiet Baroque music can disguise or neutralize the agitating vibratory sounds of the dentist’s drill. This may also be used to affect calmness in the operating room.
Music can slow down and equalize brain waves
Just like praying or meditating and other activities for mind and body relaxation, music with a pulse of about 60 beats per minute can transform consciousness from the beta waves which vibrate from 14-20 hertz to alpha with cycle from 8-13 hertz that can induce a feeling of respite and quiet.
Music affects respiration
Breathing is rhythmic. A deep, slow rate of breathing is optimal which brings calmness, better control of emotions, reflective thinking, and healthy metabolism. Gregorian chant and ambient music will produce this effect.
Music affects the heartbeat, pulse rate, and blood pressure
The human heartbeat resonates with sound frequency, tempo, and volume. Lively music can energize us while rock music can deplete our energy. Soft music creates less physical tension, relaxes and heals the body and mind. Excessive noise may raise blood pressure by as much as 10 percent. Loud noise may trigger the release of adrenaline and norepinephrine, two powerful hormones that can speed up the heart and strain the blood vessels. Listening to Mozart music can calm you.
Music reduces muscle tension and improves body movement and coordination
Music may be used in rehabilitation centers to restructure repetitive movements caused by accidents or certain illnesses. In Norway, a therapy called “vibroacoustic” where children with physical and mental disabilities were immersed in “musical bath” using ambient, classical, and popular music helped decrease muscle tension.
Music affects body temperature
All sounds affect our body temperature and hence, our ability to adjust to heat and cold. Listening to transcendent music can make us feel warm while loud music can raise our body heat. On the other hand, soft music can lower it. Music does this by influencing blood circulation, pulse rate, breathing, and sweating. Percussion and bass music will keep you warm while detached, abstract music can cool you off.
Music can increase endorphin levels
Endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers. Listening to good music can make one feel euphoric and the healing chemicals released by the feeling of joy and emotional well-being in music enable the body to create its own anesthetic and enhance the immune function.
Music and sound can boost the immune function
Certain types of music, singing, chanting, and vocalization can oxygenate body cells. This helps induce blood and platelet production, lymphocyte stimulation and cellular protection against diseases. Mild jazz, classical, and impressionist music can produce this effect.
Music can change our perception of space
Music is sonic wallpaper. It can make our environment feel lighter and more spacious and make our space feel more orderly, active, and efficient. In hospitals, music can reduce feelings of anxiety and confinement. Mozart and Halpern’s music can improve the brain’s ability to perceive the physical world.
Music changes our perception of time
Brisk, repetitive, or marching music can fasten our pace. Music of Baroque nature provokes more ordered behavior. Highly romantic music helps soften a stressful ambience. In clinical setting where even a short time of confinement seems endless, lively music can make time seem to pass more quickly that can relieve boredom.
Music can strengthen memory and learning
Mozart and Vivaldi music can heighten one’s concentration when studying for long periods. Listening to Baroque music can enhance one’s ability to memorize spellings, poetry, and foreign words. Music can boost productivity.
Music enhances romance and sexuality
Music can inspire passion or extinguish it. Sweet, mellow music can help create the intimate mood where feelings of love and romance can be experienced.
Music stimulates digestion
Rock music causes people to eat more and faster while slow string classical music makes them eat slowly and consume less.
Music fosters endurance
The use of strong beats – about 90 per minute – gives strength, especially if combined with physical exercise such as walking, cycling, or dancing.
Music enhances unconscious receptivity to symbolism
The movie soundtrack is essential in creating and maintaining the excitement of a film better than what’s being shown on the screen, invoking archetypal symbols and appealing to the audience’s unconscious. In the same way, relaxing music can help tap into the unconscious and release traumas that have long been trapped within a person’s body.
Music can generate a sense of safety and well-being
Music must provide a haven for the listener. The contemporary music must not only express the people’s concerns but also create a sonic sanctuary where they can understand themselves and the world better as they listen to varying music of the times.
Music is not only ancient, it is eternal. It has played a great part in the drama of life, whose end and purpose is the complete perfection of man’s nature. Through music, human nature has been uplifted and refined. Its myriad of voices and instruments is known even to the deaf if they but listen to the voices of their own souls. Music is the food of love that has taught men gentleness and peace and led them onward to heroic deeds. Music harmonizes the discord of life.
