Music Is Medicine

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. In 2006 I had a head injury. A huge PA speaker that had steadily vibrated over the years from the very loud music that came through it, slowly moved on the shelf it where it was perched, until it fell from about 3 feet above my head, where I happened to be dancing that night. It swung from the cable and slammed me in my right temple. By some miracle and a lot of healing over the following months (sound as well as other modalities), I recovered from the injury. That’s not the point of this story. There was a particularly exciting moment for me about a week after the injury when I got an MRI and saw the image of my brain. My brain! It felt like when Peter Pan saw his shadow- “My shadow! My very own shadow!” Really quite thrilling.

11 months later I was looking through the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times and, lo and behold, there was a full page image of various brain scans taken while people were listening to music and an article about the researcher, Daniel Levitin. It grabbed me partly because I had not so long ago seen a scan of my own brain after a quite serious injury, and still more so because of the particular topic which is of course my passion! He had just published a book called This Is Your Brain On Music which, to this day, remains one of my favorite books on the effects of music on the brain. Levitin is a musician himself and had a career as a music producer, where he developed a fascination with how certain people (in this case, music producers) are able to discern extremely fine gradations of sound and music. That was the beginning. Click here to read the full article. The picture at the top of the page is the original copy which I still have in my files.

Long story short and fast forward, I just found out today that this year he has published a new book- I Heard There Was A Secret Chord. I was excited and delighted and ended up listening to about 3 hours worth of videos with him and ordered the book for myself and as a Christmas present for a loved one. Here is a wonderful video, so well worth listening to if you are an avid sound and music lover- and possibly a frequency nerd as well! Carlos Reyes is extraordinary. When he picked up his violin and started playing his first piece, I was in tears at the first two notes- one of the points that Levitin and Reyes make during their talk that I think just about everyone can relate to- the power of music to profoundly affect the emotional body, sometimes creating gentle waves, sometimes rougher waters, but ultimately bringing us to a resolution.

Music and the Emotions 4.20.11

I have a particular fascination with the fact that certain music can evoke such a powerful emotional response- part of what makes it such a powerful healing modality... that it can assist us in accessing deep places within ourselves of joy, angst or ecstasy- sometimes taking us on a white water raft trip and sometimes a gentle sail on a balmy sea and ultimately deposit us back on the shore feeling soothed, peaceful and whole once again.

Daniel Levitin, author of Your Brain on Music, psychologist and researcher has been exploring this curious power that music has over us for many years. As more and more study is being done in the field of psychoacoustics- the effect of music on the mind- scientists are beginning to get clues about this phenomenon. Yesterday there was a fascinating article in the New York Times Science Section which actually followed up one written several years ago specifically about Mr. Levitin's works and his book. This latest article has some very interesting input from a number of musicians as well, including Paul Simon and Bobby McFerrin.

Enjoy the read. This may actually open up to an interactive page where you can listen to different pieces of music and then enter your response. If the link doesn't work (I couldn't find hte "embed" code) then just cut and paste the url. It's worth it if this topic is even mildy interesting to you.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/18/science/20110419-music-expression.html?src=me&ref=science