Science has endorsed in recent times that certain musical phrases and pieces are capable of providing physiological as well as psychological benefits to the suffering millions. An increased level of wellness and quality of life regardless of one’s health conditions or physical or mental disabilities has been confirmed in several experiments with music. It is fairly known to the world of science that music does not affect the mind alone. Unconscious body reaction to music adds up to the mystery of music, which makes music therapy all the more a complex study. Rechardt (1988) had observed that in music, there are structures without contents, which actually represent the similar structures of archaic bodily comprehending.
Experiments with music also indicate that music influences the brain, which in turn influences the immune mechanism in the body. In this context, it is relevant to point out here that a fortified immune system may not be able to cure a terminal disease but it helps the patients to fight better.
Using special devices, Alfred Tomatis, a French physician discovered that burnout, fatigue and the debilitating effect of stress come when the central grey nuclei cells of the brain run low on electrical potentials. These cells act like small batteries, they generate electricity for brain waves that can be detected on EEGs. Interestingly, these cells are not recharged by body metabolism. These cells are charged up by something outside the body, namely sound. Before and after brain maps made from EEGs show that the brain is stimulated by high frequency sound (5000-8000 Hz).
It is curious to note that long before they are born, babies (embryos) can hear their mothers voice at frequencies of about 8000 Hz. The high frequency sounds, with which the embryos are nourished with, are attributed to the distortion that takes place when sound travels through the amniotic fluid. Tomatis through his experiments with music of Mozart observed that its passages were frequented with high frequency sounds and thereby could virtually take one’s consciousness back to the safe and secure womb of the mother.
The Healing Secrets in Music
It is well known that music is too complex a phenomenon for scientific scrutiny. It is much more mystical if one has to ascertain its therapeutic ingredients. However, a team of scientists drawn from various disciplines like immunology, neurology, physiology, psychology, and musicology around the world are making an attempt to uncover the healing secrets of music.
Music we know, cannot be viewed in an objective way, i.e., by dissociating the mind’s involvement. It makes it all the more difficult to scientifically appreciate or evaluate the musical inputs in a therapeutic setting. However, a therapist who is good at mind-reading can design a suitable musical input beneficial to his patient. It may be borne in mind here that good results cannot be expected even if the best of musical input is selected by the therapist if the receiving patient is critical, doubtful, reluctant or unwilling to undergo the therapy sessions.
Therapeutic Rhythms
When a mother pats her crying child to calm down, she unconsciously creates a rhythm, which is comforting.
In music too, rhythms follow a similar pattern comforting those who have expressible or inexpressive grievances in their life.
Listening to musical rhythms do have an impact on the brain wave rhythms responsible for our state of consciousness: whether we are alert (with the predominance of beta waves) or relaxed or asleep(with the predominance of alpha, theta or delta levels, as the case may be). A musical-harmonic order called ‘rhythmic functional order in humans’ could be intensified even when a person is sleepy. It was experimentally observed by the author in a workshop conducted at Delhi that by manipulating the rhythmic structure of a tabla or a manjira one could feel ‘relaxed’ and ‘happy’ as remarked by the participants themselves. It is a well-known fact that long term musical involvement reaps cognitive rewards – in terms of linguistic skills, reasoning and creativity enhancing social adjustments. Music exercises the brain and playing the instruments for instance, involves vision, hearing, touch, motor planning, emotion, symbols-interpretation – all of which go to activate different areas of brain-functioning. It was observed that some Alzheimer patients could respond to music well even long after they had forgotten their near and dear ones.
The intimate connections between one’s own life-processes and their music can remain despite illness or disability. They are not dependent on one’s musical coaching or mastery. Because of this, learning difficulties, mental and physical ailments, physical abuse, stress, terminal illness etc. encountered by people could be addressed by exposing them to an appropriate dose of music suitable to their constitution and mental needs.
Every one of us responds to music from the newborn infant to the patients suffering from terminal diseases and from physically or mentally strong to those who are handicapped or disabled. Several psychotherapists have of late, used music to enhance their efficacy in treating neurotic disorders. Client and the therapist improvise music together, building a creative musical process which enhances communication and helps people live more resourcefully and creatively. Appropriate music helps in controlling blood pressure, emotions, liver functioning and psycho-somatic disorders. It is relevant here to recall the words of Paul Nordoff, who commented that once a musician begins to work as a therapist, he will find new depths in the art of music itself. Developing a clinical musical skill would, no doubt, release the world of music from the narrow clutches of entertainment paving way towards service to humanity.
The Mechanism of Healing in Music
Researchers are not quite sure how music works as a therapy. Though one seems to be convinced that listening to music can influence pulse, blood pressure, brainwave pattern and electrical activity of muscles, music, with care and love, seems to work well as a tool for activating the psychic processes in humans. (Lehtonen, 1986).
To understand how music in general and ragas in particular can heal, one must look into the very depths of the sound and its bodily and mental impact.
Hans Jenny, a Swiss engineer and doctor has conducted several in-depth experiments with sound. He has observed how sound vibrations could interact with matter. He has proved that sound could create infinite forms and shapes. According to him, simple changes occurring in pitch, in the harmonics of the tone or in the material that is vibrating, can produce a variety of forms and shapes. It was also noticed that when chords were added, the results could be either beauty or chaos. Jenny demonstrated that intricate geometric figures can be formed by sound. A low ‘Om’ sound, for example, produced a few concentric circles with a dot at their centre,. a high EEE, many circles with wobbly edges. These forms change instantaneously, when different notes or tones are sounded.
The Sound Impact
Delicate cells, tissues and other internal organs could be affected by sound vibrations, irrespective of the fact that a listener is conscious of it or not. Vibrating sounds form a pattern and create energy fields of resonance affect our breath, pulse, blood pressure, muscle tension, skin temperature, and brain wave rhythms. Jenny’s discoveries help us in understanding the sound impact to a great extent. Like a potter shaping clay at his wheel, sound shapes and sculpts our destiny.
Therapeutic Patterns
It may not be just the ingredients in music viz., resonance, rhythm, harmony, pause etc., which could prove therapeutic. Rather, the inner dynamism noticed in a musical piece appears to have an equally significant role. In the deepest realms of our mind, the patterns in music stimulate the patterns of adaptation. Recent scientific research on the brain and neurons indicate that such patterns already reside in our mind in the autonomic nervous system facilitating the healing process.
Music Representing Movement
Unlike other art-forms, music exhibits a clear dynamism, certain movement and progression implying a time frame. A continuity thus exists between the past, present and future in music. There is a cycle of changes viz., appearance, development and vanishing in music. The movement in music helps, in ironing out the crease of despair or disappointments in life. It also helps in paving the way for flexibility and lightness which are essentials for enjoying life.
Music, a Series of Tension and its Resolution
In the words of Igor Stravinsky (1973), music is a series of tensions which try to find their resolution. All forms of music around us – be it folk or classical, Western or oriental exhibit subtly but repeatedly assertion to be followed by accommodation. Constant creation of tension and relaxation, question and its answer, in-built in all musical structures, facilitates a mental exercise that would shape up the mind to be more flexible for greater onslaughts in real life. There is every possibility that musical inputs make the mind stronger and more adjustable to all external stimuli. Daily musical diet can help us cope with the external world. It should also impart confidence in our dealing with others with a more harmonic and cheerful disposition.
Entrainment
Neuroscientists have all along been suspecting that music helps build connections between nerve cells in the cerebral cortex.
Music seems to influence the subtle electric pulses that travel to and from the brain. The so-called brain waves change in size and strength depending on whether the brain is agitated, thoughtful, day-dreaming or in deep sleep. The brain waves are manipulated through a process called entrainment. In music therapy, entrainment leads to brain waves in sync with the rhythms of a musical piece. For instance, as an agitated or hyperactive person listens to soft music with a slow, regular pace of rhythm, there is a possibility that the variability of his heart rate is minimized. The right music could help relieve pain; it could improve concentration or sleep.
The Time-Element in Music
Time taken by a tone when sounded decides its life period i.e. between its emanation and dissolution. Thus, a musical tone is never frozen like a painting or a fossil. It continues to exist for a definite duration between its birth and death. So, music is a life-form, unlike any plastic art. Passage of time gets constantly reminded by music either through the silence one can notice between the two notes or by the fluctuating frequencies, which can stretch or transform a note into a different one. In recent neuro musicological studies, the researchers have noticed that slow-paced low-pitched notes alters the level of consciousness and the brain wave patterns in such a manner that one feels relaxed by listening to it over a period of time. Thus, music offers a ‘living in now’ experience, which one can also derive from yogic practices like kriya or pranayama or sruthi darshana. Music can therefore be equated with a yoga system. By diverting one’s mind, music and yoga aspire to reach certain goals viz., acceptance of reality as such, developing a positive and pragmatic style of living in harmony with the universal principles and laws of nature.
In addition, music also serves as an inseparable companion to all those who are marginalized in society and who have a grudge against the life situations, society, environment – and above all against themselves!
This article was published in ‘Ayurveda And All’ Pages April 2006 – Pages 40 to 43
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, May 12, 2021