I talked a little about entrainment last time I wrote here, and I’ve done more studying about it since. The idea behind using entrainment to change your mood with music is to catch your current mood in the music you are listening to, engage with it, then slowly change the mood of the music, bringing your mood along with it.

This isn’t just a music theory. It’s a principle in biology and other sciences - that two things vibrating at different frequencies will gradually change their vibrations until they meet. Sound is vibration. When your body is subjected to sound, your cells - including your brain cells, where emotion is located - will gradually adjust their vibrations to meet the target - the music to which you are listening.

When you present your brain with a target that is too far away from its current mood, it staggers. The difference is great enough to make you uncomfortable rather than helping your mood. That’s why most music therapists and people who work with sound healing recommend creating an ‘entrainment’ playlist of music that moves gradually from sad to meditative to joyful, or any other sequence of emotions you want to approach.

I recently ran across this article by Dr. John M. Ortiz, Ph.D., at the PositiveHealth web site. Dr. Ortiz is the Director of The Institute of Applied Psychomusicology, a licensed psychologist, consultant, certified clinical hypnotist and psychoeducational trainer. He is listed in the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, and serves on the editorial board of the American Counseling Association’s Journal of Counseling and Development. A musician, composer, martial artist, and author of The Tao of Music: Using Music to Change Your Life, Dr. Ortiz conducts workshops and lectures on Sound Psychology at national and international levels. He promotes the use of music and sound as tool in healing and meditation. Dr. Ortiz explains in his article how he uses entrainment to help people gain control of their moods:

Entrainment is one of the primary Sound Psychology techniques that I often use in combination with more traditional clinical approaches to assist people with managing the ubiquitous, unavoidable stressers encountered through daily living. An easily learned technique, entrainment has wide applicability to many different areas of clinical intervention such as depression, anger, stress, relaxation, physical exercise, anxiety and helping to achieve mental and emotional balance.

Musically, entrainment involves a merging with, or synchronizing to, the pulse of the music. Related to the “iso” principle, the process suggests that one’s immediate mood be matched to the mood (e.g. beat and rhythm) of the music and then gradually moved into a desired direction.

An individual presenting with a depressed mood, for example, is encouraged to select a number of musical selections that reflect, as closely as possible, his or her present mood (e.g. sadness, low energy, hopelessness). Second, the patient is asked to choose a similar number of selections (e.g. three to five) that “feel” or sound moderately more positive, cheerful or uplifting. In other words, musical numbers that fall somewhere between how they feel at the present moment and how they would like to feel by the end of the exercise. Finally, the person is instructed to choose various tunes that reflect the mood or feeling that he or she would ultimately like to achieve – energized, up-beat music resonating with the type of vibrations that their depression is presently nullifying.

You’ll also find examples of music that you might use in developing your own entrainment playlists. Many of the selections that he lists under classical can be found on one of my CDs. One in particular, Bach’s Air on a G String, is worked into a medley with the Procol Harum song, Whiter Shade of Pale and can be found on my Fragrances of a Dream CD.

I wish you peace and love and joy.

Daniel