Music can be healing in ways as simple as playing music to bedridden hospital patients; however, “Music Therapy” is the clinical use of music interventions by a credentialed professional.

“Music Therapy” is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program. (American Music Therapy Association definition, 2005)

Here is a video portrayal of music therapy; enjoy the quotes, pictures and song:

Sound and intention are combined with scientifically proven techniques in music therapy. It can include the using of psychoacoustics and sound healing. Music therapy can be the concepts of entrainment, harmonics and resonance used by professionals to bring the body, mind, emotions and spirit into harmonious alignment.

Music therapy is a methodology used by professionals trained in many areas such as clinical deportment, legal issues, infection control, appropriate repertoire, corporate compliance, music skills, resonance science, entrainment, anatomy/physiology, monitoring, observation skills, and much more. This is very different than simply using music to aid in the healing process.

Used as a complementary medical technique used properly, music therapy serves as a link between the scientific and the spiritual. This link allows deep and lasting healing to take place.

Interest in sound and healing through music is rapidly growing as more people realize its power, but the basic principles and beliefs have been around for centuries. Pythagoras was one of the early teachers to use sound. He taught about music’s ability to produce physical and behavioral response, thereby speeding up the healing process. Healing mantras, chants, and incantations are other age-old methods of using sound to achieve physical wellness.

Music can be used for healing, through the tempo, the tone, the volume, the complexity, etc. - it can enliven and stimulate, or it can relax and de-stress. Healing music is often composed with the intention of healing. We all understand the power of our perceptions that we develop through our senses - the power of words and our environment - but the power of intention is less easily proven and believed. Perhaps love and marriage are our most accessible examples of this.

This power of intention also includes the listener. Don Campbell, author of ‘The Mozart Effect’, said, “You, the listener, determine the final impact: You are an active conductor and participant in the process of orchestrating health through the listening process.”(1)

It’s as if each of us has our own neural maze, leading to an ‘end’ of some sort, but by a slightly different pathway. Every turn we make has the chance of leading to a ‘dead end’. Perhaps people with certain ‘disabilities’ have more dead ends, making their routes to their ‘end’ more circuitous or challenging.

Music seems to have the ability to remove some of the blockages, or show us the way through alternate passageways. It’s as if, when one part of the brain doesn’t work, a pathway through the ears, fingers, bones, or heart is revealed.

1. Campbell, Don, The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit, (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1997) 81.