Music therapy is a scientific method of effective cures of disease through the power of music. It restores, maintains and improves emotional, physiological and psychological well-being. The articulation, pitch, tone and specific arrangement of swars (notes) in a particular raga stimulates, alleviates and cures various ailments inducing electro-magnetic change in the body.
Continue reading Music Therapy: The Indian Way of Healing Sounds
1. Use Silence
Once we know a piece of music, we notice when it is interrupted. You can use unexpected pauses in music to get the attention of students whose attention has wandered.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Six Tips for Using Music in Therapy and Education
The Indian music therapy scene is fairly underdeveloped when compared to the progress made in the west after decades of serious and creative experimentation. But there are pockets of excellence saving the day for the inheritors of AUM, the first sound ever that led to Creation, according to the Rig Veda. Said Swami Vivekananda: “Brahman first manifested itself as Sound, and then as Form.” The Bible also mentions that the cosmos was created through sound: “In the Beginning, there was the Word. And the Word was God.”
Continue reading Music Therapy: Music Therapy Practitioners in India
All that exists in the manifest state does so because it has a complementary unmanifest state that is its source, says Elizabeth Haich, elaborating on years of research on the subject. We perceive light, therefore, in the manifested state only because there exists an unmanifested state which is total darkness, she says. We hear sound only because there is an unmanifested state of absolute silence, the state from which all sound originates.
Ragas are closely related to different parts of the day according to changes in nature and development of a particular emotion, mood or sentiment. For those with insomnia, Raga Bihag and Bahar have a wonderful effect. Bhairav is sung an hour before dawn, Ramkali at dawn, Vilavali at sunrise, Sarang at noon, Nata and Malava in the afternoon, Gaudi in the evening, Kalyan at night, Kedara, Chandra and Bihag late in the night.
Music is naada that generates specific vibrations that move through the medium of the atmosphere and affect the human body. Music can be defined as universal energy assuming the form of ragas, says Raja Bhau Sontakke.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Naada Generating Specific Vibrations
The loveliest explanation of AUM is found within the ancient Vedic and Sanskrit traditions. We can read about AUM in the marvellous Manduka Upanishad, which explains the four elements of AUM as an allegory of the four planes of consciousness.
Ancient teachings and modern science agree on this score: you, I, all living beings and all things in existence are, at their most essential level, made up of vibrating, pulsing energy.
David Gordon is a singer and vocal coach from California. He is on the voice faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, and Sonoma State University. He is also the Education Director and resident vocal coach of the Carmel Bach Festival. He has spent many long years researching the power of AUM. He shares a few of his experiences with us.
Continue reading Music Therapy: The Power of Vibrating Breath
When one really “listens” to this silent sound, this unstruck vibration, one comes inevitably to stillness, to pure and open existence. The poet Gerhart Hauptmann says the aim of all poetry is “to let the Word be heard resounding behind words”.