Although ancient seers and Vedic scholars understood the import of sound and music and its connection with healing and well-being, in contemporary India music therapy is used without being accorded overt recognition. For instance, as a child when Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia suffered from asthma, he was advised by the doctor to take up the flute as an antidotal exercise – something recommended by doctors even today.
People who heard him in his twenties recall that his ‘phook’ or blow was as pure in tonality as it was when he later became famous. Yet, how many doctors would recognize or recommend this as a means of cure for asthmatics?
It’s not only human well-being where music has a positive role to play. A report published in Delhi’s Hindustan Times of August 8, 2002 is a pointer in this direction. Headlined: Sound of Music Enhances Crop Yield, the report by Ashok Das mentions how farmers in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh have been putting music to good use – for reaping a rich harvest!
It seems sugarcane yields in Vuyyur and Laxmipuram areas have shot up b y six to eight tonnes per acre after the plants were exposed to music regularly. Crops in neighboring fields not exposed to music are yielding an average of 33 tonnes.
But crops that are being given the acoustic treatment have been reaping a bounty of 38-42 tonnes per acre! Incidentally, these yields are record ones for the state. The extra yield means these farmers earn an extra income of Rs 5,400 to Rs 7,200 (@ Rs 900 per tonne).
The report adds that even the day-to-day growth of plants has shown a substantial increase. These findings have been confirmed by a team of agronomists from IIT, Chennai, who studied crop growth in the fields treated with music and those not treated and found that the former had double the growth rate.
These findings were thereafter ratified by a National Remote Sensing Agency satellite data, which showed that cell elongation and multiplication leading to increase in bio-mass was more in the treated plants.
Where Indian farmers are concerned, this should be nothing short of sweet music to their ears, be they sugarcane farmers or others. The Andhra farmers use a simple modus operandi to achieve their record yields. A tape recorder is hoisted on a bamboo pole above the crops and music is played twice a day for half-an-hour each time.
Although plants respond to all kinds of music – classical, Western or Indipop! – the Andhra plants are said to grow best with a staccato kind of instrumental music that, incidentally, sounds very irritating to human ears! The results of this acoustic treatment vary from plant to plant depending on the music and its frequency.
The venture into music treatment for plants began in 1997-98 when the local KCP Sugar Industries decided to revive the experiments begun by its former chairman B. Maruthi Rao. Using principles of the Bose Theory,pioneered by scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, Maruthi Rao conducted experiments with crops and proved that plant health and yield could be increased simply by playing them music regularly!
His experiments indicated that a staccato sort of music promotes maximum growth in sugarcane. Thereafter, the company began distributing cassette players and music cassettes to farmers and the encouraging results motivated an increasing number of farmers to adopt music treatment for plants.