To understand how music in general can heal – and why Mozart is particularly therapeutic for many people -one must understand sound and its effect on physical matter. In the book Cymatics, Hans Jenny, a Swiss engineer and doctor, describes the science of how sound and vibration interact with matter.
Jenny shows that intricate geometric figures can be formed by sound. For instance, Jenny has created vibrations in crystals with electrical impulses and transmitted the vibrations to a medium such as a plate or a string. He has also produced oscillating figures in liquids and gases.
The forms and shapes that can be created by sound are infinite and can be varied simply by changing the pitch, the harmonics of the tone, and the material that is vibrating. When chords are added, the result can be either beauty or chaos.
A low Aum sound, for example, produces a few concentric circles with a dot at their centre and a high EEE many circles with wobbly edges. These forms change instantaneously when a different note or tone is sounded.
Imagine what effect sounds have on delicate cells, tissues, and organs. Vibrating sounds form patterns and create energy fields of resonance and movement in the surrounding space. We absorb these energies, and they subtly alter our breath, pulse, blood pressure, muscle tension, skin temperature, and other internal rhythms.
Jenny’s discoveries help us understand how, like a potter shaping clay at her wheel, sound shapes and sculpts us both inside and out.
It’s also been partly through the work of Linda Rodgers that scientists and physicians have become aware that the vibrations transmitted by music can positively affect a patient, or negatively affect the patient if it’s the wrong music for that patient.
A clinical social worker and classically trained musician from New York, Rodgers became interested in the effects of music on surgical patients in the wake of a traumatic tonsillectomy she underwent as a child. She had become highly sensitive to the anxiety that can erupt in the face of surgery and the need to somehow defuse it.
In 1982, Rodgers went to work at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and obtained permission to watch open-heart surgery. There she began to investigate patients’ ability to hear under anaesthesia. She soon uncovered a wealth of research indicating that they do continue to hear, even when rendered unconscious.
One of the classic experiments involved an anaesthetised cat whose EEG channels all dramatically responded to the barking of a dog. “The auditory pathway, unlike all other sensory systems, has an extra relay,” Rodgers explains. “Auditory fibres are not affected by anaesthetics, so they continue to transmit sound. Simply stated: We never stop hearing!” And our conscious participation is not needed.
Rodgers has successfully implemented music protocols in operating rooms. To protect against patients inadvertently hearing harmful noise or tasteless (and possibly injurious) remarks – such as “This old bag won’t make it” – during surgery, Rodgers recommends that audiotapes selected by each patient be played before, during, and after surgery on cassette players with earphones.
Rodgers says that as patients learn to invoke music’s powers, “It is reasonable to expect a more rapid recovery from surgery, with fewer complications, reduced number of days in the hospital, and a more positive response to coping with future medical problems.”