The voice has a tremendous ability to be an instrument for healing. Pythagoras recognized the considerable therapeutic power of human speech. He treated diseases through the reading of poetry. He taught his students how a skilful, well-modulated voice, with beautiful words and pleasing meter, could restore balance to the body and soul.
Continue reading Music Therapy: The Healing Aspects of Toning
There are many vowel sounds in the human language, For toning we begin by focusing on several principal sounds. Remember, this is not a list of universal truths, just some traditional suggestions.
There is enormous research globally on the effect of structured sound on the unborn child. It has been proved that the fetus responds to sound from the 24th week of pregnancy. While sounds are greatly altered as they pass from the outside world to the ear of the fetus, there is more than sufficient stimulation to be heard in the womb.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Music, the Foetus and Vedic Chanting
The purpose of toning is to restore the vibrational pattern of the body (physical and subtle) to its perfect electro-magnetic field so that our spiritual essence can manifest more fully in our physical environment.
Auroville is an international township, a few kilometers from Pondicherry in the south of India. Warmed throughout the year by an unrelenting Tamilian sun, it is, to paraphrase its charter, a seat of never-ending education and a laboratory of continuous experimentation and growth at all levels in preparation of the ‘neo-man’.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Music in Auroville -The City of Dawn
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.
Music therapists address a number of non-musical goals including improving communication skills, decreasing inappropriate behaviour, improving academic and motor skills, increasing attention span, strengthening social and leisure skills, pain management and stress reduction.
Continue reading Music Therapy: What are the kinds of goals a Music Therapist might address?
Music therapy is the prescribed use of music and musical interventions in order to restore, maintain, and improve emotional, physical, physiological, and spiritual health and well-being. Within this definition are the key elements that define interventions as music therapy.
Continue reading Music Therapy: When is Music Therapy prescribed?
Music therapy is an allied health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, psychological, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. After assessing the strengths and needs of each client, the qualified music therapist provides the indicated treatment including creating, singing, moving to, and/or listening to music. Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, the client’s abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of his or her life.
Continue reading Music Therapy: What really is Music Therapy?
Music therapy benefits everybody irrespective of age, gender, profession or any particular proclivity. You just have to be human to love, enjoy and be moved by music. For that matter, even animals and plants are known to be touched by music.
Continue reading Music Therapy: Who can benefit from Music Therapy?