source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 16:01:42 -0800 Subject: Music therapy, metaphysics From: John Chalmers Bruce: I had a feeling that others on the Tuning List were getting restless over the discussions of metaphysics per se rather than metaphysics as inspiration for music. Perhaps I was wrong; I have no objection to the continuation of the discussion provided others care to do so. While music therapy has been around the European cultural area since the time of the ancient Greeks, the claims have never been substantiated beyond generalities. Slow, quiet music is calming, fast, loud music is arousing or irritating, etc. While one's emotional state can presumably have some effect on the immune system, stomach acidity, blood pressure, I know of no studies in respected peer-reviewed journals showing music therapy to be more effective than drugs, surgery, excercise, diet or other treatment modalities. I'm not at all sure that whatever effects there may be, except the generalized ones mentioned above, carry across cultures. Ancient Greek music was very unlike our own and underwent profound changes in the 600 or so years over which we have records. For example, the 4th and earlier centuries prized the enharmonic genus above all others.In the 3rd century it became extinct save as an occasionally major third pentatonic passage in an otherwise diatonic piece. A late writer recorded that an amateur musician "vomited black bile" upon hearing an enharmonic melody. Admittedly, black bile is associated with melancholia, but therapy was not the point of the anecdote. In any case, the Greek melodies we have do not exhibit the traits that their ethoi say they should, nor do they affect contemporary listeners in the prescribed way. More familiarly, I doubt that many westerners are affected by Indian ragas the way Indians are or are sensitive to the precise emotional nuances these modes evoke in Indians and knowledgeable students of Indian music. Anyway, I don't want to belabor my skepticism regarding the value of music therapy, particularly for organic illness. I recall the late Ivor Darreg once getting a phone call from an acquaintance who announced that he had just discovered the ultimate laxative theme. Prudence or good taste, alas, prevented Darreg from recording it, so it's been lost to posterity. Basically, I think music should be a treat rather than a treatment. I'm willing to listen to good music on its own merits regardless of its underlying metaphysics. --John Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 2 Apr 1997 01:45 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01014; Wed, 2 Apr 1997 02:45:08 +0200 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01012 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id QAA03833; Tue, 1 Apr 1997 16:43:44 -0800 Date: Tue, 1 Apr 1997 16:43:44 -0800 Message-Id: <3341AB76.4DE3@top.monad.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu