The Healing Power of Music

   

"You can look at disease as a form of disharmony. And there's no organ system in the body that's not affected by sound and music and vibration."

- Mitchell Gaynor, M.D., Sounds of Healing

Last week I was working the Sharks game and I was not feeling well. After the game I played Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Machine Gun’ from the Band of Gypsys record pretty loud through the nice Genelec monitors on Mira’s M7. I just put myself in the sweet spot and dipped my head and soaked it in. I really let myself feel the music with my body as much as my ears.

I have always loved that song. There is a part midway through the tune where Jimi does this massive bend, Literally screaming. (at 3:55 in the video below) In that bend I have always  heard all the pain on this planet. He was channeling it. For me. And you too. (It is telling to watch him on this song. No showboating or flopping or rolling on the stage-- Just the Music)



Anyway when I got home that night I lied down on the couch and read my tweets and emails. I coughed up some phlegm and didn’t feel that great. I went to bed and slept poorly. I wheezed and tossed and remembered a year ago when I was in the hospital.

After I finally fell asleep at 3am I slept in to 9. I woke up feeling ok.

I think I let the music in and let it do the work.

Music heals in that it exists below cognition. Obviously we think about music all the time too, but where it has it’s power is that it makes us feel. At least good music does.

"A person does not hear sound only through the ears; he hears sound through every pore of his body. It permeates the entire being, and according to its particular influence either slows or quickens the rhythm of the blood circulation; it either wakens or soothes the nervous system. It arouses a person to greater passions or it calms him by bringing him peace.

- Hazrat Inayat Khan, Mysticism of Sound    

Music has healed me in my more distant past as well.

In the mid Eighties I wrote to James Brown when he was in prison. I thanked him for making music that touched me.

Often in college when I was depressed I would turn James Brown up loud and jump and dance and thrash. It felt good, and if you can trick yourself that you are feeling good, you can fool everyone else too.

   

"I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from everyone loves music."

- Billy Joel

This is the tattoo on my right arm. It has the Chinese character for 'Tao' or "the Way' and eighth notes. Or "MUSIC IS THE WAY"

    "Many say that life entered the human body by the help of music, but the truth is that life itself is music."
-Hafiz (Persian Sufi poet)