The Healing Power of Music

Why do we love music?  Think about it, it is extremely rare to find someone that doesn’t like some kind of music.  I’d be willing to bet that in those few cases that the person may have a hearing problem, not allowing him to hear music properly.  For the rest of us, we love our music.  A lot of us even get rabid about our listening choices, be it classical, heavy metal, country, blues or whatever.  For every style of music, there are fans and I think that is great.

So, why do we love music?  What is it about music that it is such a large factor in our lives?  Recent studies have shown things like improved academic skills and lower instances of substance abuse in children involved in musicmaking.  Other studies have shown a reduction of the severity of Alzheimer’s amongst patients that played music.  I know firsthand, that after my father’s stroke that his playing music aided greatly in restoring his lost motor skills.  There have been other links between music making and improvement of autism, language issues, math skills and so on.

Without getting into the physiological elements, of which I’m not qualified, I think we can safely say that, as musicians of all levels, performing music and even passive listening to music can have positive effects on our moods.  Given the many links to the mind/body connection, improving our moods can improve our physical health.  Besides the actual physical movement of playing an instrument, we exercise our creative muscles, we allow ourselves to wander off for a moment, leaving today’s worries behind.  We sharpen our concentration, we play a sad song and empathize, a happy song and get carried away with the upbeat.  When I would get depressed, I’d often play depressing music.  Not to wallow in and deepen my depression, but more as ‘misery loves company’, in other words, I wasn’t alone and that made me feel relieved.  And when I had energy to burn, fast, hard rockin’ music would pump me up and get me ready to take on the world.  I bet you could tell similar stories.

So, next time the world feels like it is sitting on your shoulders, reach for your guitar (or whatever you play).

Bob at www.cmusicshop.com