Written by: Gurunath Jairam, Devaj Datta
“What are the connections between us and music? The answers could be anything: the pleasure gained from listening; the warmth and friendship from being part of a group making music; the stimulus and satisfaction from regular practice and rehearsal; the intellectual delight from exploring the intricacies of musical forms and structures; the physical energy released within us by both playing and listening to music, often inspiring us to move and dance (Bunt, 2014).”
Ethnomusicology is a 200-year-old discipline that studies music in its cultural context—looking at the art form through social, cognitive, comparative, biological, and countless other lenses. Ethnomusicologists have been extensively involved with traditional music and music commonly associated with spiritual healing; but, strangely, there are currently not enough contributions of knowledge and research to healthcare-oriented studies through the perspectives of specific cultures. Music therapists, on the other hand, have been focusing on the pragmatic use of music for the benefit of patients, but they rarely attempt to relate or understand these practices in relation to shamanic healing or other indigenous healing methods associated with music (Chiang, 2008).
Most research and articles that show any interest in traditional forms of music and healing—spiritual healing and shamanism—are often focused on the procedures and content of the ceremonies: things like social roles and functions, and the theories they are based on, rather than medical outcomes. Even within the extensive Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (Jankowsky, 2007), most studies on spiritually charged rituals from various cultures worldwide focus on the setting and performance of the ceremonies themselves and how many of these indigenous practices are vanishing. Very rarely do they discuss the potential therapeutic efficacy of these rituals and practices. Even with huge advances in fields like psychology and an increasing awareness of non-Western music and cultural diversity in Music Therapy specifically, the two fields have not yet collaborated extensively.
A multitude of cultures have found ways to heal people through music. Within these practices, we can see clear similarities and differences—ones that can be critically analyzed through the perceived medical, healing, or invigorating properties enacted upon the individual. An example of a traditional form of healing is the Malaysian musical theaters in the Temiar village, where indigenous people utilize music to demonstrate their practice and ability to reflect and modify emotions, stimulate sensory excitement, and induce biopsychological transformation, while also evoking mental imagination in everyone, including the sickly (Roseman, 2000). Very similar effects are seen thousands of kilometers away in Hindu and Sufi practices of the Indian subcontinent through the use of Bhajans and traditional Sufi music. The pains and sufferings these individuals face are not just spiritual in nature—music can also help ease psychological and physiological suffering.
Barz (2007) investigated how music can enhance the well-being of patients suffering from HIV/AIDS in Uganda by supporting their emotional processing of traumatic memories. Furthermore, therapeutic dimensions of music in Islamic culture highlight that music can serve as a technology for healing through a process in which a person experiences a modified state of consciousness in relation to their emotions. This is evident in Dogan (2021), where a meta-analysis showed that Sufi music therapy was able to reduce symptoms of state anxiety and may even help reduce depression, clinical symptoms of schizophrenia, and stress.
Cultural variations of this practice can be seen worldwide. Chinese medicine has developed its own form of healing through the Five Phases Music Therapy (FPMT), which uses five phases and five musical scales to treat mental or physical illnesses (Zhang et al., 2017). This therapy is based on the ancient Chinese belief that everything in the world is connected through five simple elements—earth, water, fire, wind, and metal—as well as the later connection between the five elements, five human organs (spleen, lung, liver, heart, and kidney), and the five essential human emotions (anger, joy, thought, sorrow, and fear). These ideas are connected through five musical notes, each corresponding to an element, organ, and emotion. When a person’s body is imbalanced, music in the corresponding scale is selected to help heal their body and spirit. For example, the musical scale of Shang (metal) corresponds to feelings of sorrow and the functioning of the lungs. If an individual is experiencing excessive sorrow or has poorly functioning lungs, they are prescribed music in the Shang scale. This therapy has proven effective for a range of illnesses, including depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, alongside more traditional forms of therapy. While larger-scale research is still needed, the potential of this therapy to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, pain, and depression is evident.
Even European classical music has been shown to be highly beneficial in medical settings. The Mozart effect—a controversial theory claiming that an individual’s spatial reasoning improves after listening to Mozart’s music for 10 minutes—led many researchers to study the possible effects of Mozart’s music on patients’ emotional well-being (Jenkins, 2001). Studies investigating the Mozart effect in medical contexts produced surprisingly positive results. Not only did it improve patients’ quality of life, but it also significantly impacted blood pressure, heart rate, and overall respiration (Indriani et al., 2018). Mozart’s music helped relax patients in preoperative rooms more effectively than midazolam (Trappe, 2012), and it alleviated certain Autism Spectrum symptoms in children while producing highly positive outcomes for their mothers—reducing parental stress, improving family interactions, and making mothers feel more comfortable and hopeful (He et al., 2024).
Around the world, various cultures have implicitly understood the medicinal value of music. Whether it is the Temiar people’s use of musical theater to transform the ill, the relief of HIV patients in Uganda through music, the use of five scales in China to heal organs and emotions, or the Mozart effect in Europe, every culture has utilized music as a powerful aid to medicine. Music helps patients with mental illnesses manage their symptoms, and almost every culture’s variation of music therapy contributes to alleviating illnesses like depression and anxiety. Based on the evidence above, institutions worldwide should consider giving more attention and study to such effective forms of therapy, particularly by examining the methods practiced by ancient cultures outside the West. The connection between humans and music is ancient and deeply powerful, and its value in physiological and psychological medicine cannot be dismissed.
References:
- Bunt, L., & Stige, B. (2014). Music therapy: An art beyond words. Routledge.
- Chiang, M. M. (2008). Research on music and healing in ethnomusicology and music
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Ethnomusicological inquiry and the challenge of trance. In Ethnomusicology forum (Vol.
16, No. 2, pp. 185-208). Taylor & Francis Group. - Roseman, M. (2000). Shifting landscapes: Musical mediations of modernity in the
Malaysian rainforest. Yearbook for traditional music, 32, 31-65. - Gurbuz-Dogan, R. N., Ali, A., Candy, B., & King, M. (2021). The effectiveness of Sufi
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Gurunath Jairam and Devaj Datta are undergraduate students at FLAME University, Pune.