Volumes and volumes have been written about the human voice and its capabilities and unending possibilities.  The thought of doing just a blog post on this is a bit daunting, but important nevertheless.

When learning about healing music, I believe that it’s important to recognize that each of us already has everything we need to heal with music because of our voices.  You don’t have to go out and buy a harp or a piano or a fancy drum.  You arrived here equiped with a voice and the voice, in all it’s different ranges and strengths and vowel sounds is more than adequate to create healing sounds and to calm and energize you.

The practice of “toning” with your voice is something that I’ve been teaching to people around the world for over 20 years.  Toning is simply the release of an inhaled breath on a vowel sound of aaaaa-eeeee-ahhhhh-oooooh-or ouuuuu.  When practiced in different positions and in different pitch ranges, high, medium, or low, many physical changes can be induced.  To learn more about toning, click HERE

Then there’s the whole phenomenon of singing familiar songs with other like-minded people that is very empowering and the basis for worship and hymns and anthems.  Spirituality and healing is a fascinating topic and one in which music plays a tremendous role.  To learn more about music and spirituality, go HERE.    I also have a blog on toning and chant, go HERE. as well as a blog on music and spirituality, go HERE.

The opportunities for using the human voice for healing, calming, comforting, empowering, energizing and feeling connected to something greater than yourself are infinite!  I hope you’ll begin exploring the healing powers of your voice today!

The flute is a beautiful and ancient instrument.  The one to the left is what we call “Pan Pipes” and are referred to often in ancient literature and mythology.   Some scholars believe that the first instruments were the percussion or “struck” instruments and the the flute came next as humans picked up reeds and blew through them, or sometimes created flutes from animal bones.

In ancient times, no one knew why people got sick but the widely held belief was the evil spirits came down and caused illness in people with whom they were displeased.  Humans came up with lots and lots of ways to appease the spirits and music was one of those things!

Many animals were considered to be lucky and so if you created a flute from the bone of one of many prized animals, your chance of healing your illness with music played to please and appease, then you could likely live for at least a few more days!

Tomorrow, we’ll take a luck at percussion instruments of healing.

What’s the very best instrument for playing healing music?  That is a question that I get asked quite frequently.  I wish I could answer that question definitively for you, but of course it’s one of those personal taste matters! 

What is beautiful and healing and soothing and comforting for one person, could be absolutely annoying and irritating for another.  I have read that many authorities over the last thousand years or so, believe that the harp is absolutely the most healing instrument of all. 

One reason is because the harp is held right next to the players heart and the vibrations of the instrument soften and inspire the heart to loving feelings and right behavior.  Others have said the the plucking action on the strings or the harp creates more vibration than perhaps a flute or a piano, or a clarinet. 

Vibration in music is one of the most important healing aspects and rich vibrations seem to speed up the healing process.  If you want to listen to beautiful, soothing harp music, you have literally thousands and thousands of pieces to choose from .  I’ll enclose a video performance here of one of my favorites.

Tomorrow we will look at the flute as an instrument of great healing potential.

Today is the final lesson in this series on the components of healing music.  The component I’ve chosen is similar to yesterday’s lesson on Major and Minor but goes back in time hundreds if not thousands of years!

In the 800-700′s BC, the music played in ancient Greece was not played in major and minor scales, Greece, Rome and other cities and civilizations used scales that sound very different to our ears.  In those times, every physician knew about the healing powers of music and rhythms and instruments and often times a prescription for healing, also had a musical prescription as part of it!

There are seven basic Greek modes that are easy to hear or play if you have a piano:

Aeolian is A-A

Locrian is B-B

Ionian is C-C

Dorian is D-D

Phrygian is E-E

Lydian is F-F

Mixolydian is G-G

Each mode was thought to have specific healing powers and if a person was depressed, for example, the physician might suggest that the listen to a lute for an hour or so in the evening, playing in the Dorian mode.

Many modern English composers such as Vaughn-Williams, Elgar, Holst and Delius have written beautiful pieces that have a distinctly modal flavor and are exceptionally healing and calming to me. I’ll add a YouTube video of one of my favorites now!
. If you are a musician you will recognize the characteristic “lowered 7th” that immediately give the piece it’s modal flavor, i.e. the Dorian mode in this case.
Another tool used by many “New Age” composers is the whole tone scale with is composed using all whole steps. You can hear this on the piano by playing C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C. If you play this ascending through several octaves, with the damper pedal down, you will get a good idea of the “feel” and “mood” that a whole-tone scales sets.

Another scale used in much folk music and in healing music as well is the Pentatonic Scale. This can be found on the piano by simply play the five different black keys: C# D#F#G#A# and using them in any order to make a melody and/or harmony as well. Both of these scales do not have a strong sense of a tonic or “home” key and thus allow the listener to just bathe in the sounds with no expectation of a final cadence.

If you have any questions about this particular component of healing music, please leave me a comment or question and I’ll certainly do my best to answer it for you! I do hope you’ve enjoyed this series and will tell others about it as well as leave me lots of comments!

Also, please tell me what else you would like to know about healing music and what it can do for your own health, wellness, and healing!

Today is lesson nine of the series on components of healing music and I want to start, as always, with a disclaimer:  my thoughts and ideas about components and definitions of healing music and not absolute.  They are my own subjective ideas based on a lifetime of being a musician, a teacher, a performer and a clinician.  Other writers could choose other components or choose the same ones with different definitions or explanations.  These are mine, as I understand them. 

You’ve probably heard people say “this is in the key of C major, or d minor; or G major or f minor.  Each of the first 7 letter names of the alphabet has a major and a minor key that goes with it.  Then there are the sharp and flat keys, but we won’t even go there!

The important thing, really, is to understand the difference between major and minor.  When I taught piano to children, years ago, we used to say that major keys were the “happy” keys and minor keys were “sad” or sometimes “scary” keys.  Of course these are great oversimplifications, but the idea is right!

A simple melody, with or without harmony, in a major key, at a slow or moderate tempo, is likely to be pleasant for someone who is resting or trying to relax.  A simple melody, with or without harmony, in a minor key could well feel sad to wistful to the casual listener.  To put these two things into songs you jay already know, think of these:

Major:  Happy Birthday to You, You Are My Sunshine, Yankee Doodle

Minor:  Greensleeves, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman. 

Of interest, I think, is the fact that a major triad and a minor triad have just one 1/2 step difference.  For those who read music, it’s just the difference of C-E-G vs. C-E-flat-G.  But what a difference that little 1/2 step makes!!

Tomorrow is the final lesson in this little series and I’m going to talk about other scales that are often used in more “New Age” healing music… the whole tone scale, the pentatonic scale, and the ancient Greek modes.  See you back here tomorrow!

  Of all the components of healing music that you might be familiar with,  rhythm is the one that can often hook people into a healing experience the fastest!   Rhythm is simply a pattern of long and short notes, sometimes fast, sometime slow, that creates a repetitive sequence that encourages predictability and a feeling of being “grounded.”

One of the most important qualities of rhythm in healing music is steadiness and regularity.  If a person is not feeling well physically or emotionally, they need a rhythm and a tempo that is slow, steady, regular, and predictable.  A good example of this would be Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”  Another example would be the rhythms which are played in drum circles, on the most popular group musical experiences for the last several decades. 

Of course drum circles are ancient and the millions of rhythmic combinations possible make it quite powerful in every culture possible.   If you’d like to know more about drum circles and how drumming can be used for health and wellness, I have written an ebook all about it!  Click here to learn more!

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the next element in healing music:  dynamics.

Last Sunday night, the choir at Highland Presbyterian Church in Louisville did an entire program of carols by John Rutter. This was one of them and it’s one of my favorites! Enjoy! And what are some of YOUR favorites?

For me, music has always been a path to the God of my understanding. I’ve always loved the performances of the Mormon tabernacle Choir and I’ve always loved the music of John Rutter. Hope you’ll enjoy this performance of both of these!