72 Comments

A worthy rabbit hole if ever there was one.

My tumor was found with an ultra sound. Wish I’d heard of histotripsy, but when the doctor says cancer, creative solutions are understandably last resorts. My father once descended into a drugged delirium during a 2 months long hospital stay. One night, a song of mine he was fond of brought him back from weeks of a blank stare. It was miraculous. The ensuing celebration turned into an impromptu 1AM jam on the oncology floor.

Music heals. And the side effects are all good ones.

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Just writing to say your post made me smile VMark. Music does heal. Sound bathing, gongs in yoga, vibrational OMs…flowery hippie stuff or truth? Intuitively we know it because music can match or fix our moods. Even Tesla said (to paraphrase) that the world should be looked at as vibrational energy. My tumor was found two years ago with a CT Scan after I went blind in my left eye. 2.2 cm growth on my optic nerve. Reading this gives me hope when it comes to ophthalmology because my eye pressure in my left eye atrophies each visit due to the trauma of the surgery. Maybe I can ask my doctor, as Ted mentions, to send me to some sweet Jazz Clubs for free PT😊.

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Thanks and by all means keep smiling. It's the best defense!

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A fascinating take! Reminds me of a funny story I once heard about Sun Ra, who was also someone who discovered that his music could alleviate the suffering of mental illness. His biographer John Szwed tells the story of when he visited a Chicago psychiatric hospital in the 50s:

'The group of patients assembled for this early experiment in musical therapy included catatonics and severe schizophrenics, but Sonny approached the job like any other, making no concessions in his music.'

The results were a remarkable success, of sorts:

'While he was playing, a woman who it was said had not moved or spoken for years got up from the floor, walked directly to his piano, and cried out ‘Do you call that music?’ 😂

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Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy is one of my favorite Sun Ra records!

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It what you call music from Saturn, thanks for the story.

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Since 2017 there has been a lot of collaboration between musicians and health researchers/practitioners in the NIH Sound Health initiative: https://www.nih.gov/research-training/medical-research-initiatives/sound-health. and https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/music-and-health-what-you-need-to-know. They are funding interesting projects and uniting these fields effectively. Check them out!

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A fantastic video with Dr. Oliver Sacks commentary, Man In Nursing Home Reacts To Hearing Music From His Era, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyZQf0p73QM.

Also other networks in this area:

Sound Health Network (associated with NIH) https://soundhealth.ucsf.edu/

IAMM International Association for Music and Medicine https://iammonline.com/

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Anyone else want a healing playlist from Ted?

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Doesn't surprise me - I've told my family for years that when I'm on my deathbed, if they need me to stick around for another half-hour, they should just play Frank Sinatra's A Swingin' Affair - I'm not going anywhere while that album is playing.

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I love singing bowls and all things sound, music, healing, and merging those worlds together!

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As a musician and music teacher I teach my students about resonance and frequency. From teaching how to project your tone by increasing your instruments resonance but also passing this resonance to your whole body which projects the sound and resonance of your instrument. I teach that everything resonates with a frequency from the smallest atomic particle to planets and everything in the universe. When the Tibetan monks chant, there voices are resonating with the frequency of the Earth. Our bodies are no exception. Certain frequencies resonate throughout our bodies. When I play and hold an F on my trombone my sinuses open up and clear out! A good thing for us wind players and for circular breathing! Music has the most powerful effect on all of us effecting our moods, health, and well being. Music should be a STEM. In ancient Greece it was considered equal to all other disciplines, equal to math, science, and every area of study. Music is in every aspect of our lives and has been since before recorded history. It is even important in other creatures like whales and dolphins and birds. More research needs to be done on resonance and healing and it will. I am hoping for more research on vision since I suffer from floaters and macular degeneration. The current treatments are invasive such as sucking all the fluid out of your eye and replacing it with new fluid and regular eye injections to treat macular degeneration. Non invasive sonic treatments would be a big improvement!

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Great commentary. Many people are waking up to and becoming more receptive to holistic approaches. I have faith that they will become more and more mainstream and more research will revolutionize and civilize the field of medicine.

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I am changing my will to have Meatloaf's "I would do anything for love" cranked at my funeral if there is a remote chance of waking up from a "dead sleep" -Selah-

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I have played in full Gospel churches and seen people healed by the music, or by whatever came through the music. Music does indeed soothe the savage beast.

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Music for healing is very well documented in ancient Indian traditions and there are whole treatises which delve and explain the know how of using this knowledge. If you simply google Raga Therapy, you will find tons of resources and books around this.

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Just in case you haven't seen it, I'd recommend reading, 'Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music as Medicine', by Kay Gardner.

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More of this, please. I use music every day of my life to ward off the negativity I find in the media and associated productions. It is also my dream world that takes me to safe, loving and supportive places. I hold music performance artists among the highest and most relevant people in the world. If I were a psychologist, I would say, "Go listen to the music within" - it is there in our minds and bodies.

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This is such a lovely read today. “A growing body of evidence confirms that music changes our bodies.” More please🙏🙏🙏

I look forward to following this throughout my lifetime. A few weeks ago, I participated in a class about sinus cavities. The doctor mentioned that singing is great for the nasal turbinates because the vibration can actually oxygenate and change the microbiome of your sinus cavities. I started to get fascinated in how our voices sound based on these open areas inside our heads! Why are some voices more nasally than others? It’s rooted in science and the makeup of our face. Anyway, I thought of how he mentioned the healing properties of vibrations and singing to keep a healthy bacteria and airflow inside the head before air is heated and goes into our lungs. We have a universe inside our bodies. Multiple universes!

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Hi Kate..... I've written several articles on this subject in my Substack (Temple of Artists).

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I’ve subscribed!! Thank you 🙏

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I think the use of the word coma here is a bit loose, as is the medical description.

when you're in a deep coma, you don't follow commands, however the limited movement. this is different from diagnoses like locked-in syndrome. when you're fully aware but can't communicate because your motor tracts ain't working.

3rd patient- why shouldn't one recognize objects after emerging from a coma?

fully aware of sound and healing as a medical doctor who's always been interested in the intersection of the two. including breaking up tumors. beware when someone tells you they can cure cancer. at the end of the day, it never quite works out that way. as wily as a virus, those RNA/DNA capsules that are basically just sex machines that inject their genetic material into you r cell and use your organelles to make more copies of itself are wily indeed.

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I listen to music four to six hours a day. Some days more. My wife thinks I'm crazy. I can't wait to show her this article. Maybe I am healing myself? It's great that bigpharma can't monopolize this technology, then monetize the you know what out of it.

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Aw man, thanks for writing about ultrasound. I do ultrasound neuromodulation research for a living and am a musician on the side. Sound is one of the only common threads in my interests, and I'm 100% onboard with your STEMM idea!

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