Music as Medicine

Music was part of my raising. I listened and rolled my eyes to old-timey country music (don’t yell, I like it now), heard Mom sing along with big bands, and jived to the now classic rock with transistor at my ear. Dad knew when and where to find the Grand Ol’ Opry on road trips and Mom tuned in to Mitch Miller and Lawrence Welk on television. I attended Sunbeams at church and looked forward to music time at school, especially in second and third grades because my teacher played the piano. At home my brother and I wore out “76 Trombones” on our tiny record player.

Music entertained, soothed and enriched long before we knew much about the brain, its neuroplasticity and how to study what affects it. Now music is a branch of science, and technology is enhancing understanding how music can be considered medicine!

Keeping up with research and deciphering it into words this boomer can comprehend is challenging and fascinating, too. Consider the following.

*The brain gets really busy when it hears music. Different circuits focus on single aspects like tone and rhythm and others blend it all into a familiar melody, getting the memory and emotional pathways involved and lighting up all sorts of real estate in our gray matter. Music affects every part of the brain that scientists have been able to map.

*Music impacts individuals differently. Particular melodies or chords might make me happy while having the opposite effect for someone else. And there are cultural differences, too.

*Benefits can be puzzling. We tune in to melancholy music when we’re sad, and it makes us feel better.

*Elizabeth Margulis - a professor of music at Princeton and author of “The Psychology of Music” - says, “Music is incredibly sticky.” Our early introductions create experiences and emotions that stick with us and impact the way we respond to it as adults. Maybe that’s why marching band tunes in parades give me a warm fuzzy feeling and a big lump in my throat.

*That might also explain why it’s impossible for me not to smile and sit still when I hear Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk.” Siri said it has lyrics and Pat Boone recorded them. Who knew? I prefer the instrumental version.

*If I’m ever recovering from a stroke or dealing with a debilitating condition, my treatment might include playing that childhood favorite. Dan Levitin, a neuroscientist, musician and author of “I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine,” says music has been used to help with depression, injury, illness and motor disorders, and now there is science to back it and expand it.

My mother, while still mobile and talking, would dance and sing along to Glenn Miller hits. When she could no longer do either, her eyes would light up and her hands would sway to the rhythms when she heard big band tunes.

“Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends” Alphonse de Lamartine