But classifications are always dangerous. Good music is not necessarily useless, and useful music is not necessarily bad music. The eternal principal of suum cuique is the principle of individual human taste which can be placed into approximate categories, but cannot be standardized without the artificial interference of external factors. The same principle certainly applies to music as a weapon of healing, where selection should be determined by science but at the same time we must strive to adapt the results of research of the individual preferences of normal subjects.
Alexandre Tansman
Los Angeles, January 1946
CONTENTS
| [Introduction] | [ix] | |
| [Chapter I] | ||
| History of Music in Medicine | [1] | |
| Primitive use and the medicine man. Ancient civilizations. Music against animal bites and mental disease. Magic and the Middle Ages. The magic flute. Recent developments. | ||
| [Chapter II] | ||
| Philosophy and Psychology of Music | [15] | |
| Physiology of musical elements—pitch, intensity, timbre, duration, rhythm, melody, mode, key. Color in sound. Music interpretation. Live music and the human voice. Listening and appreciation. Musical taste and appetite. | ||
| [Chapter III] | ||
| Music as Occupational Therapy | [44] | |
| Origins of occupational therapy. Advantages of music as a modality. Analysis of motion in piano playing. Analysis of string, plectrum, foot, wind and percussion instruments. Use of voice as exercise. | ||
| [Chapter IV] | ||
| Psychiatry and Music | [59] | |
| Criteria of therapeutics. Classification of mental diseases. Description of diseases and indications for music. | ||
| [Chapter V] | ||
| Background Music | [73] | |
| Counter-irritation. Music in the operating room. Effect on physical exercise. Use with calisthenics. Eurhythmics. Remedial exercise. Industrial music. | ||
| [Chapter VI] | ||
| Mealtime Music | [82] | |
| Criteria for mealtime music. Examples of orchestras and songs most suitable. List of suggested recordings. | ||
| [Chapter VII] | ||
| Music in Bed | [89] | |
| Needs of children. Slumber music. Bedside radio. Program distribution systems. Head phones versus loud speakers. Personalized music. Instruction in bed. Toneless instruments. | ||
| [Chapter VIII] | ||
| Diversion and Entertainment | [98] | |
| Need for entertainment in hospitals. Programming for patient groups. Amateur show. Group singing. Music instruction. | ||
| [Chapter IX] | ||
| Public Address System | [105] | |
| Basic equipment and personnel. Programming. | ||
| [Chapter X] | ||
| Equipment and Library | [110] | |
| Patient band. Instruments and rooms. Record library. Holiday music. | ||
| [Chapter XI] | ||
| Direction | [118] | |
| Medical direction. Qualifications and duties of the hospital musician. Training program and curriculum for music aides. | ||
| [Bibliography] | [125] | |
| [Index] | [129] | |
INTRODUCTION
In the middle of the eighteenth century there were two prominent men in Paris whose conflict was typical of the controversial nature of the subject known as Musical Therapy. The Abbé Nollet was not only one of the most prominent clerics in France during his time but was in addition the most famous of its physicists. He had constructed some excellent models of machines which produced static electricity, but he had had no medical training. At about this time throughout western Europe, the subject of static electricity had become very popular. Several physicians claimed that it was of great use in the treatment of many diseases. Particularly did they say that it cured paralysis. The Abbé Nollet wrote a book about static electricity and in it told of the cases he had cured with it. The most prominent physician in Paris was Doctor Louis, who was the chief physician at the Salpêtrière Hospital, the largest and best known hospital in France. Dr. Louis tried to repeat the cures promised by Nollet but was unable to secure success in any of the patients whom he exposed to static electricity. He published the story of his failure to do so, which so excited Abbé Nollet that he wrote an entire volume condemning Dr. Louis. Instead of refuting the ability of Dr. Louis to diagnose paralysis and evaluate a cure, he climaxed his remarks with the classical question addressed to the doctor, “Is electricity your field?”[61]
For many centuries philosophers and musicians have claimed the ability to cure mental illness through the use of music, and have at times called this procedure Musical Therapy. Although the physicians might well say to these musicians that therapeutics is definitely not within the province of musicians, it is unlikely that a musician would at this time have the courage to ask physicians, “Is this your field?”
A thorough search of the history of medicine will show that almost all phenomena and substances have at one time or another been tried in an attempt to combat disease. Many of these agents were abandoned when they became unfashionable to a more sophisticated civilization, or were recognized as unwholesome by a more educated generation. The fact that few were given up merely because of their ineffectiveness can be seen in the great number of quack nostrums which still enjoy an active sale among the ignorant, and by the impossible claims of highly organized cults which continue to gain in numbers and followers in this country. Healing schemes based upon the use of herbs because they are delivered right from nature’s womb, or the fanciful notion that all diseases arise from the imaginary displacements of the spinal bones, are still in their ascendency. The liberal system we call democracy has not only permitted their growth but has rewarded their ingenuous and ingenious development. Exposure of the fraudulent methods involved serves little purpose because the mentality which is so susceptible to warped reasoning responds poorly or even antagonistically to enlightening guidance.
There are, however, certain valuable features in herb and spinal doctrines which have been partially ignored by reputable physicians because of the intimate relation of these ideas to cult practice.
In spite of a spirited rebirth of the movement towards the establishment of a system of healing based on music, there are many valuable uses of music in medicine which might suffer a like fate unless a critical analysis of the worth of music as a therapeutic agent is effected before Musical Therapy reaches the dubious distinction of classification as a healing cult.