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A r t i c l e s
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THE HEALING POWER OF SOUND.
by Michel Pépé,
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS SOUND...
From time immemorial, music has influenced the behaviour of mankind. We all know that music hides a message because, first and foremost we react emotionally even before we understand it.
After considerable scientific studies, scientists from all over the world have realized that music has the power to break up the tensions in our Being, which tensions are mainly caused by noise, stress, pollution and any other problem of an emotional or a psychological nature.
Music has the power to calm, relax and revive, but also to upset. As a matter of fact, scientists have carried out experiments on rock or house and techno music concerts. With extremely sophiscated measuring devices, they have managed to calculate the number of decibels produced during a concert (Decibel = Unit for measuring the loudness of sounds, according to Alex GRAHAM-BELL who invented the telephone).
One has to know there is a threshold not to exceed concerning decibels, otherwise it can turn out to be very dangerous and the ear can be damaged. Any sounds exceeding 80 decibels are harmful to health and can induce deafness, nerve tissue lesion, loss of balance, of memory, nervous breakdown... In those rock concerts, the number of decibels can be as high as 120.
Fortunately, there are means which can save us ans allow us to lead a serene and peaceful life.
We all know these beneficial sources given to us by Nature : the flow of a brook, the movement of the waves, the singing of the birds.
The great nineteenth-century Austrian composer Richard WAGNER said music was the universal language. Scientists have indeed shown, through a lot of experiments, that the musics refered to as classical or sacred have the power to revitalize the Soul and to lift it up to the divine.
THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF RELAXATION MUSIC
This music has the distinctive feature of bringing a real feeling of Well-being to our body and mind. The peculiarity of this music called new age music, as well as of some classical and sacred musics, is without doubt this tendency to use no rythmic, no harmonic tension, but on the contrary to give greater importance to peaceful, serene and harmonious atmospheres, thus reflecting a new lifestyle and a new consciousness.
The agressive and low drums, the distorted guitar solos are not used in it. On the contrary, one will find either acoustic instruments such piano, harp, flute and symphonic violins or traditional instruments such as the Tibetan bowl and the sitar. But the leading instrument here is the synthetizer, offering a wide range of sounds and magical and crystal-clear tones which take us far away in wonderful journeys into the inner self.
Scientists have taken a close interest in the study of this music and they have shown the effects of the sound vibration it generates. What are these effects then ?
1) Physically and psychologically speaking :
* This music soothes the nervous system, eliminates stress and gives a genuine feeling of Well-being.
* It lessens tirednessand asthenia.
* It has an effect on muscular efficiency.
* It oxygenates the body cells.
* It lowers blood pressure.
* It makes digestion easier.
* It restabilizes our right and left hemispheres.
2) Spiritually speaking :
* It restabilizes and harmonizes again our 7 main Chakras (Centers through which circulates the vital energy called KI by the Chinese and PRANA by the Hindus).
* It restabilizes and harmonizes again various subtles bodies or vibratory fields, that is to say the etherical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual fields.
What one needs to understand is that the artist who composes this music will very often favour personal development processes which he will share with others thanks to his music. As a matter of fact, the spiritual energy radiating from this music is one of Peace, Love and cannot be measured in decibels but affects the Soul Quintessence.