Since ancient times, scientists have known about the influence of music on humans. Music calmed and healed. But special attention to its impact on human brain activity arose at the end of the 20th century. Research by the American scientist Don Campbell determined that classical music can not only heal, but also increase intellectual abilities. This effect was called the "Mozart effect",

because the music of this composer has the strongest influence.

Various studies have been conducted that have shown that even ten minutes of listening to Mozart's music increases the IQ by 9 units. In addition, it improves memory, attention, and math skills. This has been tested on students whose test scores improved after listening to it.

Why does this music have such an impact? The Mozart effect arises because this composer maintains loudness intervals in his works that correspond to the biocurrents of the human brain. And the sound range of this music corresponds most of all. In addition, Mozart wrote mainly in major tones, which is why his works so attract listeners and facilitate the work of the brain.

For many years, experiments have been conducted on the influence of music on children. The Mozart effect is that its smooth and charming music has a calming effect, improves mood and stimulates the creativity of the brain. When children under the age of three often listen to this music, they develop better. It improves speech, learning abilities, coordination of movements and calms nervous overexcitation.

The Mozart effect for newborns is also proven. Listening to his music before

birth, children are born calmer, less irritable, they have more developed speech. Such children are easier to calm down, and they are better trained. In addition, if you turn it on during childbirth, then they proceed much easier.

Scientists have conducted numerous studies on the influence of classical music on animals and plants. The Mozart effect extends to them as well. For example, plants produce more crops, cows have higher milk yields, and perform better on mental tests.

There are a lot of examples when listening healed people from many diseases. For example, the Mozart effect helped Gerard

Depardieu to recover from stuttering. Listening to this composer's sonatas can help Alzheimer's patients and reduce the intensity of epileptic seizures.

Mozart's music is used in the treatment of neurological diseases, to improve fine motor skills of the hands. It improves hearing, memory and speech, and also helps to cope with mental problems. What is it connected with?

Scientists believe that Mozart's music has this effect because it contains a lot of high frequency sounds. They resonate with the frequencies of the human brain and improve thinking. These sounds have also been proven to strengthen ear muscles and improve memory.

We went to a neurologist ... We were diagnosed with a developmental delay, tk. the daughter does not sit down by herself, does not get up by herself, does not crawl and does not say syllables like “ma”, “ba”, etc. (she only says something in “her own” language: “abu”, “da”, “gai”, “bua”, etc.). In general, we were prescribed Pantogam, physiotherapy (PCT) and listen like background mozart, especially the symphonies, and the 6th symphony is even better (only the last Requiem is on stage - although it is beautiful music, it affects badly). I was interested: how does Mozart's music affect children's development and the children's brain ...
I’ll say right away: usually after an afternoon snack, my daughter doesn’t sleep (I don’t give it, because then you won’t put it down at night - the total period of wakefulness before a night’s sleep is about 4-5 hours), starts to whine, because. tends to sleep, we, of course, try our best to entertain and distract her. Today, at this time, I put Mozart on and was pleasantly surprised - after an afternoon snack from 18.00 to 20.30 (then we swim), my daughter never whined, but, listening to music as a background, calmly played with toys, tumbled (quite actively) and did not ask on the handles.
Here's what I found on the subject:
Mozart is the "most suitable" composer for kids. A huge number of scientific studies that have been conducted in different countries of the world show that the exquisitely simple, light, harmonious music of Mozart has a positive effect on the development of the child's psyche, creativity and intelligence. The Musical Genius from Nature, as many call Mozart, became a composer already at the age of 4, maybe this brought into his music a pure childish perception, which all “admirers” of his work subconsciously feel, even the smallest listeners.

Mozart's music has a universal positive impact. It surprisingly accurately finds various “pain” points and organically integrates into the most invisible corners of the soul and body of every person. This phenomenon allows us to speak of the so-called Mozart effect. The impact of music on the human body has not yet been practically studied. But some things are already known. At least what all systems of the human body work in a certain rhythm.

American scientists conducted the following experiment: they tested a group of volunteers on "IQ"; then for 10 minutes the group listened to the piano music of Mozart; then testing again. Result: the second test for "IQ" showed increase in intelligence by an average of 9 units. Scientists of our continent have proved that listening to Mozart's works increases the intellectual abilities of almost all people, regardless of gender and age. The most interesting thing is that mental faculties are increased even in those who do not like Mozart. In addition, people's concentration of attention increases from this music.

As a result of many years of observation, doctors came to the conclusion that Mozart's sonata for two pianos in C major helps those who suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Mozart's sonatas reduce the number of epileptic seizures. In Sweden, women in labor listen to Mozart's music before giving birth, which, according to scientists, reduces infant mortality. In the United States, Mozart's music is used in the treatment of neurological diseases. This therapy improves fine motor skills of the hands. How do you like this information? Impressive?

Many scientists of the world agree that Mozart's music has a miraculous healing power. It improves hearing, memory and ... speech. How?
According to one version, Mozart's music contains a large number of high-frequency sounds. It is these frequencies that carry the healing load. These sounds, which vibrate at a frequency of 3000 to 8000 Hz, resonate with the cerebral cortex and improve memory and thinking. These same sounds strengthen the microscopic muscles of the ear.

"Mozart's music can 'warm up the brain,'" Gordon Shaw, a theoretical physicist and one of the researchers, suggested after the results were announced. - We hypothesize that complex music excites equally complex neural patterns that are associated with higher forms of mental activity such as mathematics and chess. Conversely, simple and monotonous intrusive music can have the opposite effect.”

Mozart's music is extraordinary - neither fast nor slow, flowing but not boring, and charming in its simplicity.

Experiments to study the phenomenon are based on the assumption that music affects the brain at the anatomical level, making it more mobile. For children, it can have a profound effect on the formation of neural networks and the mental development of the child.

Far-reaching conclusions have been drawn from the results of research, especially in relation to the upbringing of children, whose first three years of life are considered decisive for their future intelligence.

Numerous opponents, trying to experimentally prove that no "Mozart effect" exists, regularly come to the conclusion that their judgments are fallacious.

Recently, another skeptic has changed his mind about Mozart's music. Eric Seigel of Elmhurst College in Illinois used a spatial reasoning test to do this. The subjects had to look at two letters E, one of which rotated at an angle with respect to the other. And the larger the angle, the more difficult it was to determine whether the letters were the same or different. The milliseconds spent by the subject comparing letters were the measure that determined the level of the subject's spatial thinking. To Seigel's surprise, those subjects who listened to Mozart before the test identified the letters much more accurately.

The researchers concluded that regardless of the tastes or previous experience of the listeners, Mozart's music invariably produced a calming effect on them, improved spatial perception and the ability to more clearly and clearly express themselves in the process of communication. The rhythms, melodies and high frequencies of Mozart's music have been proven to stimulate and load the creative and motivational areas of the brain.

It was Mozart's music that helped the French otolaryngologist Alfred Tomatis overcome Gerard Depardieu's stuttering. Two hours of daily listening to Mozart's music drove the stutter out of the famous actor's lips in two months. Before that, he could not finish a single sentence. After this therapy, he not only cured his stuttering and got rid of problems with his right ear, but also learned the process of thinking.

And here is another, almost fabulous story. Once upon a time there was an old sick marshal. His name was Richelieu Louis Francois de Vinro. Old age and disease are always around. And the marshal was already 78 years old, a considerable age for any person. His illnesses completely crippled him. And now he lies on his deathbed, his eyes are closed, only his lips move slightly. When they listened to the fading whisper of the old man, they heard the last request of the dying. And he asked for little: that in his last minutes a Mozart concerto was played in front of him. His favorite concert.

How was it to refuse a man in his dying request. The musicians came and played. When the last sounds of music died down, those close to him expected to see another marshal who had departed to the world. But a miracle happened. They saw that before their eyes the marshal began to come to life. Listened to Mozart's concert "driven away" death and returned vitality to a person. Maybe someone was dissatisfied with this turn of events, but not Richelieu Louis Francois de Vinro, who recovered and lived happily until he was 92 years old. Believe it or not, but all of Europe knows this story of an amazing resurrection.

Mozart strengthens the health of babies, Slovak scientists came to this conclusion.

During the two-year experiment, music was turned on for children, and they overcame postpartum stress faster, sucked milk better, developed well and did not cry.

Music therapy has also had a positive effect on the medical staff. Doctors and nurses were less nervous and less likely to make mistakes in their work.

Innovations were adopted by maternity hospitals in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland.

We subjected these animals [rats] in the womb and sixty days after birth to various types of auditory stimulation, and then brought them into the spatial labyrinth. And, of course, the animals that were subjected to the Mozart effect completed the maze faster and with fewer mistakes. Now we dissect animals and study their brains to neuro-anatomically accurately identify what specifically changed in the brain from this impact. It is possible that intense exposure to music has similar effects on the spatial regions of the brain's hippocampus. – Dr. Francis Rauscher

That children's experiences in their early years ultimately determine their scholastic abilities, their future careers, and their ability to form love relationships is hardly supported by neuroscience. — John Brewer

The Mozart effect is a term coined by Alfred A. Tomatis for the supposed enhancement of brain development that occurs in children under the age of 3 when they listen to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The idea for the Mozart effect originated in 1993 at the University of California, Irvine, with physicist Gordon Shaw and Francis Rauscher, a former cellist and cognitive development specialist. They studied the impact on several dozen students of the first 10 minutes of Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (op. 448). They found a temporal improvement in space-time thinking, as measured by the Stanford-Binet scale. Numerous attempts have been made to replicate these results, but most have failed (Willingham 2006). One of the researchers noted that “the best that can be said about the results of their study is that listening to Mozart records increases IQ for a short time” (Linton). Rauscher went on to study the effects of the Mozart effect on rats. Shaw and Rauscher believe that listening to Mozart improves spatial reasoning and memory in humans.

In 1997, Rauscher and Shaw announced that they had scientific evidence that piano and singing instruction was superior to computer instruction in developing children's abstract thinking skills.

The experiment included three groups of preschoolers: one group received private piano and singing lessons, the second group received private computer lessons, and the third group received no training. Those children who received piano training scored 34% higher on tests of space-time ability than others. These results show that music unambiguously develops the higher brain functions required for learning mathematics, chess, science and technology (Neurological Research, February 1997).

The show and Rauscher kick-started an entire industry. In addition, they created their own institute: the Neuro-Institute for Musical Development of the Intellect (MIND). They do numerous studies to prove the amazing effects of music, they even set up a website to keep track of all the news regarding these studies.

Shaw and Rauscher allege that their work has been misrepresented. In fact, they showed "that there are structures of neurons that fire one after the other and that there seem to be regions of the brain that respond to certain frequencies." This is not the same as showing that listening to Mozart increases intelligence in children. However, Shaw is not going to wait for more convincing evidence, because even without this he does not lack in parents who want to increase the IQ of their own children. He released a book as well as a CD titled Remember Mozart. This disc can be ordered and purchased from the Shaw Institute. He and his colleagues believe that since spatiotemporal thinking plays an essential role in solving cognitive problems, stimulating areas of the brain associated with it during exercise will increase a person's abilities. Shaw and his staff are selling a special computer program that, with the help of a lively cartoon penguin, promotes the development of spatial thinking in everyone.

Shaw and Rauscher gave rise to an entire industry, but the media and non-critical people have created an alternative science that supports this industry. Exaggerated and false claims about the impact of music have become so hackneyed that trying to correct them would be a waste of time. For example, Jamal Munshi, a university business administrator from Sonoma County, collects poignant news about misinformation and gullibility. He posts them on his website under the heading "Strange but true." There is information about the experiments of Shaw and Rauscher, which demonstrated that listening to a Mozart sonata "increases the student's scientific and technical ability score by 51 points." In fact, Shaw and Rauscher handed out test papers to 36 UCLA students and found that when listening to Mozart music, participants showed a temporary improvement of 8-9% in their personal performance compared to a similar test given after listening to relaxation music. (The Munshi also claims that science cannot explain how flies fly. Scientists are working on this important problem, so we have to give them credit. Some even claim to know how insects fly.)

Don Campbell, supporter of the views of Carlos Castaneda and P.T. Barnum, exaggerates and distorts the work of Shaw, Rauscher and others to his advantage. He has trademarked the expression "The Mozart Effect" and sells himself and his products at www.mozarteffect.com. Campbell claims that the blood clot in his brain dissipated thanks to prayers and an imaginary vibrating hand inside the right side of the skull. Gullible proponents of alternative medicine do not question this claim, although it is one of the claims that cannot be proven or disproved. He could also argue that the clot was dissolved thanks to the angels. (I wonder why he had a blood clot if music has such a good effect on a person. Maybe he listened to rap?)

Campbell's claims about the impact of music are reminiscent of the rococo style in color. And like Rococo, they are just as artificial. (Campbell claims that music can cure all ills.) He presents his evidence in narrative form and misinterprets it. Some of his results are absolutely fantastic.

All his arguments collapse at the slightest intervention of common sense. If Mozart's music can improve health, why did Mozart himself get sick often? If listening to Mozart's music improves the intellect, why aren't the smartest people among the Mozart connoisseurs?

The lack of evidence for the Mozart effect has not stopped Campbell from becoming the favorite of the naive and gullible audiences to whom he lectures.

When McCall's needs advice on how to get rid of sadness with music, when PBS wants to interview an expert on how voice can energize you, when IBM needs a consultant on how to use music to increase productivity, when the National Association cancer survivors need a speaker who can talk about the healing role of music, they turn to Campbell. (Campbell site)

The governors of Tennessee and Georgia have established a program whereby a CD of Mozart is given to every newborn. The Florida State Legislature passed a law requiring that classical music be played every day in state-funded childcare facilities. Hundreds of hospitals received free classical music CDs in May 1999 from the National Recording Academy and the Science Foundation. It is unlikely that these good intentions are based on solid research that classical music enhances a child's intelligence or speeds up the healing process in adults.

According to Kenneth Steele, professor of psychology at Appalachian State University, and John Brewer, director of the James McDonnell Foundation in St. Louis, listening to Mozart's music does not actually affect intellectual performance or health. Steele and her colleagues Karen Bass and Melissa Crook claim they relied on Shaw and Rauscher's reports but couldn't "find any effect" even though their study included 125 students. They concluded that "there is very little evidence to support the implementation of programs based on the existence of the Mozart effect." Their study, published in July 1999. Two years later, some researchers reported in the same journal that the observed effects were associated with "higher mood and arousal" (Willingham 2006).

In his book The Myth of the First Three Years, Brewer criticizes not only the Mozart effect, but also several other myths based on misinterpretations of recent brain research.

The Mozart effect is an example of how science and media are intertwined in our world. A paragraph-long report in a scientific journal becomes a universal truth within a few months, believed even by scientists who know how the media can distort and distort results. Others, smelling money, go over to the side of the winner, adding their own myths, dubious claims and distortions to the common treasury. Then many credulous supporters close their ranks and come out in defense of the faith, because the future of our children is at stake. We happily buy books, cassettes, CDs, etc. Soon, millions believe in the myth, considering it to be a scientific fact. Then the process encounters a slight critical resistance, because we already know that music can affect feelings and moods. Then why shouldn't it affect intelligence and health, at least a little and temporarily? It's just common sense, isn't it? Yes, and one more reason for skepticism.

The beneficial effect of classical music on a person has already been discussed. Pregnant women are even advised to listen to such music so that the baby develops well and can reveal their talents. And since the 90s of the XX century, simply amazing information has appeared about the unique impact on the human brain of Mozart's music. Unusual influence called Mozart effect. Until now, scientists argue about the nature of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, very interesting facts have already been collected.

Activation cerebral cortex

The first experiments in this direction were carried out on rats. For two months they were "forced" to listen to the same thing for 12 hours a day - Mozart's sonata in C major. As a result, the rats “smartered” and began to run the maze 27% faster and made significantly fewer mistakes (37%) than normal rats.

As for people, here scientists have studied brain activity using magnetic resonance. Studies have shown that any music affects the human brain. Those. it excites the area that is the auditory center. In some cases, areas of the brain associated with emotions were also excited. But ONLY listening to Mozart's music activated almost ALL bark. As scientists figuratively put it, almost the entire cerebral cortex began to glow.

scientific theories

The power of the influence of Mozart's music on the brain has been scientifically proven in two directions: the frequency of the change of rhythm and the actual frequency of the sound.

The first is due to the fact that our brain has cycles in its work. The nervous system, in particular, has a rhythm of 20-30 seconds. Scientists have suggested that resonance in the cerebral cortex can just cause sound waves that oscillate at the same frequency. The University of Illinois analyzed the frequency responses of music from nearly 60 different composers to see how often 20-30 second waves occur in a piece. When we brought all the data into one table, it turned out that the authors of primitive pop music were at the very bottom, but Mozart took first place at the top.

It is in his music with its unique nuances, overflows and overflow of sounds that 30-second waves are repeated MORE OFTEN than in any other music. Those. in this music, the coveted 30-second “quiet-loud” rhythm is sustained, which corresponds to the biorhythms of our brain.

On the other hand, it has been proven that high-frequency sounds (3,000 - 8,000 Hz) receive the greatest resonance in the cerebral cortex. And the works of Mozart are literally saturated with high-frequency sounds.

Music, enhancing intelligence

The activation of the cerebral cortex is not just a scientific miracle. This is an objective process that stimulates thought processes and improves memory. Increased brain activity significantly increases the intellectual level of a person. American scientists have shown that if you listen to Mozart's music for only 10 minutes, then IQ will increase by almost 8-10 units. So a very interesting experiment was conducted at the University of California, how music affects students passing the test. 3 control groups were selected:

1 - sat in complete silence;
2 - listened to an audiobook;
3 - listened to Mozart's sonata.

All students took the test before and after the experiment. As a result, students improved their results

1 - by 14%;
2 - by 11%;
3 - on 62% .

Impressive results, isn't it?!

European scientists have proven that under the influence of Mozart's music, mental abilities increase, regardless of how they relate to it (like it or not). Even after 5 minutes of listening, people noticeably increase concentration and focus.

This music has a particularly strong effect on children. Children develop their intelligence much faster. In the United States, children were monitored for 5 years. Those children who attended music lessons for 2 years in a row showed a significant development of spatial thinking.

In adults, the effect of exposure has significant inertia. For some, brain activity disappeared with the last sounds. For others, the effect lasted longer, but then the brain returned to its original state again. Hence the conclusion - it is necessary to constantly maintain youth.

A striking example of the triumph of the impact of Mozart's music

First of all, high-pitched sounds strengthen the microscopic muscles of the middle ear, which leads to improved hearing and speech. And our example about it.

Probably, few people know that the world-famous actor Gerard Depardieu had a severe defect in the 60s: he stuttered and remembered little. Fortunately, a doctor met in his life, who determined that Gerard had serious problems with the middle ear, and attributed to him ... several months of daily listening to 2 hours of Mozart's music. The result was stunning and we all know it.

Gerard completely got rid of stuttering, improved his memory, which allowed him to become a great actor. Then he will say: “Before meeting with Tomatis, I could not say a single sentence to the end. He helped complete my thoughts, taught me the synthesis and understanding of the very process of thinking.

We hope that this article made you want to listen to Mozart. In Canada, works by Mozart are played at the state level in city squares (to reduce the number of accidents). In our streets, you will not hear classical music. Yes, it is even difficult to find a radio station with normal music here. But what is stopping you from doing at least short sessions of music therapy from the amazing music of Mozart.

For more information about the Mozart effect, the principles of the impact of music on human health and the human brain, about the ancient origins of music therapy, read the excerpt from Don J. Campbell's book The Mozart Effect.

The book tells about the powerful healing effect, the colossal life-giving energy of music (and not only music), and offers stories and advice that will help everyone become a healthy, cheerful, happy person. Refining the perception of music, sound, using the voice as the most effective tool, a person is able to achieve not only balance in the physical body, but also increase his intuitive, creative abilities, to know himself.

The meaning of music

For many years I studied the Nature of the human soul, asking myself questions about what is eternal and ephemeral on Earth, what is the essence, and what is superficial. As a musician, I was looking for that main melody or key that elevates and holds the entire Universe. I knew that from time immemorial, sounds and music have always been associated with creativity, creation, those vibrations, vibrations that are characteristic of the Universe itself. The epic tales of the Mahabharata tell that from the incredible primordial chaos came symmetrical and numerous variations, on the basis of which all physical structures were built. In China, the I-Ching (Book of Changes) reflects a similar understanding of harmony. In Western religions, it follows from the gospel that "in the beginning was the word." In Greek, the word logos means not only "word" but also "sound". When ancient people listened to the sacred lyre of David, Orpheus or Apollo, set to music the mystical poems of the Sufi Rumi Jalaleddin (a Sufi poet who wrote in Persian. Lyric collections and the poem "Mesnevi-i Manavi" contain interpretations of the main provisions of Sufism) or tried to reproduce legendary music from the higher realms, they lived in the hope that music would heal them. Since ancient times, music has been considered a mysterious and powerful tool for improving the state of mind and body. For many years, when I studied the ancient customs of the peoples of Haiti, Japan, Indonesia, India and Tibet, communicated with shamans and healers, I saw that they use sounds and music in healing rituals.

It's safe to say that you already have a deeper musical upbringing than you might think. And it happens to each of us. The world itself is musical. Penetrating through all ages and epochs, all men and women, all races, religions and nationalities, music is a commonly understood language built from universal components. "Musical" speakers have long and forever surpassed all the great talkers in Japanese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and other languages ​​of the globe combined. Music rises above all segments of the population, regardless of income, social class and education. Music speaks to everyone - not only to a person, but also to an animal, a plant. Birds create it themselves, snakes are fascinated by it, and whales and dolphins serenades each other. With the advent of the space age, the music of the higher spheres, the music of the Universe, becomes a reality. The Voyager spacecraft carries an audio cassette of music including Bach, Beethoven, rock and jazz, along with folk music from several countries, in case they encounter extraterrestrial civilizations who can enjoy listening to it.

Music is becoming the unified language of the modern world. People today spend much more money, time and energy on music than on books, movies or sports. The most popular cultural icons of our era are not the faces of saints, but the images of singers and musicians. Along with our commitment and passion for rock concerts and CDs, stereos and MTV programming, our behavior patterns are also largely musically based.

Today, millions of people are trying to find alternative treatments for themselves. They try to find such methods and programs of recovery that will help them improve their health, stabilize their emotional background, and protect them from the most common ailments. If you are one of those people who are looking for wellness alternatives, then you don't have to look far. Your own internal sound system (your ears, voice, and choice of music or self-generated sounds) is the most powerful healing and healing environment you can find. It costs practically nothing, it is not under the control of any specialist or guru, you can always have it with you. In the book, all this is called the "Mozart effect", which is an improved form of auditory influence.

Mozart effect

The power of Mozart's music first came to public attention through pioneering research at the University of California in the early 1990s.

"Mozart's music can 'warm up the brain,'" Gordon Shaw, a theoretical physicist and one of the researchers, suggested after the results were announced. - We hypothesize that complex music excites equally complex neural patterns that are associated with higher forms of mental activity such as mathematics and chess. Conversely, simple and monotonous intrusive music can have the opposite effect.”

Designers, decorators, landscapers, pilots, golfers, and other visual professionals use what Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard Graduate School, calls "spatial intelligence." Researchers at the University of Irvine, California found that listening to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos enhanced these abilities. I prefer Mozart's violin concertos, as well as other string music. My experience shows that these works give a greater effect.

Offering an explanation for this effect, the scientists suggested that listening to Mozart's music allows you to "streamline the firepower" of neurons in the cerebral cortex. This particularly enhances the creative processes of the right hemisphere, which are associated with space-time thinking. Listening to music, according to scientists, acts as a "model exercise", improving the symmetrical organization that is associated with the higher functions of the cerebral hemispheres. In simpler terms, music improves focus, enhances intuitive thinking, and, in golfer's parlance, results in fewer strokes.

Research by Alfred Tomatis, MD, has identified the most significant healing effects of sounds, music, and the "Mozart effect" in particular.

This French doctor devoted fifty years to the study of what the human ear is, how diverse the dimensions and indicators of the hearing process are. His assistants consider him the Einstein of sound, the Sherlock Holmes of sound detection. For many patients, he is simply "Dr. Mozart." His pioneering approach to the study of the human ear has led to new methods of teaching, healing and rehabilitation.

Tomatis' accomplishments are many. He was the first to understand the essence of the physiology of hearing as opposed to the concept of hearing. He clarified the importance of the predominant role of the right ear in the control of speech and musical abilities and developed special methods to enhance its functions. He made the discovery that "the voice can only reproduce what the ear can hear", a theory that is widely applied in the development of human speech. At first, they mocked her, and then she became generally recognized, and the “Tomatis effect” was registered at the French Academy of Medicine. He developed a new model of the human ear and vestibular system, and also showed its influence on a person's ability to balance and regulate muscle movements.

However, his most significant contribution to science was the recognition that the human embryo has the ability to hear sounds while in the womb.

In his early thirties, Tomatis' scientific curiosity led him into the world of embryology, where he discovered that the mother's voice served as an invisible sound link for the developing fetus and an essential source of nourishment. This further led to the development of a special technique, which he called "second sound birth". Its essence is to reproduce the sounds that the fetus heard in the womb in order to further develop the auditory and emotional abilities of the child in order to eliminate all kinds of diseases.

“The fetus is able to perceive the entire spectrum of low-frequency sounds,” explains Tomatis in his book The Conscious Ear, which is essentially his creative autobiography. - The space of sounds in which the embryo is immersed is distinguished by an extraordinary richness of all kinds of shades ... Internal noises, the movement of lymph during digestion, heart rhythms that are in the nature of a gallop. He perceives rhythmic breathing as the distant sound of surf and water currents. And in this context, the voice of the mother is poured. Tomatis compares this whole "concert" to the sounds of the African prairies or the bush in the late afternoon, when they are full of "distant calls, all kinds of rustling and flapping wings." When this audio-voice communication is organized correctly, the human fetus acquires a sense of security based on this constant dialogue, which guarantees it a harmonious and calm maturation.

Tomatis further noted that after birth, the infant is often in a passive state for only a short time, until the mother begins to speak. “At this moment, the child comes to life and reaches out to the mother with his whole body ... The newborn reacts to the sound of a specific voice, the only voice that he met while still in the womb. Feeling this instinctively, the mother begins to sing songs to the baby, lulling him with a lullaby, pressing him to her breast to the sound of sweet melodies, using all kinds of nursery rhymes to accelerate his development.

Assuming that a break in this natural chain of sound contacts could cause childhood ailments, Tomatis began to look for ways to recreate all this sound background that existed around the baby in the womb. Before birth, the baby hears sounds while immersed in a liquid environment. Ten days after birth, when the liquid shell of the fetus dissolves, the baby begins to hear already in the air. The outer and middle ears become accustomed to the air, while the inner ear retains the aqueous environment of the amniotic fluid in which it has been immersed for nine months. Using primitive electronic devices, Tomatis reproduced the sound environment that affects the developing fetus. Having recorded the mother's voice, he isolated all low-frequency sounds with the help of special filters, thus recreating the sound of the voice as it was perceived in the womb. The results were amazing: instead of his mother's voice, he suddenly heard sounds resembling a soft call, echo and rustling, similar to the sounds of the African savannah, which he had already identified earlier.

Over the years, Tomatis improved his system of "sound delivery", but the essence of the method remained the same. The preparatory "sonic return" phase is accompanied by a musical theme, usually Mozart's music. As a substitute for the absent parent, Mozart's music has the greatest effect. “Mozart is a wonderful mother,” says Dr. Tomatis. - In fifty years of clinical and experimental practice, I arbitrarily went through a large number of composers. I still continue to experience new musical forms and types of musical art, such as choral singing, folk music, classical works, but the power of Mozart, especially his violin concertos, has the greatest healing effect on the human body.

Anatomy of Sound, Listening and Hearing

Sound is energy that can be organized into shapes, patterns, figures, and mathematical proportions. The sound or word is what our ancestors called "beginning". This is what is called "om" in the East, and "ward" in the West. It is the very first noise of galaxy formation, the symphony of wind and water, the eternal companion of trains and moving objects, and the dialogue we have with each other (and ourselves).

Sound travels through air as waves and is measured in frequency and intensity. The concept of frequency refers to the tone, high or low qualities of sounds and is measured in hertz (the number of oscillations per second that a sound wave makes). The higher the tone, the faster the vibration; the lower the tone, the slower the vibration. Sound waves, which are extremely low, are much longer and cover vast areas. You may have seen organs with large copper pipes that reach a length of thirty-two or sixty-four feet (9.8 or 19.6 meters).

The human ear can perceive sounds in the range of 16-20000 hertz. On a piano, for example, the lowest key produces a sound at a frequency of 27.5 hertz, and the highest - 4186 hertz. The threshold for hearing sound also depends on the culture of the people and the environment. In Africa, the Maabans live in such silence that they can hear whispers from more than thirty meters away. There is no doubt that they would recognize the ability of New Yorkers, Parisians, and other modern tribes to carry on a conversation on a roaring subway train or in a busy supermarket as an amazing quality of human nature. Tomatis believes that high frequency sounds (from 3000 to 8000 hertz and above) resonate in the brain and affect mental functions such as thinking, spatial imagination and memory. The sounds of the middle frequency range (from 750 to 3000 hertz), he believes, stimulate cardiac activity, breathing and emotional background. Low sounds (from 125 to 750 hertz) affect physical movement. Low frequency buzzing can drive us crazy. Low rhythmic music makes it impossible to concentrate or calm down.

The intensity or loudness of sound is measured in decibels (in honor of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone). The rustling of leaves is estimated at 10 decibels, the whisper - up to 30 decibels. A quiet environment in a home or office is typically rated at 40 to 50 decibels, and a normal conversation is around 60 decibels. Traffic during peak hours is about 70 decibels loud. A scream, a jackhammer and a motorcycle roar are estimated at 100 decibels, the sound of a chainsaw is 110 decibels, loud rock music and a car horn are about 115 decibels. A rocket at launch can produce a sound of up to 180 decibels. Pain in the human ear starts at 125 decibels. The decibel loudness scale, like the Richter scale for measuring the strength of earthquakes, is a logarithmic scale where an increase of 10 decibels doubles the previous value. Loud music at 110 decibels is twice as loud as a 100 decibel jackhammer and thirty-two times louder than normal conversation at 60 decibels. The loudness ratio between the weakest and loudest sounds that the human ear can perceive is a trillion to one. As far as music is concerned, the range of perceived sounds is a million to one.

Another main characteristic of a sound is its timbre - the quality of a voice or instrument that makes it stand out from others, regardless of frequency or intensity. There is no scientifically based scale for measuring timbre, as it is basically a property of the sound wave. Subjective ratings, such as those used by gourmets when evaluating the taste of wine ("rich", "vibrant", "deaf"; "saturated", "bright"), are often used to describe timbre. The Stradivarius violin, for example, has a clean, warm timbre compared to a conventional mass-produced violin.

Sound shape

Sound has mystical properties. It can take on a physical form and contours that can affect our health, consciousness and behavior. In his work Simatica, which describes how sound and vibration affect matter, Hans Jenny, a Swiss engineer and physician, proved that sound can be used to build complex geometric shapes. For example, he caused vibration in crystals with the help of electrical impulses and transmitted it to a medium such as a plate or a string. He also obtained oscillating figures in liquids and gases.

The shapes and contours that can be created by sounds are endless and can be changed by changing the frequency, harmonics of the tone, and the material that vibrates with the sound. If strings are added to this, the results can either be miraculous or vice versa. A low "OM" sound, for example, creates several concentric circles with a dot in the center, while a high "EEE" sound creates many circles with fuzzy edges. These shapes change instantly when the note or tone of the sound changes.

The Art of Listening

The ability to hear correctly - in the entire spectrum of sounds of the surrounding world - gives us the opportunity to be aware of our presence at a given point in space at a given moment in time. Developing the ability to hear correctly is the main theme of this book and the secret to comprehending the “Mozart effect”.

The difference between listening and hearing should not be underestimated. Unlike listening, which is the ability to perceive sound information through the ears and other organs, hearing is the ability to filter, selectively focus on something, remember and respond to sound. In addition to receiving sounds and transmitting them to the brain, the ears provide us with additional capabilities, including the ability to determine the distance and spatial relationship of objects. There is nothing miraculous here. Being in a crowded and noisy restaurant, you somehow manage to hear the words and whispers of a friend. However, if you turn on a portable voice recorder in the same restaurant, it will record only an intricate symphony of cymbal clatter and unintelligible conversation. Hearing is an active process, while listening is passive. Often we listen but do not hear. We may perceive a conversation, news release, or music playing without paying attention to the information that is contained in them. Wrong hearing (listening) is the cause of many problems in personal, family and business life.

Right ear, left ear

When a crisp and clear vowel enters the right ear, the listener's voice becomes firmer, their posture more upright, and stress is reduced. The same sound, directed to the left ear, sometimes causes a disturbance in the rhythm of the listener's speech and a decrease in his attention. However, the left ear picks up emotional speech and lower tones just as well as the right ear. The right ear predominates because it transmits auditory impulses to the speech centers of the brain faster than the left. Nerve impulses from the right ear go directly to the left hemisphere of the brain, where the speech centers are located. Nerve impulses from the left ear take a longer path through the right hemisphere of the brain, in which there are no corresponding speech centers, and only then enter the left hemisphere. The result is a slow reaction, which is measured in milliseconds, as well as a certain loss of attention and a change in the timbre of the voice.

These discoveries have many practical applications. If you talk to the interlocutor sitting on your right, or press the handset to your right ear, this will improve the quality of your hearing, focus your attention and make it possible to better absorb and remember information. In the classroom, sometimes it is enough to transplant a student in such a way that the teacher is on the side of his right ear, and this will significantly increase his attentiveness and academic performance. Rearranging your home or office stereo system to the right side can have the same effect.

Listening and posture

The human ear, like a choreographer, "stages the dance" of the body, regulates its rhythm and the nature of movements. From the simple movements of a jellyfish to the most complex activities of homo sapiens, the ear acts like a gyroscope, a central processing unit, like an orchestra conductor for the entire nervous system. The ear integrates the information conveyed by sounds, organizes language, and enables us to sense horizontals and verticals. Good hearing creates a whole gamut of positive effects, including improved voice control, energized demeanor, better orientation, and even better handwriting and posture. Deviation or weakening of the vestibular apparatus can lead to impaired speech, poor motor coordination, and difficulty sitting, standing, and moving.

Through the medulla oblongata and spinal cord, the auditory nerves are connected to all the muscles of the body. Thus, muscle tone, sense of balance and flexibility are also directly influenced by sounds. The vestibular function of the ear also acts on the eye muscles, affecting vision and facial expression. It also affects the process of desire and taste. Through the vagus nerve, the inner ear connects to the larynx, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, bladder, kidneys, small and large intestines. This suggests that the sound vibrations from the eardrums are transmitted through the parasympathetic nerves and can regulate, control and "sculpt" all the major organs of the human body.

Sitting or standing upright, with the head, neck and back vertical, provides maximum control over the process of listening, tunes and stimulates the brain for absolute attentiveness. Such a posture turns the human body, according to Tomatis, "into a beautiful receiving antenna that vibrates in unison with sound sources."

For fifteen years I have experimented a lot with different listening positions that allow me to reach a new level of perception of music. The best audience, in my opinion, is one where you can actively move around before listening to music. Dancing or active gymnastic exercises for five to seven minutes before listening to chamber music bleed our ears and brain, the body "listens better" to music.

Two harps playing in unison

The importance of proper listening cannot be underestimated. To listen is to vibrate with another human being. In Thai tracts, Lao Tzu compares two people in harmony to harps playing in unison. When listening to a good speaker or singer, we begin to breathe deeper, our muscles relax, leading to deeper balance and peace. On the other hand, a bad speaker or a bad singer makes us tense. Muscles begin to contract, as if trying to protect us from annoying and unpleasant sounds.

This process starts at an early age. The scientists concluded that infants perceive musical sounds in the same way as adults, preferring harmonious tones to harsh dissonant sounds. Thirty-two four-month-old babies were exposed to short excerpts from obscure European folk songs. Harmonious and inharmonious versions of the same melodies were played. When listening to harmonious melodies, the concentration of babies increased, they cried less. When inharmonious variants of melodies sounded, babies tried to move away from the source of the sound.

The expression "original mind" used in the East means the ability of a person to observe the world with fresh eyes with the purity and spontaneity of a child. Even if you are unfortunate enough to live near one of the Tomatis centers, the first step to proper listening is to strive to listen with childlike delight. As Gandhi, who was one of the most patient listeners, taught us: "If we have attentive ears, then God will always speak to us in our language."

Healing properties of sounds and music

People understand the concept of "healing" in different ways. For me, healing and healing is the art of restoring the balance of spirit and body, feelings and soul. I am best able to achieve this balance through daily exercise, which allows you to evenly maintain the harmony of the various aspects of life. But we have different needs, and yours may not be the same as mine.

Healing does not only mean a sense of presence in this world, it means finding wholeness, harmony and balance. Even though holistic healing systems are based on this concept, it seems rather abstract. How can we become more whole?

It is much easier to define the concept of wholeness with the help of musical terms. To do this, we must step over the modern model of the human body, according to which it is a well-functioning mechanism. You can think of yourself as an orchestra that perceives and reproduces a symphony of sounds, chemical reactions, electrical discharges, colors and images. When we are healthy, all the instruments of the orchestra play to the beat. When we are unwell, it means that one of the instruments is out of tune. Part of my body was out of rhythm. Each organ can play its part well, but there is no general sound of the orchestra. Imagine that all the instruments of our "orchestra" play as loudly as possible. It will be the most nightmarish of concerts. But there is another extreme - absolute silence implies that the body does not show signs of life.

Bringing the body into balance requires careful observation of the orchestra in all its diversity - this is taking into account the current state and past experience, its strengths and capabilities. The true genius of healing lies in teaching your body, brain, and heart to open and play your music, not the standard tunes that social norms dictate to us.

It is important to understand that healing is not always synonymous with healing. Eliminating the disease or reducing the pain may be the goal, but the main task of healing is to unite the conscious and subconscious. This process is ongoing.

How music affects us

Many of us love to listen to music without fully understanding its impact. Sometimes she overstimulates - becomes obsessive. Whatever our reaction, music has a mental and physical effect. To better understand how music heals, we need to understand what it does. When we know this, we will be able - regardless of our level of musicality - to change the load on our "sound channels" as quickly and efficiently as we switch television channels to find the right image.

Music can slow down and balance brain waves. It has been demonstrated many times that the waves created by the brain can be changed with the help of music and spoken sounds. Consciousness is made up of beta waves that vibrate at a frequency of 14 to 20 hertz. Beta waves are generated by our brains when we are focused on daily activities or when we are experiencing strong negative emotions. The elevated sensations and calmness are characterized by alpha waves, which spread at a frequency of 8 to 13 hertz. The periods of peak creativity, meditation, and sleep are characterized by theta waves, which have a frequency of 4 to 7 hertz, while deep sleep, deep meditation, and unconsciousness generate delta waves, which have a frequency of 0.5 to 3 hertz. The slower the brain waves, the more relaxed and peaceful we experience.

Like meditation, yoga, biofeedback, and other methods aimed at unifying the mind and body, music at about 60 beats per minute, including some baroque and modern orchestrations, can shift our consciousness away from beta waves and towards alpha range, thus increasing overall well-being and alertness. Playing music at home, at work, or at school can create a dynamic balance between the more logical left and the more intuitive right hemispheres of the brain - the interchange of thoughts is the basis of creativity.

If you are “thinking about the tree”, daydreaming, Mozart or Baroque music that plays for ten to fifteen minutes will help your consciousness become clear and increase the level of mental organization.

Music affects the breath. Our breathing is rhythmic. Unless we are climbing stairs and lying on our stomachs, we usually take twenty-five to thirty-five breaths per minute. A deeper, slower breathing rhythm is optimal, promoting peace, controlling emotions, deeper thinking, and better metabolism. Rapid, erratic breathing can lead to shallow and distracted thinking, impulsive behavior, and a tendency to make mistakes.

As practice shows, listening to fast, loud music after a "diet" of slow music can lead to this effect. “My objections to Wagner's music are physiological,” Nietzsche once said. “It becomes difficult for me to breathe when I am affected by Wagner’s music.” By slowing down the tempo of a piece of music or listening to slower music, you can deepen and slow down your breathing, allowing your brain to calm down. Gregorian chants, modern orchestrations, and folk music usually produce this effect.

Music affects heart rate, pulse and blood pressure. The heart rate can be adjusted with sounds and music. The heartbeat responds to rate, rhythm, and volume, which can speed up or slow down heart rhythms. The faster the music, the faster the heart beats; the slower the music, the slower the heart rate. All this, of course, within reasonable limits. As with the rhythm of breathing, a slower heartbeat calms the brain and helps the body heal itself. Music can be called a "natural peacemaker".

Rhythmic music can lift us up and energize us, but research conducted at the University of Louisiana reveals to us the "dark side" of rock. Researchers have found that listening to rock music increases the heart rate and reduces the quality of training in athletes. Conversely, listening to light, flowing music calms your heart rate and allows you to exercise longer and more efficiently.

Music can influence the rhythm of the heartbeat, but the opposite is also true: the heart can determine our musical preferences.

Music reduces muscle tension and improves body mobility and coordination. Through the autonomic nervous system, auditory nerves connect the inner ear to the muscles of the body. Therefore, strength, flexibility and muscle tone depend on sound and vibrations. The rhythm and accuracy of the execution of movements are very dependent on the rhythm and tempo of the piece of music.

All sounds and music have a subtle but powerful effect on our body temperature. and hence the ability to adapt to changes in temperature, heat and cold. Nasty door squeaks, howling winds, and unpleasant sounds can cause goose bumps. Hollywood horror films use these effects, amplifying them with irritating dissonant music in the scenes of suspense, danger and violence that so often appear on the screen. Divine music can fill us with warmth, loud music with strong rhythms can increase body temperature by several degrees, while soft music with weak rhythms can lower it. As Igor Stravinsky observed, "Drums and basses... act like a central heating system." On a cold winter day, warm music (especially music with a strong rhythm) helps to warm up, while in the heat of summer, abstract, distracted music can “cool” us.

Music can boost endorphin levels. Endorphin produced by the brain, "their own opium", has been the subject of much biomedical research in recent times. The results of some of them suggest that endorphin can relieve pain and cause a "natural lift". There is a theory that "musical pleasure" - the feeling of elation that is caused by listening to certain music - is the result of the release of endorphins. It is produced by the pituitary gland and is the result of electrical activity that spreads to the brain and is associated with the activity of the lymphatic and autonomic control centers.

Music regulates the release of stress-reducing hormones. Anesthesiologists report that the level of stress hormones in the blood is significantly reduced in those who regularly listen to relaxing calm music. In some cases, this can replace medications. These hormones include adrenocorticotropin (ACTP), prolactin, and human growth hormone. Politicians, lawyers, surgeons, teachers and people in other professions who often work under stress are realizing that music can soothe and relax them. “I don’t have the opportunity to listen to music often,” Lenin said after listening to a Beethoven sonata. “She encourages me to say kind, stupid things to people and pat them on the head.”

Music and sounds can boost immune function. If the body is able to successfully resist disease, this is due to the fact that all its systems work in harmony: blood, lymph and other fluids circulate correctly; the liver, spleen and kidneys work as a single mechanism. Recent studies in the field of immunology suggest that lack of oxygen in the blood may be the main cause of immunodeficiency and the development of degenerative diseases. This is where the Mozart effect comes into play. Certain musical genres, as well as singing and reciting, can increase the oxygen content in the cells of the body. Buddha Geras, a researcher from Lake Montezuma, Arizona, has developed a system of vocal exercises that can increase the rate of lymph circulation in the body by three times. The scientists concluded that preferred music "can induce a deep positive emotional experience, which in turn stimulates the production of hormones that help reduce factors that accelerate the development of the disease."

Music changes our perception of space. As the Irvine Mozart effect research has shown, certain music can increase brain activity in perceiving the world around us, forming images and recognizing differences between objects. In other words, music can influence how we perceive the surrounding space. Slow music contains more space than fast music. When we're pressed for time, stuck in a traffic jam, or in some kind of tight space, Mozart's chamber music or light music like Stephen Halpern's Spectral Suite can create an expanded space around us for calm and relaxation. In this sense, music is "sound wallpaper". It can give us the opportunity to feel the environment more light, voluminous and pleasant. It can create a more orderly, efficient and active environment for us. In hospital recovery rooms, music can help reduce feelings of insularity.

Music changes the perception of time. We can choose music that "speeds up or slows down" our actions. Harsh music such as a march can speed up the pace. Classical and baroque music induces slow behavior. Music of high romanticism or modern orchestrations help soften the tense atmosphere. In some cases, such music can make time stop. On the other hand, in a hospital or clinic, where minutes seem like hours, bright live music can speed up the passage of time.

Music can improve memory and learning. We have seen that exercising to music improves our well-being and tone. The same is true for education. Listening to light music (such as Mozart or Vivaldi) in the background helps some students concentrate for long periods of time. It can distract others. If you listen to baroque music while studying, you can improve memory, memorization of new and foreign words, as well as poetry.

Music boosts productivity. Research into workers and their memory status has led to a radical change in how music can be used in the workplace.

Music improves the subconscious perception of symbolism. Filmmakers are well aware that the "soundtrack" of the film ensures success. Often sound is able to create and maintain tension while watching a movie better than what is happening on the screen, evoking various symbols and appealing to the viewer's subconscious. Similarly, new experimental therapies use relaxation combined with music to “break through” into the patient's subconscious area and heal injuries that have been “locked” inside the body for a long time.

Music helps create a sense of security. "Safe" music isn't always beautiful or romantic. This is music that provides the listener with peace. My parents and my parents' parents "found their safety" in the lofty hymns they knew by heart. With the help of these prayer-like songs, it was easier for them to overcome the Great Depression, world wars and other tragedies. Today's youth use music as a refuge. Turning on the maximum sound, listening to high-energy music, modern hip-hop, rap, punk and grunge, young people isolate themselves from the outside world, which seems to them too materialistic and hypocritical.

Vibration, rhythm and image

Music is impulsive, like all living things, impulsive means a flow, a steady flow of energy that surrounds us. The structure of our lives is built as a complex network of ebb and flow, periods of activity and rest. To feel the pulsation of music means to feel or tune in to it the pulsation of the listener's organism.

We do not synchronize our behavior with music when we listen to it, but musical impulses inevitably influence the rhythm of our thinking and behavior. In dance, for example, music stimulates body movements. Different musical styles can make us move in different ways.

Yet, whether we focus on it or not, music subtly shapes and defines the boundaries of our physical, mental, and social environments, influencing how vigorously, harmoniously, and smoothly life flows within and around us.

A concept closely related to rhythm is the step. A fast or slow “step of sound” can determine whether we feel healthy, determined, relaxed, ready for trouble, or drooping. Music that doesn't have a standard, well-organized pitch can inspire us, but soon becomes annoying. The pitch of the sound affects our inner metronome, our ability to coordinate physical and mental functions.

Music simultaneously creates many images. The structure and sequence of its tones affect the body and movement of a person, while the changing harmony and strings can excite our emotions. Lyrical poems or stories set to music can take us back to when we were happy. That's why we love listening to the songs of our youth so much. Music brings back fond memories.

Music may be delicate and calm, but it is never dead. Even a melody that lasts for hours carries a pulsating wave that affects the brain and body at various levels. What we put into each of our sounds is also vital. In terms of healing, the "Mozart effect" extends beyond purely sonic or performance quality. In the end, it is the listener who determines the final impact: you yourself are an active conductor and participant in the process of "orchestrating" your health.

Each person has a favorite music that acts on his soul most effectively. It should be borne in mind that within each genre there is a variety of styles. Some of them are active and carry energy, others are passive and help to relax.

Voice

The human voice is a wonderful healing tool, one of the most accessible sound medicines. Even a single uttered sound can massage the muscles of the upper body and make everything vibrate from within. Every movement of the human body, in turn, affects how we inhale and exhale, thus affecting the characteristics of our voice. However, we very rarely pay attention to our voice until we start using it in an unusual way, such as learning a new language. When we are not distracted by the content and meaning of the sounds we utter.

Breath is the basis of the voice. We inhale air, it passes through the lungs, and then we exhale it. In many religions, breathing means the spirit, the soul. The Hebrew word ruach means not only the single spirit of the universe that hovers over the earth, but also the breath of the Lord. A similar meaning of these concepts can be found in many languages. As we find ways to express our soul through voice, we notice that our breathing has a certain melody, as well as the movements of our body. I suggest that you think of your breath in the following way: it is prana, ki, i.e., the life force on which the voice is based. With each breath you draw in the same air that Buddha, Jesus, Shakespeare and Mozart breathed.

I signal - I exist

Laurel Elizabeth Keyes' Toning: The Creative Energy of the Voice contains many stories of people being healed by toning (making a sound by saying a vowel sound for a long time).

Although my success with this technique has been much more modest, I have seen thousands of people relax at the sound of their own voice, become more focused, release fears and other negative emotions, and release physical pain. Over the past eight years, I've watched people use toning for a variety of practical purposes, from relaxing before a big challenge to getting rid of tinnitus or migraines. Toning can relieve pre-surgery stress, lower blood pressure and respiratory rate, and stress for those who are about to undergo a magnetic resonance or CT scan. Toning is good for insomnia and other sleep problems.

Any form of vocalization, including singing, reciting, chanting, yodeling (Tyrolean song), purring, silent or closed-mouthed singing, prose or poetry reading aloud, or just talking can be therapeutic. But I found that nothing beats toning. Other methods, especially singing and recitation, move the vibrating epicenters so quickly that the sounds have little time to "hook" or resonate with any organ. Toning saturates the body with oxygen, deepens breathing, relaxes muscles and stimulates the flow of energy. If you perform toning with a voice rich in timbre, it is able to massage the entire body.

In the 1940s and 1950s, some of the biggest innovations in voice therapy were made by Dr. Paul J. Moses, Professor of Speech and Voice Clinic in the Department of Otolaryngology at Stanford Medical University. He believed that the voice is the main form of expression of individuality. If you listen carefully to it, you can analyze the nervous patterns of behavior, observe them and treat them. Like annual rings on a cut tree, intonation, modulations, intensity and other objective characteristics of the voice provide a simple key to the analysis of the life history and fate of each person.

Through the analysis of taped conversations with various people, Moses learned to make a medical diagnosis of each patient by his voice. Based on the range and symmetry of the voice of each person, on the predominance of certain intonations in it, on how the voice expresses melody and rhythm, as well as on loudness, clarity, accents and other variables, he built a complex physical and psychological model (profile) of the voice. “Voice dynamics is an accurate and reliable reflection of psychodynamics,” he concluded. “Every human emotion has its own vocal expression.”

Singing cure

In his compelling book Singing Healing, Paul Newham, founder of the International Association of Voice and Movement Healers in London, explores the therapeutic differences between speech and singing. The development of free association in patients provides a "direct road" to their subconscious. And the singing voice provides much more direct access to the subconscious. The general task of the psychoanalyst is to remove the protective function of consciousness in order to see what kind of natural voice the subconscious speaks. The next step forward is moving away from verbal communication and allowing the voice to express itself directly (for example, in the form of singing).”

A different approach to voice healing was pioneered by Alfred Wolfson, a German singing teacher whose research is at the forefront of voice healing science. Having become mentally ill from the sounds of artillery fire, which he heard in the trenches during the First World War, Wolfson cured himself of auditory hallucinations by reproducing and imitating those nightmarish sounds that ruined his psyche. Thus, he expelled from himself the demons of fear and guilt. Finding that he was able to produce a wide range of sounds - from joy and bliss to horror and suffering - Wolfson continued to develop therapeutic methods based on the method of "opening" the voice. After fleeing Nazi Germany for London, he opened a small research center where he taught students and patients how to break through their own "sound barriers" and reproduce a wide range of spontaneous noises, including sounds made by animals, birds, even machines and mechanisms.

Wolfson vigorously objected to the classical singing tradition of dividing voices into types: soprano and alto in women; tenor, baritone and bass for men. Based on Jung's concept of anima and animus (feminine in a man and masculine in a woman), Wolfson taught that by expanding the vocal range through exercise and singing, one can open the opposite sex in oneself, thereby uniting one's psyche and healing psychological and physical disorders and ailments.

In 1955, in order to show the range of the human voice, Wolfson demonstrated one of his students, Jenny Johnson, whose voice range was recognized by scientists and doctors to be between eight and nine octaves. Johnson could sing all parts of Mozart's The Magic Flute from the high soprano of the Queen of the Night to the bass of the sorcerer Sarastro.

Throughout his long and extremely productive life, Wolfson was able to show that personal development can be deepened and enriched by opening the voice. “The truth is that the natural human voice, freed from artificial limitations, is able to cover all these categories and registers, but can do much more,” the scientist concluded.

The power of Gregorian chants

Gregorian chants trace their origins to a form of Roman Catholic song that originated under the auspices of Pope Gregory. Born at the end of the 6th century, Gregory remained in the memory of Christians thanks to the gift of singing directly from the altar, imagining the Holy Spirit, who sits on his shoulders and sings in his ear.

Gregorian chants are fundamentally different from modern forms of musical art. They don't have the rhythm of classical and rock music, that steady, kicking beat that gives us the ability to move in time with the sounds. Their rhythm is rather organic, natural, based on text flow, breathing and tonal patterns based on long vowel pronunciation. The chants don't need accompaniment, they don't have rich string sections. True Gregorian chants are monophonic. This means that everyone sings in the same key. In them there may be a call and a reaction of interaction between the canter, the priest and the choir. (Beware of those Gregorian chants that have organ accompaniment or harmony chant. This is not a genuine reproduction of them.)

Gregorian chants can create a positive atmosphere in the workplace, at home, or in the car. There are not many notes in them, only slight variations of a simple motif. Long phrases, often based on one note, involve a long exhalation. Whenever a vowel is sung, it smoothly changes its shape, like incense that spreads its fragrance in the air. It seems incredible that some syllables can be stretched over dozens of notes. Remember, for example, the delightful intonations in "Alleluia" - the pinnacle of sacred hymns. It can be repeated for hours. One does not need to be a monk to admire and enjoy and benefit from the peace that the long vowels of this chant bring with them.

Gregorian chants inspire us with even, relaxed breathing. Melodies have a repeating pattern or an even pattern composed of several words. Using only three notes and repeating the same phrases many times, we can feel the tremendous effect of chants.

Church singing in Latin is full of pure vowels, unlike the complex diphthongs of English (or the triphthongs of Texan English). Chants draw out vowel sounds that cause reverberation in the skin and bones. These vibrations stimulate the anterior lobes of the brain. Singing along to a recording, or composing your own Gregorian-like songs, is like giving regular brain massages.

Singing in overtones

You may have heard the singing of Tibetan monks who manage to sing in two or three keys at the same time or make sounds that expand sound octaves. In contrast to the high-pitched nature of Gregorian chants, Tibetans produce low-pitched, guttural sounds that bear little resemblance to what we call music. But it is this kind of singing, known as singing in overtones, that can be extremely healing.

Singing in overtones is not unique to Tibet. The singing culture of India, the Philippines and China also pays tribute to this style. In the city of Tuva, singing competitions in overtones take place every spring.

Jonathan Goldman, founder of the Sound Healers Association, believes that vocal harmonics soothe the body and cleanse the brain more effectively than any other form of sound.

spiritual toning

One of the most common forms of vocals today are mantras, or short chants consisting of one syllable or phrase that are repeated over and over again. The Sanskrit mantra om, which is chanted by millions of people every year, is popular not only in India, but all over the world. By making this om sound as slowly as possible, you gain unity with all living and existing things on earth.

This wonderful syllable, which is usually phonetically transcribed as "om" in the West, is best represented by the three letters "aum" as is done in the East. The sound "a" is pronounced as "ah" - it represents the beginning of inhalation at the same time as the sound is made. The sound "y", which is pronounced as a long "o" with a slip and a transition to a short "y", is a full, elongated body of the sound itself. You can call this sound the middle of the word and the heart of the mantra. It contains a vowel sound and stretches the exhalation to the final sound "m". This lowing, pronouncing the sound "m" with your mouth closed, is obtained as a long "m". It is the fading part of the cycle and represents, as it were, the dissolution of the entire spiral of life, breath and sound. These three parts of the mantra represent the triune aspect of God in Hinduism: Brahma, the creator, is personified by the first part, the sound "a"; Vishu, the preserver, - with the sound "u"; Shiva, the destroyer, with the sound "m". Thus, one simple sound, like all sounds on the planet, represents the origin, maintenance of life and its completion. The Judaic-Christian tradition has its own version of the mantra: “aum” - “amen”.

Legend of the Primal Song

Scientific and historical evidence shows that dancing, tonal tones, and songs predate articulate speech. This means that music is the primitive and original language of mankind. The researchers found that about two-thirds of the cilia (microscopic hairs in the inner ear, which sits on a flat surface like piano keys that respond to sounds of varying frequencies) respond to sounds in the high musical range (3,000 to 20,000 hertz). This means that once upon a time people communicated mainly through songs or high-frequency toning. The flute, the world's oldest known musical instrument, was made of bone 43,000 to 82,000 years ago. This instrument was found in the mid-1990s in Slovenia.

In the West, there are myths and legends that say that even before the construction of the Tower of Babel, there was a universal alphabet, which consisted of tones and rhythms. There is scientific evidence that this primitive song consisted of series of two or three notes, connected by different tones. Anyone could understand them.

The roots of shamanic and magical music go back centuries, when the sound of a drum, rattle or other primitive instrument gathered people, preceded the start of agricultural work, heralded the change of seasons and sent tribes to battle. Music celebrated birth, marriage, the entry of a new person into life, as well as death. The art of shamans (a large category of ancient healers) awakened the greatness of the spirit, capable of healing and protecting both individuals and entire tribes and families. Sounds were the medium through which prayers, invocations and rallying stimuli spread. One can imagine that music and sounds were those magical means that united the "tops" and "bottoms" into a single community. The shaman served as a bridge between the worlds, allowing you to call on subordinates and appeal to those in power.

In the oldest systems of healing, the spirit world dominated. It was believed that the spirit or spirits were responsible for creating (and solving) the most important and complex problems of life. Therefore, ancient healers, unlike modern doctors who simply diagnose and prescribe medicines, sought to build a bridge between ordinary and higher consciousness, most often with the help of talismans, music and sounds. Ceremonies and rituals, such as the Navajo chants, which covered themselves in martial colors and screamed, allowed art, music, and other healing processes to be combined into a single whole.

Healing was a drama of high art, consisting of three elements: a shaman or practitioner, a patient, and an invisible (spirit) who had to do his work between these two worlds. The ancients understood how important it is for the patient, as well as for the family and society, to become part of the healing process. Calling to life the subconscious symbols that shared the whole society and which embodied its myths, they used various images, totems, signs of power and dreams in the healing process. Music has been used by clergymen, as well as non-faith healers, to help the sufferer unite spirit and body and focus on the causes of illness. Such sound therapy made it possible to speed up the recovery of the patient by gathering together his will, directing it towards healing from physical and mental ailments.

Music therapy in China

In China, traditional music therapy is "adapted" to modern illnesses and disorders. I was recently shown a series of audio albums entitled Obesity, Constipation, Insomnia, Relaxation, Stress, Liver, Heart, Lungs, and additional orchestral pieces that I called myself "Urinary Suite". Most of the albums feature traditional Chinese instrumental music played without pauses.

Over the centuries, healing systems have developed in the medicine and philosophy of the Far East along the pentatonic or five-note musical scale associated with the seasons, organs and functions of the human body, as well as with specific types of food and tastes. These five notes represent different instruments, musical compositions and performance styles. The Chinese music described above is pentatonic.

Indian healing music

Originating in the Himalayas, the tradition of combining music and medicine has received fertile ground for development in India. Sacred music and songs in India are considered a gift from the gods. According to myths, the god Shiva created music and dance from the original sound and taught them to the goddess Parvati, his wife, who shared this sacrament with other gods and goddesses. Taking pity on human beings, the god Brahma brought music to earth as the fifth Veda, the Self-Veda. The god Narada, meanwhile, invented the veena, a harp-like instrument, and the god Bharata introduced ragas chants into the classical Natyashastra teachings. Since then, Hindus have worshiped the goddess Saraswati, the wife of Brahma, as the goddess of music, knowledge and speech. Over the centuries, genres and schools have developed, among which the art of ragas on Alvars, using the Tomil language in South India.

Raga is a traditional religious music composition with improvised toning, rhythmic patterns and melodic formulas. Unlike Western music, where the notes are clearly separated, intonations in ragas, as in most other works of Indian music, seem to merge together, forming a soothing single sound.

In hospitals, universities and healing centers throughout India, traditional Indian music is the subject of research and active therapy. In Madras, at the Rag Research Center, a special multidisciplinary group of doctors, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists and musicians was created, actively experimenting with various ragas, using them in music therapy. Researchers have written two ragas that are particularly effective in the treatment of hypertension and mental disorders.

The Energy of African American Music

The basis of traditional African music is the ring - a circle in which people stand in order to sing, dance and shout joyfully to the accompaniment of rhythmic drums. In his book The Power of Black Music, Samuel A. Floyd, director of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago, traces the path that many styles of African American music have taken, including preaching, jazz, blues, sacred music, and rap. “For Africans,” he writes, “songs and dances were the phenomena of religious cults. They were taught from childhood to music and dance as a means of maintaining contact with their ancestors in order to "maintain the power of their self-expression or perish." For African-Americans, spirituals were the musical medium that united them as a nation, since these songs were "the repository of the African cultural spirit" and also became the basis for the development and dissemination of African cultural values.

In Africa, drumming has become a high art. By using two drums simultaneously to beat out a kind of binary code like Morse code, skilled "talking drummers" could bring complex information to listeners within a radius of up to sixty miles. Fearing uprisings and riots, South African planters quickly realized what was happening and began to ban drumming when slavery migrated to America. Although the ring and circle were destroyed, the religious tradition also disappeared. African musical traditions continued to develop in the form of field and hunting calls, elements of Christian prayer, Negro songs and other forms of vocal expressive art, accompanied by the banjo or violin, which supplanted the drums and became the main musical instrument. "Corn voices", with which the slaves transmitted information, echoed back to the African savannahs of the Pygmies of the Congo, the people of the African bush. Shouts, screams and cries, rich in emotional expression, began to be used for information communication between people. Black folk songs, work songs, love songs, chants for children, hymns and other pieces of music were distributed by local music healers. Often these runaway slaves, who came north with nothing but a cheap violin, became poets, journalists, historians, humorists, and chroniclers in the first phase of the Africans' arrival in America.

Spontaneous healing with music

You should know that the physiological mood of the listener or patient, the individual sound environment and what can be called the "magic of the moment" can interact in the most incredible way. This is very difficult to replicate in research. The fact is that modern medicine views all human organisms as comparable mechanisms that can be “repaired and adjusted” with the help of modern operating instructions. It is much better to compare the human body to an orchestra of highly sensitive musical instruments. Each of them has its own musical and artistic properties, as well as "tuning" methods. In the latest brain and body medicine, healers usually emphasize the importance of an intuitive, spontaneous and spiritual approach. Here healing must be seen as an art.

In the popular book Spontaneous Healing, Dr. Andrew Weil says that over the years he has received hundreds of testimonies confirming the special power of individual plants, special foods and diets, vitamins and nutritional supplements, yoga, prayers, music, chants and other non-traditional therapies. . “Like many of my colleagues, I often questioned the overly simple causal relationships that arose from these reports and hesitated before putting it into practice,” he explains. - Unlike most others, I don't throw away these reports. All these testimonies are important signs of the main thing. This is a necessary confirmation of the power and strength of healers and individual products. They emphasize the extraordinary power of the human spirit and its ability to heal. No one will argue with the fact that the human body is able to heal itself. If this fact is ignored, then the doctor destroys the source of optimism and self-healing.

Music and dance

Movement and dance often enhance the healing effects of music, so mythological stories, special movement patterns, and ancient songs have been used to create healing dramas. Rudolf Steiner, an early 20th-century Austrian mystic, helped create the type of healing known as rhythmic. Combining movement, music and poetry, rhythm is a special ritual. Slow, graceful movements promote health and are used to treat asthma, stuttering, and respiratory problems. Doctors teach patients to move in a circle, accompanying the movements with gestures that symbolize musical intervals and intonational colors, while an experienced accompanist plays the piano. Some modern forms of psychotherapy also include the use of flowing motions to music, singing, or toning. All this is aimed at ensuring that the information contained in the human body passes into consciousness and fulfills the role of a healing process.

Imagery: not only visual

Many people understand the concept of "imagery" as purely visual. But the term encompasses all kinds of senses and all kinds of "sense memory" (memories of sounds or voices, smells, the expected taste of food). Images, many of which are sensual, pop up in our subconscious and dictate to us to do things from a new haircut to planning a new storage room in the house. Imagery can be stimulated from outside, such as when you watch TV or drive past an advertisement. It can appear spontaneously when you are sleeping or daydreaming.

Images evoke physiological and psychological reactions in us: they determine blood pressure, they can cool us down or trigger memories. Some words evoke a figurative experience - fire, home, mother. And some images go beyond concepts. We call them archetypes if they are associated with such abstract concepts as goodness or evil. They resonate deeply in us, pointing to the deepest mysteries of life. We call powerful images icons when they are generated by religious or cultural associations - an image of the Virgin Mary, a reproduction of the Mona Lisa ...

Many forms of prayer and meditation use imagery, including archetypes and icons, as tools to focus and concentrate energy. Psychoanalysts often use free association to "unleash" the power of imagination and bring subconscious thoughts and feelings to the surface. This is also what advertising does, which, in fact, manipulates images. Currently, mind and body therapy, like traditional healing methods, actively uses visualization and imagery to treat various diseases, from back pain to blood pressure, from a sluggish immune system to tumors. Indeed, imagery has tremendous power and can change our lives.

Music increases the energy and power of imagery, increasing the physical, mental and spiritual impact. Music is able to create a stream along which images move, at the same time it can catch the image in its "nets" - fix it so that it can be analyzed and "sent" back into oblivion in an instant.

Release the images

Each organ of our body has its own memory. Research shows that how our muscles contract and relax, how we sleep, talk, think and worry, is recorded inside of us - not only in the mind, but also in the cells of the body. Dr. Deepak Chopra explains that all the atoms, cells and tissues of the body are in an "invisible bond" which is microscopic vibrations - what traditional Indian medicine calls "original sound". Those microscopic vibrations that hold DNA together, he argues, are the greatest force in nature. However, there are cases when the sequence and order of the DNA molecule is disturbed, for example, as a result of an illness or an accident. “In that case,” says Chopra, “traditional Indian medicine recommends that we use a specially selected primordial sound as a form or template, put on the disturbed cells and allowing them to be put in place, not purely physically, but with the help of vibrations or sounds that reach to the heart of every cell.

Experts in traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy agree that sounds and images are perceived, stored and transmitted not only through the brain, but also through other structures and functions of the body. This means that as a result of an illness, accident, or injury, painful emotions and negative experiences can become trapped inside the body for weeks, months, or even years, waiting to be released. In many cases, this can be achieved through the correct use of sounds and images.

Music and the "inner landscape"

Music can change the perception of space. This is one of the greatest achievements of the synthesizer. Until the 1960s, composers and performers relied solely on cathedrals, watersheds, and reverberating mountains to create a sense of architectural space and dimensionality in music. Gregorian chants, amplified by long reverberations in monasteries, chapels, and cathedrals, as well as repeated Buddhist chants, are examples of sounds that have been used to heighten a person's sense of self-awareness, prolong prayer, and increase concentration. The slow compositions of the Romantic, Classical and Baroque periods also provided balm to the soul, allowing the brain to “float” freely in the jets of sound. With the advent of the era of synthesizers, composers were able to recreate various sound effects that occur in a closed space in order to awaken the memory that is dormant in the human body.

Traditional Indonesian folk bands known as gamelan came to Paris in the 1960s. In my opinion, no sound has had such a profound impact on the new musical art of the West, nevertheless, not everyone in the West is familiar with such a musical phenomenon as gamelan. On each of my trips to Bali, one of the most beautiful Indonesian islands, I have been reminded of the power of ancient Hindu myths, which is reflected in the metallic sounds of gongs and xylophones. The sounds of gamelan, with their desperate cascades and smooth flashes, awaken the depths and heights of our spirit.

As we embrace new electronic forms of deep listening, fusing together environmental music, brain wave sync, and minimalist structures, we are increasingly discovering the importance of slowing down the pace of life in order to stay in touch with ourselves. “As our world becomes more dynamic,” writes Joseph Lanza in Uplifting Music, “our music becomes more space-filled to align its run with our internal biological clock.” Environmental music is not created to entertain or stimulate the intellect. It is designed to act on the human body and feelings, allowing us to restore our "inner landscape", give our life a sense of space and reunite with the rhythms of nature.

Music Education and Orff School*

The study of music can be as important to a child's intelligence and emotional development as learning to the accompaniment of music.

In the 1930s, Carl Orff, a progressive composer and author of Carmina Burana, developed a system for integrating human nature into a "world of movement, expression and sound". His approach, which has come to be known as the "Orff School," includes teaching combined with rhythm, recitative speech, the art of gesture and movement, and improvisation with singing and playing the simplest percussion instruments. Thus, in the classroom, children tell rhymes, stories, at the same time moving around the classroom and playing drums and xylophones. The folk tradition of understanding music without having to read music "on paper" helps to learn music through movement, song, dance and instrument playing, rather than through complex analytical mental work.

“Just as the humus in nature makes plant growth possible, so elementary music gives the child foundations that cannot be laid in it in any other way,” Orff explained, citing an analogy from the natural world. - At the age of elementary school, the child's imagination should be especially stimulated; opportunities for emotional development that contain the experience of feeling and the energy to control the expression of those feelings must also be provided. Everything that a child experiences at this age, everything that awakens and is brought up in him, is a determining factor for his future life.

With the Orff method, children are awakened to a world where the musical vocabulary is transformed into a vocabulary of movement, speech, rhythm and music. Currently, more than 3,000 schools in the United States of America use the Orff school model in elementary school programs. International activities in this area are coordinated by the Orff Institute, which is located in Salzburg (Austria).

Bridge between life and death

From the primordial explosion of the Universe, from the formation of the first cosmic bodies, from the first sound of the Logos, sound served as both a fact and a metaphor. Sounds and vibrations pulsate and breathe, transforming energy into matter and creating time in the vast, infinite depths of outer space. Planet Earth is musical in its essence, and all life on it listens to music. So far, we have explored music and sounds in relation to the cycle of human life - from the appearance of the fetus in the womb to the birth of a person and his behavior at school and at work. Now we will bring the symphony of human life closer to the music that accompanies death and the transformation of souls.

For many people, music is a kind of bridge between life and death. Stories about death or moments experienced on the verge of death are accompanied by stories about a mystical tunnel of light and sound with illumination, where the soul goes on its journey after death.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that at the time of death a person must be awake so as not to interrupt the endless and eternal cycle of reincarnation (reincarnation). They consider life to be an eternal process that requires constant preparation, memory and freedom. From the Tibetan Book of the Dead, monks and nuns memorize and sing chants throughout their lives in order not to fall into the illusion of non-existence by the time of death. Prayers and chants performed around the dead act as a kind of tower for the soul, which leaves the mortal body. The nuns with their voices direct the soul flying through the air to the eternal refuge.

Catholics are taught from childhood to repeat the prayer: “Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the moment of our death. Amen". Thus, they prepare to hear the naked Mother of God at their last moment before going to hell or heaven. Protestants sing the traditional refrain to the hymn: "Is it true, the circle of life will not be interrupted, O God, never, never?" Thanks to such traditions, it is easier for a person to go on his last journey, while someone's voices continue to sing and pray for him.

Gregorian chants are perhaps the best way to prepare for such a journey and make it possible to live simultaneously, as it were, in two worlds. The fundamental law of the Benedictine monks, or trellis, has governed monastic life for a millennium and a half. Trellis reminds the monks that they are present among the angelic choirs during the singing. When they praise the angels and saints, the Lord blesses them to prolong their endless prayer inspiration.

At the end of each day, the Benedictine monks perform the evening service, the last of the canonical hours, which means "end". Since the hymns of the day end at the sixth hour of the evening, this prayer is the final one and is read not in the chapel, but in a solitary cell. “Its final refrain, “A peaceful night and a beautiful end of the day is bestowed on us,” as Brother David Steindl-Rast writes in his inspiring book The Music of Silence, “connects the end of each day with the end of all life. He claims that the rhythms of our every day are parallel to the rhythms of our whole life. How we live our every hour and every day determines the nature of our lives. The rhythms of our clocks teach us how to build the rhythms of life."

Music-related spiritual practice is not unique to Tibetans, Buddhists, Catholics and Hindus. The American psychiatrist Edgar Cayce noted the importance of chants, calling them "the outpouring of the soul." In her book Music as a Bridge, Shirley Rabb Winston quotes the sleeping prophet: "Mumbling, humming to yourself, and let no one hear you, but listen to yourself."

You can listen to Mozart's music and download it here:

"Music helps to increase concentration, enhances the ability to intuitive thinking."

Don Campbell

In the middle of the last century, the French scientist and otolaryngologist Alfred Tomatis proved that for the baby it has magical properties. It gives the child a sense of security and confidence, helps to grow and develop. But what if there are no parents around? As a substitute, Tomatis suggested the music of Amadeus Mozart.

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“This composer is a wonderful mother. In 50 years of practice, I have gone through a large number of composers. Until now, I continue to experience new forms and types of musical art, such as choral singing, folk music, classical works. But the power of Mozart, especially his violin concertos, has the most healing effect on the human body.
Alfred Tomatis

Later, Tomatis' research was confirmed by American scientists. At the end of the last century, the scientist Don Campbell called such a healing effect of the classics the Mozart effect.

Why Mozart?

Scientists have come to the conclusion that Mozart's music is best suited for kids, and they attribute this to the fact that the composer himself began writing music at the age of 4. In the music of Amadeus Mozart there are smooth 20-30-second "loud-soft" alternations, as well as many high-frequency sounds that have a healing effect. They develop thinking and memory, train the microscopic muscles of the middle ear and normalize the work of the whole organism.

Mozart's music can have a positive impact on any person. However, in the case of adults, the effect lasts only a few minutes. The psyche of children is much more receptive. Some scientists even talk about structural changes in the brain under the influence of the classics. So, American psychotherapists have been monitoring young children for 5 years. It turned out that the kids who attended music classes for 2 years improved their intellectual abilities and spatial thinking.

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What are the healing properties of classical music?

3. Increases intelligence and improves memory.

The works of Mozart and other composers of the Baroque era increase concentration and academic performance. They activate both hemispheres of the brain, which contributes to easy and quick assimilation of the material. During classes, it is good to arrange 10-minute musical breaks, which will help the child relax. Psychotherapists also advise enrolling a child in a music school - playing any instrument improves memory and develops intelligence.

4. Soothes, promotes falling asleep.

For most adults, prolonged listening to a piece by Bach acts like a sleeping pill. calms the nervous system, reduces pressure, normalizes the functioning of internal organs. As a sleeping pill for kids, both classics and folklore are suitable. The child needs your voice: it calms, gives a sense of security. And in this case, it does not matter what you will sing: a folk song or works by Mozart.

And you know what...

As a child, Gerard Depardieu suffered from severe stuttering. He was cured by Alfred Tomatis, who ordered the future actor to listen to Mozart 2 hours a day for several months in a row.