The Magic of Music with Parkinson's patients

This is one of the most amazing and impressive videos that I've seen in a long time! It demonstrates beautifully the power of music with Parkinson's patients.

Now I am offering to people diagnosed with Parkinson's disease my specially programmed, wireless headphones, programmed with the specific type of music that Parkinson's patients need! If you are interested, contact me immediately at chantdoc@healingmusicenterprises.com. More information will be coming soon! This is going to be big! Help yourself and your loved ones with Parkinsons NOW!

Music Releases Endorphins in Brain

Everyone knows that music makes them feel better, but apparently, music immediately after surgery is even more powerful than previously known. today I came across this article: By Denise DadorLOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A local hospital takes the healing properties of music right to the patients.
She's in the hospital, but Carol Starks feels she's being transported to another place.
"A little music goes a long way and it soothes the soul," said Starks.
Bariatric surgeon and musician, Dr. Peter Crookes, heals for a living but says modern medicine can only bring people so far. The rest depends on the patient and he believes music helps.
"It may cause the release of endorphins and that is one of the postulate mechanisms. Anything that will open the patient's mind to other dimensions of life helps them to cope with it," said Dr. Crookes.
Musician Jane Kim founded the USC volunteer program. She saw music's medical effects firsthand when her father was a patient.
"At the time that he was in the hospital he found it very beneficial listening to music. And seeing the positive effects it had on him I wanted to share that with others," said Kim.
Once a month, some patients get treated to an impromptu concert.
"It was just great. It just made me feel very good and it made me feel very special," said patient Ceci Montalvo.
We all enjoy hearing music, but if it's just in the background and you're just passively listening, experts say it's not going to work on your body and mind. To truly experience music you have to actively listen to it.
"If you attend to music it channels the brain and trains certain actions in the brain which I think are beneficial," said Dr. Crookes.
Studies show music can help people recovering from pain and reduce the need for post-op medications.
Another study reveals music can reduce the anxiety of patients just before surgery. Patients say music's ability to alter their mood can be quite beneficial.
"It makes happiness. It doesn't matter how sad you are or how hurt you are, music can bring it out," said Starks.
If you are interested in being a volunteer for the Music Heals program send an e-mail to musichealsgroup@gmail.com.

Click here for more headlines from ABC7 Eyewitness News

(Copyright ©2009 KABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Music, the Brain, and Academic Performance

June 21, 2009

Music affects many areas of brain function
by Marjorie H. Weil
Recently the Albion School District announced that, beginning this fall, all fifth- through 12th-graders would be required to take band or choir. Why? Because statistics show that students who do so perform better academically, have higher SAT scores, are more self-confident and are better adjusted socially.
This is not news. Many studies over the years have confirmed these findings. Unfortunately, most of these past studies have been anecdotal in nature or are the result of extensive surveys, and there was little that could address the cause-effect relationship - or why and how music affects the learning process.
But that is beginning to change. And Albion may be on to more than they realize. Researchers in neuroscience, utilizing recent advances in MRI technology, are actually studying the human brain in the act of creating, or listening to, music. And what they are finding is remarkable.
One of the leaders in this field is Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, author of "This Is Your Brain On Music." Published in 2006, the book remained on the New York Times best-seller list for over a year and has been translated into 11 languages. I felt fortunate to hear Dr. Levitin speak last fall at the 75th anniversary celebration of Western Michigan University's School of Music Therapy. His work and that of other neuroscientists in "brain-mapping" is challenging several previously held beliefs.
Where it was once thought, for example, that a particular region of the brain was dedicated to music, it has now been shown that music actually affects many areas of brain function. Combined with the fact that music is a basic part of every human culture around the globe has led Levitin to conclude that the human brain is actually "hard-wired" for music, and music may be even more fundamental to our species than language.
Understanding the strong connection between the auditory and motor regions of the brain has made it possible for people with motor disorders such as Parkinson's disease to improve their ability to walk while listening to a rhythm track, and stroke patients have been able to improve their speech through music therapy.
Perhaps the most exciting news, however, is that there is new evidence that music can actually change the physical structure of the brain - a fact that has critical implications for both education and medicine. Music may even be a major key to unlocking the mystery of how the brain actually learns.

The brain, anesthesia and near death experiences

All Things Considered, May 22, 2009 · We've all heard the stories about near-death experiences: the tunnel, the white light, the encounter with long-dead relatives now looking very much alive.
Scientists have cast a skeptical eye on these accounts. They say that these feelings and visions are simply the result of a brain shutting down.
But now some researchers are giving a closer neurological look at near-death experiences and asking: Can your mind operate when your brain has stopped?
'I Popped Up Out The Top Of My Head'
I met Pam Reynolds in her tour bus. She's a big deal in the music world — her company, Southern Tracks, has recorded music by everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Pearl Jam to REM. But you've probably never heard her favorite song. It's the one Reynolds wrote about the time she traveled to death's door and back. The experience has made her something of a rock star in the near-death world. Believers say she is proof positive that the mind can operate when the brain is stilled. Nonbelievers say she's nothing of the sort.
Reynolds' journey began one hot August day in 1991.
"I was in Virginia Beach, Va., with my husband," she recalls. "We were promoting a new record. And I inexplicably forgot how to talk. I've got a big mouth. I never forget how to talk."
An MRI revealed an aneurysm on her brain stem. It was already leaking, a ticking time bomb. Her doctor in Atlanta said her best hope was a young brain surgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona named Robert Spetzler.
"The aneurysm was very large, which meant the risk of rupture was also very large," Spetzler says. "And it was in a location where the only way to really give her the very best odds of fixing it required what we call 'cardiac standstill.' "
It was a daring operation: Chilling her body, draining the blood out of her head like oil from a car engine, snipping the aneurysm and then bringing her back from the edge of death.
"She is as deeply comatose as you can be and still be alive," Spetzler observes.
When the operation began, the surgeons taped shut Reynolds' eyes and put molded speakers in her ears. The ear speakers, which made clicking sounds as loud as a jet plane taking off, allowed the surgeons to measure her brain stem activity and let them know when they could drain her blood.
"I was lying there on the gurney minding my own business, seriously unconscious, when I started to hear a noise," Reynolds recalls. "It was a natural D, and as the sound continued — I don't know how to explain this, other than to go ahead and say it — I popped up out the top of my head."
A Tunnel And Bright Light
She says she found herself looking down at the operating table. She says she could see 20 people around the table and hear what sounded like a dentist's drill. She looked at the instrument in the surgeon's hand.
"It was an odd-looking thing," she says. "It looked like the handle on my electric toothbrush."
Reynolds observed the Midas Rex bone saw the surgeons used to cut open her head, the drill bits, and the case, which looked like the one where her father kept his socket wrenches. Then she noticed a surgeon at her left groin.
"I heard a female voice say, 'Her arteries are too small.' And Dr. Spetzler — I think it was him — said, 'Use the other side,' " Reynolds says.
Soon after, the surgeons began to lower her body temperature to 60 degrees. It was about that time that Reynolds believes she noticed a tunnel and bright light. She eventually flat-lined completely, and the surgeons drained the blood out of her head.
During her near-death experience, she says she chatted with her dead grandmother and uncle, who escorted her back to the operating room. She says as they looked down on her body, she could hear the Eagles' song "Hotel California" playing in the operating room as the doctors restarted her heart. She says her body looked like a train wreck, and she said she didn't want to return.
"My uncle pushed me," she says, laughing. "And when I hit the body, the line in the song was, 'You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.' And I opened my eyes and I said, 'You know, that is really insensitive!' "
A Vision That Matches The Record
Afterwards, Reynolds assumed she had been hallucinating. But a year later, she mentioned the details to her neurosurgeon. Spetzler says her account matched his memory.
"From a scientific perspective," he says, "I have absolutely no explanation about how it could have happened."
Spetzler did not check out all the details, but Michael Sabom did. Sabom is a cardiologist in Atlanta who was researching near-death experiences.
"With Pam's permission, they sent me her records from the surgery," he says. "And long story short, what she said happened to her is actually what Spetzler did with her out in Arizona."
According to the records, there were 20 doctors in the room. There was a conversation about the veins in her left leg. She was defibrillated. They were playing "Hotel California." How about that bone saw? Sabom got a photo from the manufacturer — and it does look like an electric toothbrush.
How, Sabom wonders, could she know these things?
"She could not have heard [it], because of what they did to her ears," he says. "In addition, both of her eyes were taped shut, so she couldn't open her eyes and see what was going on. So her physical sensory perception was off the table."
An Alternative Explanation?
That's preposterous, says anesthesiologist Gerald Woerlee.
"This report provides absolutely no evidence for survival of any sort of consciousness outside the body during near-death experiences or any other such experiences," he says.
Woerlee, an Australian researcher and near-death experience debunker who has investigated Reynolds' case, says what happened to her is easy to explain. He says when they cut into her head, she was jolted into consciousness. At that point, they had not yet drained blood from her brain. He believes she could hear — despite the clicking earplugs.
"There are various explanations," Woerlee says. "One: that the earphones or plugs were not that tightly fitting. Two: It could have been that it was due to sound transmission through the operating table itself."
So Reynolds could have heard conversations. As for seeing the Midas Rex bone saw, he says, she recognized a sound from her childhood.
"She made a picture in her mind of a machine or a device which was very similar to what she was familiar with — a dental drill," Woerlee says.
Woerlee says Reynolds experienced anesthesia awareness, in which a person is conscious but can't move. He figures back in 1991, that happened in 1 out of every 2,000 operations.
That doesn't convince cardiologist Sabom or neurosurgeon Spetzler. They believe the combination of anesthesia and the sluggish brain activity caused by hypothermia meant that Reynolds could not form or retain memories for a significant part of the operation. At the very least, Sabom says, Reynolds' story raises the possibility that consciousness can function even when the brain is offline.
"Is there some type of awareness that occurs from a nonfunctional, physical brain?" Sabom asks. "And if there is, does that mean that there's a soul or spirit?"

Can Music Create World Peace?

I think that this questions has probably been asked many times but it bears asking again. When people from different cultures choose to perform each others music, it is a way of honoring that other culture. In my lifetime I've probably heard more Western European classical music that any other type, but there are millions of other types and genres of music that could bring comfort and peace to many people. Listen to this beautiful performance of some of the music from "Schindler's List" (written by American John Williams) sung and played by a Chinese group of musicians! Listening to it again brought tears to my eyes, thinking of the atrocities visited on the Jewish people in the 30's and 40's. The more people don't forget this, this less likely it will ever be perpetrated again on anyone! Sing for Peace!

"Musical Training Shapes Brain Development" reports medical study

Commentary from Lutz Jäncke (Thanks to Dr. Ellen Taliaferro for sharing this study with me)

This study supports my own interpretation of the brain's capability for experience-dependent influences on brain anatomy and function. In concrete, this study demonstrates that 6-year-old children receiving instrumental musical training for 15 months not only learned to play their musical instrument but also 

showed changed anatomical features in brain areas known to be involved in the control of playing a musical instrument. This is the first longitudinal study demonstrating brain plasticity in children in the context of learning to play a musical instrument. 

One of the major questions in cognitive neuroscience is whether the human brain can be shaped by experience. 

In order to examine use-dependent plasticity of the human brain, mostly cross-sectional studies are undertaken comparing subjects with specific skills with appropriate control groups. A classical approach is to compare highly 

skilled musicians, sportsmen, or subjects with other exceptional skills (e.g. synesthesia) with control subjects using neuroanatomical and neurophysiological measures (please see refs [1] and [2], on which I am an author, and refs [3,4]). Using this approach, several anatomical differences have been identified which can be attributed to the specific training influences these particular subjects have experienced. However, although these cross- sectional studies have uncovered several important findings, cross-sectional approaches are not valid enough to 

attribute the discovered between-group differences entirely to different learning influences. The only experimental approach which is suitable to more validly identify experience-dependent influences in humans is the longitudinal experimental approach. Using this approach, the authors of this paper have examined 31 children (with a mean age of 6 years) during the course of a 15-month period. Fifteen of these kids received musical instrument training (a weekly half-hour training outside the school system) while the 16 remaining kids did not attend these classes. However, all kids received the regular music lessons in their school, including playing with drums and bells. Thus, the 15 kids receiving keyboard lessons only differed in this particular feature. It turned out that these kids showed increased brain volumes in several brain areas after 15 months. Most of these brain areas are part of the cortical motor system. There were also structural changes in the auditory system.

Taken together, this study is the first longitudinal study in children demonstrating structural changes in children receiving instrumental musical training. Thus, this study sheds new light on the plasticity of the human brain. Faculty of 1000 Medicine: Evaluations, Dissents and Author responses for: [Hyde KL et al. Musical training shapes structural brain development.

J Neurosci 2009 Mar 11 29 (10) :3019-25] 2009 Apr 1. 

www.f1000medicine.com/article/id/1157746/evaluation

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Your Brain on Bach

Thanks to my friend Glenda Neely, a Vanderbilt alum for sending me this excellent article:

Musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. Vanderbilt psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and use both the left and right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person.  

Previous studies of creativity have focused on divergent thinking—the ability to come up with new solutions to open-ended, multifaceted problems. Highly creative individuals often display more divergent thinking than their less creative counterparts.

Vanderbilt researchers Crystal Gibson, Bradley Folley and Sohee Park recruited 20 classical music students from the Vanderbilt Blair School of Music and 20 non-musicians from a Vanderbilt introductory psychology course.

“We were interested in how individuals who are naturally creative look at problems that are best solved by thinking ‘out of the box,’” says Folley, MA’02, PhD’06, a postdoctoral fellow. “We studied musicians because creative thinking is part of their daily experience, and we found that there were qualitative differences in the types of answers they gave to problems and in their associated brain activity.”

The two groups were matched based on age, gender, education, sex, high school grades and SAT scores. The musicians each had at least eight years of training and played a variety of instruments, including piano, woodwind, string and percussion. Overall, researchers found that the musicians had higher IQ scores than the non-musicians, supporting recent studies that intensive musical training is associated with an elevated IQ score.

Research subjects were shown a variety of household objects and asked to make up new functions for them, and were also given a written word association test. Musicians provided more correct responses than non-musicians on the word association test—something the researchers believe may be attributed to enhanced verbal ability among musicians. Musicians also suggested more novel uses for the household objects than their non-musical counterparts.

In a second experiment the two groups again were asked to identify new uses for everyday objects, but this time they also were asked to perform a basic control task while activity in their prefrontal lobes was monitored using a brain-scanning technique called near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS.

“When we measured subjects’ prefrontal cortical activity while completing the alternate-uses task, we found that trained musicians had greater activity in both sides of their frontal lobes,” Folley says. “Because we equated musicians and non-musicians in terms of their performance, this finding was not simply due to the fact that the musicians invented more uses; there seems to be a qualitative difference in how they think about this information.”

One possible explanation for the musicians’ elevated use of both brain hemispheres is that many musicians must be able to use both hands independently to play their instruments.

“Musicians may be particularly good at efficiently accessing and integrating competing information from both hemispheres,” Folley says. “Instrumental musicians often integrate different melodic lines with both hands into a single musical piece, and they have to be very good at simultaneously reading the musical symbols, which are like left-hemisphere-based language, and integrating the written music with their own interpretation, which has been linked to the right hemisphere.”

Folley and Park are investigators in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. Park is a professor of psychology and psychiatry and a member of the Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience. Gibson, BA’04, was an undergraduate student and research assistant in the psychology department at the time of the study. Their research, which was partially supported by a Vanderbilt University Discovery Grant, will appear in the journal Brain and Cognition.

Music and the Brain...in Paris!

Well, I'm always looking for connections between my life, my brain, and the music I love. My brain has really been enjoying Paris and all the sights, smells, tastes and sounds! There are certain senses that are activated in a certain way, only in Paris. These have come back to me powerfully on this trip to Paris which is my first extended visit since 1987. Before that, it was 1974! Anyway, take a look at these photos and you'll see what my 5 senses have been processing over the past 11 days! Enjoy!

There are so many times when music can greatly assist in brain-related injuries and disorders. I've written in this space about music with strokes, dementia and Parkinson's disease. But when one has a sports-related injury to the head that could have been prevented or greatly minimized by wearing a helmet, it's doubly tragic. Why Natasha Richardson did not wear a helmet is unknown, but the reasons most people give are:
It's too heavy
It obstructs my vision
It ruins my hair
I'm just going on a short run
etc., etc.

Here's the story, as quoted in the New York Post:

Actress Natasha Richardson is brain dead - after falling in a ski accident in Canada - and is now on sad journey home to New York, friends told The Post today.
Richardson, who was being treated at a Montreal hospital, is being transported to New York this afternoon so her mom Vanessa Redgrave, two children and other loved ones can say goodbye before she's taken off life-support, friends said.

If you ski, ride a bike, skateboard, snowboard or do any sport where helmets are recommended, please put on a helmet! Thank you!

How does music enter the brain?

You may have heard that music enters the brain through the 8th cranial nerve. I believe that, though, that music also enters the whole body, as well as the brain through every pore of the body. Dr. Alfred Tomatis, with whom I studied in 1991, stated that rather than the ear being differentiated skin, actually the skin of the entire body is also like an ear, receiving sonic vibrations and relaying them to the brain. Makes sense to me. Therefore when I started hearing and reading about the value of music during surgery I thought "it would be so beneficial if the ideal music for surgery could come directly into the brain through headphones...through the 8th cranial nerve." Different people have promoted ambient music in the operating room, but the fact is, the patient needs the opposite music from the surgeon! The surgeon needs upbeat, active music to focus his energy. The patient needs slow, steady, soothing music.

For that reason, I now have patented and begun to sell my wireless, pre-programmed headphones for surgery. You can also simply buy the music in download format and put it on your own iPod! For the headphones, go HERE.

For the download go HERE. Any questions, email me through my website http://www.healingmusicenterprises.com/. Thank you!

Improving Test Scores with Music

One simple way students can improve test scores is by listening to certain types of music such as Mozart's Sonata for Two Piano's in D Major before taking a test. This type of music releases neurons in the brain which help the body to relax. The effectiveness of Mozart's sonatas can be seen by the results from an IQ test performed on three groups of college students. The first group listened to a Mozart sonata before taking the test. The second group listened to a relaxation tape before their test. The third group did not listen to anything before the test. The first group had the highest score with an average of 119. The second group ended up with an average of 111, and the third group had the lowest score with an average of 110.
William Balach, Kelly Bowman, and Lauri Mohler, all from Pennsylvania State University, studied the effects of music genre and tempo on memory retention. They had four groups learn vocabulary words using one of four instrumental pieces - slow classical, slow jazz, fast classical, and fast jazz. Each of the four groups was divided into smaller groups for the recall test. These sub groups used either the same (i.e. slow classical, slow classical) or different (i.e. slow jazz, fast classical) pieces when taking the recall test. The results did show a dependency on the music. Recall was better when the music was the same during learning and testing. These same researchers did another test which restricted the changes in the music to just tempo (i.e. slow to fast jazz) or just genre (i.e. slow jazz to slow classical). Surprisingly, the results showed that changing the genre had no effect on recall but changing the tempo decreased recall.
for more info, see http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n15/mente/musica.html

Music and Brain Tumors: a story in the news

Brain cancer survivors find inspiration in CD's healing message Joe Nagy of Derry was losing hope for recovery from a brain tumor when he encountered the healing message of David Bailey’s music. He drew on that strength while facing his second brain surgery, Nagy said Tuesday at Integrative Medical Advisory Council’s announcement of a new music therapy initiative involving Bailey’s music.“We’ve already seen, firsthand, the power that this music bring to those with brain cancer,” council co-founder Barry Ritko said Tuesday during the announcement at Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown.A good friend of Ritko and his wife, Mary Ann, was given one of Bailey’s compact discs after he was no longer able to talk or watch television due to his brain cancer.“It hasn’t affected his ability to find inspiration in lyrics that speak of hope, faith and strength,” Barry Ritko said. The Integrative Medical Advisory Council promotes alternative and complementary therapies to help seriously ill patients survive longer and live better, Ritko said. The council has selected brain cancer as its focus for the year and launched events with Tuesday’s program.Council leaders and Dr. Alfred Bowles, Memorial’s chairman of neuroscience, presented copies of Bailey’s latest CD, “Hope – An Anthology,” to members of the hospital’s brain tumor support group. The council has purchased 100 copies of the CD for area brain tumor patients. With support from Conemaugh Health Foundation, the council also provides children’s yoga classes inDale and massage therapy for seriously ill patients with Conemaugh Region- al Hospice and in Memorial’s pallia-tive care unit.The organization maintains an online directory of specialists in complementary and alternative therapies at www.imacjohnstown.org.Nagy recalled contacting Bailey through an Internet forum for brain cancer survivors. The folk singer is a 12-year survivor and has recorded several CDs of inspirational music.“The first surgery was not a lot of fun,” Nagy said. “The tumor was recurring during the radiation treatment.”Nagy asked Bailey if he should have another craniotomy to remove the new tumor.“He said, ‘You have to, because I should be dead right now, but I’m not. There is nothing working as well as this is’,” Nagy said. “I discovered he’s right.”Nagy is now an 11-year survivor, and like Bailey, he spreads the message: Don’t give up.
By RANDY GRIFFITH The Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown, PA, US)

The Musical Brain

This is a wonderful article, written by my mentor, Dr. Arthur Harvey. I know you'll like it!

by Dr. Arthur Harvey
From recent brain research on learning styles, it has been esti­mated that 80-90% of what is experienced and learned is non­verbal, with what sometimes is described as a "right-brain" mode of processing.
We know that for most children and many adults, music is a "right-brain" dominant activity. Based upon that, music may be a powerful and perhaps dominant means of facilitating positive and expressive feelings that can be experienced individu­ally and in groups to take them outside themselves.
In other words, music provides a symbolic means of objectifying feelings and emotions, which then can be dealt with. Music-making can be an emotionally cathartic experience, as feelings which are often "bottled-up", sometimes due to lack of words to identify and describe them, are released through music. After music-making, we often hear musicians, young and old, com­menting that they feel better, energized, and renewed.
UP: Music has the wonderful ability to lift UP spirits. Parades, pep rallies, school socials, church services, concerts, radio and television, and recordings are examples of situations and pro­cesses through which most of us have experience our moods, emotions, and feelings being lifted. There are both psychological and physiological explanations for why and how music can and should be used for this purpose during a stressful time.
As music stimulates creative and imaginative thinking linked with positive emotional feelings, individuals experience a transformation or transition of being lifted UP from mundane concerns. When these are the result of music experiences that produce what psychologist Abraham Maslow termed "peak experiences", there is a temporary sense of being lifted UP beyond the limitations of normal time-space constraints, often resulting in a sense of non-linear time and feeling of being "one with the music".
Maslow describes these experi­ences as necessary steps toward what he called the "self-actualiza­tion" process, and suggested in a symposium at Tanglewood that music may be the most effective means of lifting individuals UP toward emotionally healthy growth. Psychiatrist John Diamond, a pioneer in behavioral kinesiology, has focused his career and publica­tions on exploring the power of music to give us "life energy". In his books, Your Body Doesn't Lie and Life Energy in Music, he shares how music can increase our strength and lift us UP mentally and emotionally.
In recent years a significant amount of research has been done exploring the connection between music and how it affects the human brain. With the discov­ery of the neuropeptide endor­phins, it was found that music can stimulate its production, reducing pain reception as well as lifting UP spirits.
Throughout the history of mankind, music has been known as a media­tor between the physical world and the spiritual world, and has been an integral part of all cultures and most religions. Music can alter our consciousness, helping us to transcend our sensory-limited, inwardly-focused experiences, and expand beyond our experience­ based reality. Mystic, meditative and spiritual experiences are often initiated through music, as well as heightened by music.
Albert Schweitzer wrote, "All true and deeply felt music, whether sacred or profane, journeys to heights where arts and religion can always meet".
In recognizing the power of music to enhance our lives, Charles Darwin wrote, "If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature".
Music can have a positive influence on many aspects of our lives. In a recent release from the American Music Conference, the following 10 Fast Facts were included concerning the impact music can have on learning, health, and wellness.
(1) Music has an obvious impact on the brain and should be supported and encouraged, especially in early childhood education and through­out all stages and ages of learning.
(2) Playing an instrument strength­ens eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills, as well as concentra­tion, memory, and attitude.
(3) Research shows that music training improves spatial-temporal reasoning in preschool children. which is necessary for learning math and science, as well as other subjects.
(4) A recent study showed that a curriculum combining piano lessons, educational math software, and fun math problems, helped second graders achieve scores on advanced math concepts and Stanford 9 math scores comparable to those of fourth graders.
(5) Students who make music have been shown to get along better with classmates and have fewer disci­pline problems.
(6) Young people who are involved in making music in their teenage years score 100 points higher on the SAT's than those who don't play music.
(7) Senior citizens who are actively involved in music-making enjoy significant health benefits. For example, studies show that music activates the cerebellum and therefore may aid stroke victims in regaining language capabilities.
(8) Many of the challenges that plague older Americans appear to respond positively to active music­ making. For example, scientific studies show improvements in the brain chemistry of people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.
(9) Studies show that older Ameri­cans who are actively involved in music-making show improvements in anxiety, loneliness, and depres­sion-three factors that are critical in coping with stress, stimulating the immune system, and improving health.
(10) A breakthrough study demon­strated that group keyboard lessons given to older Americans had a significant effect on increasing levels of human growth hormone (HGH), which is implicated in such aging phenomena as osteoporosis, energy levels, wrinkling, sexual function, muscle mass, and aches and pains.

Music, Power, and the Brain

A man named Laurence O'Donnell has written a fascinating paper. and subsuquently a website called "Music Power." I highly recommend that you check out both. He writes a lot about music and the brain. One thing he says is "Responses to music are easy to be detected in the human body. Classical music from the baroque period causes the heart beat and pulse rate to relax to the beat of the music. As the body becomes relaxed and alert, the mind is able to concentrate more easily. Furthermore, baroque music decreases blood pressure and enhances the ability to learn. Music affects the amplitude and frequency of brain waves, which can be measured by an electro-encephalogram. Music also affects breathing rate and electrical resistance of the skin. It has been observed to cause the pupils to dilate, increase blood pressure, and increase the heart rate. " Check it out! It's full of information that I think you'll enjoy!

Music and Epilepsy

Using the sound of her violin, concert violinist Martha Curtis teaches hope, and the power to overcome anything. Curtis has suffered from epilepsy her entire life, even having seizures on the biggest concert stages in the world.
15 years ago, Curtis put her career and love for music on the line, undergoing three major brain surgeries removing the part of the brain causing her seizures. Curtis was the first professional musician to undergo the procedure that has reportedly caused blindness, and losing the ability to hear music. A day after her third surgery, Curtis again played the violin, playing an excerpt from beethoven. The surgery was a success. Curtis has not suffered a seizure ever since, and now travels around the world talking to people from all walks of life, teaching them never to give up.
Martha Curtis' story has been featured on CBS's 60 minutes, and she is currently writing a book. Curtis credits music for saving her life, allowing beauty into her heart, not just an illness.

The Brain and Strokes: Pay Close Attention

This is really pretty hard to believe, but it is true. This woman had studied the brain and then she, herself, had a stroke. What she discovered during that process is something we would do well to learn more about. Pay attention!

Pay Attention to Music for Political Ads!

I don't know about you, but I am getting so weary of all the political ads we're being inundated with these days. The mud-slinging is getting really bad but there is one ad that I really actually like because of the music played in the background. This is the ad for an Indiana politician...Mitch Daniels. Now I honestly don't know what party he belongs to or what he believes in or has promised us. I do know that his music is ideal for a political ad~
This music is a slow but triumphant sounding march that, to me, seems hopeful, powerful, confident, and...well, like a winner would have! Can music influence the way you vote? Of course it depends on lots of thing, but for people like me, music is important and I think this little snippet of march music is wonderful. Everytime I hear it playing, I walk into the room and watch the ad!
Music is powerful! Listen to this www.mymanmitch.com.

More research on music and the brain

Immunity, too, can benefit. South African researchers have successfully used Bach's Magnificat to benefit mood, boost the immune system and lower stress hormones in people undergoing physiotherapy for infectious lung disease.

Regularly listening can also lower high blood pressure. Patients who listened to 25 minute of music a day for four weeks lowered their blood pressure, while a control group who were played no music saw no change in their condition. After four weeks, the average drop for the music group in systolic blood pressure was 11.8 mmHg and for diastolic, 4.7 mmHg. There were no significant changes in the control group. "Music therapy may be an alternative for hypertension treatment," say the researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Some research suggests that not all music is effective. Tune and tempo have been found to be more important than melody, rhythm, harmony or timbre. Quick, pulsating rhythms and vigorous music have been shown to have a counter effect, triggering negative emotions.

So how exactly does the body derive health benefits from music? At one level, it may work simply as a distraction, taking the mind off the pain. When healthy people are exposed to experimental pain, as they were in research at Glasgow Caledonian University, they had greater tolerance to it when they were listening to their favourite music.

But distraction is not the only way in which symptoms are eased. One Finnish stroke-recovery study found that music is processed and handled in different parts of the brain, and one suggestion is that by holding the patient's attention, it stimulates nerve cells which go on to bypass the region damaged by the stroke.

One theory is that it works through the emotion circuitry of the brain, which has an effect on the production of key hormones, which in turn impact on body functions, from the repair of nerves to pain relief.

Can Some Music Harm the Brain?

One of my mentors, Dr. Joel Elkes, once said that just as music has the power to heal, it also has the power to harm. Last week I was in Miami, South Beach to be exact. Nearly every store and restaurant I walked past had electronic-sounding disco music blaring onto the street. Every coffee shop, every sidewalk cafe, every hotel poolside, everywhere! It was maddening for me because it was so horribly repetitive and tune-less. It was as though all of South Beach is in some kind of techno-trance and they seem to be oblivious of it! I found it actually painful and it kept me from enjoying the beauty of the palms, flowers, shrubs and Art Deco architecture. Wake up South Beach! This is not a good way to promote your beautiful little city!

What makes a piano prodigy?

Have you ever wondered why some children are born with magnificent musical talents and some with devastating physical, mental and emotional handicaps? Much has been written about the latter but not nearly as much about the former. We know that musical talent tends to run in families. The study of genetics has come a long, long way in the past several decades, but some gifts are so staggering that it is hard to imagine these children exist. Mozart was one such wunderkind.
If you haven't seen the movie "Vitus," you must go immediately and rent it. This little boy is a true musical genius and piano prodigy. Enjoy!