When we crave more than the sounds of silence, there is music for every mood.
I’ve known from very early in my life that music can be an exquisite source of pleasure and entertainment. But recently I’ve learned that it can be a powerful form of prayer, meditation, and healing.
Actually, musical therapy is an ancient tradition. Way back since the dawn of humanity, spiritual healers known as shamans have used drums, bells, and rattles to drive disease from the body, depression from the mind and despair from the soul.
In his book Awakenings, author & neurologist Oliver Sacks says he believes that, because music can reach beyond the barriers of our conscious mind, it can become a key to unlocking a sense of self.
When all else has failed, Alzheimer patients who have lost their inner bearings often respond to music.
As I learn to nurture my creativity, finding the personal music that calls to me has been empowering. Music loosens the grip of my conscious mind during the process of writing. I listen to classical music when I’m researching and writing.
Anais Nin believed that music was “a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine” when creating. Novelist Amy Tan listens to the same music each day as she writes, because it helps her pick up her narrative thread where she left off.
This technique also works with other creative projects — painting, sculpting, pottery, handicrafts — which are started and stopped over a space of time.
If you need to focus your concentration, listening to Mozart can increase your clarity — which is why it’s the recommended accompaniment for exam cramming as well as creative brainstorming. It’s not surprising, given that Mozart was a genius, that his arrangement of musical notes affects our brains positively.
Piano nocturnes- romantic, resonant, ruminative compositions for solo piano- are what I consider a virtual pharmacy. I know someone that uses piano nocturnes to calm her cats when they’re confined indoors because of injury, illness or severe weather. Some say Frederic Chopin’s exquisite nocturnes can restore a ravished soul even if a broken heart can’t be mended.
On a happier note, ten minutes of reggaeton can shake the deepest doldrums because rhythm reduces anxiety. When I write at night I find light jazz energizing. For cooking I enjoy Celtic music. I enjoy country music when I clean.
I invite you to carve out the time to gradually build your personal collection of musical selections to help you calm down, collect your thoughts, channel your creative energy and call forth your gifts.
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