The Music Effect: Music Physiology and Clinical Applications

by Daniel J. Schneck, Dorita S. Berger

Music is well known to have a significant effect on physiology and is widely used as an effective therapeutic tool in stress and pain management, rehabilitation, and behavior modification, but its effects are not well understood. This book explains what 'music' is, how it is processed by and affects the body, and how it can be applied in a range of physiological and psychological conditions. Rhythm, melody, timbre, harmony, dynamics, and form, and their effects on the body are explored in detail, helping practitioners create effective therapy interventions that complement other treatment systems. Case studies and evidence from research and practice show how music therapy can benefit people with autistic spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and sensory difficulties, among other conditions. The Music Effect is an essential resource for music therapists, clinicians, educators and anyone with an interest in holistic therapy.

Genres: Music

Paperback

First published December 15, 2005

Reviews

[Tom Graves · Rating 2 out of 5]

I broadly agree with Keith Howard’s review of this book, in which he describes it as ‘Helmholtz for the general audience’, and draws particular attention to the Eurocentric view of music which runs through it, as well as the questionable (and ethnomusicologically illiterate) claims about ‘c major personalities’ and that the European 12-tone scale is the maximally efficient way of dividing the octave.

On a more positive note, I agree with Howard that the true strength of this book lies in its vignettes of five participants as they grow into themselves through a long-term course of music therapy. I also think that the basic scientific facts regarding acoustics, neuroanatomy, the physics of energy, and physiology are of interest, if not original or always entirely relevant to the subject matter.

Where I diverge from Howard slightly is his praise for the authors’ (Schneck and Berger) theoretical elaboration. While the observations made around entrainment are useful on a basic level (although available too in a more nuanced form in later work on rhythmic entrainment by Martin Clayton and others), I think they overextend by trying to expand this concept to all domains of music (especially harmony, as most genres of music globally have little or no harmonic content in a western musical-theoretical sense). I also find many of their claims about the effects of ‘vibrations’ and alpha waves unfounded and verging on the unscientific. They also have a real tendency to attribute elements of musical interaction with the body to some quality inherent in certain sounds, rather than culture (as it must be in the case of melodic intervals, as many melodic systems exist). Much of their theory does not satisfactorily link up with the real life therapeutic case-studies.