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Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness
World-renowned soprano and arts/health advocate Renée Fleming curates a collection of essays from leading scientists, creative arts therapists, educators, healthcare providers and artists about the powerful impacts of music and the arts on health and the human experience
A compelling and growing body of research has shown music and arts therapies to be effective tools for addressing a widening array of conditions, from providing pain relief, to enhancing speech recovery after stroke or traumatic brain injury through singing, to improving mobility of individuals with Parkinson’s disease using rhythm.
In Music and Mind Renée Fleming draws upon her own experience as an advocate to showcase the breadth of this booming field, inviting leading experts to share their discoveries. In addition to describing therapeutic benefits, the book explores evolution, brain function, childhood development, and technology as applied to arts and health.
Much of this area of study is relatively new, made possible by recent advances in brain imaging, and supported by the National Institutes of Health, major hospitals, and universities. This work is sparking an explosion of public interest in the arts and health sector.
Fleming has presented on this material in over fifty cities across North America, Europe, and Asia, collaborating with leading researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners. With essays from known musicians, writers, and artists, as well as leading neuroscientists, Music and Mind is a groundbreaking book and the perfect introduction and overview of this exciting new field.
A compelling and growing body of research has shown music and arts therapies to be effective tools for addressing a widening array of conditions, from providing pain relief, to enhancing speech recovery after stroke or traumatic brain injury through singing, to improving mobility of individuals with Parkinson’s disease using rhythm.
In Music and Mind Renée Fleming draws upon her own experience as an advocate to showcase the breadth of this booming field, inviting leading experts to share their discoveries. In addition to describing therapeutic benefits, the book explores evolution, brain function, childhood development, and technology as applied to arts and health.
Much of this area of study is relatively new, made possible by recent advances in brain imaging, and supported by the National Institutes of Health, major hospitals, and universities. This work is sparking an explosion of public interest in the arts and health sector.
Fleming has presented on this material in over fifty cities across North America, Europe, and Asia, collaborating with leading researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners. With essays from known musicians, writers, and artists, as well as leading neuroscientists, Music and Mind is a groundbreaking book and the perfect introduction and overview of this exciting new field.
592 pages, Hardcover
First published April 9, 2024
270 people are currently reading
4050 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
July 7, 2024
A collection of essays and personal experiences that connect music and the arts with therapy and medicine and the immense benefits of that connection. The contributing writers are doctors, therapists, writers and musicians including a moving piece by Roseanne Cash. We all know how much we as inhabitants of this planet richly experience the arts and the enhancement of our lives that expands well beyond our individual selves and species. Listening to music in so many varieties brings us closer to ourselves, to each other, and to the cosmos.
That said, I live in Florida, where the governor of this huge state cut from the recent budget all funding of the arts throughout the state. No more funds for children’s dance programs, community music programs, visual arts or performances. How does this affect the culture of the population here? By once again denying the richness of life and living and the vital importance of the creative spirit. Mr governor may have cut the funding, but the spark of life, the seeds that procreate the communication of our inner thoughts and feelings will not be cut, and will not conform to his dark vision of humanity.
This book speaks well of the power of the arts within us all, as it always will.
That said, I live in Florida, where the governor of this huge state cut from the recent budget all funding of the arts throughout the state. No more funds for children’s dance programs, community music programs, visual arts or performances. How does this affect the culture of the population here? By once again denying the richness of life and living and the vital importance of the creative spirit. Mr governor may have cut the funding, but the spark of life, the seeds that procreate the communication of our inner thoughts and feelings will not be cut, and will not conform to his dark vision of humanity.
This book speaks well of the power of the arts within us all, as it always will.
October 28, 2024
This is a groundbreaking collection of over 40 short and easy-to-read essays exploring music's powerful impact on health and the human experience. The book delves into the scientific effects of music on the brain and emotional healing, as well as the transcendent power of shared musical experiences. The author compiles recent research that documents the extent of this connection and examines how we can harness music's power to create emotional and physical therapies for treating ailments like heart disease, depression, chronic pain, and Parkinson's disease. It's also packed with fascinating facts.
I appreciated how the author included essays from a diverse group of contributors: scientists, novelists, musicians, therapists, educators, and healthcare professionals. Each chapter stands alone, making it an easy read. The author discusses the many benefits of music and sound, noting that this gift is often rooted in genetics. One standout essay is by Roseanne Cash, who describes her undiagnosed spinal cord issue that enabled her to hear pitches imperceptible to most others. Another favorite of mine is Richard Powers's chapter, where he shares his experience of waking up to the sound of birds and then playing a beautiful song.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbymedia.com/blogs/transcri...
I appreciated how the author included essays from a diverse group of contributors: scientists, novelists, musicians, therapists, educators, and healthcare professionals. Each chapter stands alone, making it an easy read. The author discusses the many benefits of music and sound, noting that this gift is often rooted in genetics. One standout essay is by Roseanne Cash, who describes her undiagnosed spinal cord issue that enabled her to hear pitches imperceptible to most others. Another favorite of mine is Richard Powers's chapter, where he shares his experience of waking up to the sound of birds and then playing a beautiful song.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbymedia.com/blogs/transcri...
Want to read
April 16, 2024Essays. Recommended by Ann Patchett and one of her booksellers
September 18, 2024
Music and Mind is a collection of essays about the effects of music on a person’s mental state and overall health. The book is not exclusively clinical. It has essays from authors as well. One essay focuses entirely on a song called The Parting Glass written by Richard Powers.
Other essays are by people like Ann Patchett, who wrote about opera and how she had to learn how to listen.
I enjoyed the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
Other essays are by people like Ann Patchett, who wrote about opera and how she had to learn how to listen.
I enjoyed the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.
May 1, 2025
Glorious exposition on music- harmony, its neuroscience, how we resonate with it - a BIG BOOK with its number of immense chapters, a whole cake of translation of the musical world that awakens one’s brain while almost being daunting.
A book best savoured in small bites- but for all singers, professional or amateur alike- a love story meant to be savoured, a taste at a tome.
Five stars!
A book best savoured in small bites- but for all singers, professional or amateur alike- a love story meant to be savoured, a taste at a tome.
Five stars!
July 21, 2024
A very heavily researched book about the benefits of music from so many standpoints. Fleming is an amazing woman, not only because of her beautiful voice but because of all the different organizations she gives her time to --from neuroscience to medical to music therapy and more. She does it all. It's a big book but as one who spent her life teaching music, it's rewarding to read of all the benefits they're uncovering about the importance of music for infants to elderly to concussed and injured. A great read!!
May 25, 2024
Lots of interesting essays about music and the brain, using music with Alzheimers and Parkinsons patients, the value of group singing, and much, much more.
did-not-finish
April 3, 2025currently moving here bc i have only read one essay in it its just a coffee table book i get to from time to time. plus i read so much other music research for school that i just dont reach for this
May 7, 2024
To sing is to use the soul-voice. It means to say on the breath the truth of one’s power and one’s need, to breathe soul over the thing that is ailing and in need of restoration. S. E. HALE
Music may have had evolutionary advantages, and the brain seems to have a “music room” where musical sounds receive special attention. Cardiologist Jacquelyn Kulinski has discovered something about voice that surprised even me. Singing is athletic to a degree, certainly for classical singers’ unamplified voices, but they has shown the benefits of singing in a study with patients with cardiovascular disease. Just thirty minutes improves endothelial function, or blood vessel health, in otherwise sedentary patients. FRANCIS S. COLLINS
Amazing and broad view of how humans and music are intertwined and part of each other, and how much more research is needed to show the value many of us know instinctively.
Music is a human universal: it exists in every society we know of, both now and throughout tens of thousands of years of human history. And just as languages differ across societies, so do their musics. The richness and breadth of musical expression is astonishing, and its ubiquity tells us that it is an important part of what it means to be human. Many of us find that our musical experiences are the most profound in our lives. ANIRUDDH D. PATEL
Music appears to activate nearly every region of the brain that has so far been mapped, not just a single “music center.” Like vision, music is processed component by component, with specific neural circuits handling pitch, duration, loudness, and timbre. Higher brain centers bring this information together, binding it into representations of contour, melody, rhythm, tempo, meter, and, ultimately, phrases and whole compositions. ANIRUDDH D. PATEL
Sound fills the space surrounding you and me and connects us when we speak. Sound is alive. Sound is a presence. We have no script when we talk. A good conversation has a rhythm and is outside either person’s control to direct. When we’re truly listening to each other there is reciprocity, reverberation, and tunedness; psychiatrist and scholar Iain McGilchrist calls it “betweenness.” NINA KRAUS
When I play my banjo, particularly my handmade gourd or minstrel banjo, I feel the connection to all that history flow through my fingers; I feel the spirit of countless nameless people who tried to make life a little bit better by plucking its strings; by listening to one another, and trading licks; I feel the power of sound. And to a brain steadily fed a diet of instant, digital, and shallow connections, it is deeply calming.
During the pandemic, people were grateful for the concerts we streamed to help them through tough times. While the music helped to bring people together, the concerts were hard for us performers. There is something extrasensory, almost spiritual, about a live physical performance that you can’t replicate through a screen. There’s a feeling of alchemy when actual molecules are disturbed directly by the sounds in the room, and that those changed molecules are journeying from instrument to ear. RHIANNON GIDDENS
Even the Earth creates a tone as it revolves around its axis—a B-flat, to be specific, though many octaves below what our ears could hear. And for some reason, our music has tuned in to it. The drone of the tanpura is often tuned to B-flat; when women sing in India, their standard tonic is the key of B-flat. It is considered that our Earth is Mother Earth; Shakti, the female energy of our life, comes from its very strong energy.
We all know that love is an important element in our lives. Whether you go all the way back to Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Zoroaster, Confucius, or Vyasa, they all have said the same thing: love thy neighbor, be at peace with each other, do good, be happy, be pleasant. And one of the elements of music is that it injects a happy thought inside of you. Even when you listen to a sad song, and there might be tears in your eyes, you smile and appreciate how beautifully that emotion was conjured. This is the thought process that has existed from time immemorial. We as human beings are sometimes led astray and forget that; maybe this is the time when that’s happening, and we’re on a different track. But somewhere along the line, through music, we will come back to the mutual understanding of ʾāmīn (Quran), amen (Bible), and shanti (Gita or Ramayana)—peace, truth, and trust in one another.
ZAKIR HUSSAIN
The idea that singing can promote health and well-being has been contemplated for thousands of years. As early as 400 BC Hippocrates and others theorized about the benefits of singing alongside the development of the practice of medicine.
When we sing, our voices and our bodies are the instruments. We are intimately connected to the source of the sound and the vibrations. We make the music, we are immersed in the music and we are the music. . . . The self is revealed through the sound and the characteristics of the voice. The process of finding one’s voice, one’s own sound, is a metaphor for finding oneself.
JULENE K. JOHNSON
Together, our synthesis is a variegated quilt enveloping and forming our experiential selves. Here, we gently pry open a few of the countless seams of this quilt, for you to glimpse the vast cosmos aflow behind each thread. Everything written and perceived thus is a snapshot of this ever-churning process that will change and morph with the flow of learning and living. As we look out into these spaces, played within the hinterlands, may we carry this deep knowing in our daily lives.
Music begins. Or as it seems to me, a latent current of music surfaces into and through the group. Swells and flurries and whispers of rhythms, harmonies, melodies, textures, turnarounds, vamps, lyrics, counterlyrics, choruses, and so forth emerge. In the unfolding milieu of music are ample moments of friction, seemingly arrhythmic pulses, awkward silences, clashing notes, senses of participatory trepidation and participatory overindulgence, and even sounds that are truly incomprehensible. There also emerge supremely subtle interpersonal musical dynamics I have no vocabulary for. MARISOL NORRIS & ESPERANZA SPALDING
Music may have had evolutionary advantages, and the brain seems to have a “music room” where musical sounds receive special attention. Cardiologist Jacquelyn Kulinski has discovered something about voice that surprised even me. Singing is athletic to a degree, certainly for classical singers’ unamplified voices, but they has shown the benefits of singing in a study with patients with cardiovascular disease. Just thirty minutes improves endothelial function, or blood vessel health, in otherwise sedentary patients. FRANCIS S. COLLINS
Amazing and broad view of how humans and music are intertwined and part of each other, and how much more research is needed to show the value many of us know instinctively.
Music is a human universal: it exists in every society we know of, both now and throughout tens of thousands of years of human history. And just as languages differ across societies, so do their musics. The richness and breadth of musical expression is astonishing, and its ubiquity tells us that it is an important part of what it means to be human. Many of us find that our musical experiences are the most profound in our lives. ANIRUDDH D. PATEL
Music appears to activate nearly every region of the brain that has so far been mapped, not just a single “music center.” Like vision, music is processed component by component, with specific neural circuits handling pitch, duration, loudness, and timbre. Higher brain centers bring this information together, binding it into representations of contour, melody, rhythm, tempo, meter, and, ultimately, phrases and whole compositions. ANIRUDDH D. PATEL
Sound fills the space surrounding you and me and connects us when we speak. Sound is alive. Sound is a presence. We have no script when we talk. A good conversation has a rhythm and is outside either person’s control to direct. When we’re truly listening to each other there is reciprocity, reverberation, and tunedness; psychiatrist and scholar Iain McGilchrist calls it “betweenness.” NINA KRAUS
When I play my banjo, particularly my handmade gourd or minstrel banjo, I feel the connection to all that history flow through my fingers; I feel the spirit of countless nameless people who tried to make life a little bit better by plucking its strings; by listening to one another, and trading licks; I feel the power of sound. And to a brain steadily fed a diet of instant, digital, and shallow connections, it is deeply calming.
During the pandemic, people were grateful for the concerts we streamed to help them through tough times. While the music helped to bring people together, the concerts were hard for us performers. There is something extrasensory, almost spiritual, about a live physical performance that you can’t replicate through a screen. There’s a feeling of alchemy when actual molecules are disturbed directly by the sounds in the room, and that those changed molecules are journeying from instrument to ear. RHIANNON GIDDENS
Even the Earth creates a tone as it revolves around its axis—a B-flat, to be specific, though many octaves below what our ears could hear. And for some reason, our music has tuned in to it. The drone of the tanpura is often tuned to B-flat; when women sing in India, their standard tonic is the key of B-flat. It is considered that our Earth is Mother Earth; Shakti, the female energy of our life, comes from its very strong energy.
We all know that love is an important element in our lives. Whether you go all the way back to Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Zoroaster, Confucius, or Vyasa, they all have said the same thing: love thy neighbor, be at peace with each other, do good, be happy, be pleasant. And one of the elements of music is that it injects a happy thought inside of you. Even when you listen to a sad song, and there might be tears in your eyes, you smile and appreciate how beautifully that emotion was conjured. This is the thought process that has existed from time immemorial. We as human beings are sometimes led astray and forget that; maybe this is the time when that’s happening, and we’re on a different track. But somewhere along the line, through music, we will come back to the mutual understanding of ʾāmīn (Quran), amen (Bible), and shanti (Gita or Ramayana)—peace, truth, and trust in one another.
ZAKIR HUSSAIN
The idea that singing can promote health and well-being has been contemplated for thousands of years. As early as 400 BC Hippocrates and others theorized about the benefits of singing alongside the development of the practice of medicine.
When we sing, our voices and our bodies are the instruments. We are intimately connected to the source of the sound and the vibrations. We make the music, we are immersed in the music and we are the music. . . . The self is revealed through the sound and the characteristics of the voice. The process of finding one’s voice, one’s own sound, is a metaphor for finding oneself.
JULENE K. JOHNSON
Together, our synthesis is a variegated quilt enveloping and forming our experiential selves. Here, we gently pry open a few of the countless seams of this quilt, for you to glimpse the vast cosmos aflow behind each thread. Everything written and perceived thus is a snapshot of this ever-churning process that will change and morph with the flow of learning and living. As we look out into these spaces, played within the hinterlands, may we carry this deep knowing in our daily lives.
Music begins. Or as it seems to me, a latent current of music surfaces into and through the group. Swells and flurries and whispers of rhythms, harmonies, melodies, textures, turnarounds, vamps, lyrics, counterlyrics, choruses, and so forth emerge. In the unfolding milieu of music are ample moments of friction, seemingly arrhythmic pulses, awkward silences, clashing notes, senses of participatory trepidation and participatory overindulgence, and even sounds that are truly incomprehensible. There also emerge supremely subtle interpersonal musical dynamics I have no vocabulary for. MARISOL NORRIS & ESPERANZA SPALDING
November 22, 2024
Music has been regarded as a potential healer of many curable diseases and may have the potentia to help in easing the pain and suffering for those who are afflicted by incurable neurological diseases.The ancient Greeks knew it thousands of years ago. These days, this supoosition has been demonstrated by many modern devices ,such as the fMRI scans of the brain.This is relatively a new vista of research and this fascinating volume of many scientific and non-scientific essays shows to what extent music and playing a musical instrument can alter the brain functioning ,improve moods, alter the chemistry of the brain and even cause dementia-suffering patients to be more active and slow down the progress of Alzheimer and other conditions such as Parkinson. I heartily recommend this book .You will enjoy it tremendously.Only in the USA there are 10000 music therapists and the number is growing fast. Man of the healers are themselves musicians and not only theoreticians. People like Professor Emeritus Daniel J. Levitin are at the front of this new field and there are many more.Their devotion and achievements are to be constantly praised, because where doctors have given up hope, they have been -in many cases-successful, though how the brain can heal by just listening to various kinds of music is still and enigma to be solved.
August 18, 2024
As a musician I've always been convinced of the benefits of music performance for cognitive function, particularly in the intimate connection with language, and to a somewhat lesser degree, mathematics.
I came to music from an interest in writing in childhood, particularly with rhyming, which is joined at the hip with rhythm. Certain talents showing up in childhood usually signal a musical ability more than others, such as being good with words as opposed to numbers.
The also book touches on entrainment—as many similar books on the cognitive aspects of music do—which is interesting when looking at how musical groups in different genres do what they do in a completely unique way: jazz groups entertain differently than prog bands that play in mixed meters, for example, that are beyond our comprehension sometimes, which relates to how a group mind (including the fans) shape the music.
I also would have liked to have seen more essays about the role of the brain hemispheres (perhaps one by Iain McGilchrist), but at 550 pages, it wouldn't have been practical.
In any event, there are interesting essays for anyone curious about the role of music in everyday life, regardless of whether they are a musician.
I came to music from an interest in writing in childhood, particularly with rhyming, which is joined at the hip with rhythm. Certain talents showing up in childhood usually signal a musical ability more than others, such as being good with words as opposed to numbers.
The also book touches on entrainment—as many similar books on the cognitive aspects of music do—which is interesting when looking at how musical groups in different genres do what they do in a completely unique way: jazz groups entertain differently than prog bands that play in mixed meters, for example, that are beyond our comprehension sometimes, which relates to how a group mind (including the fans) shape the music.
I also would have liked to have seen more essays about the role of the brain hemispheres (perhaps one by Iain McGilchrist), but at 550 pages, it wouldn't have been practical.
In any event, there are interesting essays for anyone curious about the role of music in everyday life, regardless of whether they are a musician.
July 10, 2025
I enjoyed how comprehensive this book was. There were chapters about music's effects on our brains, in medicine, and empowering local communities. The extensive scientific, medical, personal, and societal analysis of music was insightful and enjoyable to read. Some chapters, especially those that centered around a single person's individual experience, felt more like fillers than anything else. Still, I regard them as essential parts of the book- the individual effects of music that the scientific and societal chapters merely pointed to were actualized in people who truly embodied the book's overarching message of the deeply personal and beneficial nature of music. I believe these chapters will resonate with readers who may prefer the book's scientific content as well as lifelong music lovers, because they add a level of humanity that greatly grounds the book. Overall, I would recommend Music and Mind to anyone who wants to learn more about music in medicine (especially in neurology) or music lovers in general, as it provides great introductions to general objectives, conclusions, and applications of the field while simultaneously being a love letter to everything music has to offer.
April 25, 2025
There is so much useful thought and information in "Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness." Reading this, and realizing Renee Fleming's remarkable contributions to the arts in our country, it's even more of a tragedy that a certain president's recent takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Arts drove Fleming away from her role on its board. Fleming compiled a series of essays--some by neuroscientists, others by artists, authors, even a few celebrities--that all address the importance of music in aspects of our lives that aren't always actively considered. A couple that I'll mention are author Ann Patchett's (shortish) essay about how her inspiration for writing "Bel Canto," and music therapist Tom Sweitzer's astounding "Healing Note by Note," the latter of which is amazing for so many reasons. This is worth your time! And do not ever underestimate the power and value of music, nor of arts education--no matter how much it may be discounted, especially in this present time when the arts and education in general are sorely threatened (I'm writing in April 2025).
November 7, 2024
A great collection of essays on the intersection of the arts and wellness with a great mix of contributors including, scientists, artists, musicians. The tone of the articles is wide-ranging with a significant emphasis on the influence music (especially) on well being. The case is strongly made throughout the book but as the articles accumulate there is a feeling that the audience it is aimed at is more of an academic that general audience. Valuable information throughout, but there may ave been more work that could have been done to compile and pare down to a set of pieces that appeal more to general audiences or enchant a little more with the outcomes of the work that is done.
February 18, 2025
This huge tome took me a month to read, digest and finish! It is a series of articles on a variety of "neuroarts" subjects ranging from scientific explanations to artist's reactions and interpretations (Yo-Yo Ma for example). It includes many great concrete examples of how music, art and dance therapy have helped individuals improve symptoms, even if just temporarily, of such diseases as Alzheimers, Parkinsons, stroke. This is a fascinating primer on the state of the art and science behind using the arts, particularly music for health and well-being outcomes.
May 28, 2024
Be prepared. Much of this book reads like a scientific journal. But the content is on the cutting edge of research and the last chapter was absolutely inspiring. I’m a music educator who just lost my dad to early onset dementia, and if 40 hz exposure could clear damaging plaques in my brain, then I’ll listen to it every day. I am very excited to see the future of the arts in medicine.
June 30, 2024
An excellent compilation of articles by musicians, doctors, and neuroscientists about the perception of music in our world. The book explores opinions on music education and the overall importance of music as a motivator, healer, and tool for our overall better selves as individuals and a collective people.
October 8, 2024
This book provides data about the positive impact of music from so many different perspectives and areas of inquiry. I'm so grateful just to know that so many people are utilizing music as a means of healing, growing, communicating, being together, understanding each other... and appreciating music as an end, or destination, in itself.
February 1, 2025
A collection of essays about the health benefits of music and the arts. The benefit is large but the actual use of music in healthcare is little used. The book is still a great reminder that we possess the tools to be happy and health. Why do we not do practice, beat me????????
Let's continue to remind our world we possess the ability to be happy and healthy!!!!!!!!!!!
Let's continue to remind our world we possess the ability to be happy and healthy!!!!!!!!!!!
March 20, 2025
I used Audible to listen as it’s daunting to read 538 pages. It really depends on who is the one reading the chapter. Some are very engaging, some I had to skip. I get the general idea how music is so important in our lives. With the current government cutting funding in NIH, how much of this type of research the administration thinks it’s non-essential??
March 26, 2025
I wasn't as interested in the last couple of sections of the book, it lost some steam and got a little too science-y. I loved reading the chapters about the remarkable research happening around music and health, and I enjoyed the chapters where people talked about their personal experience with music during times they were having health issues.
July 26, 2024
SUCH A COOL BOOK! A collection of essays written by people who know what they’re talking about. A bit heady at times, but it’s full of interesting stuff about the vast psychological impacts of music.
October 12, 2024
The articles from other lay non medical readers are very interesting.
The articles by medical professionals are a bit trying to stay with through the book.
Overall the message is clear: music/art definitely have a place in the healing process.
The articles by medical professionals are a bit trying to stay with through the book.
Overall the message is clear: music/art definitely have a place in the healing process.
Read
December 3, 2024This book covers a fascinating topic: using music to restore and promote health. It documents scientific research results, mostly sponsored by NIH, in this area. However, it is a collection of papers from researchers instead of a narrative for the general population. Therefore, I stopped reading.
June 1, 2024
Enjoyed some of the entries more than others
August 19, 2024
Very interesting concepts. As the mother of a Music Therapist, I think that more health facilities, schools, and other agencies should embrace this valuable resource.
November 16, 2024
Fantastic collection of moving essays on music therapy.
October 18, 2025
Some parts (mostly toward the end) were fascinating! some were anecdotes I'm not sure I needed but I enjoyed listening to the entire audiobook nevertheless.
August 4, 2024
I listened to the unabridged 22-hour audio version of this title (read by Gina Daniels and six others, Penguin Audio, 2024).
This book, composed of a large number of essays, begins with a foreword by former Director of NIH, Nobel Laureate Francis S. Collins, who tells us about his surreal experience of singing with three Supreme Court Justices and soprano Renee Fleming at a gathering, an event that made him bent on having NIH support more research on the connection between arts (music in particular) and neuroscience.
Then, following an "Overture" by Fleming herself, chapters written by a wide variety of scientists and artists unfold, beginning with a chapter entitled "How and Why: Experts Explain the Basic Science Connecting Arts and Health, Including Origins in Evolution: Musicality, Evolution, and Animal Response to Music," which sets the stage for the rest of the material.
Contributors to this volume make a convincing case that the arts empower and heal, collectively presenting a manifesto for neuroarts, the transdisciplinary study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior and how this knowledge is translated into specific practices that advance health and wellbeing.
We learn, among other things, that all forms of music, not just classical music, have relaxing effects. Moving to musical rhythms is part of our nature, something that develops quite early. Even though music therapy has been practiced for a couple of centuries, only recently has it been taken seriously for the treatment of physical and mental ailments. Even now, insurance companies tend not to pay for the cost of music therapy.
It is unfortunate that as evidence on the empowering and healing power of music and other art forms piles up, schools in the United States continue to trim arts programs to save money. Lack of a place for arts in public education limits artistic activities to the well-to-do, further exacerbating the opportunity divide. It is my hope that Fleming's book brings our school officials and politicians to their senses, making them support (including by providing ample funding) arts education across the K-12 curriculum.
This book, composed of a large number of essays, begins with a foreword by former Director of NIH, Nobel Laureate Francis S. Collins, who tells us about his surreal experience of singing with three Supreme Court Justices and soprano Renee Fleming at a gathering, an event that made him bent on having NIH support more research on the connection between arts (music in particular) and neuroscience.
Then, following an "Overture" by Fleming herself, chapters written by a wide variety of scientists and artists unfold, beginning with a chapter entitled "How and Why: Experts Explain the Basic Science Connecting Arts and Health, Including Origins in Evolution: Musicality, Evolution, and Animal Response to Music," which sets the stage for the rest of the material.
Contributors to this volume make a convincing case that the arts empower and heal, collectively presenting a manifesto for neuroarts, the transdisciplinary study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior and how this knowledge is translated into specific practices that advance health and wellbeing.
We learn, among other things, that all forms of music, not just classical music, have relaxing effects. Moving to musical rhythms is part of our nature, something that develops quite early. Even though music therapy has been practiced for a couple of centuries, only recently has it been taken seriously for the treatment of physical and mental ailments. Even now, insurance companies tend not to pay for the cost of music therapy.
It is unfortunate that as evidence on the empowering and healing power of music and other art forms piles up, schools in the United States continue to trim arts programs to save money. Lack of a place for arts in public education limits artistic activities to the well-to-do, further exacerbating the opportunity divide. It is my hope that Fleming's book brings our school officials and politicians to their senses, making them support (including by providing ample funding) arts education across the K-12 curriculum.
February 14, 2025
This is very interesting collection of essays and research reports on the benefits of music to our health and well being. Sadly most of these studies have probably been put on hold for now because they were sponsored by NIH...what a loss for all of us!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews