Music Teacher's Helper Blog

Apparently “Binaural Beats” are making headlines lately. I have never heard this term before today, but I have been listening to a type of therapeutic music just like this for several years now. I have been a fan of Kelly Howell, a pioneer in digital music therapy, for a couple years now. Listen people. I am not an expert in this, but I have studied Sound Healing with leading Sound Healer, Wayne Perry, and I have been researching this subject on a weekly basis for over 2 years. Here is my humble take on the freak-out fest: We all know that music changes the way you feel, right? What if you understood the brain and it’s reaction to music, and you could predict which frequencies and pitches made your brain feel “happy?”Ok, that is what Kelly Howell and many others in this growing field are doing. You put on stereo headphones, listen to this calming music, and if you focus on the music intensely enough, you can go into a deep meditative state. Or you can get “high.” It is all a matter of semantics. Which word do you prefer?

Now, I object to the use of the word “high,” but that is how the critics are describing it. Anyone who practices meditation, AND has possibly smoked a little puff-puff at some point in their life will tell you that there is a similar calming effect that happens. The difference between mind altering drugs and meditation is that there are only POSITIVE effects of meditation! Music-enhanced meditative states put you into a very calm, grounding, neutral state. Marijuana makes you feel calm and giggly, but there are side effects like paranoia, red eyes, and feeling a little dumb. Based solely on my experience with Sound Healing music, you don’t feel anything negative at all. The worst thing that can happen is that you are too frazzled to focus, so you don’t feel a single thing, which might make you think people like me are just crazy.

There are other terms for this genre of music. Sound Healing and Music Therapy. Now doesn’t that sound nice? Apparently, prominent universities all across the country felt okay about the idea, because that is where you can get Bachelors and Masters degrees in the field of Music Therapy. After that, you can actually work in a hospital helping people to “feel good” with music.

This freak out fest just reminds me of the early 90′s when those ridiculous parental warning labels started showing up on CDs. Here’s my advice to parents: If your child is listening to New Age, electronic music with NO WORDS, they are probably better off than if they were listening to Neo-Nazi inspired Death Metal, or some kind of Kill the Cops Rap music. DO NOT FREAK OUT.

Ok, one more thing before I give you the link to the source of this story. SINGING also makes you “high”. Yeah. Why do you think kids like to do it so much? Monks in the East figured this out centuries ago! Chanting on certain syllables causes vibrations to circulate in your head creating a sort of “brain massage” and this is a form of meditation for many Hindus and Buddhists. If you would like to know how to do this, send me a message and I can teach you.

Peace out everyone. Time for me to go meditate.

Hear the NPR story here.