MUSIC HATH CHARMS

Victor Bloom MD

It is oft said that music hath charms to soothe the savage beast. Certainly all of us have enjoyed, at one time or another, the calming effect of certain music. This tendency may be inborn, a part of our brain, as we find that all societies, without exception, have music as part of their culture. But what is inborn is also stimulated from the environment. Perhaps the most obvious example of soothing music is the mother's lullaby. In fact many classical pieces and religious hymns have the eloquent simplicity of a lullaby or nursery tune.

A step up from the simplicity of the lullaby is the pride and grandeur of the national anthem. The anthems of many countries are similar in their effect to express national unity pride and power. For sheer beauty, no anthem can compare with "America the Beautiful". Similarly, it would be hard to find a national song more inspirational than "God Bless America". Some of us may remember hearing Kate Smith sing the song on radio, during World War II, which evoked a feeling of confidence that God was on our side, after all.

In high school the students enjoy singing their school song, an anthem of sorts. And there are fight songs for sports events, and usually a marching band. In high school some students gravitate to particular instruments and very rarely to music composition and arrangement.

The great conductors, composers and instrumentalists of today started out as child prodigies. It is hard to imagine five year olds performing before rapt audiences, and even now it is not unusual to learn of debuts between the ages of 8 to 12. What accounts for such precocious creative talent? It is a mystery. Some people are born chessmasters, mathematicians, writers, artists. Often there are other talents in the family, leading us to believe that artistic or musical talent is inherited. The Bach family is a typical example.

Recently there was a weekend symposium in Ann Arbor in which the topic was Psychoanalysis and Music. The panelists were analysts who were performers, musicians, and musicians with a keen interest in psychoanalysis or musicians who had a keen interest in psychoanalysis. One might well wonder what is the relationship between psychoanalysis and music until one recognizes the similarity, that they both evoke emotion. But all the arts and entertainments stimulate feelings on a deep and powerful level. What is special about psychoanalysis?

Psychoanalysis is therapy, psychotherapy of the most complex and deep kind. People in psychoanalysis may undergo the process for years, accumulating hundreds of sessions to resolve unconscious conflicts that are causing symptoms or disturbed and self-defeating behavior. But psychotherapy is a talking therapy and the essential communication is verbal. Music's charm is that it is essentially nonverbal, with the exception, of course, of vocal music, such as opera and chorus.

The nonverbal effect of good music is to evoke the mother's lullaby. Remember that the young child does not yet know language, but is able to hear the beat and melody of song. Many experimenters in childhood development feel that the earlier a baby is exposed to music, the more receptive it would be in later life. They have also shown that babies who are stimulated in utero with music tend to be musical, but here the question of genetics comes in. It is the mother who naturally loves music who is more likely to sing a lot to the child, and play recordings.

I know a man who endured a childhood of much chaos and privation. He told me that when he was 18 he heard the Beethoven Archduke Trio on the radio, and he felt that the heavens opened up to him. It was an epiphany that changed his life and set him on a path to integration, clarity and maturity. When one is particularly susceptable to a given piece of music, and I am thinking 'classical' here, there is a resonance, a consonence, with a composer, a person of many generations ago, that makes one feel not alone, that a great person has felt like this before. There can be a link between a person of the 20th century and a composer of the 17th and 18th century, such as Johanne Sebastion Bach.

Music hath the power to strike deep chords into a resonating unconscious. In its way, music is therapeutic. It can be a tranquilizer or an anti-depressive, and it can stimulate a range of feelings, from the romantic to the tragic, to the violent. It is an outlet for deep feelings seeking expression. Whenever deep feelings are buried, illness will occur, and music is a way, a nonverbal, non-clinical way to restore balance in a person's mind. In this way music works hand in hand with psychotherapy to heal a person who is suffering from his reminiscences.

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and corresponding editor of their quarterly journal, Academy Forum. He welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address: vbloom@comcast.net.