Athens, Ermou str, Kapnikarea square, where million of people walk around on a daily basis. A girl and a boy from Netherlands were sitting on a stone bench, jamming on a guitar. I took a minute to sit back and observe their performance. They were having fun as if nobody was watching them. Then the girl started singing solo, with her whole heart a beautiful song giving me the chills and tears …Who? Me???

What on earth is going on between us and the music? It seems that music has almost inexplicable power - to rouse armies to battle, to soothe babies, to communicate peaks of joy and depths of sorrow that mere words cannot. To be honest, I never really understood why the impact of music should be so huge, being that its not actually fundamental for life. But if this is true, why can’t I imagine myself living without it? There must be something going on here besides sound waves….

According to scientists, one of the principal powers of music can be to induce altered states of consciousness (ASC's). These can be anything from a very relaxed state, to a much deeper state, where non-ordinary realities can be experienced. It isn’t that music creates these realities or their contents. Instead it opens a kind of inner space in which certain experiences can occur. Music has the power to unlock ‘stuff’ deep inside (feelings, thoughts, etc) so that we become temporarily aware of parts and feelings that we may not even be conscious of until our song, our lyric, gives them voice in surprisingly powerful ways! A non-conscious film clip made conscious through the music!


How far can benefits of music go?

To begin with, the beneficial effects of music can be visualized; An experiment held by Light Bridge Music (www.lightbridgemusic.com) resulted in the pictures below:

That is the auric field (the egg-shaped energy field that surrounds each of us) which was measured before and after playing Memories of Home (a compilation of soft music). In the photo on the left the person was feeling the stresses of everyday life, for instance: traffic, family or work. The auric field is broken and the mottled colors indicate imbalance, agitation and anxiety. On the contrary the second photo shows a smooth, green field which indicates a balanced, relaxed and calm person. (I vote green!)


Stroke sufferers speak again!

However music has the power to heal even the human body. Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, chief of the Cerebrovascular Disorder Division and Stroke-Recovery Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center said that if a person has a stroke on the left side of the brain, where the speech centers are located in most people, that "wipes out a major part of communication." But if the right side, where a lot of music is processed, is intact, some stroke patients can use "melodic intonation therapy," which involves singing using two tones (relatively close in pitch) to communicate. Schlaug's research suggests that with intense therapy some patients can even move from this two-tone singing back to actual speech.


Music knows no limits

An excellent example of how music can benefit all sorts of people is Maxim Vengerov. Maxim is considered by many to be the finest violinist in the world and is said to command fees of 20,000 or more for a night’s work. However, for the past ten years he has been an honorary Unicef ambassador and in that role he has played for distressed children around the world.

“Music has a far greater potential to heal than we yet understand,” he says. “In fact, it is the only language you can speak to traumatized or brain-damaged people. And they appreciate it. I was in Uganda, playing to children who had been abducted by the army and made to do and watch terrible things. Brutality had destroyed childhood innocence. They were very rough. If you tried to talk to them – no way. But once I started playing, it was an icebreaker. They started to dance, to play their own African music. They saw me as a friend.”

After seeing him playing in front of 60 wheelchair-bound patients at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in southwest London, it’s easy to think that the meeting has been all about a gifted individual bringing joy into tragically disadvantaged lives. But that’s not how Vengerov sees it. “I’m humbled when I meet people who live in the face of such adversity,” he says. “I was very inspired today. For me, these are the greatest concerts.” 

Well done sir!!! It’s fortunate that there are still people who use this priceless tool both generously and wisely. Because music enables us to express virtually every emotion and because it can have such a powerful influence on the heart, mind, and body, we should give this "perfect present" the deepest respect.

Back to Kapnikarea square: I don’t really remember how I started conversing with the singing boy and girl and how they got me to even play a song. The only thing I remember is that the boy accompanied me with his guitar and that some people applauded at the end of the song. Although I was too shy to dare look at those applauding…I was too proud for having offered and having gained from this unexpected musical exchange! Thank you Dutch-folks!

"Music is power - let it flow through your mind - yeah just like a flower - yeah in a deep sunshine"  -  Richard Ashcroft