Blogpost 5: Use of Music Therapy

So much about wellness of the essential of music, I believe that I we haven’t tackled yet the origin of it. Since music can also be categorized in a cultural manner, we will base it in a general manner for its origin and how it was used before all these music trends.

Many of us would think that this is just some hoax that music is now used as a tool to cure people. Music therapy is part of our daily is happen that we don’t know the use of this and we have no idea that were using it in our daily life. Like we listen to the radio to cure our boredom, we listen to music to relive our stress. What else can we do to the music? is just for entertainment or there is something behind this music that make our body and mind feel relax and calm? There is so many studies out there that prove music therapy can help our body to feel comfortable and can focus in our task for example reading while listening to the mellow.

An article called " from The History of Music Therapy” from www.macalester.edu by Mai Yang a researcher and therapist, she shared about the history of Music Therapy and how it does started during middle age and also she mentioned that during the end of 18th century the scientist was conducted a research on how music affects the human behaviour and emotion and by the end of 19th century the number of  researchers has begun increasing  to study the effect of music in human behaviour and physical. Researchers began searching the relationships between music and physiological in the human being.

According to Yang “The origin of music it self is unknown, but the use of music in healing ceremonies is an ancient practice. It is believe that among primitive people, illness was viewed as originating from magico-religious forces, or form the breaking of taboos (for review, see Sigerist, 1944). Thus, music in combination with dances or words, along with songs, and the music producing instruments were considered to be efficacious in exorcising disease or healing wounds.”


According to the author, she said that music is being use in healing or ritual during ancient times and also there is incantations to be more effective while playing the music. The role of music became more popular or being advanced to the new generation to help other people that are stress and having a hard time to overcome and move on.
Music became the  reflection of our self because its reflect our emotion and behavior its help us to connect with music.Music Therapy is the new generation program that can be use to the patient who was having a hard time to recondition their mind and body.


Music is categorized in different ways. Our choice of music is somehow a part of us that defines our roots and feelings as well. Music selection is always determined by an individual for music preferences, physical capabilities and non-musical goals. Personally, I usually listen to techno type of beats every time I feel exhausted. It makes me feel a bit more alive and pushes me go to well. If listening to our favorite music doesn’t work to make us stress free, there are people whom are highly trained to do a music therapy. There are also misconceptions about it and today, we will tackle things that we thought about music therapy.

A blog or should I say a study called “Music Therapy: Myths and Misconceptions” made by a music psychotherapist named Megan Hinman. He was able to study and prove about the myths in music therapy.

According to Megan Hinman, “for most people, the idea of music being therapeutic seems pretty logical. But did you know that music therapists are highly educated professionals with special standardized training. ”

According to Hinman, she was able to verify our silly thoughts about them. One of them is that a music therapist is a person who shows up with an iPod and tells you what songs you should listen to; she stated that this isn’t true at all since music therapist are also musicians whereas they are required to  be proficient on playing instruments and be an expert to music theory, sight singing and conducting as well. You don’t have be a musician to benefit a music therapy. Remember about the last time we tackled about the usage of music therapy? It is also used in hospitals to somewhat cure patients which makes them feel good.
Since they are highly trained – educated music therapists, it cannot just be facilitated by anyone. Although it is true that everyone is capable of using music in therapeutic way, having music in a career field requires different procedures and has a standardized training, music is now treated like a medicine, it has certain  dosage and uses depending on an individual’s needs.

It is also a hoax that music is only used during fun times – cannot use during serious issues. This is absolutely incorrect. Remember the times when you feel so down, like literally broken hearted? Isn’t that a serious issue for an individual? Statistics shows that an individual who suffers to much from a broken hearted can be a cause of a heart attack, so we usually rely to music as a self-healing way to get over it. So music therapy is useful vice versa.

I learned that during middle age music was being use to the prayers and incantations, they don't realize that music help our body and mind to relieve our stress, music therapy can be used to alter the pain in patients, mood by the way of listening to music this can lead us to distract our self and help you to focus and promoting relaxation that help relax your mind and body muscle.