Music therapy 'can aid healing'
Listening to music makes us feel better - but many doctors are now beginning to believe that it does much more. There is emerging evidence that it can bring about physical changes to the body that can improve our health.
This news story also featured on the Today programme. What isn't clear is the extent to which the effect depends upon genre, and if it does, do the rules apply across the board or do they vary according to an individual's personal taste? There is a substantial body of evidence that shows that different types of music can improve different brain functions - concentration, logic, creativity etc
It followed an item on the quarterly crime figures. It crossed my mind that it might be interesting if there was research into the effects of music on criminality. I often wonder why the "music" one hears most often played inappropriately loud in inappropriate places is the most unrelenting hiphop. But I can't decide whether the anti-social behaviour is influenced by the aggressive beat and lack of melody, or whether aggressive anti-social people gravitate to that sort of music. I'm not talking about the words, I'm talking about the "music". I can never understand why some so-called restaurants insist on playing music that has a beat faster than a resting heart beat.
And yet music teaching in schools is still woefully inadequate. And when it is taught, it's often a joke, concentrating just on a tiny section of one aspect of pop music. Scared of being 'elitist', too many parents and teachers and governors conclude that the children in state schools are simply not good enough for the type of music that's taught as routine in independent schools. It's like saying, "We're not rich and our children are not destined to be movers and shakers so it doesn't matter if they can't spell..." Oh, well, never mind...
