Healing with music is not a new concept. It is one of the oldest healing arts. Aristotle,Plato, and Pythagoras recognized and wrote about the healing influence of music, both for health and behavior. Hippocrates treated his patients with music in 400 BC.
Throughout history, musicians have been employed, not just to entertain, but to sooth nerves and calm fears. Even today, we employ music therapists in hospitals to reduce anxiety, reduce heart rates, and to influence breathing patterns, and effectively improve patient comfort, and /or treatment.
Recent research has shown that music can stimulate and positively effect patients with depression, dementia, and even autism , stimulating memories, language and soliciting unexpected and welcomed responses.
Music can also cross cultural and social boundaries, bringing communities and different ethnicities together in joyful celebration and appreciation. Music has become an invaluable tool towards the Peace process. Music reflects the voice of the human spirit; beyond language, beyond age or race or gender or nationality. It reaches beyond religious or political affiliation.. and is embraced by the heart, body, and soul of all human beings.
The UN secretary , General Ban Ki Moon said,
“There are no languages required in the musical world. That is the power of music, that is the power of the heart. Through promotion of arts we can better understand the culture and civilizations of other people. In this era of instability and intolerance we need to promote better understanding through the power of music."
In the latter half of the twentieth century, we have grown up with Peace music, from Woodstock, and the Flower Power era , Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, and later, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Peter Gabrielle, the list goes on and on. More recent examples of musical gatherings of artists promoting peace, include the Playing for Change organization, with contributors such as Keith Richards, Bob Marley , Cathy Jordan, Clerence Bekkar, and Bono.
Another example of music being used as a tool for reconciliation between men and women worldwide, was in 1997, when Lord Yehudi Menuin brought together women from all over the world, from different countries and cultures, in a concert called "Voices for Peace".
He introduced the concert with these words....
"It is time we accorded women the respect, the gratitude, the recognition and protection we owe them.
It is not for nothing that there is an ancient code of chivalry, nor can we deny the often superior gift of women, their commitment to the future, their sense of reality, nor their compassion and loyalty.
Today, the measure of a civilization, of a civilized society, is surely the treatment it accords its women. By this supreme standard many civilizations are failing dismally.
You will hear tonight the voices of those who suffered at our hands, the songs of those who have forgiven us when we do not deserve to be forgiven.
These voices, the voices of our conscience, will go to our hearts".
Today, we celebrate the voices of Women such as Mother Theresa, Indira Gandhi, and now, Malala, who has taken up the torch for young girls, in support of equal education opportunities for all women.
Today, we desperately need the voices of women to speak up against abuse and inequality, and to somehow soften or change the hearts of ruthless and desperate men, who seek refuge in hostile gangs of terrorist thugs such as ISIS.
Yehudi Menuin sums up his thoughts on Peace in another of his quotes.
"Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal."
Every high ideal .
Comments....Womensvoice1@gmail.com
RSS Feed
