Healing Music: The Harmonic Path to Inner Wholeness

As Beethoven's music helped free society's emotions from the rigid formalism represented by Handel's works, so can New Age music bring peace and harmony to a society drained and frazzled by the anapestic beat of rock 'n' roll, the authors say. Watson, a healer, and Drury, a New Age music reviewer and author, define healing music as ""music specifically conceived as an adjunct to a visualization or meditation exercise.'' They discuss how rhythm affects heartbeat, how tone and timbre affect the emotions, and how the music of artists such as Kitaro, Philip Glass and Paul Horn can help us relax, explore our psyches and even alleviate physical pain. The theoretical chapters are not clearly written but are useful summaries of the ideas of other healers and musicologists. A later chapter offers visualization exercises and suggests accompanying music. The most valuable section may be the appendices, in which the work of over 30 New Age artists is described. (January)