Sound and Music Therapies involve a variety of therapeutic modalities intended to release you from emotional blockages and/or relieve physical, emotional or spiritual problems using sound and music. There are a variety of holistic therapies and treatments related to Sound, Music, Tones/Vibrational Frequencies and Energy.
Generally Music Therapy uses music for emotional and/or psychological release (i.e. listening to music and using music as a tool to access emotional challenges, as well as using music to help with a variety of physical conditions from pain to Alzheimer's disease), while Sound Therapy is the use of distinct tones to affect changes on the health of the person it is being done for.
Music Therapy
Music Therapy is an expressive therapy in which a trained music therapist uses music for a variety of purposes, which may include physical health, cognitive functioning, motor skills, emotional or affective development, behavioural and social skills and improving quality of live. Treatments use music experiences (from improvisation to singing to writing music to listing to music to moving to music) to acheive the treatment goals and ojbectives. Common uses of music therapy include developmental work with individuals with special needs, use of music with the elderly to improve/stimulate memory and psychological well-being, rhythmic entrainment for phsyical rehabilitation in stroke victims, working with adolescents with mood disorders and or with children.
Music Therapy History
The use of music for healing goes back centuries and is common across different traditions. There are biblical examples of the use of music for healing/soothing, Hippocrates (the Greek father of western medicine) used music with his mental patients, Arab hospitals used music for patients, Native Americans often used chants and dances to promote healing, the Tibetans have an ancient practice called the Bön practice which uses sound to promote healing, and India has a long tradition of mantras and the use of sound to promote healing.
Music Therapy Training
Music Therapists may go through a variety of training programs, depending on their country of origin and background. In the US, music therapy degree candidates can earn undergraduates, masters and doctoral degress in music therapy. In addition, many programs offer degrees and equivalencies for students who have degrees in related fields. The AMTA (American Music Therapy Association) is the largest governing body for Music Therapy in the US, although there are many other organizations that provide training and offer various types of regulation in the field.
Sound Therapy
Sound Therapy is used differently by different practitioners and depending on the person using the phrase, it may be intended to mean 'using distinct tones to affect changes on the auditory health of the person it is being done for - i.e. assisting with conditions like hearing loss and tintinitus', or it may be meant to speak to using sound and energetic frequencies to relieve physical, emotional or spiritual distress.
Because there are not commonly agreed upon definitions, different people can mean different things when they use the same words. Some people will see Sound Therapy as tied in to the body's energetic patterns; others will describe it as tied to a physical or emotional response to sounds/tonal patterns. Still others use it to describe auditory treatments commonly used by audiologists, including ones that use sound to treat hearing problems such as tinntinitus, hearing loss, etc.
Dorinne Davis, the creator of the Davis Model of Sound Intervention, suggests definitions with the 'Sound Therapy' category as follows:
- Sound Healing: using tones, mantras, various rhythms and sound patterns, and other sounding techniques to support change with the body’s energy patterns
- Sound Therapy: Using specific notes of the musical scales to make change with the body’s energy patterns usually with a sounding source
- Sound-based Therapy: sound vibration with special equipment, specific programs, modified music, and/or specific tones/beats, the need for which is identified with appropriate testing
You can also find related information about Speech or Voice Therapy (the treatment of voice disorders, usually administered by speech pathologists), VoiceBio©™ Therapy (the diagnosis of physical/emotional illnesses based on taking a voiceprint and mapping that to resonances associated with each of the organs and systems in one's body), Sound Massage (a method using sound to promote relaxation, strengthen the immunce system and trigger self-healing), Voice Healing (receiving healing through the sound of a voice) and Vibroacoustic Music Therapy (VAM - where music is converted to tactile sensations which permeat the whole body with stimulating and soothing sound).
Many other modalities including various types of yoga, energy healing, stress relief, meditation and more also use the power of sound/music as part of their processes and treatments.
