History and the religious' view of music therapy.

There is a saying that music is the language of Gods. Actually music is an universal language. That’s why we can entertain any kind of music which belongs to different culture or a country.

Almost all the religions focused on the spiritual development of the humans. Different religions use different concepts and methodologies to make the mind conditions of humans into a good state. For example in Buddhism, there are lots of methods that can be used to heal the human mind. Among those methods ‘Pirith Chanting’ plays a big role regarding healing the mind. Actually ‘Pirith Chanting’ is music related thing which can effect strongly on human mind. In pirith chanting just few musical notes are used. All the stanzas are chanting with in the few range of musical notes. Some times the frequency of the stanzas is changed and it can make the pirith chanting more powerful and attractive.

The Catholics and Christians use music a lot in their religious activities. They usually sing hymns and do their prayers in rhythmic manner. Those things help to relax the mind condition very easily. In the holy Bible, it is described that how music was used to alleviate the pains of human mind. For example holy Bible says, David played his harp in order to alleviate the pains of King Saul.

In Sri Lanka various kinds of ‘Shanthikarma’ and ‘Thowil ’ events were used to heal the people in past. In rural areas those things are still used. In those events various kinds of drums specially ‘the Yak Beraya’ is used. The rhythm of a drum can effect on the mental state of a human. If you have watched a ‘shanthikarma’ event you may have seen that the rhythm of the drum starts in a low tempo and increases in to very high tempo. According to the changes of that rhythm the mental and physical condition of the patient is also get changed. The patient also stats to move(in Sinhala it is called as ‘aawesha wenawa’) according to the rhythm of the drum. When the rhythm becomes slow the patient also gets calm down. So it shows that how music or rhythm can make effects of human mind.

You may have noticed that various tribes use various kinds of drums for their traditional music.(Eg:-African and Australian tribes). In Sri Lanka even there are many kinds of drums. It is found that the rhythm of a drum can make effects on both human mind and body . If the rhythm is similar to the rate of the hart beat of a person, that person will be relaxed easily. If the heart beat rate of that person is high(that means he is in a stressful condition), the external rhythm can be started similarly at the beginning. Then little by little the external rhythm can be reduced. Then according to the external rhythm the stress level and the heart beat of the person will get reduced.

I hope to describe the scientific views for these things in my coming posts..