Shakespeare stated that good music "... can minister to minds diseased. Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with its sweet, oblivious antidote, Cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart."

Music has been found to effect people and their subconscious differently depending on who was the artist and what was the motive of the artist. Beethoven and Bach were submerged with reverence for God, and this was their motivation — their goal was the spiritual uplifting of man.

Other motives for creating music have been found: Moneymaking was part of the motive for the rock concerts. Take, for example, Mick Jagger with $40,000,000 in his 1981 tour over the U.S. Jagger also stated, "We are moving after the minds, and so are most of the new groups."

In 1969 the Rolling Stones at a rock concert performed the song "Sympathy for the Devil" — there was a rampage of violence and some people were severely injured and some were killed. Mick Jagger stated: "something like that happens every time I play that song."

Some forms of rock were associated with outbreaks of riots and violence. The Mamas and the Papas stated: "By carefully controlling the sequence of rhythms, any rock group can create audience hysteria consciously and deliberately... We know how to do it... Anybody knows how to do it."

As in music, so in life! The behavior of musicians has been found to tend to shape people's character and behavior — with music giving various types of emotional experiences and also encoding feelings.

The Ancients Used Music for Healing

Music has been used in the healing arts over the ages as a means to re-create harmony and health. Pythagoras used music therapy — he conceived of this as a stepping down of the 'music of the spheres' in harmony with the macrocosm.

Hippocrates, the 'father of medicine' is said to have taken his cases of mental illness to the Temple of Aesculapius to listen to the stirring music there.

The priests and physicians of Rome used music therapy. Paracelsus practiced what he called 'musical medicine'.

More recently, a music therapist Jean Maas has said: "Music is the greatest power I have ever experienced. I doubt if anything else equals its power to act upon the human organism."

Physical Effects of Rock Music

A personal acquaintance, Dr Harvey Bird did much research on the effects of music. With rats he had waltz music as the control group. With the rock-type music after a few days, the rats lost memory and turned cannibalistic.

Dr. Scubic at the University of Canbera in Australia worked with teen boys and heavy metal music and discovered with rock the following changes:

   a) Stress is caused to the heart (the waltz rhythm, for instance, is the same as the heart beat — whereas the rhythm of rock etc. is the opposite).
   b) Secondary to this the brain releases chemicals/opiate derivatives similar to drugs to relax you, which explains physiologically how addiction to rock occurs. That is the 'kick' that people get.
   c) With extended periods of rock music there was evidence of violence, including sexual — causal relationships with rock music were found.

Dr. Diamond also found stress to the heart and changes in the heartbeat with rock music. In addition the neurological system becomes switched to where subjects want to hear more of this music, again showing the addictive properties.

Dr. Singh at the University of Southern India researched pea plants. He used different music: Indian, Baroque and rock. With rock music the pea plants shriveled up and genetically mutated. The actual seeds changed to become weaker.

Music played for babies in the hospital

Over the years, I would always re-educate nurses etc. in the hospital. This sometimes has been met with anger — but you can imagine heavy metal music being played in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit to "calm" the nurses. Finally, a few years ago an actual hospital study on the effects of music on babies came out with recommendations to play "classical" type music, and again showing the specific changes in heart beat, blood pressure etc. with rock music.

Music was a highlight for me as a whole brain education instructor, in general and especially with babies in the womb. With Baroque music, for instance, there is a switching to the right brain and an increase in intelligence.

On the contrary, rock music switches more to the "fight and flight" reaction. Epinephrine is released and decreases intellectual abilities. People who complain to me about rock music say they are not able to think straight.

You can find out about additional studies on the effects of rock music in the book, The Secret Power of Music by David Tame. A few results follow:

Music has been found to effect the body in 2 distinct ways, directly on the cells and organs and indirectly by affecting the emotions, which, in turn, influence numerous bodily processes.

Sounds projected into liquid media have coagulated proteins. So teenagers have brought soft eggs to rock concerts, which became hard-boiled — wonder what happens in our own bodies?

Rock has been found to interfere with digestion, increase driving accidents, change metabolism, affect muscular energy, raise blood pressure etc.

Musicogenic epilepsy has been reported — seizures directly associated with the rock beat.

Hearing problems have been increased with teens listening to the loud playing of rock.

In other studies with rats and plants, when exposed to classical versus rock, the rats repeatedly ran from the rock and plants grew away from the rock and toward classical music. In addition, the plants suffered from damage or died with rock music.

Petunias next to rock refused to bloom — versus those near the classical, which had beautiful blossoms.

Other studies showed how plants have grown faster, and hens have laid more eggs, and cows given more milk in response to Strauss' Blue Danube — yet had diarrhea with rock music.

Cellular protoplasm has been found to change with music. Dr. Singh found that the violin is the most life-enhancing instrument of all. And there have been seen changes in chromosomes for the better or worse depending upon the music played.

Changes in music have preceded historical events. The Communists would control music to prevent the people from rising up. Heavy metal has been associated with increased use of drugs, suicide and violence, while songs like the Liberty Song and Yankee Doodle etc. have been associated with acceleration in patriotism and fervor for freedom.