That Healing Sound

Music as therapy. It does work for a lot of people and issues.

Reading the new book by Daniel Levitin, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, made me think otherwise. Levitin, a neuroscientist who first got the public thinking about the biological machinery behind music in his 2006 book, This Is Your Brain on Music, puts the spotlight on burgeoning methods of music therapy restoring pleasure to so many people who have lost it.
Recently, over video, I told Levitin at his home in Hollywood that his book opened my eyes to the seemingly magical effects of music therapy. That led us into an engaging conversation on the secret chords that music strikes in our brains and bodies. Levitin began writing the book around the time he got some news from friend Bobby McFerrin, the many-splendored vocalist best known for his a cappella hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”