Human development through music

The idea of music as an actual instrument of the well-being, and even the transformation, of society has a long history. It has frequently been recognized that changes to musical styles affect, and even pre-figure, changes in the more important laws and systems of organization in society. At its simplest, music has been held to have a civilizing function as a means of more creatively channelling energies. It has been used to give humanity a glimpse of alternative ways of being. It is argued that the great collective movements of the human soul have always been anticipated by innovations in music, namely through the embodiments of new patterns of order in forms which transcend habitual categories and attract a wider audience.

Each person may be perceived as a music which can be heard by the intuitive faculty. For some individuals there are dreams in which music acts a kind of leader of the soul into the life after death. Such music is felt to be of indescribable beauty, leaving behind a feeling of consolation and of certainty of the existence of timeless forces existing beyond death and transcending human experience.

In Hinduism, music is used as an aid to the attainment of higher states. All religious traditions that acknowledge the existent of angelic beings concur in giving them musical attributes that may also be understood as tonal qualities. Higher states of awareness may be comprehended and experienced in musical terms. In Zen, the practice of [suizen]

, meditative playing on the flute, is said to heal and revitalize.

It may be that the mental and psychological effects of music on the human person are related to the physical property of synchronization, when weak vibrations in the body are "entrained" by the stronger vibrations of musical sound so that they oscillate at the same frequency. It is definitely the rhythmic quality of music which has the most obvious effect on the pulse rate and the emotions, but other qualities such as tone, interval and the specific quality or timbre of the instrument or voice also have both a direct effect and evoke associations thus causing a secondary effect. Effects may be positive and curative, but some forms of music, particularly some rock music and syncopated rhythms, may be deleterious, arouse aggression, create confusion in the mind and even cause epileptic attack.