Using Sound as Therapy for Better Health

Aug 31, 2016 08:38PM ● By Linda Sechrist

While music may be described as humanly organized sound, it is challenging to describe it in nonmusical terms, as Elvis Costello observed, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” A subject that has been enjoyed, researched and explored for many reasons in many places across the globe, organized or unorganized sound is something that has inspired thousands of individuals to use music as a means of communicating.

All sound utilizes a vibration that creates resonance and rhythm in the body to influence our emotions like nothing else can. Anyone that has ever responded to the tactile sounds of drums, crystal or Tibetan singing bowls, a gong or even their own voice entrained with other chanting voices recognizes the power of sound to reverberate within the body. The possibility of using this resonance as healing is suggested by Dr. Mitchell L. Gaynor, director of oncology and integrative medicine at the renowned Strang Cancer Prevention Center, in New York City.

In Gaynor’s book, The Healing Power of Sound: Recovery from Life-Threatening Illness Using Sound, Voice, and Music, he draws attention to the fact that sound is heard not only through our ears, but through every cell in our bodies. He notes that the 10-inch crystal bowl displayed in his consultation room plays a key role in his oncology and internal medicine practice.

Local interest in Tibetan and crystal singing bowl meditations and/or concerts is visible in numerous settings throughout Collier and Lee counties. In Naples, there is The Salt Cave, Goddess I AM, Open Mind Zen and even the Arthur Murray Dance Center. Fort Myers venues include the Church of Spiritual Light and AHA! A Holistic Approach Center; in Bonita Springs, Mystical Moon, Hummingbird Wellbeing Center & Boutique and Shangri-La Springs.

Singing Bowls and Tuning Forks

Crystal bowl and triangle

Laurie Barraco, owner of Mystical Moon, Dana Marie House and Cathy Blair all play crystal bowls. Barraco leads a meditation the first Thursday of the month where she plays crystal bowls, and Joanna Salerno, a licensed massage therapist and energy healer who also certifies tuning fork therapists, leads participants in a guided meditation and bliss (diksha) blessing. The two women have recorded several CDs together. “Although I’ve been teaching tuning fork therapy and doing healing sessions with them and quartz crystal pyramids for years, I am continually amazed at how well the body responds to sound,” says Salerno, who teaches tuning fork therapy at Mystical Moon.

For more than 20 years, Dana Marie House, a quantum energy healer and licensed massage therapist, has been using quartz crystal

Dana Marie House with her gongs and crystal bowls

bowls, Tibetan singing bowls, tuning forks and percussion instruments such as gongs to move energy in the body. “Private massage sessions generally start with an energy clearing. I use tuning forks on specific acupuncture points to clear congestion. Tibetan bowls are played around the body and on the body, smaller gongs over the body and crystal singing bowls on the body. Specific notes are used, depending on amount of congestion and where it’s located,” says House, who believes that everyone’s medicine chest should include a drum, rattle and crystal bowl. House performs public sound sessions at Arthur Murray, Hummingbird, Open Mind Zen, Goddess I AM and periodically at Shangri-La Springs.

AHA! A Holistic Approach Center regularly plays host to Robert Austin, a crystal bowl sound healer whose energy sound healing workshops and singing bowl concerts draw 15 to 20 people. “Robert also does private sound healing sessions. I’ve had a mini session where he played a Tibetan bowl that he’d placed on my abdomen. I felt the vibration resonating through

Robert Austin conducting a private sound healing session at AHA!

my body,” says owner Cindy Carfore, who is also enthusiastic about AHA’s far-infrared sauna with acoustic resonance therapy. It provides significant stress reduction, as well as relief from chronic muscle tension and pain.

Cathy Blair has been immersing people in the sound of crystal bowls for 11 years. Now she also teaches others the art. “Participants simply recline and enjoy. They don’t need to know what frequencies their body needs. It decides. What they do need to know is that when sound stops, the vibration continues, right down to the bones and marrow,” explains Blair, who plays monthly at Salt Cave and on Marco Island at Peaceful Escapes. She also plays regularly for Professor Maria Roca’s Contemporary Contemplative Practices at Florida Gulf Coast University, in Fort Myers. The class is so popular that it draws student repeaters.

Percussion

Naples Drumming Circle, Cambier Park, Naples

“Drumming unconsciously reminds us of the first thing we heard in our mother’s womb—a heartbeat,” says Marc Wagner, organizer of the Naples Drumming Circle, which meets every third Saturday at Cambier Park. The former owner of Enlight enthuses about how drumming elicits a natural state of emotional euphoria, depending on the beats that are played. “Our gathering averages five to 30 participants. Some play various types of percussion such as tambourines and maracas. Others dance and hoop,” he advises.

In ancient cultures, drumming was a means of communication, and in Wagner’s opinion, it still is. When people hear drumming while strolling along Fifth Avenue South, they sometimes wander over to see what’s happening.

Organized Sound Therapy

Kat Epple

For several decades, Fort Myers resident Kat Epple, a flautist and composer of 33 albums, film scores and TV soundtracks, has composed healing music on synthesizers and flutes. “The flute is very effective in creating healing music, partly because the breath is so important in meditation and in spiritual connection. Synthesizers generate a wide variety of audio textures, colors and timbres, creating a palette of sounds that provide the specific resonance and density needed to affect the body with healing energy,” says Epple, who along with Nathan Dyke, will co-teach a workshop on music and healing from December 2 to 4 at Happehatchee Center, in Estero. Dyke plays several native flutes, digeridoo and African, Latin and Middle Eastern percussion.

Soothing acoustic instrumental music is also a specialty of Frank Smith, a Naples resident with several albums to his credit. His first, Gardens of Hope, was produced by Will Akerman, founder of Windham Hill Records. Hope Returns, released in 2012, features his acoustic guitar and includes several artists, including Epple, on flute.

Smith named Gardens of Hope to honor hospital gardens where patients sit to reflect, and to commemorate the three years that he played at Naples Community Hospital. “I played in the lobby, in oncology services for patients who were receiving their infusions, in the emergency waiting room and the surgical waiting room,” says Smith. Today, Pandora carries Frank Smith and Kat Epple Radio.

Smith had many opportunities to observe what powerful responses his music evoked in patients. “In the emergency room, I saw a man

James Steven Farnsworth

writhing in so great pain. After a few minutes of listening to my music, he calmed down, put his hands in his lap, leaned back in his and fell asleep,” recalls Smith.

James Steven Farnsworth, a violinist specializing in providing beautiful music is spreading loving communication to people through his music. He, like Smith has observed how heart-centered interaction provides comfort and joy, and how songs played on the classical violin bring peace of mind and deep emotional refreshment for individuals who are ill as well as their caretakers.

Renee Bledsoe, founder of Church of Spiritual Light, makes sure that sound and vibrational healing music is included in all the meditations offered there. She affirms that music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit. The church’s music includes Solfeggio harmonics, Schuman resonance (matching the Earth’s vibration), brain entrainment music, binaural beats, mantras and chants. “Sacred sound is crucial to enlightenment. It’s a sound bath for the soul,” says Bledsoe.