Healing Classic Music (a history of its benefits)
Classical music (whether you think its ‘a bit posh’ or not) is real music! It’s created by people who know how to read music and play instruments, and there is more than enough evidence to suggest that it has huge healing benefits – whether that’s for mental or physical health. It can help dementia patients (who often people remember songs, when they remember little else). And can even calm patients down in dental surgeries!
Perfect Pitch is a book of 100 classical masterpieces to listen to, all intended to comfort and inspire. Find a short introduction to each piece, plus a recommended recording.
There was an interesting experiment once. Someone grew four plants, and each one had a different version of ‘music’. One had no music, one had rock music played to it. One had classical music, and the last one had Louis Armstrong singing!
The plant with no music made little difference. The other plant turned away from the rock music. The third plant liked the classical music. And the fourth plant adored Louis! Proving that even plants have good music taste!
How to Listen to Classical Music
You don’t need a degree or be able to play an instrument to listen to good classical music. You can reap the benefits, simply by switching the dial on your radio. Try playing BBC Radio 3 or Classic FM softly in the background.
Try this sample playlist for a stress-free day:
- Mozart – Piano Sonata No. 16 (opening)
- Debussy – Clair de Lune
- Schubert – Ave Maria
- Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (2nd movement).
- Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’
- Marianelli’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ piano soundtrack.
Can’t sleep? Create a simple playlist of slow piano sonatas, gentle harp or soft string quartets. Avoid music with sudden loud notes or fast tempos. Play at low volume, around 30 minutes before bed.
Use a speaker (to avoid getting tangled in headphones), and set a timer to turn the music off automatically. Also turn off screens and dim the lights. This will help link your brain with music, and cues to rest.
The Schubert Treatment: A Story of Healing
The Schubert Treatment is a book by an artist/therapist, who found that playing the cello had wonderfully positive effects on children with autism, along with patients in pain, distress or just before death. It features lyrical vignettes of patients she’s helped.
Doctors and nurses often turn to classical music to help people recover from surgery, or manage chronic pain. The music serves as a gentle distraction, taking focus away from discomfort, without causing side effects.
There’s good science to back this up: patients who listen to calming music often need less pain relief medicine and report lower pain scores. The healing power comes not just from the notes themselves, but from the way they help the brain release endorphins.
Researchers first noticed in the early 1990s that students who listened to Mozart, performed better in exams. And a study at University of Edinburgh in 2021 found that people who listened to Mozart’s piano sonatas for just 20 minutes, felt calmer and could focus better on simple tasks. Cortisol levels (which rise when in stress) dropped by 15 percent. All just from playing classical music in the room.
Why? Doctors believe it’s because Mozart’s melodies in particular have steady pace and repeating patterns. This helps the brain to line up with natural rhythms. Your nervous system ‘syncs’ with music, making you feel less jittery, and more clear-headed.
Music Therapy for Dementia Patients
Dementia strips away memories and connections, but music often reaches through this fog, in a way that nothing else does. Many patients find the familiar tempos of classical music comforting. And some can even remember old songs, when they have forgotten all else.
A nurse at a London care home described how one resident, who had not spoken in days, quietly hummed along to an old Haydn string quartet.
How Music Thanatologists Help Dying People
Music thanatologists are trained in harp and voice to ‘send people peacefully out of this world’ with healing music, if requested. Symptoms eased include pain, restlessness, insomnia and laboured breathing. Thanatology can also ease emotions common near death – like anger, fear, sadness and grief.
Harpists can buy harp strings free from animal gut.
It’s important also to respect patients who don’t want music (many don’t). That’s why there is a campaign to ban piped music (not just in stores and supermarkets, but in hospitals, where patients literally have no escape, if they want some peace and quiet).
Edward Elgar’s (Midland) Musical Footprints
My, that’s a fine moustache!
Edward Elgar may not be a familiar name to many, but it’s likely you know some of his compositions. He wrote ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and the Pomp and Circumstance March that’s often played at Last Night of the Proms. If you think you don’t know it – you do! Take a listen.
One of the first composers to embrace recorded music, he wrote a lot of his music in Hertfordshire. Happily married to his wife (who was cut off from her family for marrying a Catholic), his granddaughter married the pioneer of the Sunday School movement.
Elgar first discovered Herefordshire as a young man. He often travelled by bicycle from his home in Worcester, soaking in the rural scenery. Locals still remember stories of Elgar sitting under the trees, jotting down themes that would appear in his music.
Edward was what we would today call an ‘English eccentric’. He named his bicycle (Mr Phoebus) and created handmade soap (a bit dangerous, due to caustic soda).
He was an avid fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers, and would cycle 40 miles from his home in the Malverns, to watch them play. He even wrote England’s first national anthem (no doubt more lyrical than ‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, football’s coming home!)
