Therapeutic Value of Music, Including the Philosophy of Music

The therapeutic power of music has been recognized since ancient times as a means of nourishing the inner life of man and correcting the inharmonious rhythms of the body. This pamphlet traces the origins of music therapy with Pythagorean and Orphic mysticism. Pythagoras of Samos is usually accredited with the discovery of the diatonic scale and the correct measurement of music intervals. He was also the first to conceive of the universe as a vast musical instrument, and it has been recorded of him that he was the first mortal to hear the 'music of the spheres.' He advanced the theory that all things -- animate and inanimate -- were constructed upon harmonic patterns and that it was possible to translate these patterns into basic chords.