Constructing Musical Healing: The Wounds That Sing

In this wide-ranging exploration of music and its capacity to heal, June Boyce-Tillman sets out a concept of disease as imbalance and offers a model of healing which uses music as a means of creating rebalance. She defines person hood as encompassing a variety of ways of knowing, including the non-verbal and intuitive as well as the scientific and rational. Drawing on literature from philosophy, anthropology, psychology and music, Boyce-Tillman looks at musical traditions and notions of healing in different societies. Her work includes a number of case studies in various cultures - spirit possession cults in Africa, the Javanese Court Bedhaya Dance tradition, shamans among American Indian Tribes, and Tantric beliefs - and an exploration of contemporary New Age practice. The use of music in psychiatric medicine and in education is also studied, as Boyce-Tillman draws together a theory of what actually occurs during music therapy.