Why not call the transformative powers of music the Bach Effect, the Beethoven Effect, or the Beatles Effect? Does Mozart’s music have unique properties, eliciting universal responses that only now are yielding to measurement?
Mozart doesn’t weave a dazzling tapestry like that of the great mathematical genius Bach. He doesn’t raise tidal waves of emotions like the epically tortured Beethoven. He doesn’t soothe the body like a good folk musician or slam it into motion like a rock star.
However, he is at once deeply mysterious and accessible. His wit, charm, and simplicity allow us to locate a deeper wisdom in ourselves. Tomatis asserts that Mozart’s “music has a liberating, healing power which exceeds by far what we observe in his predecessors, …his contemporaries, or his successors”.
To many listeners, Mozart’s music seems to impart balance. If it indeed imparts energetic balance – and we do know that it, like all sound, changes the energy of our bodies in specific ways – then Mozart’s music is doing what many systems of healing strive to do.
Whether through acupuncture, herbal medicines, dietary planning, or assorted other measures, many systems of healthcare seek to help the patient find energetic balance. Mozart’s music may be energy-balancing extraordinaire. It’s not too fast, or too slow. Somehow it’s “just right”.
The rhythms of music, we know, affect the rhythms of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates a vast biological landscape within our bodies. We can understand, therefore, how important the simplicity and clarity of Mozart’s music may be to our emotional and physical bodies.
One can liken the effects of different music to the effects of different foods, which also have the power to alter energy patterns and change our physiology, for both good and bad.
A spicy Chinese meal, or a sweet dessert, each will affect us – temperamentally and physically – much differently than a fruit salad. With foods, a steady diet of the most delicious and sensuous is not necessarily the best for us. Sometimes it’s the simple tastes that serve us best on a regular basis.
So it may be with music. We are likely fed well by a variety of music, but some forms are more likely to bring order and stability to our emotions. Tomatis is convinced that Mozart’s music is exceptional at bringing harmony to body and mind.
Gerard Depardieu, whose speech difficulties were healed by listening to Mozart, actually listened to Mozart that had been “filtered”. It had certain frequencies taken out and others amplified according to Depardieu’s specific needs.
Some people do not hear certain frequencies as well as they should and they end up with “deficiencies” in these frequencies. By “feeding” the patient these frequencies, the deficiencies are corrected.
Tomatis uses Mozart because it filters better than any other kind of music. You could liken the filtered frequencies to “sonic vitamins”, or “sound nutrients”. They were the specific frequencies, or vibrational nutrition, that Depardieu required.
Tomatis has found that Mozart, better than any other kind of music, is a nutritionally balanced musical meal and it is easier to filter out needed frequencies from his compositions than from other composers.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the child prodigy who wrote operas, symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, and music for organ, clarinet, and other instruments by the time he was 12 years old, may have left the world a library of the most delicious healing sounds yet discovered.