Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music As Medicine [Paperback]

Kay Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

Sound has the capacity to affect us on all levels - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. This work ties together a number of traditions, both scientific and metaphysical, to explore the beneficient force of music. Drawing upon research into mathematics, chemistry, physics and ancient cultures, Kay Gardner explaines the healing effects of different instruments, keys and musical forms. She explains which keys stimulate specific areas of the body that govern the immune system, excite the passions, or soothe the soul. She also interweaves traditions as far-flung as Native American beliefs and the Chinese meridian system, the properties of Chakras (from the Sanskrit word meaning "wheel") and their correspondences with Western nervous and endocrine systems.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Kay Gardner is a teacher, performer and composer of harmonious blends of voice and instrument. With the belief that music is healing, she asks all to strive for good health and wellness through the melodies that envelope us. Kay feels that we can expand and intensify our spirituality and attunement by exploring and developing our musicality and sense of rhythm. Touting musicians as the healers of all time, Sounding the Inner Landscape illustrates how spiritual growth heightens musical sense, and conversely, how musical (sonoral) development elevates your spiritual strength. It prescribes feeling the tones and sounds as they interact with and affect your emotional being, and opening yourself up to experience a rejuvenation. The aura of this book wraps you in a symphony of enlightening images. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by SH --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The most healing instrument of all is your own voice. -C.W. Child

In relating to other people in a harmonious way, tone of voice is all-important, for it is this tone which conveys feelings. The voice of command is different from the voice of servitude; the voice of arrogance is different from the voice of beneficence; the voice of gentle caring is different from the voice of cruelty....It is very important to be aware of your tone of voice at all times so that it may encourage harmony....Your own inner harmony, that between body and soul, is determined by how you treat your body in relationship to your soul. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: Element Books Ltd (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852309733
• ISBN-13: 978-1852309732
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction to sound healing, but not music therapy., September 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music As Medicine (Paperback)

This book is a readable introduction to the world of "sound healing" (as opposed to the music therapy discipline). Gardner discusses practices like toning, chanting, mantras, and the various ways tones, rhythms and timbres may interact with one's body in order to produce healing effects. She takes examples from different cultures and different time periods; however, not all of her evidence has a strong background, and some of her ideas appear to not be supported by evidence at all. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the world of sound healing, but if you are more interested in therapies that can be supported by emperical evidence, you'll want to bypass this one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Sound"tastic, February 23, 2010

By 

MsMickey "Sound Therapist" (Nashville) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music As Medicine (Paperback)

Solid information about the power of sound and frequencies and their physiological impact. It is too bad that the medical field did not catch on when the book was printed, the medical professional would be a lot further along in treating the cause instead of the symptom! Highly recommend the book :-)

Mickey

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A FAMOUS MUSICIAN PUTS HER IDEAS INTO WRITING, June 23, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sounding the Inner Landscape: Music As Medicine (Paperback)

Kay Gardner (1941-2002) was a musician, composer, author, and musical producer involved in using music for creative and healing purposes. Her compositions include works for chamber orchestra, symphony orchestra, choir, flute, voice and piano. She was very active in promoting the work of contemporary female musicians and composers. Her musical compositions include Ocean Moon, Rainbow Path, Drone Zone, etc. She has also recorded a series of lectures called Music as Medicine: The Art & Science of Healing With Sound .

She wrote in the Preface to this 1990 book, "After more than fifteen years of teaching experiential workshops on the healing properties of music... I felt it was time to put the information into words on a page... I write this book as a composer and as a theorist who is immensely interested in the curative properties and healing effects of music... What I hope to offer the reader is an exploration into what music is as a healing force, and what music can be when its healing elements are understood and applied by composers, healers, and therapists."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"In 1987 seers were predicting that after a few years of chaos, militarism would cease, world political structures would change drastically, and by 2012 a new post-industrial peace mobilization would bring the full attainment of human potential. With 1989's dismantling of the Berlin Wall, rising of the Chinese students, changes in South Africa's apartheid policies, and political restructuring of Eastern Europe, it appears that the prophets and seers were correct." (Pg. 61)
"I believe that music written for instruments tuned in the old tunings ("just tuning") ... is more healing than the music written for instruments tuned in equal temperament." (Pg. 113)
"I believe that by the year 2012, as prophesied by the Mayans and celebrated during the Harmonic Convergence of 1987 ... the new age will be in full swing." (Pg. 207)