Music as Therapy in Traditional Chinese Medicine

During this period of revelry of all things Chinese, let’s delve into the history of music in Ancient China.

In Ancient China, musical instruments such a pottery ocarinas and stone chimes were a discovery that dates as far back as 1500 BC. By mid 3^rd century BC, the classification of musical instruments by the type of material from which they were made strongly implies that music was already widely performed then. In the 6^th century BC, Chinese philosopher Confucius believed music was not for people’s entertainments, but to be used to influence. Hence the sorting of music into four functional categories; music for chanting, worship, battles and banquets.

Then 2300 years ago, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine, Ancient China’s first recorded medical text, documented the use of music as therapy. Physicians in Ancient China had discovered a way of incorporating the energising, empowering, rejuvenating and relaxing therapeutic powers of music into the healing process.

In her article, Dr. Zhiping Chen, a practitioner of traditional Chinese and alternative medicine and acupuncture in Seattle, Washington, explains that the foundation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is the Five-Elements Theory which postulates that wood, fire, water, earth and metal are the five basic elements of the material world. Each element corresponds to many other aspects such as the internal organs, colour, season of the year, or music notes. TCM uses the correlation between the internal organs (heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and spleen) and the five-element correspondences, such as the Chinese pentatonic, five-tone music system (Kung, Shang, Chiao, Chih and Yue) to achieve various healing purposes.

Here’s a tabulated summary of the correlation, which is also explained in this study of the Fundamentals and Application of the Five Phases Music Therapy (FPMT) in Chinese Medicine:

Elements	Earth	Metal	Wood	Fire	Water
Tone (Chinese)	宫 Gong (do)	商 Shang (ri)	徵 Zhi (so)	角 Jue (mi)	羽 Yu (la)
Tone (Western)	C	D	E	G	A
Seasons	Change of seasons	Autumn	Spring	Summer	Winter
Emotions	Anxiety	Grief	Anger	Over-excitement	Fear
Attributes	Tolerant and kind	Righteous and friendly	Kindhearted	Generous	Mentally balanced and gentle
Affects	Spleen	Lungs yin	Liver qi	Heart	Kidneys
Effects	Strengthens spleen	Protects and nourishes lungs yin	Relieves depression	Nourish the heart and invigorate blood flow	Nourish kidney yin, protect kidney essence and reduce lung fire

 

There were three clinical studies done in China which tested the healing power of the classical Chinese Five-Element music. One study was on nursing students with reported depression. Another study was on elderly patients with seasonal affective disorder. The last study was to evaluate the effects of the Five-Element music on advanced cancer patients’ quality of life. The results of all three studies showed positive responses to the use of the Five-Element music as therapy for medical issues.

Music can increase metabolism, open thought processes, and regulate the heart. Everyone’s make up is different; one person’s internal organs differ from the next person’s, so the five tones in Five-Element music therapy touches people in different ways.
Remember, as with other general rules, “No matter which emotions the music expresses, taken to the extreme, it can harm the body and the flow of qi energy”, reminds Dr. Chen.

 

I hope this has been an interesting read for you!

From all of us at Bloom School of Music & Arts,
we wish everyone,

Happy Lunar New Year!

🍊🍊