Arts for Health – Music

 If you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably know, that the main theme of my effort here is to write about intersection of music, health, and wellbeing. I strongly believe that music, especially the active music-making, or musicking, has a lot of still barely understood potential to improve our lives. Although the impact of music on our world has been understood for thousands of years, as I have written about in my previous blogs, there has not been a lot of scientifical research to confirm that. Therefore I was very happy when I discovered a whole series of books on this topic, written by specialists scientists, and not only musicians trying to prove their point (and existence). 

Emerald Publishing put together a series under the umbrella of “Arts for Health”. Its aim is “to provide key information on how different arts and humanities practices can support, or even transform, health and wellbeing”, as described by the series editor Professor Paul Crawford from the University of Nottingham, UK.  These tiny easy-to-read books are aimed at general readers along with interested arts practitioners, health and social care providers and clinicans, educators in arts, health and social care and organizations, carers and individuals engaged in public health or generating helthier environment. Topics covered include film, theatre, singing, reading, drawing, photography, storytelling, painting, magic, gaming, and history. 

The one that caught my interest is, obviously, Music. Written by Eugene Beresin, psychiatrist and the executive director of The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at the Massachusetts General Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School, in the USA. 

A brief summary of the book could be described as – Why music can improve wellbeing, who could benefit, different ways to engage with music, how professionals can use it, challenges for the engagement and how to overcome them. 

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