I think music chages how you think. I have seen this while I am driving. When I listen to the 70’s rock music [Led Zep or the Doors etc] I tend to drive faster and a little rash. I hvae to think about the speed and control it.
When I listen to some Wenstern or Indian classical (Which very often I don’t), I have seen I drive more patiently.
I don’t know if there is any scientific reason for this, but if anyone knows that there is then please let me know.
The solace of swaras
When I think of music, I don’t recognise vulgar and garish hogwash, which generates an aggressive mindset, but classical music: Western, Hindustani or Carnatic, which mystifies, soothes the nerves and raises one to a higher level of emotion.
The Sama Veda enunciates Nada Yoga on which is based Raga Chikitsa, the curing of physical and mental ailments with different ragas sung with the classical combination of taalas and swaras. These produce electromagnetic waves at different points of the brain, restoring the physical and mental balance.
Our texts on music list different ragas for curing diseases, especially of the cardiac and respiratory system. This method is now being used by neurologists to supplement the present system of medicine. I would like to share with HT readers some of my own experiences of the magic of music.
One of my cousins who had almost lost his speech was cured by an ENT specialist who taught him to recite A-u-m in proper surtaal, continually raising the intensity of sound waves. No wonder some mystics believe that Aum was the first naad or sound uttered at the time of the creation of the universe.
On one occasion, in the 60s, though running a temperature of 102 degrees and also having some financial problem, I could not resist the temptation of accompanying my friend to a three-hour shehnai recital by Ustad Bismillah Khan for the AIR archives. Evidently, the maestro gave his best. The audience was raised above their mundane existence. When I came back I found that my temperature was normal. And I thought, “What do a few rupees this side or that matter?”
In the same series of music I attended a vocal recital by Pandit Omkar Nath Thakur which was a real feast of ecstasy and bhakti. When he rendered Meera’s bhajans the audience felt that Meera’s spirit had entered into their sub-conscious and they were intoxicated with Giridhar Gopal’s love. Next day the art critics wrote that Panditji had fever when he started the recital but he was normal when he completed it!