Featured Book: Healing Songs

Author: Ted Gioia

Publisher: Duke University Press

Year Published: 2006

Type: Non-Fiction

Format / Pages: / 244 pages

Review:

Scholarly and Spiritual New Book From Noted Jazz Writer

Ted Gioia is an independent scholar widely known as the author of best-seller The History of Jazz. A gifted pianist and composer, Gioia is a co-founder of Stanford University's program in Jazz Studies. His recorded discography includes End of the Open Road and Tango Cool.

Healing Songs provides a penetrating look at therapeutic music.  Gioia offers a close look at a multitude of topics, including practical uses of music for curative purposes. He does a great job of revealing for the reader how music comes into everyday life and transforms the experiences of everyday life.   He reinforces his thesis with examples from ancient times to the present.

There is much to share in this arena of study, and Gioia has the literary gifts and skills to do so successfully.  His discussion and analysis of therapeutic music from Native American sonic healing ceremonies, drumming circles, cymatics, the Tomatis method, and breathing techniques are extremely interesting.

In order to cover suchdiverse material, Gioia wisely divides his topics into chapters: the rhythm within, the incantation, Native American healing songs, the Shaman, Orpheus the Shaman, the harmony of the Spheres, music and the medical practitioner, music therapy, from singing bowls to sonic birth, and a fascinating chapter on do healing songs work.  He also includes end notes, recommended listening, a bibliography and an index.

The chapter on the Shaman is particularly insightful.  Those interested in the harmony of the Spheres and how it plays out in drum rhythms will find that chapter filled with insights.

Healing Songs is the type of book which will certainly have a wide reading appeal among those who enjoy jazz, music, sonic techniques, and wish to know about music as a tool for healing.  It is well-written, concise, and enjoyable. It will undoubtedly find a welcome spot on your bookshelf, frequently revisited in order to savor its contents. 

Healing Songs takes readers on a transcendent journey. Educational and enjoyable. Highly recommended. 

Additional Information: Check it out @ Amazon.com

ISBN: 0822337029

Reviewed by: Lee Prosser

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