American Music Therapy Association
2011 Conference Approved Abstract

Five Notes Therapy - A Schema for Integrating the Music Therapy & Music Composition Departments

At the end of the Music, Science & Medicine conference held by the NY Academy of Science in the spring of 2011 a medical doctor made comments and posed a challenge to the music therapy community that this paper will attempt to answer.

He understood music therapy as a kind of psychoanalysis where music is used in addition to dialogue in order to bring about a therapeutic result. He explained how pharmaceuticals worked and that once a prescription has been determined his nurse or medical assistant or even the patient could then administer the prescription with the expectation that the medical condition would dissipate. He wanted to know why the concept of musical prescriptions was not being addressed by the music therapy community.

By the judicious use of musical interventions bio-physical and emotional results have indeed been documented and the good doctor did acknowledge these facts. But he wants more. It is only through the merging of a medical model with that of a musical model that an inventory of musical prescriptions can be birthed.

Like a hand in glove the medical concepts in Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) and Music Theory and Composition merge successfully. The five notes of the Chinese pentatonic scale is the new life that spawns an incredible new art & science.

Once the five notes are understood as the non-harmonic tones, movement of energy can commence. While tonal music may be useful for infants (both pre and post natal to about 6 months) it basically reinforces emerging energetic systems as they develop. As the environment for the newborn transitions from the womb to modern society a stronger musical medicine needs be administered.

A new science calls forth for a new vocabulary and the names of these five notes carry with it a long and dependable lineage. As an example; the five non-harmonic tones for the Gb key are C, D, E, G & A. C is the Earth tone. D is the Metal tone. E is the Wood tone. G is the Fire tone. And A is the Water tone. So, when one of these tones is used in a musical prescription then that “element” is strengthened. But what if two non-harmonic tones are needed?

The five tones or elements are relational and can be understood in terms of a creation cycle and control cycle. When these relationships are out of balance they need to be harmonized. There are five “creation” relationships. Water creates Wood. Wood creates Fire. Fire creates Earth. Earth creates Metal. And Metal creates Water. The five “control” relationships are: Water controls Fire, Wood controls Earth, Fire controls Metal, Earth controls Water, and Metal controls Wood.

The five elements also designate modes. The mode is the context for the non-harmonic tones. The optimum sequence is that of the creation cycle. Translating the Greek names to our medical model the sequence is as follows: Water (Aeolian), Wood (Phrygian), Fire (Mixolydian), Earth (Ionian) and Metal (Dorian).

Another medical concept is that of the horary cycle. This cycle defines the flow of energy through the twelve major organ systems in a 24 hour period.  These organs also have element designations that are either yin or yang.  Yin and yang is the first principle of CCM and are complementary. For example yin is passive while yang is active. Musically 3/4 rhythm is considered yin while 4/4 time is yang.

Energy flows through the elements sequentially: Fire, Water, Fire, Wood, Metal and Earth. Fire is mentioned twice which necessitates modulating from a pentatonic scale to a descending hexatonic: B, A, G, E, D, and C. The other six organs are therefore: F, Eb, Db, Bb, Ab & Gb. All 12 keys are accounted for but 12 such configurations are possible. The voice tone can determine which of the 12 configurations a patient has, and the “key to organ system” chart is correlated. The six yin organ systems are: heart, kidney, pericardium, liver, lung and spleen.  The six yang organ systems are small intestine, urinary bladder, triple heater, gall bladder, large intestine and stomach.

Besides the 2 tonal music templates (yin & yang in 12 keys = 24 prescriptions) there are 15 element templates bifurcated by yin and yang time signatures in 12 keys; 15 X 2 X 12 = 360 musical prescriptions. In total, 32 compositions are expanded to 384 prescriptions through transposition and file manipulation. For each key there are 32 prescriptions for a health care practitioner to administer:

For some reason the American Music Therapy Association has mistakenly published on their website the following text as the abstract as submitted by me, located here.

The purpose of this study was to determine the immediate effects of recreational music therapy interventions on psychiatric inpatients’ mood utilizing an inclusive research design. Participants (N = 41) were acute psychiatric inpatients. Using the Quick Mood Scale (Woodruffe-Peacock, Turnbull, Johnson, & Elahi, 1998), the researchers compared pre- and posttest measures in participants' moods after 10 different types of recreational music therapy interventions. Each of the 10 interventions was tested three times. Results indicated positive and significant changes in four of the six mood factors after a single recreational music therapy session: (1) wide awake/drowsy, (2) relaxed/anxious, (3) cheerful/depressed, and (4) friendly/aggressive. There were no significant between-intervention differences concerning mood. From the results of this study, it seems that recreational music therapy interventions can have an immediate positive impact on acute psychiatric inpatients’ moods. Limitations and implications for clinical practice are provided. Additional research is warranted to better test and identify successful protocols that aid psychiatric patients in generalizing skills learned in treatment to the community.

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