Become part of the growing community of people dedicated to spreading the universal language of music, and the healing power of music. Through our non-profit campaign help us distribute and deliver free music and MP3 players to thousands of individuals who would not otherwise have access to this music.  

Who We Are

Music Has Healing Power is a newly formed verified California, USA non-profit foundation and the brainchild of Cinema Show Music, www.cinemashowmusic.com an existing 38-year old award winning and multi Grammy winning music and sound production company. Our mission is to bring healing, empowerment and awareness through music listening, to millions of individuals throughout the global community facilitated by the healing power of music.  Music Has Healing Power intends to make music accessible to individuals who otherwise would not have access to this music. www.MusicHasHealingPower.org

The Campaign

Not all people in the global community have ready access to music and its availability. Millions of people who are afflicted with physical or mental illness may not have access to music, and to the benefits that listening to one’s favorite music can bring.  In its simplest form music can bring the healing power to anyone that listens.

We all know that music is in our lives every day and in every way. Music is not only on the radio, but on television, in motion pictures, as soundtrack in the electronic games we play, broadcast and download music available in many forms.

Music has been around since the very beginnings of time, from ancient tribal drums and sounds through development of technology over decades to modern times. 

Music and it’s rhythmic motions can be as simple as anyone tapping their foot to a song or sound or humming a tune in our heads that brings back memories. Music is and has been alive and well. Music drives our lives and has great effect on all of us in one-way or another. It has been scientifically established  that music does indeed have healing power. Music may well be considered the universal language. 

The Campaign Plan

The mission of Music Has Healing Power foundation is to bring healing, empowerment and awareness throughout the global community by delivering free music through distribution of individual MP3 players to needing recipients. These recipients can be an individual family member, a known friend or a group of people in a gathered situation such as a hospital, hospice or other community facilities. We will reach people who are in need and who have been inflicted with illness or disease, disability, as well as, people who have the inability to afford music & an MP3 player to use for the healing power of music.

How the Campaign Plan will work

Through our Indiegogo campaign and the efforts of individual backer’s donations, we will reach out to the global community asking for individual stories of people or of an individual person in need of our free music and MP3 player(s). 

Your story is important!  Please click here and provide your story and Music Has Healing Power will respond back to your submitted request: 

You will be asked to tell us why the person(s) you are requesting music and MP3 player(s) for would benefit from receiving our foundation’s music and MP3 player(s) and how this music would impact this person or people.

• Any links, websites, articles you can provide us with will be helpful.
• Your Story should contain as much information about the person or people as is needed to explain their situation.
• Specific genre of music can be requested based on each person’s preference in music. Genres or styles of music include:
• Pop, Rock, Dance, R&B, Hip-Hop, Country, Classical, Jazz, Gospel, World/New Age, Latin, Asian, Reggae, African, Middle Eastern, Big Band and more.
• Each person’s favorite genre of music is best for their own listening pleasure. We will use our best resources to provide the specific requested genres of music. Requested music will come from Music Has Healing Power’s associated company, Cinema Show Music, a multi award winning, multi Grammy winning music and sound production studio in southern California, USA. The music we will deliver will be original license free music composed, produced & recorded by top international music professionals.

The success of this campaign & our non-profit foundation music recipients depends on all of your donations, including the perks.  Thank you for being a part of this global endeavor. 

What will the money be used for as donated through Indiegogo

1.  Purchase of new MP3 players for music giveaway.

2.  Full music Compositions/Production expenses for free music giveaway.

3.  Administrative costs (shipping, postage, packaging, etc) involved with music & MP3 player(s) shipments.

4.  New primary staff salaries. Based on success of campaign and total response for music requests. (Volunteers will make up much of the staff)

Our Projected Overview Budget

1.  Purchase of new MP3 players equipment for music giveaway = $225,000. 37.5% of campaign goal.

2.  Full music Compositions/Production expenses for free music giveaway = $191,000. 31.8% of campaign goal.

3.  Administration costs: (shipping, packaging, postage, etc) = $61,000. 10.2% of campaign goal.

4.  New primary staff salaries = $123,000. Based on success of campaign and total response for music requests. 20.5% of campaign goal.

                                                                FAQ

  Music Has Healing Power is a verified California, USA non-profit corporation

  IRS  EIN number 81-1539684

Cinema Show Music Can Be Heard On:  (Many more available) 

The Story

The healing power of music has been referenced for centuries. Throughout history the idea of music as a healing modality was well founded in Chinese, Egyptian and Greek history, suggesting music is comforting, soothing and restorative for the soul.

Contemporary research shows that music therapy benefits patients with stress, psychological and physical problems. This brings about a sense of well being which helps manage illnesses of all kinds.  Renowned Dr. Oliver Sachs, neurologist, claims “music is the pathway in all patients”.  

http://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-sacks/musicophilia/  

A recent study in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, published in the UK, concluded that people with depression who listened to music at least one hour each day reported a reduction of symptoms of up to 25%. Another study by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in the US found that music helps ease unrelenting, non-malignant pain in patients. Music has also been found effective in managing pain caused by cancerous conditions in the body and procedural pain such as chemotherapy.

Dr. Diana Vetter, a lead surgery researcher at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, said “Informing our patients before scheduled surgeries of the positive effect of music on their wellbeing could be a low cost intervention that may enhance wellbeing and possibly faster recovery”.

To assess the impact of music on surgical outcomes, Vetter and colleagues analyzed data from 47 studies, including 26 that looked at the effect of music before procedures, 25 looking at music in the operating room, and 25 looking at music during recovery. Overall, music was linked to about 31 percent less pain, 29 percent lower odds of using pain medication, and 34 percent less anxiety. In addition, music was tied to 40 percent lower blood pressure and 27 percent lower heart rate.

"There now seems to be enough evidence to support the formal adaptation of music interventions in clinical guidelines." said Marianne van der Heijden, a researcher at Erasmus Medical Center - Sophia Children's Hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Music interventions shouldn't be difficult to provide at all and could be realized by creating awareness among hospital staff, patients and their family members about the positive effects of music," van der Heijden added. http://news.yahoo.com/music-not-just-good-soul-good-body-180422525.html

Watch Video Link Henry’s Story - Visualize the healing power of music – Truly Amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWn4JB2YLU

The Story Continued

Music Therapy is an established health profession in which music is used to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. Music therapy also provides avenues for communication that can be helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves in words. Research in music therapy supports its effectiveness in many areas such as: overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement, increasing people's motivation to become engaged in their treatment, providing emotional support for clients and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings. 

Examples of therapeutic music which are noteworthy, from American Music Therapy Association, (AMTA)

- A person with Alzheimer’s listening to an MP3 player with headphones of his/her favorite songs.

- A piano player in the lobby of a hospital

- Nurses playing background music for patients

- Arts educators

- A high school student playing guitar in a nursing home

- A choir singing on the pediatric floor of a hospital

Top 12 brain-based reasons why music works in therapy, by Karen Merzenich, writer-editor Brain HQ from Science Post, May 10, 2013

1.  Music is a core function in our brain. Our brain is primed early on to respond to and process music. Research has shown that day-old infants are able to detect differences in rhythmic patterns.Mothers across cultures and throughout time have used lullabies and rhythmic rocking to calm crying babies. From an evolutionary standpoint, music precedes language. We don’t yet know why, but our brains are wired to respond to music.

2.  Our bodies entrain to rhythm. Have you ever walked down the street, humming a song in your head, and noticed that your walking to the beat? That’s called entrainment. Our motor systems naturally entrain, or match, to a rhythmic beat. When a musical input enters our central nervous system via the auditory nerve, most of the input goes to the brain for processing. But some of it heads straight to motor nerves in our spinal cord. This allows our muscles to move to the rhythm without our having to think about it or “try.” It’s how we dance to music, tap our foot to a rhythm, and walk in time to a beat. This is also why music therapists can help a person who’s had a stroke re-learn how to walk and develop strength and endurance in their upper bodies.

3.  We have physiologic responses to music. Every time your breathing quickens, your heart-rate increases, or you feel a shiver down your spine, that’s your body responding physiologically to music. Qualified music therapists can use this to help stimulate a person in a coma or use music to effectively help someone relax.

4.  Children (even infants) respond readily to music. Any parent knows that it’s natural for a child to begin dancing and singing at an early age. My kids both started rocking to music before they turned one. And have you seen the YouTube video of the baby dancing to Beyonce? Children learn through music, art, and play, so it’s important (even necessary) to use those mediums when working with children in therapy.

5.  Music taps into our emotions. Have you ever listened to a piece of music and smiled? Or felt sad? Whether from the music itself, or from our associations with the music, music taps into our emotional systems. Many people use this in a “therapeutic” way, listening to certain music that makes them feel a certain way. The ability for music to easily access our emotions is very beneficial for music therapists.

6.  Music helps improve our attention skills. I was once working with a 4-year-old in the hospital. Her 10-month-old twin sisters were visiting, playing with Grandma on the bed. As soon as I started singing to the older sister, the twins stopped playing and stared at me, for a full 3 minutes. Even from an early age, music can grab and hold our attention. This allows music therapists to target attention and impulse control goals, both basic skills we need to function and succeed.

7.  Music uses shared neural circuits as speech. This is almost a no-brainer (no pun intended), but listening to or singing music with lyrics uses shared neural circuits as listening to and expressing speech. Music therapists can use this ability to help a child learn to communicate or help someone who’s had a stroke re-learn how to talk again.

8.  Music enhances learning. Do you remember how you learned your ABCs? Through a song! The inherent structure and emotional pull of music makes it an easy tool for teaching concepts, ideas, and information. Music is an effective mnemonic device and can “tag” information, not only making it easy to learn, but also easy to later recall.

9.  Music taps into our memories. Have you ever been driving, heard a song on the radio, then immediately been taken to a certain place, a specific time in your life, or a particular person? Music is second only to smell for its ability to stimulate our memory in a very powerful way. Music therapists who work with older adults with dementia have countless stories of how music stimulates their clients to reminisce about their life.

10.  Music is a social experience. Our ancestors bonded and passed on their stories and knowledge through song, stories, and dance. Even today, many of our music experiences are shared with a group, whether playing in band or an elementary music class, listening to jazz at a restaurant, or singing in church choir. Music makes it easy for music therapists to structure and facilitate a group process.

11.  Music is predictable, structured, and organized–and our brain likes it! Music often has a predictable steady beat, organized phrases, and a structured form. If you think of most country/folk/pop/rock songs you know, they’re often organized with a verse-chorus structure. They’re organized in a way that we like and enjoy listening to over and over again. Even sound waves that make up a single tone or an entire chord are organized in mathematical ratios–and our brains really like this predictability and structure.

12.  Music is non-invasive, safe and motivating. We can’t forget that most people really enjoy music. This is not the most important reason why music works in therapy, but it’s the icing on the cake.

The Evidence On Music Therapy Continued, from Evidence – Based Living, Cornell University

We’ve all heard the idiom, “Music is good for the soul.” But, according to the evidence, it’s good for your health as well.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that children admitted to the emergency department who listened to music during routine procedures showed less distress and reported lower pain scores than those who didn’t listen to music.

The study included a total of 42 children aged 3 to 11 years who had an IV line placed. Half of them were randomly selected to listen to music selected by a music therapist during the procedure. Health care providers reported that it was easier to insert the IV line in children who were listening to the music and health providers also reported more satisfaction with the placement compared to those who did not listen to music.

Those are some convincing results, but still only a single study. So we went looking for systematic reviews on the impact of music in medical settings. It turns out, there is plenty more evidence showing the positive effects of music on health.  Among them:

• A 2011 review published in the Cochrane libraries found music therapy and music medicine interventions can help cancer patients. The review found some positive effects of music on anxiety, pain, mood, quality of life, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.
• Another Cochrane review published in 2009 looked for studies measuring whether music therapy is useful in treating depression. The reviewers only found five studies appropriate for the review. Four of them concluded that patients exposed to music therapy had a greater reduction in symptoms compared to those who didn’t listen to music.
• And a third review published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing in 2002 looked at the impact of music therapy on patients admitted to the hospital. Researchers reviewed 19 studies, and found music therapy improved patients anxiety levels in the hospital. Researchers recommended music therapy as an effective way to calm patients.

The bottom line: There is plenty of evidence to show that music therapy used in health care settings  can help calm patients. And given there are no side effects associated to music listening, it’s certainly a treatment worth trying.

Benefits Of Music In Schools

Nearly everyone enjoys music, whether by listening to it, singing, or playing an instrument. But despite this almost universal interest, many schools are having to do away with their music education programs. This is a mistake, with schools losing not only an enjoyable subject, but a subject that can enrich students’ lives and education. Read on to learn why music education is so important, and how it offers benefits even beyond itself.

1. Musical training helps develop language and reasoning: Students who have early musical training will develop the areas of the brain related to language and reasoning. The left side of the brain is better developed with music, and songs can help imprint information on young minds.

2. A mastery of memorization: Even when performing with sheet music, student musicians are constantly using their memory to perform. The skill of memorization can serve students well in education and beyond.

3. Students learn to improve their work: Learning music promotes craftsmanship, and students learn to want to create good work instead of mediocre work. This desire can be applied to all subjects of study.

4. Increased coordination: Students who practice with musical instruments can improve their hand-eye coordination. Just like playing sports, children can develop motor skills when playing music.

5. A sense of achievement: Learning to play pieces of music on a new instrument can be a challenging, but achievable goal. Students who master even the smallest goal in music will be able to feel proud of their achievement.

6. Kids stay engaged in school: An enjoyable subject like music can keep kids interested and engaged in school. Student musicians are likely to stay in school to achieve in other subjects.

7. Success in society: Music is the fabric of our society, and music can shape abilities and character. Students in band or orchestra are less likely to abuse substances over their lifetime. Musical education can greatly contribute to children’s intellectual development as well.

8. Emotional development: Students of music can be more emotionally developed, with empathy towards other cultures They also tend to have higher self esteem and are better at coping with anxiety.

9. Students learn pattern recognition: Children can develop their math and pattern-recognition skills with the help of musical education. Playing music offers repetition in a fun format.

10. Better SAT scores: Students who have experience with music performance or appreciation score higher on the SAT. One report indicates 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math for students in music appreciation courses.

11. Fine-tuned auditory skills: Musicians can better detect meaningful, information-bearing elements in sounds, like the emotional meaning in a baby’s cry. Students who practice music can have better auditory attention, and pick out predictable patterns from surrounding noise.

12. Music builds imagination and intellectual curiosity: Introducing music in the early childhood years can help foster a positive attitude toward learning and curiosity. Artistic education develops the whole brain and develops a child’s imagination.

13. Music can be relaxing: Students can fight stress by learning to play music. Soothing music is especially helpful in helping kids relax.

14. Musical instruments can teach discipline: Kids who learn to play an instrument can learn a valuable lesson in discipline. They will have to set time aside to practice and rise to the challenge of learning with discipline to master playing their instrument.

15. Preparation for the creative economy: Investing in creative education can prepare students for the 21st century workforce. The new economy has created more artistic careers, and these jobs may grow faster than others in the future.

16. Development in creative thinking: Kids who study the arts can learn to think creatively. This kind of education can help them solve problems by thinking outside the box and realizing that there may be more than one right answer.

17. Music can develop spatial intelligence: Students who study music can improve the development of spatial intelligence, which allows them to perceive the world accurately and form mental pictures. Spatial intelligence is helpful for advanced mathematics and more.

18. Kids can learn teamwork: Many musical education programs require teamwork as part of a band or orchestra. In these groups, students will learn how to work together and build camaraderie.

19. Responsible risk-taking: Performing a musical piece can bring fear and anxiety. Doing so teaches kids how to take risks and deal with fear, which will help them become successful and reach their potential.

20. Better self-confidence: With encouragement from teachers and parents, students playing a musical instrument can build pride and confidence. Musical education is also likely to develop better communication for students.

~ ~ ~

Notable Music Quotes:

Mitchell Gaynor, M.D., Sounds of Healing

"You can look at disease as a form of disharmony. And there's no organ system in the body that's not affected by sound and music and vibration. "

 Oliver Sachs, M.D.

"I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders -- Parkinson's and Alzheimer's -- because of its unique capacity to organize or reorganize cerebral function when it has been damaged."

Dr. Ira Altschuler (of the Eloise State Hospital) (1942)

"Eventually , musical therapists will compose prescriptions after the manner of a pharmacist...."

Corinne Heline (1882-1975)

"The magic of "Musical Medicine" will come into its own. The application of such healing potencies will not be limited just to man's body and mind. It will be an agency for building and healing his soul as well. "

Aristotle (322-384 BC)

"Emotions of any kind can be evoked by melody and rhythm; therefore music has the power to form character. "

Robert Assagioli M.D.(1888-1974) Founder of Transpersonal Psychology

"We trust that the magic of sound, will contribute an ever greater measure to the relief of human suffering." 

Beethoven (1770-1827)

"Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit."

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