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Scientific Method: How Music Can Be Used As Medicine

1A

NPR

News

4.4 β€’ 4.3K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 29 November 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Music has the power to evoke a wide range of emotions. It can make us feel melancholy. Or it can fill us with hope.

Music is often tangled up with memories and experiences, too. There's probably a playlist you associate with every stage of life β€” from the music that helped you through high school, to the song that reminds you of a lost loved one.

Music doesn't just sound good. It can also help us be more empathetic. It's even being used to treat medical conditions like dementia, Parkinson's, and Huntington's disease.

For this installment of the Scientific Method, we discuss how music affects the mind, why it can be a powerful tool for treatment, and the ways the songs we love bring us closer together.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This message comes from Indiana University.

0:02.7

Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges.

0:09.7

Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow today. More at IU.edu. Music has the power to evoke a wide range of emotions.

0:28.4

It could make us feel melancholy.

0:30.2

Music or it can fill us with hope. Or it can fill us with hope.

1:16.1

Music is often tangled up with memories and experiences, too.

1:20.9

There's probably a playlist you associate with every stage of life,

1:23.0

from the music that helped you through high school to the song that reminds you of a lost loved one.

1:26.1

Years ago, my dear friend, love, Ray, was passing away from AIDS.

1:34.8

And I shared music with him.

1:38.6

We shared music all the time.

1:40.6

And the very last time I saw him, I brought tapes to record.

1:47.7

And on one side of the tape, there was Grace Land from Paul Simon,

1:54.5

and the other side was Hounds of Love from Kate Bush.

1:59.0

And I recorded them for him while holding him on the couch that last time and left him there sleeping while they were playing.

2:10.0

And that's the last time I saw him.

2:11.7

And I think of him every time I hear.

2:16.9

I've always been the couch. my here.

2:23.7

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

2:26.5

Music doesn't just sound good.

2:28.6

It can also help us be more empathetic.

2:31.9

It's even being used to treat medical conditions like dementia,

...

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