Amherst, NY: Prometheus. 303 pp. $25.95 hardcover.

From ancient times, and across all cultures, music has been used for emotional expression, aesthetic enjoyment, entertainment, communication, religious purposes, celebrations, grieving rituals, enforcing conformity to social norms, and social protest, and to contribute to the continuity, stability, and identity of cultures. Indeed, that music has pervasive influence in our lives is undeniable. However, there are some who would have us believe that their particular brand of music is the panacea to all ills (including such startling claims as the amelioration of the effects of AIDS, and the alteration of addictive behavior through subliminal messages), can aid plant growth, and can rid fields of harmful insects better than pesticides. These people are known as New Age music healers.

Many have mistakenly equated the professional discipline of music therapy with the practice of New Age music healers. Music therapy, established as a profession in the U.S. in 1950, has been defined by Kenneth E. Bruscia in Defining Music Therapy (2nd ed., Barcelona Publishers, 1998) as "a systematic process of intervention wherein the therapist helps the client to promote health, using music experiences and the relationships that develop through them, as dynamic forces of change" (my emphasis). Important in this definition is the relationship between the client and the therapist, and that a wide variety of musical experiences may be used in order to effect change. Music therapist Lisa Summer, assisted by husband and acoustics expert Joseph Summer, feeling the need to clearly differentiate music therapy and New Age music healing, has provided a challenging and systematic investigation of music healing theory and practice in Music: The New Age Elixer.

Summer offers a comprehensive critique of the unsubstantiated Claims of New Age music healers, ironically through an "eight fold path." In the first step, "Preface: Right Alertness," Summer openly states her intent. The second step, "Praxis: Right Speech," provides a historical background of the New Age music healing movement in America within the larger context of New Age philosophy. Here Summer shows how the foundations of the New Age movement are based on philosophical misappropriations of Eastern spiritual movements, mysticism, and vastly outdated and disproved scientific claims (e.g., the appropriation by New Agers of Pythagoras's "Music of the spheres," based on ancient astronomical theories).

In the third step, "Afflatus: Right Purpose," Summer finds that many New Age music healers deny that they compose their music in the "artificial" way that most composers do, rather claiming that they are "servants of higher powers, of angels, Vedas, higher masters, and ethereal beings who must express themselves through mortal vessels" (44). Such contentions supposedly add weight to their claims about the healing power of their music. Many New Age music healers claim that by simply listening to their tapes, consumers will be cured of their ills. Summer insightfully contends that not all people hear a piece of music in the same way, thus calling into question that a music healer can create an effective musical panacea for all listeners. We would not expect a doctor to cure a crowd of people by "entering a hall and administering a universal panacea" (54).

In the fourth step, "Systems: Right Concentration," Summer criticizes the reductionistic theories of New Age music healers. She states that although New Age music healers espouse the superiority of Eastern musical traditions in their appropriateness for healing, all are using European-devised scale systems in their compositions and in their theories of chakra-pitch correspondences. Furthermore, many claim congruencies between colors, musical pitches, chakras, zodiac signs, and celestial bodies. Finding no consistency among New Age music healers in their chakra-pitch correspondences, or any of the other relationships, one is left in doubt as to the validity of any such claims. In this chapter, Summer also discusses New Age music healers' claims that certain types of music are "unhealthy," some even claiming that theirs is the only really healthy music available. This claim is "supported" by so-called evidence that plants grow better while "listening" to their brand of music, and, indeed, shrivel up and die when listening to rock, jazz, rap, etc.

In the fifth and sixth chapters, "Acoustics: Right Understanding" and "Vibrations: Right Effort," by applying basic laws of acoustics, Summer systematically and comprehensively exposes the fundamental misunderstandings of the physical properties of sound upon which New Age music healers base their theories. Yet, she points out that many New Agers cite knowledge of musical acoustics generally, and the harmonic series more specifically, as "absolutely essential to the utilization of music as a healing agent" (131). New Age music healers like to portray their compositions as containing healing powers that other music does not. For example, they claim that the pitches that they "scientifically and spiritually" select will resonate with the listener's body, yet they use the exact same pitches as other Western composers and songwriters. They even suggest that specific pitches resonate with specific organs and body parts. This correspondence is also universal, no matter what the size or shape of the person. Ironically, however, as Summer points out, the body does not resonate at any frequency because for an object to resonate it must vibrate periodically.

Summer begins the seventh step, "Research: Right Vocation," by stating that "when examining the research by New Age music healers one is often stymied by a lack of data" (22). She shows that continual misunderstanding of the "scientific method" in their research leads to the misapplication of findings, erroneous conclusions, and unsupported claims. She finds inconsistencies in their claims, using their claims against them.

Finally, in the eighth step, "Testimonials: Right Conduct," Summer reveals how a lack of credible research or proven results is often obfuscated by unsupported testimony, anecdotal claims, and ad hominem arguments. Summer confides, "At the heart of my objections to New Age music healing is my belief that most of its practitioners are not acting ethically . There is a high level of ethical misconduct on the part of those persons who present themselves as healers under false pretenses and thereby hoodwink and endanger those who place their faith in them" (251). Furthermore, she is concerned about some music therapists who increasingly embrace the dubious theories of New Age music healers prima facie, without weighing and measuring the truthfulness of their spurious claims.

Throughout the book, Summer is leery of a healing approach in which there is no contact between the healer and client (or in this case consumer), and where the music will affect all listeners in the same ways. Summer states: "That it is the nature of music to mean different things to its listeners seems to have evaded New Age music healers" (244). Furthermore, although espousing a holistic approach, the New Age music healers' concepts of single pieces ameliorating certain ills in all listeners, or prescribing a specific pitch as necessary for right behavior, right thought, and a healthy body, are more closely aligned with a behaviorist framework. Alteration of maladaptive behaviors is not the goal of holistic therapy; self-awareness and growth are.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found Summer's systematic critique very valuable, I would have liked more in terms of how music therapy is differentiated from New Age music healing. This is implicit for those, like me, who are already grounded in music therapy theory and practice, but would be invaluable for those who are not.

Susan Hadley
6324 Crombie St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15217

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