MUSIC AS A MEDICINE.

Shannon News, 8 June 1923, Page 2

MUSIC AS A MEDICINE.

NOTED COMPOSER’S “PRESCRIPTIONS.” Ailing- people have been cured by a new type of “medicine” music. Recently in several London workrooms music was introduced to test its effect on the work of employees, and it was shown that both quality and speed of the work was improved, fatigue diminished, and the mental tone of the workers enhanced. Working- on this basis, Mr Jack Hylton, the composer, who is also conductor of one of the Gral'ton Galleries’ orchestras, has experimented with set inusical prescriptions as a doctor prescribes for a sick patient. "Experiments made with a galcanameter —a delicate instrument for recording the motions—showed that the most ‘unmusical’ men are, in reality, stirred to a considerable extent,” said Mr Hylton to a Daily Chronicle representative. “These experiments were sufficient proof that music, chosen with care by one who understands its fundamental effects, can be used to benefit people in cex-tain moods. “For a typical busines man, for example, dulled by his work, 1 made up la programme of tenderly emotional

music, including some of Chopin’s nocturnes. This induced in him an emo-, tional state tnat dispelled his dullness. “Anger or annoyance can be calmed by something in the nature of Greig’s lyrics. For the room where manual 'work was in progress I found that music with a more pronounced rythm Was effective. Folk songs and mazurkas speed the work and raise the output, without increasing the emotional tone too high.”