The Power of Sound: How to Be Healthy and Productive Using Music and Sound by Joshua Leeds

Author:Joshua Leeds [Leeds, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Health/Music
ISBN: 9781594778995
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2010-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

“THE WHISTLE HEARD AROUND THE WORLD”4

Dr. Patricia McConnell is a highly revered American animal behaviorist.5 Her well-loved and bestselling books, mostly about canine behavior and training, emanate from her lifelong study of zoology. When Through a Dog’s Ear was published (a book I coauthored in 2008 with veterinary neurologist Susan Wagner),6 McConnell was immediately drawn to our exploration of the effects of music and sound on dogs.

She was kind enough to share with me her 1990 doctoral thesis, “Acoustic Structure and Receiver Response in Domestic Dogs, Canis familiaris.” McConnell explored a hypothesis that short, rapidly repeated rising notes increased motor activity levels in animals, and that longer, continuous, descending notes decreased activity.

In her research, she interviewed and observed 104 professional animal trainers from around the world, working with diverse animal populations. From camels to cats and donkeys to dogs, McConnell realized that the way we say, “Here kitty kitty kitty” (short, rapidly repeated rising notes) to attract the attention of a bored feline and, “Whoa” (longer, continuous descending notes) to stop a horse had antecedents that cut across cultures and time.

What stood out for me, when I read McConnell’s research, was the overlay to Dr. Alfred Tomatis’s philosophy about how sound affects people: high sounds tend to charge the nervous system, while lower sounds discharge; intricate patterns draw us into active listening, easy patterns bring us to passive hearing (to habituate).

In Dr. McConnell’s painstaking analysis of sound with animals, her short/ broadband notes that stimulate activity and longer, continuous/narrow-band notes that inhibit activity completely fit into the Tomatis observation and prescription for the use of intentional sound with people.

Yet another linkage in our understanding of the symbiotic nature of sound.

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