![]() We’re just trying to get more medical validation,” said Kocheril’s harpist and co-researcher, Dr. Kocheril’s work also fits with a growing music therapy movement, whose supporters believe music can alleviate some of the mental and physical symptoms of disease. Ary Goldberger of Harvard Medical School showing that varied rhythms created by healthy hearts are similar to note patterns in classical music. The theory is based partly on work by Dr. Her doctor, Abraham Kocheril, chief of cardiac electrophysiology at the Carle Heart Center in Urbana, says he has found signs that harp music might help sick hearts like Zook’s beat more normally. Zook’s symptoms include unnerving palpitations and troubling fatigue that make her suddenly collapse without warning. Zook suffers from atrial fibrillation, a fast, irregular heartbeat caused by mixed-up electrical signals generated by the heart’s upper chambers. The music sounded lovely - but it was meant to help heal, not entertain. Like some weird sci-fi melding of heaven and high-tech Earth, the musician strummed serenely on her 4-foot Irish harp just a few feet away, while the patient snored and her doctor silently examined the ups and downs of rainbow-colored heart waves on the screen. They provided a conduit for a video monitor showing the squiggly waves of Zook’s irregular heartbeat. Surrounded by cutting-edge medical equipment, the 83-year-old patient lay unconscious and sedated, with skinny electrode-equipped catheters snaking from veins in her right thigh and shoulder into her heart. – When a harpist wearing blue hospital scrubs started playing the familiar strains of Pachelbel’s Canon during Edith Zook’s heart procedure, the scene couldn’t have been more surreal. Harp Has The Power to Soothe But It Can Also Heal In addition, a harpist might teach an individual to play the harp to assist in pain reduction, to help to overcome physical, mental and emotional challenges, to create a sense of community in a group setting, and to provide physical rehabilitation. Some harpists, trained in other therapeutic disciplines, use the harp in their practices to elicit specific cognitive or behavioral changes. The following article is based on some of this research and what is being done in the realm of healing with the sounds of the harp now, in hospitals, private homes and hospices as well as being used in alternative therapies in conjunction with other healing modalities. Over 3000 years later, in our generation, recent medical research, studies and testing is showing the ‘why and the how’ of the healing affects of the sound of the harp. They didn’t have the scientific knowledge of why and how, but they did know that something profound happened to people when the harp was played, and so they found the ‘best harpist’ in the land to bring to their ailing king to ease his suffering and bring him moments of peace and well being. ![]() The servants of King Saul knew that the sounds of the harp were able to have a healing affect on people. An end-of-life music vigil can also help a patient to achieve a peaceful transition. When therapeutic harp music is played, recipients may receive beneficial effects such as increased relaxation, improvement in sleep, decreased pain and anxiety, stabilization of vital signs, and improvement in mood. It may be provided at home or in a clinical setting. Harp therapy is a general term used to describe the continuum of types of therapies in which the harp is used. Powerful words to describe a situation known all too well by many people in our own times. When the harp was being played he ‘felt better and the evil spirit departed from Saul”. The king had been having nightmares, anger fits and general malaise that was affecting his mind as well as his physical health. It was perhaps about 3000 years ago in ancient Israel, that a young shepherd boy named David was brought quickly many times in the middle of the night to play his harp before an ailing King Saul. The harp, with its soothing timbre and spiritual associations, has been revered as a healing instrument by many cultures for thousands of years. Harp therapy is a relatively new field of research and practice which explores the beneficial effects of the timbre of the harp. Let me know what you have in mind, and I will be happy to design and build it for you! With that in mind, I can build a rich sounding lap sized harp that can weight well under ten lbs. I built all my harps to be quite light in weight, with my full sized five octave harps only weighing about 19 lbs. Let me know what your special needs are for your healing or therapy harp. I even had a harp the I had created played for me when I was in ICU on full life support, after a nasty allergic reaction ten years ago! It was very soothing to me to hear that harp music, as it seems to be for many, many people who are in intensive care. I have built a number of very special harps for players to use in various healing situations.
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