Nature of Music

An important book that answers how music affects your mood and how music affects your brain

Music has a profound influence on our lives; affecting how we think, how we act, how we feel-even who we are. By learning more about the intimate relationship between music and ourselves, we can begin to harness that power and better our lives. A classical pianist, Draper writes about the ways in which the great works of the classical canon can help us cope with grief, give dimension to the mysteries of beauty and faith, aid us in recovery from illness, inspire us to create, or just give us a boost of energy.

This unique guide includes an extensive music bibliography with selections to suit moods, calm nerves, inspire, and heal. Anyone from the novice to the aficionado will find new ways to hear music as they never have before.The Nature of MusicIntroduction
One: The Heart of Listening
Music and the Arts
The Language of Music
Listening to Music, Listening to Yourself
The Physical Power of Music

Two: Hearing the Design
Thematic Seeds
Circular Forms
The Enduring Power of the Mass
Yesterday's Dissonance Is Today's Consonance

Three: The Education of Feeling
Ways of Listening
Tonality: The Homing Instinct

Four: When You Are the Music
Your Unlived Life
Bach: The Passionate Mind
Beethoven: A Guide to Spiritual Evolution
Praise and Prayer

Five: Singing Your Own Song
Toning, Singing Bowls, and Chant
Strike the Harp or Join the Chorus

Six: The Alchemy of Music
Earth
Water
Air
Fire
Composing Your Life
A Musical Day

Seven: The Healing Power of Music
Anger, Catharsis and Transformation
How Music Heals
Music for the Hospital

Eight: Dreaming and Dancing
Dreaming by Day
Dancing in the Dark

Nine: The Inner Garden
The Education of the Heart
Schumann and Brahms: Eros and the Artist
The Garden of Love
Mozart: The Divine Child

Sound Journey: A Listening Bibliography
Musical Terms
Endnotes
Bibliography
About Companion CDs

“Draper’s love for music is contagious. She provides a useful set of listening exercises, or music breaks, at the end of each chapter, as well as an extensive ‘listening bibliography’ for enhancing every aspect of life, from work to sex.”—Publishers Weekly

“A lovely, lyrical, elegantly useful guide for all of us, healthy or ill, who want to reap full benefit from the wonderful world of music.”—Barrie R. Cassileth, Ph.D., Chief, Integrative Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

“Mystics say that we are music, and poems are rough notations for that music. This book will send you back to the music you love.”—Coleman Barks, poet and translator of The Essential Rumi

Maureen McCarthy Draper, a classical pianist and music teacher, presents music retreats for the Guild for Psychological Studies both in San Francisco and from her home in the Santa Cruz mountains, using live music, poetry, and art. The Nature of Music is her first book.