A psychiatrist in a state hospital once said, "We have found that appropriate music not only tends to tranquilize the unsettled emotions of the mental patient, but it arouses his interest as nothing else will. Further, it has unusual power in awakening dormant memories of his past life.
An editorial comment on this statement says, "Perhaps mental activity is accompanied by such rapid physiological changes in the brain that they become vibratory in nature. Musical vibrations founded upon the highest mathematical regularity may sympathetically set up in a disordered brain similar orderly vibrations, and as their concomitant, more rational thinking."
"This is all very interesting", writes author and commentator John R. Gunn, "but the power of music to turn psychological confusion into order is not a new discovery. We find an ancient instance of its use in the scripture when David came with his harp to play for King Saul - to relieve his mental depression and restore his distracted mind to its normal state.
The value of music as a mental tonic has long been recognized for those who are normal as well as for those who are mentally disturbed. All of us should make good music a part of our daily routine, for it pleases the emotions and stirs and stimulates the brain."