Book review: Raymond MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz & Laura Mitchell, Music, Health, and Wellbeing

The editors of this volume set out with an ambitious challenge: to bring together an ‘international and multidisciplinary group of articles’ (p. viii) but it is a goal they quite clearly succeed in attaining. Right from the opening pages, we are plunged into a journey of music’s effects on health and wellbeing stretching back to our first written records from Neolithic times (Chapter 1) and reaching around the globe (Chapter 31). We trace music’s influence on us from our time in the womb through to our ‘liberation phase’ and beyond (Chapter 11); focusing on individuals as well as expanding our gaze to entire societies; looking through our microscopes at its impact on the inner workings of specific illnesses alongside its broader effects on general mortality rates (Chapter 28). Music is considered not just as an aural effect, but as a complex social, physical and personal process (Chapter 14). And to achieve all this, disciplines including musicology, music psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, ethnography, epidemiology, physiology, sociology, and philosophy are brought within our orbit. It is a sensational rollercoaster ride that leaves us longing for more. It would be easy in a book such as this, for a reader from just one of the many disciplines involved, to become lost amidst a flurry of terms and concepts. But, in fact, one of the book’s highlights is its accessible style. Concepts are expressed clearly throughout, and in particular, some of the early chapters provide useful definitions on crucial terms, including most fundamentally health (Chapter 1) and wellbeing (Chapter 8). There is also significant effort undertaken to expand our understanding of common concepts within this field which can sometimes become oversimplified, such as Trodalen’s and Bonde’s description of the six key types of music therapy (Chapter 4) and Murray’s and Lamont’s explanation on the 96 different definitions of community (Chapter 6). However, the difficulty of standardizing these definitions is highlighted by a few discrepancies that still exist within the book, such as ‘music medicine,’ defined quite broadly by Spintge as ‘the scientifically based, medico-functional application of music in order to complement usual medical procedures in prevention, therapy and rehabilitation’ (Chapter 20) yet reduced to ‘the use of pre-recorded music to improve patient status and medical care’ by Trondalen and Bonde (Chapter 4). It is hoped that these discrepancies will be ironed out as the field becomes better established. The book also grounds itself well in current political issues and broader global health moves. For example, there has been recent debate on the benefits of moving healthcare from hospitals into the community (Carter & Oldman, 2013); something that is eloquently discussed in relation to music by Ansdell and DeNora (Chapter 8) in their analysis of music as ‘pathways’ between different treatment locations, and between illness and health. Also, a number of health systems worldwide are beginning to explore salutogenic models of illness prevention rather than relying on the curing of disease (Alivia, Guadagni, & Roberti di Sarsina, 2011); something 520942 POM42210.1177/0305735614520942Psychology of MusicBook review research-article2014