BLOGGER – ESCAPE GLOBAL

I am sure in the last one week we have had questions of whether this kind of therapy has any root in Africa as a whole. Whether or not there is a traceable history of Music Therapy in Africa is what is about to be unveiled here.

Goodnews! Music Therapy in Africa is traceable, its as old as tradition itself, it may not have been documented or even given a definite name as we have it now but it has long been existent.

Just a background knowledge of Africa for my non-African followers, Africa is the second largest continent in the world with about 1.2 billion people of the world’s population as of 2016. Africa has a very rich and beautiful cultural heritage, among the many continents in Africa are Nigeria, Egypt, Republic of Benin, Rwanda, Republic of Congo, Kenya and so on.

I’m sure by now you already have a little background knowledge of the continent Africa. There has been a question if Music Therapy has ever existed in Africa. Learning about this, I was thrilled at such rich`history Africa has and in this post I will be sharing a few.

In Africa, music is seen in every stage of life, from birth to death. Every transition or call it change in status calls for the use of music, from birth to adulthood to marriage to death.

The inception of Music Therapy in Africa has been since Ancient times, although there were few written records, most of the information have been by oral transmission which is passed down from one generation to another.

In Ancient Egypt, ancient man used singing and dancing as a part of his rituals to throw out the evil spirits, which were waiting to attack him with several diseases. Abidos Temple was the biggest center of medicine in Ancient Egypt and the priests treated diseases with chant. It was discovered that there was a saint called Abu Terbo who treated epilepsy using pipes chant. Egyptian priests and physicians alluded music as medicine for the soul, chant therapies were also included as part of the medical practice. Below this post is a link to a video of Ancient Egypt healing Music, listen and let me know your thoughts about it.

In some other parts of Africa also, Music Therapy was also instrumental in TRADITIONAL HEALING. For example in Nigeria, it was embedded in culture and was mostly performed by native doctors. For Non-Africans, NATIVE DOCTORS are not the same as HOSPITAL DOCTORS, they are doctors who use traditional prescriptions and carry out rituals also. These Native Doctors had specialty in healing with the use of ritual music.

Traditional healing had a lot to do with SPECIFICS, that is there had to be a SPECIFIC song to be sung, a SPECIFIC time of the day or night and a SPECIFIC traditional instrument had to be used for this purpose, it was not just done without restraints.

Professor Mereni, the foremost forerunner of Music Therapy in Nigeria conducted a research in the town Irigwe in Plateau state of Nigeria. He discovered that the traditional medicine man called Nevo prescribed the “Sa rije” ritual, this is a ritual characterized by music and dance and is used as treatment for women suffering from a syndrome known as “Ci rima”.

A patient with “Ci rima” syndrome had the following symptoms; prolonged abnormal pains, vomiting, persistent diarrhea, hallucination, fever and prolonged loss of appetite. While this happens, the “Nevo” prescribed the music ritual ceremony known as “Sa rije”. It was then used in the treatment of the woman suffering from Ci rima syndrome. It is said that certain patterns of music were used as the Nevo observed the patient and gave traditional treatment.

This sums up the fact that Music Therapy has been long existent and also it wasn’t just administered anyhow, they had to follow traditions and cultures.

Despite the viability of Music Therapy since Ancient times, it is one that is still not recognized in many parts of the continent Africa today.

Let me know what you think about this post also in the comment section below. I love reading from you!

Thank you for reading through. Lots of Love!

SOURCES: https://voices.no/community/index.html?q=country-of-the-month%252F2012-music-therapy-nigeria

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.508.4197&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://voices.no/community/index.html?q=country-of-the-month%252F2005-music-therapy-egypt

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2FW2EairNU

Research on music therapy shows that listening to music engages sub-cortical and cortical areas of the brain. Music has been shown to stimulate the brains’ primary engine of human capacity, exercises attention, evokes emotional response and stimulates the central nervous system. It also appears to activate the human mirror-neuron system, supporting the coupling between perceptual events (visual or auditory) and motor actions (leg, arm/hand, or vocal or articulatory actions). At one time, theories of human brain development argued that there was little or no growth of brain cells after age 30 but recent studies of music and the brain have shown this view to be erroneous. The brain is a plastic organ and music has the power to shape the brain’s development into later life. The implication of these findings is huge. Providing opportunities for people to experience music in many settings can have a profound impact on their healthy development.

Music has long been recognized as a powerful force in rehabilitative treatment, used clinically to address impairments in motor function, language, cognition, sensory processing, and emotional disturbances that can result from brain injury. It has been used successfully to induce cognitive repair in patients with stroke, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy, or traumatic brain injury. Indeed, music has the potential to “fix” the brain, by providing an alternative entry point into a “broken” brain system to remediate impaired neural processes or neural connections.

Back to my story, I went on to administer music therapy to this young girl. I switched on the music on my phone and she began loosening up, then I picked up my guitar and started singing. Before I could say jack, her eyes were dried and she reached for a pen and began writing. For autistic children, writing is usually a challenge so you can imagine how much my heart leaped with joy when she began writing herself.

We can imagine that her mum tried using nonmusical tones to communicate with her but it turned sour but at the sound of music she not only did what she wanted her to do but she did more by writing. This amplifies research findings that Music is read differently in the brain than nonmusical tones.

Amina returned home happy and I returned curious about this aspect of Therapy and eager to raise an awareness of it’s potency.
Stay glued to my blog as I enlighten you every week on Music Therapy.

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