https://reasonstobecheerful.world/yoko-sen-music-healing-hospitals/
"What Washington musician Yoko Sen describes as the “soundtrack of her life” is
not one of the songs she wrote for the band Dust Galaxy, but the alarm of the
heart monitor at her hospital bedside. “The constant rhythm of a cardiac
monitor ticking like a time bomb reminded me every second that my life is
finite,” she says.
When the U.S.-based Japanese artist fell ill in 2012 and had to spend weeks in
hospitals, she found the jarring sounds there detrimental to her healing. “I
thought it was torture, the cacophony of alarms, beeps, doors slamming, the
squeaking of carts, people screaming, yellow alarm, red alarm, Code Blue.” At
the time, it wasn’t clear if Sen would make a full recovery. She was connected
to four different machines, and each emitted a different sound. Her sensitive
ears were especially bothered by the constant beeping of her heart monitor. “It
was a C note, and in the distance I heard high-pitched beeps when somebody fell
out of bed — an F sharp, and I felt as if the sounds amplified my fear and
feelings of helplessness.”
Sen recognized the so-called tritone. “In medieval times, it was known as the
devil’s interval,” an unsettling tonal dissonance that used to be banned in
churches. Jimi Hendrix wrote it into his intro to “Purple Haze,” Wagner into
his
Götterdämmerung, and film composers often use it to announce impending
doom. Our bodies involuntarily respond to the dissonance with tension and
unease. So why use such sounds in a place of healing?"
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
