Music Making and Wellness

Want to learn about the physical effects of recreational music making on the human body?

We just discovered the really fascinating website of Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute, a non-profit arm of Yamaha dedicated to the study of recreational music making as a wellness strategy. Results of some of their research is shown in a couple of very cool interactive tools and much more extensively documented in papers. 

Recreational Music Making and the Human Body lets you examine the effects of music making on the various body systems, viewed on a rotating model - including the endocrine, circulatory, immune, and nervous systems. Seems to be primarily stress-related. Looking at the body systems through this lens is pretty neat!

Recreational Music Making and the Genome actually examines the effects of music making vs. putting together puzzles vs. talking and looking at magazines. Result: music making is the best activity of the three for releasing genomic triggers that indicate stress. 

Not sure if these are more cool for their graphical portrayal of music's effects on the human body, or for the research itself (which is at times just slightly difficult to decipher in the interactive tools) but definitely worth checking out! Taking a dive into their research papers is a worthy pursuit for those wanting more data. What a neat organization.