ABSTRACT
The chapter is entitled ‘The Appalling Popularity of Music’. It goes on to complain that, thanks to the ‘gramophone’, the ‘wireless’ and the loudspeaker, ‘music of a sort is everywhere and at every time’. Cells and intracellular structures apparently vibrate dynamically. These vibrations may play a role in the cell’s self-regulation, affecting its shape, motility, and signal transduction. They can be changed by both growth factors and carcinogenesis. Incoming vibrations are perhaps transferred from the peripheral membrane to the nucleus and DNA. Chronic pain and perioperative stress are but two of the areas presumably susceptible to this sort of analysis and in which music is today used as therapy. The full range defies brief summary, least of all by a non-specialist. The profession whose work has brought all this to increasing public attention is now substantial in scale and nearly global in scope. There are hundreds of music therapists in Britain, proportionately many more in the United States.
