Good Vibrations : Healing Powers of Music Resonate for Researcher, Composer

Two Thousand Oaks entrepreneurs are trying to go a step further than reggae music legend Bob Marley.

“One good thing about music,” Marley sang, “when it hits you feel no pain.”

Now Ron Weinstock, a biophysics researcher and chief executive officer of Magnetic Resonance Diagnostics Corp., has teamed up with composer Alan Roubik to prove that music can actually ease pain.

Using his experimental research on the therapeutic uses of magnetic resonance, Weinstock theorized that acoustic resonance could have similar healing powers. Not only can music relieve pain, Weinstock believes, but it can actually help strengthen the immune system.

The result is a compact disc that Weinstock and Roubik are ready to begin marketing in the United States. Since April, their company--Hado Music Corp.--has sold $500,000 worth of copies of the disc in Japan, Weinstock said.

“People have known empirically that music has an impact on physiology,” Weinstock said. “We are blending science and music.”

Weinstock said he has amassed enough anecdotal evidence from patients telling him that the music helped relieve their pain to convince him that Hado works. The word hado is a Japanese term meaning “resonance wave,” Weinstock said.

The company is trying to go beyond ordinary music therapy, which itself is not widely accepted but has made inroads into nursing homes and mental health centers. Proponents of music therapy say it has a range of therapeutic uses, from helping patients with Alzheimer’s disease to recover memories to providing a tool of communication for stroke victims.

But some are skeptical that Hado can do any more than that.

Gary Roman, an anesthesiologist at Los Robles Regional Medical Center who has used music in the operating room for nearly 30 years, believes music played before, during and after an operation can help a patient “forget” some of the procedure’s trauma. Roman, who has listened to Hado, said the patient has to like the type of music that is being played.

“If you want to hear the Beatles, and I play Hado, it’s not going to do any good,” Roman said.

Still, he said, Hado is a nice and relaxing form of music.

But Weinstock’s theory is not just about “feel-good” music. Since 1987, Weinstock has been testing the therapeutic applications of magnetic resonance, a technology originally designed for medical imaging. His work is not widely known in the United States, but Weinstock has published it in journals in Korea and Japan.

Here is how it works: Magnetic resonance analysis can detect the signature of a particular tissue or organ, Weinstock said. When an organ or tissue is damaged, that signature is altered. Weinstock’s method sets out to fix the damaged tissues by applying a correcting magnetic resonance pattern.

Hado music is the result of the application of these concepts to the field of acoustics, Weinstock said.

The caveat is that magnetic resonance therapy itself is experimental and not widely accepted. The benefits of acoustic resonance, if any, have not been explored scientifically.

But some music therapy researchers believe the theory deserves to be investigated further. Ron Borczon, director of Cal State Northridge music therapy clinic, has put together a research proposal to test Hado music in a controlled environment.

“I’m very interested in what this stuff can do,” Borczon said. “I am impressed at how carefully they’ve put this together. What they are proposing is real cutting edge for the medical world.”

To develop Hado, Weinstock brought subjects into his lab and hooked them to his magnetic resonance equipment.

“We played different tones, sounds and chords,” Weinstock said. “We would measure resonance patterns of different tissues and looked for which sounds showed improved patterns.”

Once the “good” sounds were selected, Roubik took over. Using mainly the beneficial notes and tones, he composed four tracks for the 35-minute compact disc.

The result is a combination of world music, new age and contemporary jazz, with elements of classical music, Roubik said.

To fine-tune the compositions, the two put together a group of musicians and a handful of subjects. The musicians would play through Roubik’s compositions, while Weinstock monitored the output on his resonance measuring instruments hooked up to the subjects.

“I would stop them and tell Alan [Roubik], ‘There’s something the drummer is doing that doesn’t work,’ ” Weinstock said. “He would go back and fine-tune it.”

No matter what results the research yields, Borczon said, an ounce of caution is in order.

“Music therapy can’t cure the world,” he said. “But it may work in a lot of cases.”

The compact disc, which Weinstock said will sell for about $80, has its own words of caution printed on the packaging:

“Hado music is not intended nor should it be used as a replacement for qualified medical treatment. All medical problems should be referred to a qualified physician for diagnosis and treatment.”