(Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat)
It’s been long known that music has therapeutic properties, from ailing broken hearts to easing anxieties. However, research on its more direct healing abilities has been very minimal. Luckily, The Sync Project hopes to change that, and they’ve enlisted the help of some award winning musicians including Peter Gabriel and Annie Clark of St. Vincent.
The Sync Project is an organization led by Marko Ahtisaari, the former Head of Design at Nokia, and includes a slew of researchers in the fields of music, neurology, design, technology and much more, and they collectively aim to find how music can be used as a medicine.
Some research on the matter has already been conducted and has shown that music has the ability to help patients suffering from dementia and Parkinson’s. In addition, research shows that music affects neurochemical systems such as “dopamine response, autonomic nervous system and others related to stress, movement, learning and memory.”
The project is set to become the “first algorithmic music therapeutics company,” and will develop ways to scientifically measure how music affects the body and health. Through this data, The Sync Project hopes to find ways to use music as medicine.
It is a huge and unprecedented feat, but The Sync Project is ready to take it on. They already have a team of distinguished researchers and professionals in varying relevant fields, but now they have also enlisted the help of some incredible musicians. Rock-and-Roll Hall of Famer Peter Gabriel, Grammy Award-winning alternative rock star Annie Clark of St. Vincent, Mercury Prize and electronic musician Jon Hopkins, and renowned composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, will be joining the team.
The artists will be advisors on the board and work with scientists on the project as well as help the project receive more attention. In talking about the reasons for choosing the aforementioned artists Ahtisaari states, “We’re very much looking for musicians and creators who have an active relationship with technology… It wasn’t so much about the contents of the music, or to commission any work. These are creative thinkers — let’s involve them.”
For more information on the project, please head on over to The Sync Project’s official website here.
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