james schaller

It’s difficult to go anywhere today and NOT hear the music. It’s in our homes and on computers, on TV shows and movies, at the restaurant, in the shopping mall, church, and temple, and unless your Amish and plow your…

What happens when dementia patients hear music? Not a day goes by without a story on my news feed about someone playing music for dementia patients and raving about their success at engaging with the patient. 

When asked by caregivers…

When’s the last time you took a Gong bath? I’m a musician, and I was a bit skeptical. As with many healing modalities, there were a lot of claims made of ‘vibrations to bring about healing’, ‘being bathed in meditation…

What if you could listen to a specific melody and the tissue in your lungs would begin to repair. What if there is a specific drum rhythm played by an indigenous people in remote Africa that could trigger your body’s…

Chronic pain plagues millions across our society. Young and old, no matter what the economic strata, there are countless people who suffer, and all too often in desperation reach for drugs that can turn deadly. 

In my clinical work pain…

What if 100,00 years ago our species learned to take two biological traits  - say blinking, and release of dopamine. And then through technology (maybe simulated bright lights), we learned to stimulate blinking much more than needed to simply keep…

What’s your favorite music?  Is it a genre, classical, jazz, urban, soul, spiritual, rock or pop?  Or is your favorite music more defined as by artist, or album or even a song? 

For me I tend to change favorite genres…

Humans are primarily visual creatures with large amounts of brain resources assigned to processing visual data.  And rightly so, how else would we have found our way down from those trees in Africa long, long ago…in a galaxy far away?…

Have you ever been ‘high’ on music, just the music no other recreational ‘stimulants’?  I have, and I continue to experience transformative moments as I listen to music, and they come unbidden at the most surprising times. 

What other legal…

Music is in the ear of the beholder.  Some of you would be very annoyed if I turned up a Death Metal track while you’re reading this blog.  Others would feel; “Yea, that’s it!” 

Some of you would wax rapturous…