Vibration among Symphony Orchestra Musicians

Post-Exposure Effects of Music-Generated Vibration and Whole-Body Acoustic Stimulation among Symphony Orchestra Musicians

Warren Brodsky, Department of the Arts, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

JOURNAL OF NURSING SCIENCE, 2005 RIDGE No.10 P.10-12,Publication date: May 25, 2005

Fifty-four professional symphony orchestra musicians randomly assigned to one of three conditions (No-Music, Music-Alone, or Music + Vibration) received eight individual 50-minute sessions over a period of eight weeks. Sessions consisted of a regimen involving relaxation exercises, verbal conversations, and semi-structured visual imagery tasks, while seated in the Somatron Acoustic Massage?TM Power Recliner. Non-significant between group differences were found in regard to subjects’ Profileof Mood States scores during individual sessions and between the sessions across time. Nevertheless, significant group differences were found for both Music-Alone and Music + Vibration conditions when compared to the No-Music condition, as well as between the two music conditions themselves. These differences surfaced from a content analysis of session transcript data. Most specifically, the musicians exposed to Music + Vibration stimulation demonstrated increased subjective level of relaxation, intensified depth of verbal narrative, and multiplication of visual scenes within imagery tasks.