Melford Graves, the heart and his music

[alankin]

There's a feature on Milford Graves's medical heart research and his music on today's NPR's Morning Edition. A Harvard Medical School professor comments positively on his work. Pretty interesting.

Here's a link to the text:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4510912

(I assume they'll post the RA link later today or tomorrow.)

Here's the preview text:

Where Science Meets Art

Music of the Human Heart May Hold Clues to Healing

by Joel Rose of member station WHYY

NPR.org, February 28, 2005 · In the 1960s and '70s, jazz drummer Milford Graves played with Albert Ayler, Paul Bley and others in the New York avant-garde. These days he's still a musician, but he also spends a great deal of time exploring how music can help heal the human heart. Some doctors say the research Graves is doing in his basement in Queens is just as significant as work being done in medical laboratories.

Graves listens to the heart rhythms of volunteers using a host of diagnostic tools, including a custom-built stethoscope and sensors that pick up the electrical impulses that cause the human heart to beat. Software then parses the data, allowing Graves to focus on the micro-rhythms within a single heartbeat.

Graves says a healthy heart -- like a good jazz drummer -- emphasizes the triplets (1-2-3, 1-2-3), not the eighth notes (1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4).

"If you've got a stiff heartbeat, that means your blood is like 'squirt, squirt.' Not a nice flow," Graves says. "I want to look at that and see what's happening."

If Graves thinks something is wrong, he'll manipulate the sound, perhaps by speeding it up or slowing it down on his computer. He'll then use this counter-rhythm to try to nudge the heart back toward a more normal pattern. The manipulated sounds are put back into the volunteer's body, either through acupuncture needles or through their ears.

Harvard Medical School professor Baruch Krauss says what Graves does isn't so different from what emergency physicians try to do for patients with abnormal heartbeats. Krauss stresses that Graves' work isn't ready for patient therapies, but he calls it "exciting, extremely original and innovative."

Edited February 28, 2005 by alankin

[Joe]

Woke up to this on the radio. Was sure I was still dreaming!

Fascinating stuff.

[.:.impossible]

I heard it on the way to work! I couldn't believe it.

[brownie]

Milford Graves and his method was written about in The New York Times a while ago:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...=milford+graves

[chris olivarez]

I listened to it this morning. It was pretty cool.

[clifford_thornton]

Every time I listen to side two of "Babi" I'm healed!

[David Ayers]

Every time I listen to side two of "Babi" I'm healed!

Yeah - but if you hadn't listened to side one first you wouldn't have needed healing...

Edit: seriously, it is one side or other of the LP he counts out one ****ed up time signature - I can't remember which side or what time...

Edited March 1, 2005 by David Ayers