The Diamond Method for Music: An Introduction
The Diamond Method for Music (DMM) marks a revolution in the field of music and health. In its scope, vision, and the sheer quantity of information it contains, there is simply nothing to compare with it. It offers a totally new understanding of the relationship between music and health and, more importantly, gives us unprecedented insight into how we can use music to benefit ourselves and society in general.
The DMM involves literally thousands of specific techniques and approaches to maximize the therapeutic potential of music. Every variable discovered to affect the Life Energy of music has been isolated and investigated, including: the performer; his instrument; the genre of music being played; the composer of the music; the notation of the music; the acoustics and other properties of the performance space; the systems of recording and playback if a recording is being used. Each one of these factors has produced detailed research findings. These are of value in their own right, and also, more importantly, have made it possible to delineate numerous factors that impede the Life Energy of music-making, and so develop ways to realize the highest Creativity in music-making.
To give an indication of the scope of the Diamond Method for Music, let us focus on one of the variables listed above: the composer. Dr. Diamond has investigated the Life Energy, the therapeutic quality, of the music of thousands of composers – everything from Medieval art music through to twentieth century popular music. From this we learn the extent to which the music of each composer raises the Life Energy, and also in many cases the precise ways it does so – the exact emotions and acupuncture meridians involved. And although the level of Life Energy of a particular composer often remains relatively constant for long periods of his career, sometimes it does not. A case in point is Beethoven. As Dr. Diamond writes in the third volume of his book The Life Energy in Music, while all Beethoven’s music has relatively high Life Energy, the level consistently rises throughout his life so that in his last works, written shortly before death, it is exceptionally high. His music-making, therefore, became ever more therapeutic over the course of his life.
The Diamond Method for Music does not exist in isolation but combines with the other Arts, medicine and spirituality to produce The Diamond Path of Life, an integrated approach to health and personal development. The Diamond Method for Music is therefore truly holistic and it delineates for the first time areas of connection between music and other healing modalities. For instance, it shows numerous relationships between music and the acupuncture system, and maps out the precise relationship between music and the emotions with unequaled clarity. In short it takes the field of music and healing–a field known from pre-Biblical times–into the twenty-first century.
Dr. Diamond’s approach is that everyone, regardless of their apparent level of musical talent, is capable of using music to enhance their lives and the lives of those around them and it has been used to transform the lives of everyone from complete novices to top professionals.
The Diamond Method for Music complements traditional pedagogies of music. For that reason, it is well suited to music educators who want to add to their professional development. Remarkable results have been obtained by combining the approach with mainstream music-teaching in schools, particularly in Canberra, Australia under the auspices of the Australian National University. The DMM is used extensively by performers all over the world who wish to enhance the healing quality of their music-making. For instance, it has been shown to help enormously with performance-related issues such as stage-fright and professional burn-out. In general it encourages creativity and freedom of expression. The Method is also used by music therapists wishing to incorporate its approaches and findings into their work.
