JOURNALIST:
And the same can be applied to music?
PETER HUEBNER: I think so. In times
when cigarettes are not strictly prohibited, it surely doesn’t make sense
to prohibit music which is harmful to health.
The people responsible, however, should consider in how far children and juveniles
should be allowed to consume such music, or whether it should be allowed to
play in public places – at least when children and juveniles are present
in such places.
And that also raises the question in how far music which can be harmful to
health should be used in the educational system, for during the performance
of music, the listener takes on the role of a test person, as the aspect of
internalisation comes into force.
So this may possibly cause damage to the consumer – at least there where
his immune system has already been weakened – which e.g. reveals itself
in hyper-activity, in allergies and susceptibility to addiction, in poor powers
of concentration, aggression and feelings of anxiety.
A school class which is not touched by all these problems, will surely hardly
be at risk if they consume a crate of beer and listen to music which can be
harmful to their health.
But in a time and society where the mentioned problems are the order of the
day among young people and teachers, the consumption of music which might
be harmful to health carries completely new unpredictable danger areas.
Of course, the influences accumulate. In combination with drugs, for instance,
music which may be harmful to health, can have a much more harmful effect.
If you want to avoid any sort of risk, then you avoid anything that may harm
young people’s health. This is not an artistic or philosophical question,
but a purely medical one.
JOURNALIST: So
do you personally only listen to music which is conducive to health?
PETER HUEBNER: No, I also give serious
practical thought to dissonant music. But I use my Medical Resonance Therapy
Music® as a natural counterbalance for regenerating the influences of
disharmonious music.
It seems foolish to me to want to avoid stress on principle. But the more
you subject yourself to stress, the more you must do to counterbalance it,
in order to reduce the stress. A lot of activity must be accompanied by long
rest periods.
Applying endurance tests is particularly common in research into the strength
of biological systems, and here, too, disharmonious music might be able to
play a part.
But that concerns test orders which are scientifically monitored by doctors,
and not tests in kindergardens, schools and public places.
On the scientific side they can be justified, on the other side – in
the case of using disharmonious music in kindergardens, schools and public
places or in the media – they must be called foolish, because here their
use is unscientific and careless from a medical point of view.
Let me emphasise it once again – this is not about taste, about culture,
art or genius, this is about illness or health.
Our society attaches greater importance to health than to art.
That is why in medicine, people are called to account in their training and
activities to a much greater extent than in art.
Even if, according to Basic Law, art, science and theory are considered to
be equally free, the protection of health has a much greater standing than
observing taste or an aesthetic attitude. For this reason, I believe, in modern
society music will sooner or later be subordinate to those important principles
of preserving health, and regarded and categorised just like food or addictive
substances or remedies. And this categorisation will be based on two things:
objective scientific results of investigations in the field of medicine, and
sound musicological research.