Music for Wellness (Coursera)

You love music. You listen to music all the time. Maybe you sing, play an instrument, or compose music. You don’t need to have musical talent to use music to enhance your well being, and even your health. Learn simple techniques to enrich your mind, body, and spirit through music. The methods can be applied in your daily life, particularly when you are feeling down or stressed out.

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Developed by a board-certified music therapist and a vocalist/pianist/composer/recording artist specializing in Indian music, these strategies combine science with the wisdom of Eastern philosophy.

In the course, discover how to unlock your creativity. You will learn not only how to listen to music in a new way, but also how to listen to the impact that music has on you. You will find out how to care for yourself by practicing coping techniques that are supported by music that is special to you.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Welcome to Music for Wellness!

Welcome to the course! Here we will cover all the details about the course and what you'll need to know to get the most out of your experience.

Music For Creativity

In this lesson, we'll begin to work on improvisation and creating music based on how we feel. Improvisation can seem daunting to many, but we will focus adding new ideas little by little until you are comfortable using your voice. We'll work on circle singing exercises and talk about looping in order to create your own song.

WEEK 2

Music For Comfort

In this lesson we will focus on using music to comfort ourselves during stressful times. We will start with connecting to our breath and learning to control our breathing. We will continue by talking about creating lullabies and practicing Musical PMR. Finally, we will go through Pranayama exercises and how they can be used for different results.

WEEK 3

Music for Awakening

In this lesson, we will begin to take the music that we create and the music that comforts us and use it to focus our feelings into something we need. We will start by chanting and learning about mantra. Then we will use repetition to meditate and change our mood. Finally we will create the modern form of mantra, jingles, to help us focus during different times in our life.

WEEK 4

Music For You

In this lesson, we will look at how listening to music can help us focus during stressful times. We will practice active listening and letting music help us control our emotions. We will then practice creating playlists for different needs in our life so that we always have music ready when we need it.