About the Legge Method
The Legge Method music acts energetically according to the person and the precise composition on specific organs.
Chinese music is over 3000 years old and its beginnings are shrouded in mystery. Its later development, like acupuncture, was influenced by the I Ching and based on the five elements, Fire-Earth-Metal-Water-Wood, as well as the notion of Yin and Yang. Researchers have found that during certain periods in China’s history all mention of music was banned and the books on that subject were burned.
Confucius himself wrote a whole treatise on music, which was lost when the Qin dynasty was established in 221 B.C.
Because of all the destruction of music in the past, there is very little known about the ancient healing music from China.
The Legge Method was developed to recreate music with the healing qualities found in other areas of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Can you tell me something about the Legge Method?
Developed according to principles of TCM, the Legge Method offers a series of 360 highly specific musical compositions that were created to rebalance the body energetically. Although used primarily at this time to treat allergies, the Legge Method has been shown to have many other healing applications. In the case of allergies, the benefits are immediately evident when the patient is symptomatic.
Are there special compositions for each allergen, like for roses, ragweed, dust, etc.?
No. Each of the pieces is a potential rebalancing tool with its own energetic character. The Legge Method practitioner, following a strict protocol, determines which one of the 360 in the series is correct for rebalancing a person for a particular allergen at time of treatment. And this music formula which, say, is being used to rid that person of sensitivity to maple pollen, may be the one needed to free someone else of an allergy to cat hair.
Can you tell me something about the development of the Legge Method?
The Legge Method is the result of the collaboration of two people from quite different disciplines, composer and musician Mike Legge and acupuncturist Nicolette Schwartzman. When Mike, who had come to Nicolette for acupuncture, told her of his certainty that within music was a healing potential that had not yet been realized, she gave him a set of tapes of traditional Chinese healing music. Included with the tapes was information linking specific musical tones from the Chinese pentatonic scale with distinct healing effects. Though valid in itself, the two did not feel that this concept was adequate because they sensed it was only part of what should have been a more comprehensive healing modality. This idea provided the two with a starting point in their twelve-year long process to adapt traditional Chinese medical theories to musical composition.
How does the Legge Method work?
On the one hand, it can be seen as a series of vibrations in the music having a remarkable effect on very specific energy blockages in the body. We can postulate that the music stimulates a needed restructuring on a molecular level as well as on other levels, all of which are connected.
Or, if we are to see it in the terms in which it was developed, the Legge Method music acts energetically according to the person and the precise composition, on the twelve specific organ systems, as they are understood in the TCM model. Along with the primary organ system, the music also rebalances two secondary organ systems. One of the first parameters established for the Legge Method by clinical trials was that of yin and yang, which determined the two main rhythmic signatures, 3/4 time and 4/4 time, of the compositions.
What does the music sound like?
The music in the Legge Method was composed according to classical music theory, which developed over the centuries from Gregorian chants and incorporates principles of free counterpoint. Highly melodic, the music is pleasing and relaxing, creating a cocoon of sound in which the patients can do their own healing. Each composition lasts six minutes.
Because of these qualities, the music is suitable for treating children, even babies and also pets.
Does the music work right away?
Let’s consider a recent treatment. A patient complaining of itchy eyes, stuffy nose, and slight headache caused by the March wind carrying pollen from a variety of trees was treated by a Legge Method practitioner for that mixture of pollens. The correct rebalancing composition was found by the practitioner, and the patient listened to it. When the 6-minute music was finished, the patient’s symptoms were gone and did not return.
Another patient had a history of headaches from onions and garlic. While at first the headaches only occurred when she ate either one, she later developed such a strong allergy to them that she even reacted to their smell. She was tested by her practitioner while in contact with onion and garlic extracts and her rebalancing music was determined. After listening to the music twice, she was free of any problem associated with these foods.