Philosophy of Ficino
During the Renaissance, Marsilio Ficino beleive music was a core influence to people around the world. This string of notes assembled together brought balance to human souls with the act of healing imbalances. When we think of imbalances, this is mostly mental such as melancholic feelings of which music was the escape to return to a normalcy in Ficino's philosophy. He thought of music as a way of practice in spirituality of which is capable of bringing people to greater alignment with rhythms and harmonies of the universe. It brought therapy to many because music itself had and evokes a lot of emotion which brought the emotion out of the soul. If we think about this technique in modern day, it seems fair. We listen to sad songs when we are feeling down, upbeat happy songs when we are full of life, and calming songs when we just need a moment to relax. In our world now, maybe this is because we feel the emotion from the song as it is brought out in us. Or maybe the music allows us to discover the emotion inside we didn't know needed to be pulled out. But what if this was true for people during the Renaissance? Music cures the mind, body and soul. Ficino found it to be an access to the balance of different temperaments being a holistic approach but nonetheless, one of harmony achievement. It is the therapy without having to talking to someone. it brings back balance and normalcy to one's life. that within itself is powerful and often innumerable.
I appreciate your modern consideration of Ficino’s theory on music as therapy; it helped me understand the main takeaways of his writings, independent of the idea of the musical spheres present at that time. The overarching idea of balance carries through beyond just Ficino’s writings; Hildegard of Bingen wrote extensively about the importance of holistic medicine in treating melancholy. Super cool!
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