Enliven inner healing and power-up your optimism through therapeutic music, guided relaxation, and affirmations. Change negative life-style choices and embrace new healthy habits. Remember what it feels like to be healthy.
Re-calibrate your attitude towards positive change for your improved health and inner peace. The 25-minute VanYoung Music Journey titles include: Immune System, Brain, Heart, Lungs, Digestion, and Surgery.
Listen!
"Therapeutic music, challenge-specific affirmations, and guided meditations can speed your healing and recovery to get you back to your chosen lifestyle."
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What is a Music Journey?
Learn more about the many components that make up each Journey.
Well-Being Woven into Every Note
More VanYoung Music Offerings
VanYoung Music
Embark on a beautiful experience of deep rest and rejuvenation with original music and arrangements used in The VanYoung Music Journeys series. The Respite and Amongst Moonlight albums are used by thousands of healthcare practitioners to reduce patient pain and anxiety. Many listeners find this music to be their favorite restful music.
Experience
The Healer's Visit
The Healer’s Visit is an online course for professional and at-home caregivers and those who need to enhance their self-care and healing. In my years of practice and teaching I’ve learned that therapeutic music is one of the best ways to reduce the pain and anxiety of your patient or loved one while supporting a healing environment.
Learn how to use Therapeutic Music
Your Life on Music
YLOM is great for kids!
The intentional use of music can tangibly improve your life. In these Audio Lessons, you'll learn how to manage sound before it manages you. With Your Life on Music, take the necessary steps to create a healthy, productive and creative sound environment for you and your family.
Family Peace Begins Here!
FAQs
When a ‘cure’ happens, a part of our body is restored to the condition that existed before the onset of disease or injury. The world ‘heal’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word hal which means to ‘make whole’, or to restore.
There is no research that supports predictable results. There is no research evidence that supports listening, playing or singing a particular type of music will always ‘cure’ a condition. In our online course The Healer’s Visit, we describe how specific types of music can support healing and recovery.
Music CAN help you feel better. Music can deliver measurable, predictable, beneficial, therapeutic results. Sound and music can be used to create environments that support healing that may speed a cure. We can predict that playing certain types of therapeutic music will result in conditions (i.e. reduced pain and anxiety), that will better support our body’s ability to heal and recover.
Music affects our heart and respiratory rates quickly and powerfully. Emotions, attitudes, and the body’s other physiological vibratory systems are also affected. Many of the brain centers are also affected by music.
Rhythmic entrainment and frequency resonance are chief means by which music affects our body. The music’s tempo, dynamics, meter, harmony, melody, performance, arrangement – these musical elements all influence our physiological response to music and need to be composed and performed in a way that brings the listener to a state of peaceful rest.
Once this restorative state is achieved, the listener’s immune system, healing mechanisms and psychological sense of well-being can be better supported. The music can help sustain this positive therapeutic state over time.
We define therapeutic music as a type of music that can predictably bring the listener to a state of reduced pain and anxiety.
The music’s tempo, dynamics, meter, harmony, melody, performance, arrangement – these musical elements all influence our physiological response to music and need to be composed and performed in a way that brings the listener to a state of peaceful rest.
Therapeutic music can help the listener maintain this restful state that can support healing and recovery. This music is effective at home and in clinical settings. The chief benefits of reduced pain and anxiety can lead to a host of benefits, from improved optimistic attitudes, to better immune system response, to faster recovery times from surgery and illness.
Volunteers we’ve trained how to use therapeutic music saw immediate benefits during their visits with patients. Family caregivers who had witnessed the positive benefits of therapeutic music upon their loved ones, wanted to know how they could use this type of music with other family members and friends in their care.
What was going on? Why all the fuss? Everyone was excited because the music was decreasing pain and anxiety, and could be used in combination with any other medical treatment. Reduced patient pain and anxiety made for a better caregiver experience as their work was easier, and the patient was more positive, peaceful and rested.
So will any music work? Can’t you play some of the patient’s favorite music, or your own favorites and get the same effect? Maybe, but probably not. There are specific guidelines for prescriptive, therapeutic music that can reduce patient pain and anxiety, and sustain that experience for 40 minutes or more!
Music is easy to deliver, inexpensive, has no contraindications and is the MOST overlooked healing modality. Why? Because our media-saturated culture has music playing everywhere and our brain filters it out like trivial non-threatening acoustic clutter.
Caregivers can use music to benefit anyone in their care, from a child at home from school with a fever, to a loved one in their last days.
"You will never know how much your wisdom and inspiration have added to our program. As a healthcare minister, I recommend the inspiration and devotion of James Schaller. James’ gift for composition, experience, and talent allows for healing and transition."
Reverend Joyce Blair Buekers,
MDIV, MBA, Pastoral Counselor/Integrative Therapies, Hospice of the Valle, Phoenix, AZ
"I write to support the work of James Schaller, composer, classical guitarist, and music therapist par excellence. As a hospice physician, I have used Mr. Schaller's recordings for years and found them of great value for both patients and family. On a more personal note, during a recent serious illness, I spent hours listening to Mr. Schaller's music and found it a source of comfort and inspiration. I recommend his compositions and performance to all those facing illness, death or dying."
George Simms, M.D.,
Professor Emeritus Penn State University, College of Medicine
"It is embarrassing to admit that I was so blind to the benefits that music can provide in end-of-life situations. Thank you for opening my eyes through the sharing of your research and talent. We were enlightened and entertained by your presentation. As a result of the inspiration and direction that you provide, our hospice organization will begin utilizing music as a modality to relieve suffering and provide comfort to our patients."
Dr. Ron Hartsfield
Medical Director, Wiregrass Hospice, Dothan, AL
"As soon as the music arrived, my sister, who is a nurse, put on the music. It played continuously for the last three days of my mother’s life. It dramatically eased her pain, comforted family and staff, and brought dignity and calm to those last days. I can’t thank you enough."
Jim Anderson
Grammy Award-Winning Recording Engineer, and Music Producer
"James is an inspiring speaker and has a wonderful way of sharing his experience and insight into how music can be used in therapeutic settings. He connected very well with our audience made up of volunteers, social services staff, chaplains and others who came just because of an interest in music. His demonstration of music as a healing tool was powerful, even in the context of a fairly large group. I recommend James for any organization interested in exploring the healing power of music."
Debra Fast
Director of Volunteer Services 
Garden Spot Village
"Thank you for opening our eyes to the uses of music in our clinical applications."
Dr. Valentins Krecko
Child Psychiatric Unit, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
"Everyone was very enthusiastic (about the Consultation Workshop) and spoke very highly about it.  They were impressed by the content and by your style of presentation.   I have heard nothing but praise for the workshop.    Everyone was impressed and touched by the material.  We have found your material to be beneficial for our patients, and we are beginning to expand the use of your music to patients in our Long Term Care program.  Our Spiritual Care Director was blown away by the scripture reading accompanied by the music.  He said, "Why don't we do this in church"
Bob Karlson
Director of Caring Services, Hospice of S.W. Florida
"James Schaller illustrated the power of music in supporting healing in his workshop. His articulate description of qualities in music that are appropriate both in recovery and in the hospice situation was beautifully illustrated by selected music."
Pamela M. Kircher, M.D.
Family Physician, and Hospice Doctor Medical Director of the Wellness Center, Mercy Medical Center Durango, Colorado
"Our patients and families have found James' music to be beautiful and serene. Â Our staff also found his music to be soothing and relaxing for the entire atmosphere at the Residence. Â His music has been a welcomed addition to our scope of hospice care we can provide to our patients and their families."
Susan Resavy
MSW, Director of Family Services, Hospice of Central PA
"Every hospice needs to hear James' message that there is more to hospice than pain medication and family bereavement service, perfect for any medical situation."
Peggy Hutson RN
Quality and Performance Coordinator, Hospice of Tulare County, CA
Bring the healing power of music to patients, friends and loved ones who are ill. Understand the effects and use of therapeutic music. Be confident that you can make a positive difference and bring comfort to others.
Become a healer!
Build your music visitation skills