Inside Music: The Roses You Got for Valentine Day...

By Rosemary Conte

originally published: 02/20/2016

What kind of music did they hear?

In the Jazz Age, the 1920s, Jazz was called “the devil’s music.” And later, people would refer to Rock’s Heavy Metal sub-genre as “satanic.” Who started that talk? And where did people find evidence for such pronouncements?

Could it be that some Jazz Age plant nursery had a player-piano among its blooms that played only what was perceived then as “wicked hot jazz,” while another nursery played only Classical music rolls in its automatic pianos? And did some astute observers notice that the roses from grower A were not as healthy as the roses from grower B?

For generations, scientists have conducted controlled studies of the effects of music on seeds that grow to be rose bushes and other kinds of plants. What’s important to know is that the sound frequencies on our planet, both natural and produced by man, have been proven to affect the growth and health of all living things, including you and me.

I’ll spare you the technical and scientific aspects of one particular rose bush study and give you only the results. If you want to know more about it, you can find it in the International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, Vol. 5, No. 5, October 2014.

In one experiment, groups of plants were exposed to “Vedic (Asian Indian) Chants and Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major”--- both, soothing music. Other groups of plants were exposed to Rock music’s “Hate, Eternal Bringer of Storms,” that is as non-soothing as the title suggests, for 60 minutes in the morning and 60 minutes after sunrise for 62 days.

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The photos below show the rose plants exposed to the soothing music growing in a thick bushy fashion, bending toward and around the source of the music. These rose bushes were in every aspect healthier than the Rocker plants, and had more and larger flowers.

The plants exposed to Rock sounds bent away from the source of the music, and the number of leaves decreased. The plants seemed dull after only three weeks, and produced fewer and smaller flowers. And dig this: The plants in the Rock group were the first to sprout thorns…as early as the end of the first week!

(Some of you, will go spiritual on the implications here…the “good music” drawing… connecting the plants to the loving source; the “bad music” drawing the plants away from the source and having to grow thorns as a defense against evil. Yikes!)

Everything, except the genre of source music, was exactly the same in four groups of plants arranged in a circle and exposed to four kinds of music. The greatest contrast is shown in the photos below, between Classical and Rock-fed plants.

A personal reflection here. On my recent birthday a dear musician friend, a spiritual man, gave me a garden-in-a-dish. There are several kinds and shades of green plants in the dish. I imagine the music coming from my friend’s horn as good and positive vibrations for the plant, as were his own vibrations. I often talk and sing to the little garden. It’s thriving.

In contrast, my office plant that was beautiful, coming from Longwood Gardens, PA, is now in crisis. It has “felt” a lot of sadness in the two years it’s been sitting in the room in which I counsel and facilitate healings for people suffering physically and emotionally. I recently took cuttings from the plant. I dismembered it. I gave another musician friend the second generation of the plant for Christmas. The pianist tells me the plant is thriving. In his home, it is surrounded by great, life-giving musical frequencies. (I should put the Mother plant in a different room.)

Musicians can be the source of health-giving, nurturing vibrations. Some people refer to that vibratory state as Heaven. The absence of such energy can be profoundly negative, and some refer to that absence as Hell.

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