It comes as no surprise that our staff at Granny Mouse Country House and Spa know the importance of choosing the right type of music to create the perfect wellness setting and optimize the treatments that we provide.
We all know that music evokes emotions and that different people respond to different tunes – but research has highlighted how common themes within music exist across personality types and shows that, in general, most music will evoke the same responses.
In our environment, this translates into optimizing music for relaxation, well-being and therapy.
• Pitch: We ensure that the pitch isn’t too high as this can startle clients. If too low, the pitch can make people feel gloomy - so it’s important to find a perfect balance.
• Volume & Dynamics: A mid volume with no large variances is connected to energetic emotions. The last thing we want is having our client tapping his or her feet and not relaxing to what should be ambient sounds!
• Sounds: We ensure that we play soft, gentle, warm, rising and flowing music to ensure total relaxation.
• Rhythm: It is always safe to have music that is regular and predictable. we would rather not have any surprises or complexities that draw our clients to engage them, so we choose relaxing tempos, nothing too fast. In fact, we even try to match the tempo to the heart beat that we would our clients have at particular touch points. Another rule - little or no percussion in our treatment rooms.
• Composition: We ensure our choices are simple, predictable and optimistic. Music played must not have conflicting or sudden key changes, as it will have our clients thinking that the session was over!
• Instruments: We believe that the most soothing music is largely acoustic. This natural sounding music usually includes instruments such as harps, guitars, flutes, and even wooden marimbas. If there is percussion, we make sure drums, make sure drums are played gently. It’s not band practice.
• Complexity; Less is best, and predictable compositions, no conflicting melodies or sudden shifts in key are perfect for the spa.
• Tempo: We at Granny Mouse know that the right tempo is important to wind down our clients ready for treatments, set the pace within the treatment room itself. We only begin to increase the tempo to help awaken clients once the treatment is complete!
For more information, go to www.grannymouse.co.za