Music and sound used in the ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda are essential for balancing the functioning of the doshas (representing the principles of creation, preservation and destruction) in the body. This is done through the balanced application of Gandharva music and Nada (primordial sound) principles. Additionally, in the old Chinese tradition, the sounds of the elements produce music, which circulates through the meridians with the Chi energy, balancing heaven and earth within the body. Similarly, in the less well-known musical wisdom of Pythagoras, developed from the vibrations of the cosmos, The Music of the Spheres, the cathartic, enlightening and healing power of the Musical Tones is elevated and consecrated. This wisdom has been diffused throughout the Western world as both a science and an art for more than 2500 years.

For Pythagoras, health was harmony and the balance of opposites; illness was disharmony, the imbalance of elements, characteristics and emotions. Equilibrium is essential for perfect psychophysical health and the disturbance of this equilibrium results in disease. To recover, there has to be a reconciliation of all these elements, and this reconciliation can be achieved with syntony.

In the teachings of Pythagoras, medicine was the science of removing and adding, or, as Plato used to say, of emptying and filling, thus eliminating either that which is found in excess or that which is lacking.

According to Iamblichus in Pythagorean Life, Pythagoras believed that treatment for human beings should begin with the senses, notably hearing. This involves the auditory perception of the forms, rhythms and melodies. He therefore considered musical education as extremely important, especially the rhythms and melodies that can cure both physically and mentally, leading the soul back to a state of balance.

Pythagoras discovered the means to both prevent and cure physical and psychological diseases, but more important than this, says Iamblichus, are his so-called musical treatments and adaptations that he devised for his disciples, creating diatonic, chromatic and harmonic musical arrangements with extraordinary skill. Thus Pythagoras was usually able to change or reverse irrational and unwanted emotions - such as grief, fear, obsession, over-excitability, depression, laxity and rashness - using appropriate musical harmonies.