A fast-food restaurant in Wrexham will play classical music during the evenings in a bid to stop antisocial behaviour. While some ancient Greeks denied that music per se provided anything for you apart from an unimportant kind of pleasure (though the words of a song might make a difference), others thought that music could have powerful mood-altering effects, for good or ill.
For example, we are told that Pythagoras developed a form of musical therapy, consisting of songs and pieces for the lyre designed to help students get up and active in the morning and sleep well at night.
Once, when he was out stargazing, he came across a young man who, under the influence of drink, jealousy, passion and the sound of Phrygian pipe-music, was trying to set fire to his lover’s firmly shut door. He ordered the piper to play a less provocative melody, which calmed him down.
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