From the allure of salsa at a dance club to the dignity of the wedding march, we count on music to provide the soundtrack for our lives. But what if the music were more than just a reflection of our moods -- what if the soundtrack changed the course of the movie itself?

A group of interdisciplinary presenters wants to examine just that in an upcoming conference hosted by Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. The conference, titled "Brainwave Entrainment to External Rhythmic Stimuli" unites presenters under the common interest of how music affects the brain -- and, more specifically, how music can alter our brainwaves, and by extension, alertness, mood and even certain disorders.

"It seems that if you focus your attention intensely enough on any rhythmic stimulus in your environment, your brainwaves will begin to synchronize to that rhythm and become more and more synchronized the longer that you pay attention to it," explains Symposium Coordinator and visiting scholar Gabe Turow.

Turow continues, "Given that your EEG rhythms -- the electromagnetic pules coming from the cortex -- are tied closely to your state of arousal and attention, brainwave entrainment seems to represent a way of systematically altering your brainwave state for short periods of time, eliciting a different state of arousal or attention in the process," he continues.

Though this phenomenon is observable in everyday life -- Turow gives examples such as the rhythmic movement of cars lulling people to sleep and the calming influence of playing an instrument -- it also has possible medical applications. Disorders such as insomnia, ADD, depression and anxiety have been linked to specific brain wave patterns, suggesting that treatment for these disorders could come from music rather than drug therapy. People with ADD, for example, could listen to fast electronic music in order to speed up the slower-than-average brainwaves in the frontal cortex.

The use of music for therapy is one of the major topics of discussion at Saturday's conference, which will feature 30-minute presentations from fields as diverse as psychology, computer science and philosophy.

Judith Becker, a professor of musicology at the University of Michigan, will give a presentation that examines how music is used for healing in rituals in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

She writes in the online description of her project, "I will present some video footage of two rituals that involve intense, repetitive music in rituals of healing and trance. The first example is of a Buddhist healing ritual from Sri Lanka in which the drummers successfully attempt to induce trance in the sick person. The second example is a ritual from Bali, Indonesia, that involves neutralizing the negative power of a magnificent witch...An essential part of the ceremony is the trance induction of a group of village volunteers...who after initially attacking the witch, turn their daggers upon themselves, but are seldom harmed."

Another presentation by Thomas Budzynski, Affiliate professor of psychology at the University of Washington, will examine how light and music together can affect brainwave patterns and even improve cognitive performance in senior citizens.

The conference is not just limited to clinical or scientific research; it will also feature a performance by Italian music group, Musicantica. The ensemble, which performs a style of trance music called tarantella, features two ethnomusicologists who will follow the performance with a discussion of how tarantella relates to the topics discussed at the conference.

This academic breadth is one of the highlights of the conference, says organizer and Department of Music Chair Jonathan Berger. "This conference brings together neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, computer scientists and ethnomusicologists all working on pieces of this large puzzle. It is the first of its kind and an exciting moment for Stanford and for the research community at large," he explains.

Turow agrees about the wealth of information available at the conference and adds that it should have far-reaching appeal.

"I think there's something for just about everyone in this conference. Everyone has emotional experiences that seem out of their control-this conference suggests a non-invasive means to find a way to deal with them," says Turow. "And for those who play or listen to music, this should start to give them some clues as to why they are affected in certain ways by certain pieces and maybe it'll encourage them to pay more attention to those effects and possibly even cultivate them."

Those interested in attending the conference, which will last all day on Saturday, May 13, can find more information at http://sica.stanford.edu/events/brainwaves/index.html.