The use of sound utilising various instruments for healing is an ancient technique used the world over. Today, however, only the more, I would say attuned but some might say, "primitive" societies/people still use sound as an everyday healing method. Most of these people are groups that have kept their "old ways", their shamanic teachings and, are still in tune with nature and the Earth.
Today more and more people are experimenting with sound and tone, using instruments or even just the human voice, to bring our bodies back to balance.
We can use the vibrational energies of sound to bring harmony to mind, body and spirit. Using your own voice or music you can harness the healing powers of sound to influence pulse, respiration, emotions and the flow of energy to your whole being. Sound can be used to help remove experiences or emotions that we have kept tightly contained and pushed deep down. Things we think we dealt with long ago and only subdued. These experiences can continue to influence us and poison our systems, through stress, anxiety, anger etc, without our realising what the source of our ill-ease is. Sound can help us to release these "blocks" as it goes beneath concious thought and straight to the essence of our being.
Everything in the Universe has its own vibrational signature. To illustrate this just look at the old trick of the Opera singer and the wineglass. The glass molecules vibrate at a particular frequency. If the singer can hit just the right note and sustain it, and increase the power output of their voice the glass will vibrate faster and faster until it cannot sustain the level of "excitement" of the molecules and will shatter or crack. This is vibrational resonance at its simplest.
In each human or animal there are many differing signatures, each organ, type of cell etc, having its own. If you can imagine a full symphony orchestra with all the different instruments, each being played by a different hand, you will have a tiny idea of the concept of vibrations in the body. They are all capapble of solo vibrations, and therefore of individual adjustment, but together they make a symphony of resonance, which if one instrument is out of tune affects or destroys the harmony of the whole.
It is possible to "Tune" one area in isolation but it is easier, and more efficient, to balance the total harmony as often one vibration depends on another to complete its work. What we are looking to produce is RESONANCE. This is the phenomenon of one object, one being, one cell even, vibrating in sympathy (at the same frequency) as a sound being produced.
As humans most of us find that "simple" instruments, such as drums, gongs, shakers etc, touch and reach us easily. I believe that one reason for this is that in the womb the baby's ears are fully functioning by four and a half months. Therefore for half of their time in the womb they are bathed in sounds of the mother's heart, blood, digestive system, breathing etc, which all sound at fairly low pitched and rythmic rates.