TheraTunes is a music therapy program designed for young children with varying mental capabilities, to better help students express and develop their emotional range through music.

Designed by Kaiya Pandit and her team of talented musicians, artists and students, TheraTunes ( est.2018) has been used by thousands of students across the globe. In 2021 Nirvaan Pandit created the TheraTunes app which further democratized access to music therapy and enables people everywhere to enjoy its benefits.

Our work has been based on the research done over these past years and is targeted at children with mental, emotional and physical disabilities. Each song is created to impart certain skills while eliciting a particular emotional response from the children. The pitch, key, tempo, and frequencies of the songs help to bring out these emotions while the lyrical content and the activities suggested for each song lend themselves to the development of different physical and cognitive skills

For example, when you use a mixture of high and low frequencies with music therapy, it can be a very powerful resource in reorganizing the brain to evoke certain emotional responses that are otherwise hidden. This can help children who struggle with speech and language development. High frequencies are like food for the brain. They energize it, and make the brain alert and able to focus and remember. In contrast, lower frequencies calm and soothe the mind. Now considering structure, if a song is built as a "call and response" one, students are nudged to develop memorization skills, while a song that calls for large movement across the room will encourage gross motor (physical) skills. So, when composing our music, we kept in mind the type of development we want to create— is it an emotional response, a physical skill, or cognitive development? And how can we design songs to encorporate these elements accurately yet playfully?

Types of Songs and Related Skills

Theratunes songs are designed to target specific aspects of a child's development. As such, the songs you will be teaching fall under 3 main categories:

Communicative Motivation
Physical Development
Mental Stimulation

Within these main categories are sub-categories that describe the specific function of each song. As you will see with almost all Theratunes song, these functions overlap to create songs that develop various skills.

1. The songs that are designed specifically for communicatve motivation are divided into 3 subcategories:

Songs marked with "Expressive" are songs
that help students express themselves.
These songs create a certain physical or
communicative response.

Songs marked with "Receptive"refer to a
student’s ability to receive and comprehend
different information—this can be content
assimilation or sensory receptivity.

Finally, the "Social" category has songs that
use communicative games and activities
to encourage students to interact with
one and other.


2. The songs that improve various types of physical development are divided into two subcategories:

Songs marked "Fine Motor" refer to the
development of ‘finer’ movement skills using
small muscle movements (such as writing,
drawing, playing small instruments, etc.) to
improvestudent’s fine motor skills.

Songs marked "Gross Motor" refer to the
movement of whole limbs or the body (such as
rolling, walking, kicking, etc.), a skill developed
often in energetic songs that encourage
movement around the space.


3. The songs that are mentally stimulating are also divided into two subcategories:

"Cognitive" songs are songs that motivate
students to think and help sharpen
intelligence through lyrical content (call and
response, sequencing, language acquisition,
etc.) and rhythmic content (counting and
time-keeping).

"Emotional" songs are those that utilize researched
tones, keys, rhythms, and frequencies to induce
target feelings in a student.

With this knowledge, we hope you and your classroom have a wonderful experience with the Theratunes experience. Happy listening!