Gary Jones, founder of MediMusic, joins Sunny Ray to explain how his company is turning music into a measurable form of medicine. Jones traces his path from running Sony's Music Unlimited service in 2014 to meeting Professor Mark Sandler, who introduced him to music information retrieval algorithms that map how the brain processes tempo, emotion, volume, and harmony. That encounter led him to build MediMusic, which launched in 2020 and now works with music therapists, care homes, and hospitals rather than selling directly to consumers. He cites a study showing music reduced anxiety by 43.5 percent and pain by 28.5 percent, while lowering dependency on anxiety and pain medications. MediMusic fingerprints tracks and validates impact using wearables that track heart rate variability and skin conductivity. Jones discusses building waterproof headphones for CPAP hoods in ICU settings, filing patents, expanding into the United States, and planning a UK trial on tapering opiate use in chronic back pain patients. He closes by predicting doctors will eventually prescribe playlists rather than songs, and notes MediMusic is preparing to raise a funding round.
MediMusic founder Gary Jones on turning music into measured medicine, cutting anxiety 44%, pain 29%, and drug dependency along the way.
What is MediMusic actually trying to build?
We're trying to turn music into a medicine. We all self-medicate with music already, and there's a huge amount of science and research behind that. We're bringing it together so people can use music to reduce pain, anxiety, cognitive impairment, and the drug costs associated with those conditions.
What do the studies behind the 44 percent anxiety and 29 percent pain numbers actually show?
There's over 40 years of research, about 25,000 papers on PubMed, and peer reviewed work in Cochrane. This particular study found anxiety reduced by 43.5 percent and pain by 28.5 percent. It also found 23.8 percent less dependency on anxiety drugs and 14.2 percent less dependency on pain drugs, which matters given global analgesic costs.
How do you personally use music day to day?
I use it driving, especially around London where it's stressful, mainly for concentration, listening to Mozart because of the Mozart Effect study showing it improves concentration. The whole ethos behind what we're doing is familiar music, music you can relate to, not AI generated, and I think that's key.
What did Professor Mark Sandler show you about music information retrieval?
He introduced me to algorithms that extract a track's tempo and effectively its digital DNA. The brain splits music as we listen: tempo and rhythm go to the motor cortex, emotion to the amygdala, volume to the base of the brain, and harmony and tone to the auditory cortex. MIR gives back metadata tied to those regions.
Is the effect on anxiety and pain actually measurable?
Yes, it absolutely is. We fingerprint tracks, and you can measure the impact through a wearable, tracking heart rate, heart rate variability, and skin conductivity. That loop then looks to improve the service overall.
How do you explain a finding like Mozart lowering interleukin 6 in critically ill patients to a skeptical clinician?
Music affects the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system through the vagus nerve, working on the good side of the nervous system rather than the negative side. It regulates breathing and digestion, increases oxytocin and dopamine, and reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, which is not great with long term exposure.
Why sell to music therapists rather than direct to patients?
The B2C market is crowded, you've got players like Calm, but B2B isn't really serviced, so going B2B gives us credibility. Music therapists already understand the benefit of music, and a service like ours makes their business scalable, since one therapist can only see so many people but can hand out a self-medicating service to more.
Ten years out, does a doctor prescribe a song the way they prescribe a pill?
They'd prescribe a playlist, so it wouldn't be a song as such, it would be a playlist.
Building something daring? Sunny talks to founders like this every day. Fifteen minutes to see if your story belongs on the stage.
Claim your pre-interview