According to Stern it is “only in the present moment that we are psychologically and consciously alive:  as a the

conscious (and not the unconscious) is the key mystery. Music is closely related to time, we experience it in one moment and then it is gone.  This moment is called XAIPO of time, it is the moment in which the events occur as time by.
This is all we have at our disposal and it is exactly what we need to communicate to the cancer patient: In life XPONO is for the seasons, XAIPO is for humans. If we manage to really live in the present, time looses its preciousness. The proverbial “ticking of the clock” gets softer and softer and eventually vanishes completely. That is when we perceive the inside instead of the outside. Music is somehow undefined and indefinable in our bodies. Sometimes it comes from within, others it comes from outside and it plays in every part of our brain and vibrates in every single cell. It simply fills up our body and spirit.
This is very similar to the way a disease functions… therefore, we believe that it does not make any sense to have time, if one is not capable of “living” it.
This is also something music therapy can and has to do: it has to give patients the possibility to turn the ticking of the clock into emotions, to transform their fear into a smile.
With our help the patient may have a very deep life experience, which may alleviate the insecurity and the pain.

If we live time in an objective way all our relationships are projected to the future and will lack their strong roots that are based in the present. It is the present that gives the future its quality. We can only feel strong emotions if savor every single moment of our existence.