People hear about the fantastic effect that music therapy has on a person. But can they really measure the impact if they don’t know how or why it works? Music is a part of most people’s everyday life. It is almost unheard of to go through a day without hearing some type of music. The grocery store has music playing in the background. Walking or driving around town, a person may hear some teenagers with their music cranked up. The tap one makes when they walk in high heels, and it is almost impossible to get that annoying ever-playing song out of the mind. Music runs deep within us. Since ancient times, music has been used as a source of healing, but the introduction of music therapy to the medical field didn’t begin until the 1800s. Years later, after studying in this field, Thayer Gaston created his own curriculum and became the “founder of the National Ass[ociation] for Music Therapy, serving as its president (1952–53)” (“Everett Thayer Gaston”). This school met university-level curriculum standards for 47 years until 1997 when it became a program instead of a school. In 1998, this program was merged with another to create what is one of the leading music therapy organizations: the American Music Therapy Association. At present, music therapy is used as a medical practice to help improve mental function, physical mobility, and to reduce the stresses of everyday life.
I remember times when I would sit in the car with my mom, and a song came on the radio that I had never heard in my life but was very popular when my mom was in high school. She would start singing the lyrics as if it were a song that we listen to every day. It is a strange phenomenon that happens to everyone at least once in their lifetime. A song that you thought was long gone will suddenly reappear, and you start singing along as if you listened to it on repeat the day before. Some people “propose that while brain areas dealing with cognition and language degenerate, the parts that respond to music are left intact, providing an alternate pathway into the mind” (Weiss). It is an incredible process that takes place. Children and adults on the autism spectrum have been able to take part in this medical practice. Rebecca M. Jones wrote an article for Science Transitional Medicine and claims that “Music intervention has been shown to improve social interactions in children with autism, and neuroimaging studies in healthy controls have shown that circuits important for emotion and memory processing are engaged during music listening.” Children and adults with autism are able to better express themselves through music. Through the use of music therapy, those same individuals are able to improve emotionally as well as cognitively. Institutions such as Heartsong have taken advantage of this practice for their students. The director of Heartsong says, ‘’We used to have more physically challenged students,’’ he said, ‘’but now about 48 percent of our kids are on the autism spectrum” (Hodara). This institution was asking for grant money so that they could keep the practice of music therapy available at their location.
Believe it or not, music therapy can help with physical mobility. In Weiss’s article, Sacks said, “I’ve seen patients who couldn’t take a single step but could dance, and patients who could not utter a single syllable but could sing.” Isn’t that just amazing? Imagine being the person unable to walk and then being able to dance or unable to talk and then sing a favorite song! Music can do these things. If a person has Parkinson’s Disease, music therapy can help the person steady themselves. The beat or rhythm in a song can serve as a perfect walking tempo.
Not only does music help people who are already born, but it also helps unborn infants to show signs of life. Dr. Deforia Lane delivered a TED talk on her experiences as a music therapist. She shared one experience that she had with one of her first patients — a mother who had received a serious brain injury that caused her to become brain dead. Dr. Lane was asked to help with the baby. She was nervous at first, but when she started singing, she felt the baby inside the young mother “start to dance” (Lane). Once the baby was born, she sang to her, and the baby relaxed. She also described an experience she had with a patient who had been trying to talk to her after his surgery. She decided she would introduce this patient to one of her music therapy tactics. She chose a song she knew he liked and asked him to sing with her. She stopped singing at some points so that she could hear him fill in some of the words. He was able to start making steps toward being able to talk again. Music therapy is an amazing resource that people can use to increase their physical mobility.
Listening to music on an everyday basis could be considered a type of self-therapy that can help reduce life’s stresses. Music has a distinct way of conveying emotion through simple melodies or lyrics and it might just be what someone needs to feel good again. I listen to music every day, especially while I am doing school assignments or tasks. Most of the music I listen to is instrumental, but it has a way of focusing my mind on the task at hand and it reduces the stress I am feeling about it. Listening to music has also been proven to reduce surgery anxiety and accelerate the healing process. An article titled “Music Medicine” claims that “In particular, in perioperative settings (before, during, or after medical intervention), music listening can be used to alleviate stress and pain in patients of all ages”(Stegemann). Listening to music is a great tool for reducing stress and anxiety during everyday life. However, music therapy is available for those who need it or would like professional help for more serious cases such as depression or anxiety.
Annotated Playlist
“Three Ways Music Helps Autism”(2018) Harmony Music therapy.
As shown in this video, JC describes three ways that music therapy can help kids on the autism spectrum. The three things are sensory integration, social skills, and communication. Thinking about it, that is what makes making music fun. Sensory integration is used when working with the instruments and tapping the rhythm. Social skills are especially used in group settings where kids can play games with the music, and communication is used through the music by singing along with the words.
“Gait Training for Parkinson’s Patient Using Music”(2017) Anicea Gunlock
In this video, a man with Parkinson’s is featured to show his success with gait training using music. At first, he struggled to walk without the music, but once it was turned on, he started to walk with ease and later danced. The countenance on his face changed when the music turned on, too. He had more light on his face, which sometimes happens when people listen to music. This is because dopamine is released. Dopamine is the body’s “happy drug.” It is a hormone that gets released as a response to a stimulus. In this case, the stimulus is music.
“Split Stones” (2016) Lymbyc Systym
At the beginning of the song, the video shows all types of people putting on headphones and listening to the song. Later, they were all in tears. Music has a powerful connection to emotions. In the middle of the song, the narrator says, “Tune in on the feeling and examine the contrast between the way it feels right now and the way that just a moment ago when it was very tense” (Lymbic system). After listening to music, tension in the shoulders can be released, and so can emotional tension. Then relaxing is much easier.
“We Will Rock You”(2008) Queen.
This song is one of the most effective songs for music therapy. There is a strong beat throughout the entire song that patients can tap out and find a sense of rhythm. The same phrase, “We will rock you,” also makes up a lot of the song, so it is easier to practice saying those words. In some instances, the music therapy teacher would leave a blank in the sentence to try to see if the patient would fill in the words. Because this phrase is repetitive, it is easier to remember the words and sing along. This song is also part of childhood for some people, so it could spike some fun memories. Some of them could start trying to talk about their memory, or they could get a big smile on their face.
Conclusion
Music therapy can be used for a variety of different things. Since the time it began to be taught by Thayer Gaston and his students, it has only grown and become more well-known by others. The different supports that music therapy can provide are the ability to improve mental function and physical mobility, as well as reduce the stresses of everyday life. So many stories out there demonstrate the effectiveness of this new practice. Of course, music therapy is not for everyone, but numerous people have found comfort in it. Just imagine what would happen if someone learned that they could go to a new therapy program that was based on music and could change their life. Would they do it? Is it worth it?
Reflection
After learning about music therapy, I have come to a greater understanding of how it works and why it has become effective. I have always wondered why banging a drum or singing to a song could possibly have an effect; now I know that it does, a pretty positive effect, too. I think that music therapy should be embraced because of its effectiveness, and it is probably more enjoyable than most other therapies. A change I would suggest is to make sure that music therapy programs have the funds that they need to stay in business and be effective because, without them, we are left with normal therapy. Sometimes, that is not as effective as music therapy because music affects every part of the brain and can increase the function of other parts. Let’s listen and learn.
*The infographic describes the relationship between the brain and music. Each part of the brain is affected by music, and that is why music therapy is effective. Music creates passageways around damaged parts of the brain. Take the temporal lobe, for example, and this lobe is in charge of language. But what if it was damaged? When a person sings a song a few times, muscle memory is activated to form those words. So, a passageway is able to be created for language. The body remembers how to speak words once it is placed in a situation it remembers being in. such as singing.
Works Cited
- “Everett Thayer Gaston.” Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Schirmer, 2001. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/K2420004008/BIC?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=b339c735. Accessed 8 Feb. 2024.
- “Why Do We Remember Song Lyrics so Well?” Www.geisinger.org, 7 Feb. 2022, geisinger.org/health-and-wellness/wellness-articles/2022/02/07/20/02/why-do-we-remember-song-lyrics-so-well. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.
- Hodara, Susan. “A Range of Disorders Tamed by the Beat.” New York Times, Nov 04, 2007, pp. WC.16. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/range-disorders-tamed-beat/docview/433730253/se-2.
- Jones, Rebecca M. “Music Tunes the Brain in Autism.” Science Translational Medicine, vol. 10, no. 466, Nov. 2018, p. eaav6056, https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aav6056. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.
- Lane, Deforia.“Music Therapy & Medicine: A Dynamic Partnership.” TEDxBeaconStreetSalon, Www.youtube.com, 30 Mar. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGnWyS2Y4r8.
- Stegemann, Thomas, and Monika Geretsegger. “Music Medicine.” Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia, edited by William Forde Thompson, et al., vol. 2, SAGE Reference, 2014, pp. 749–751. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX6592100265/GVRL?u=mcc_chandler&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=45231a50. Accessed 7 Feb. 2024.
- Victor, David. “History of Music in Healthcare — Harmony & Healing.” Harmony & Healing, 4 Aug. 2023, www.harmonyandhealing.org/history-of-music-in-healthcare/Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.
- Weiss, Rick. “Music Therapy.” The Washington Post, 5 July 1994, MUSIC THERAPY: [FINAL EDITION]. The Washington Post (Pre-1997 Fulltext) Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/music-therapy/docview/307763113/se-2