Author Archive

Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness edited by Renée Fleming features chapters by researchers, medical practitioners, and artists that explain what we know about the healing capabilities of art therapies along with what we still don’t know about the magic of music and other art forms. Leaders and parents should read this to reinforce how they support and encourage access of the arts for all children.

Introduction

• Music and Mind has assembled the voices of leading figures in neuroscience and the musical and visual arts, providing an inspiring view of the emerging synthetic possibilities. You will find much here to love and much to encourage your support of and access to the arts. Most of the chapters are summarized here.

Part I: How and Why: Experts Explain the Basic Science Connecting Arts and Health, Including Origins in Evolution

Musicality, Evolution, and Animal Responses to Music? by Aniruddh D. Patel – Department of Psychology, Tufts University

• Music pervades human culture. Music neuroscience is a young field that includes music-based interventions for brain health. While we don’t know what survival benefits music behaviors have, it does seem likely that they have had some. We do know that musical abilities vary widely among adults. Current research on the musicality of humans involves the fields of developmental psychology, ethnographic and cross-cultural studies of music, cognitive neuroscience, genomics, and cross-species research.
• Synchronizing rhythmic body movements to musical beats emerges in children without formal instruction. Musical ability has some genetic influence, but experience plays a more important role. Singing emerges in every culture and coordinated group singing appears to have psychological benefits. While most people find music rewarding, some are not moved by it. Music can calm infants. The best current bet is that musicality as part of human nature.

What Does it Mean to be Musical? by Daniel J. Levitin – Psychology Department, McGill University

• Music is organized sound. Genetic factors are essential for outstanding levels of musical ability. It is also clear that it takes a lot of hard work and practice to realize one’s genetic abilities. We haven’t discovered the specific music genes yet, but most think that we will. Musicality is hard to define and efforts to test for it have been less than effective.

The Parting Glass by Richard Powers – Pulitzer Prize Winning Novelist

• Powers is a novelist who reminisces here on music’s ability to make us sad in the absence of real tragedy thus making us more adept in sadness when life calls for the real thing. As an active listener, he sees joy in bird song and the fact that he can stream just about any song ever written as a form of cognitive therapy. The Parting Glass is one of his favorites. Check it out.

Sound Connects Us by Nina Kraus – Communications Science, Northwestern University

• Sound is a mnemonic, it helps us remember. Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs that we ask our brain to do. We hear pitch, timing, timbre, and loudness simultaneously. Making music strengthens our senses, our bodies, our cognition, and our ability to learn. Listening to music activates the reward circuits in our brain. Musicians are able to focus attention better. They outperform non-musicians on memory tasks. They tend to do better in reading, overall intelligence, and academic achievement.
• A sound mind is also shaped by athletic activity. Unfortunately, music defies the kind of quantification that science requires. This makes it difficult to study music systematically. There is hope, however, that the study of music will clarify how music and biological health coincide.

How Music Shows Us What It Means to Be Human: Rhiannon Giddens (Singer, Instrumentalist, and Composer)

• Music has the inherent power to bring humans together. It is a coping mechanism throughout our history. Many assume that it is a universal language. It creates an emotional pathway for people to help them cope with the ups and downs of life. Regardless of the technology, it’s the emotional aspect that is important. We are not different from each other and music is the key that holds us together.

Sounding Joy: Christopher Bailey – Arts and Health Lead, World Health Organization

• This is the story of one man’s blindness and how music and art made it much easier for him to deal with his lost vision. He found that music accelerated his rehabilitation and enhanced his mood. He found that music recreated his world. Unlike sight that only captures light reflected from a surface, sound is an energy that passes through matter and is therefore more palpable. All he had to do was close his eyes to find the healing power of music.

Can Singing Touch the Heart? Jacquelyn Kulinski – Director of Preventive Cardiology Program, University of Wisconsin

• We know that exercise is beneficial for health in general and your cardiovascular system in particular. The question here is does singing on a regular basis count as the kind of exercise that produces health benefits? It certainly seems like it should. The author is involved in a longitudinal study to see how singing can benefit health. The results are due in August of 2024 so stay tuned. In the mean time, sing your heart out.

Rabbit Hole: Roseanne Cash – Grammy Winning Singer and Songwriter

• Roseanne tells the story of her fight with a rare brain disorder that was treated surgically after it was finally diagnosed. Needless to say her recovery that is still ongoing was aided by the music she performed and wrote with collaborators like Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Costello. Here is a lyric that tells what music can do. “When you sing to the farthest rafter, with your big life full of love and laughter, you pull me up from the rabbit hole.”

Music For Chronic Pain Management: Joke Bradt – Arts Therapist Department, Drexel University

• There are a large number of studies that demonstrate music’s efficacy for the reduction of pain. Listening to music reduces self-reported pain, anxiety, and depression. Patients with severe emotional exhaustion, depression, and anger that often accompany chronic pain may also require the service of a music therapist.
• Making music, improvising, and creating music have all been shown to be beneficial as well. Making music with others offers a sense of support and activates social engagement, which also promotes healing as it combats isolation. Music increases self-efficacy. This gives you the confidence that you can accomplish what you set out to do. You feel like you have more control, which allows you to use less medication.

Music Across the Continuum of Care: A Hospital Setting: J. Todd Frazier – Center of Performing Arts Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital

• The Huston Methodist Hospital offers a continuum of care that features music. For everyone, environmental music shapes the overall public experience. Some patients receive music medicine to support their treatment process. Others receive music therapy to achieve individualized clinical goals. Dynamic teams work across all hospital departments in this effort.
• Some people learn a new way to speak through singing. It can also be used to help with memory cues. Music therapists work with physical therapists to help people walk. Music can impact the body’s internal rhythms, especially those of the heart. Music can speed up stroke recovery and lower anxiety.

“I Sing the Body Electric”: Music Psychotherapy in Medicine: Joanne Loewy – Director, Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine

• Music therapy is an integrative field that has recently gained traction. Entrainment is a central concept. This is where two systems are locked in sync. For this purpose we mean a human body system or systems and something external like a system making music. An example is the way a lullaby can comfort a crying infant. This can facilitate medical procedures.
• Music therapy has been shown to help with Alzheimer’s, stroke, and early dementia among others. Syncing one’s breathing can help with COPD. It can help with relaxation and even act as a very safe sedative. It can lessen anxiety such as that associated with radiation. Treatments are safe, effective, and inexpensive. Musicians themselves are often candidates due to issues like job insecurity and drug use.

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