Healing the Body, Soothing the Soul
by Martin Walls
Making music, like gardening or creative writing, is a hobby as enjoyable to share as it is to do alone. Sharing music takes many forms, from informal jam sessions to amateur piano recitals to community band concerts. Increasingly, musicians also are sharing their music in therapeutic settings. Playing music for hospital patients or hospice and nursing home residents provides solace and joy for those facing a troubling or stressful time of life. For amateur musicians, helping people through these times brings the kind of joy and satisfaction hard to find in any other walk of life.
Ten years ago, harpist Laurie Riley had the idea that musicians interested in playing music in hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes could be organized and trained into a network of certified music practitioners (CMPs) who could support the therapeutic and palliative work of doctors and nurses. She created the Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP), a not-for-profit educational organization that trains musicians to provide live, therapeutic music at patients’ bedsides and create healing environments in healthcare facilities and the homes of the sick.
Finding Balance
In 1996, Melinda Gardiner joined the program and eventually became its executive director. Like many of the more than 100 musicians who train with MHTP every year, Gardiner is an amateur musician. “I’ve sung since childhood in various choruses and choirs, and I was very involved in the folk-music revival of the ’60s as a self-taught guitarist,” explains Gardiner, adding, “If I am not singing, I get out of balance physically, mentally, or spiritually.”
In 1987, Gardiner took up the harp and immediately became interested in its use for therapy and healing, “basically because of my interest in the healing arts. I am an RN and have studied integrative medicine extensively.” She also noted the therapeutic effect playing the harp had on herself, which in turn led Gardiner to study the history of music and healing. “I learned about Celtic lore, and the three strains of music of the ancient bards: music that brings laughter, music that brings tears, and music that brings healing and sleep.” As soon as she could pick a few tunes, Gardiner began informally playing to hospice patients. She discovered Riley’s new program in 1996; today, in addition to running the program, Gardiner trains new music practitioners in the New York area.
Training gives a music practitioner skills designed to enhance their music making and tailor it to the needs of patients and residents. “CMPs are trained to respond to the needs of each patient in the moment and to adjust the music as the patient’s needs may change,” explains Gardiner. “Several hospices and hospitals sponsor our classes and have developed music programs in their facilities using our interns and graduates.” Once a CMP graduates, he or she may be hired by one of the many care facilities that welcome musicians in the US, Canada, and now in Japan.
Mature, intermediate musicians most often join the program. “Although we have very successful graduates who were musical beginners when they started. Our students generally are people who like to serve others in an intimate way with their music making. They are people who have healthcare, educational, or service backgrounds, or who want to give back to their community. Often they are investigating a career change,” Gardiner says.
A Door Opens
Karen Johnson, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a good example of the sort of musician attracted to MHTP. A police officer for many years, she left her stressful job (“It had done a number on me!”) to become a CMP and discovered in her new career a fulfillment many only dream of. Her journey toward becoming a CMP began when her husband bought her a clarinet for her 37th birthday. “I always wanted to be a musician. I played piano, but it wasn’t my instrument,” Johnson says. “Still, without music, something was missing in my life.” She took to the clarinet immediately. “I fell passionately in love with it. I studied, practiced, played all the time, and I found good teachers.”
Her teachers saw her deep love for the clarinet and encouraged her to find a performance niche that could be filled by a dedicated amateur—as a music practitioner. Already familiar with nursing homes, where she volunteered while a cop, Johnson knew some residents were looking for more than just entertainment. “Some residents need spirituality, something to fill their souls,” she explains, “and that’s what music does.” When Johnson joined MHTP, she immediately knew she had made the right move. “I felt I had found my long-lost tribe, and that I wasn’t just whistling in the dark with my ideas about music and healing.”
Today, Johnson enjoys visiting the elderly and infirm with her clarinet, and her greyhounds, to offer a non-verbal, interactive therapy that she says compliments traditional medical intervention. Her job is also to relieve the stress, boredom, and loneliness that can accompany old age. “I love elderly people, especially those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease,” says Johnson. “A door closes for them, but I think another one opens, and a more creative way of approaching life begins. This is why nonverbal communication—such as music—works for these patients.”
Sacred Space
“Many people benefit from the service of a CMP,” says Gardiner, “whether they are chronically ill at home or in a nursing home, or acutely ill in a hospital.” She also provides, through harp and voice, music that relaxes, reduces anxiety, and diminishes pain in ambulatory surgery patients, people in the emergency waiting rooms, and laboring mothers. “Outside of the hospital, I have often played for isolated shut-in elders to bring some beauty into their lives, for people recovering from chemotherapy treatments, and for hospice patients, to create a sacred space for the patient and family.”
Music practitioner and harpist Mona Peck, of Westchester, New York, has played for people in the final hours of their lives. “In this case, the instrument creates a holy space for a very private event,” says Peck. “Music has the ability to speak to inner parts of all of us. It’s very moving.” Peck also has performed for patients at the beginning of life’s journey: sick newborns in neo-natal intensive care wards. Music has the ability to speak to even these little ones, it seems. “Once when I stopped playing, a baby being held by its mother started to cry,” recalls Peck, who, like Johnson, finds life as a CMP incredibly fulfilling. “Being a certified music practitioner lets me be a full musician, and it’s a great way to use my talent for service.”
Before she became a practitioner, Peck had an idea that music was an important aspect of healing and wellness. “My father was a heart patient in the 1960s, and whenever he came out of intensive care, he always had a desire to listen to music,” she remembers. At that time, though, the medical establishment was less open to the idea than it is today. Peck also realized that the harp has a particular healing effect: “I sometimes played harp in restaurants, and people would come up to me and say, ‘Boy, was that relaxing!’” Peck attributes the healing power of the harp to its acoustic range, its vibrations, and its overtones. “I’ve often felt it stimulates the immune system,” she says.
Bringing Beauty
“Therapeutic music is a field that is growing quickly and the future is very promising,” observes Gardiner. “More and more healthcare facilities appreciate the benefits it can provide and are willing to invest in a music program.” Gardiner says therapeutic music should not be confused with the academic field of music therapy. “It differs in that therapeutic musicians are trained to use the inherent qualities of live, acoustic music to facilitate healing. They do not train in sensory stimulation, behavior modification, or in using music to accomplish the goals of a treatment plan.”
A music practitioner’s job is to use music as a way of diminishing the stresses of professional care that might stand in the way of healing. “In our complex, technologically-focused healthcare system, a music practitioner can contribute simple, important elements to the healthcare environment, bringing beauty and comfort to a person in need,” explains Gardiner.
Enlivening the sometimes strange and frightening environment of a hospital, and providing patients with focused, caring attention is “powerful,” she summarizes. It’s what makes being a music practitioner such a unique and remarkable calling.
For more information on MHTP, and to learn how to become a music practitioner, log on to www.mhtp.org.
Martin Walls is an amateur musician who swears by the stress-busting power of thrashing about on his tama drum kit.
