Steeped in Possibility - Music's Time has Come
/In June of 2017, I was steeped in forums discussing the beauty and power of music. I was steeped in the possibility that music education and music therapy may finally be coming into its place in the word of medicine and education. I’ve always dreamed big but this was outstripping my best dreams.
On June 2nd and 3rd, I attended the first Sound Health conference sponsored by the Kennedy Center in conjunction with the National Institute of Health (https://www.nih.gov/research-training/medical-research-initiatives/sound-health). This meeting was moderated by my favorite artist of all time, Renee Fleming (http://www.reneefleming.com). As the cultural ambassador of the Kennedy Center, Ms. Fleming was able to bring the resources and prestige of this wonderful cultural treasure as host to a series of lectures, discussions and concerts. You can watch films from this conference under the ‘power of music’ tab on Music Therapy Tales (www.musictherapytales.com).
The idea for this conference was born on a night when Ms. Fleming and Dr. Francis Collins (director of the NIH) were at a dinner party. Fellow guests included 3 Supreme Court Justices who had had a heated week of arguments over a case. The evening was described as tense with little eye contact. An accomplished guitarist, Dr. Collins took out his instrument and began to create music with Ms. Fleming. They described a notable thaw to the evening which grew into a conversation about creating this kind of event. Ah, the power of music to bridge divides!
The following week, I attended the 4 day international conference on music and neuroscience at Harvard Medical school in Boston. This conference, hosted by the Mariani Foundation of Italy (http://www.fondazione-mariani.org) meets every 3 years and brings together several hundred scientists whose work is focused on music perception and production.
This was followed by a keynote address that I gave at at the HxR (http://www.hxrefactored.com). This progressive conference brings together innovative thinkers to improve health experiences through human centered design and technology. I spoke about the needs of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people suffering from speech/language disorders related to strokes, Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions. These people are isolated and disconnected from family, friends and society because of an inability to express their basic wants, needs, opinions and feelings. Professional services are not available in these chronic states and are much needed and deserved.
Not all of these conferences addressed music therapy straight on. But what I did see and hear was research data related to music that informs and supports clinical practice. I see it as the scaffolding or infrastructure needed for the science of therapeutic practice. I also saw and heard bold and beautiful visions for the necessity of music in both medicine and education, everything from how music engagement optimally develops children’s brains and how musical deficits underly deficits in movement, cognition and speech/language. I heard about continued work in using music to rehabilitate people with strokes and Parkinson’s disease. I saw the advantages of music in healthy aging, even for people who stopped playing instruments in their youths. At a time when our national budget is proposing cuts or eliminations to arts funding, it is time to stand on the backs of science and say ‘absolutely not.’