The power of music is extraordinary. Lyrically, it is an expression of people’s
emotions. It tells us if the lyricist
was sad, hurt, angry, or even happy. We
all can relate emotionally to a story that has been told. Musically, there are ways to emote our
feelings. You can demonstrate happiness,
tell the story of turmoil, even have the ability to heal.
There are many uses today for music. Composers are writing for films, drawing an
audience in closer to the emotions that are portrayed through the film
itself. Singers and songwriters are
writing to not only tell what is going on in their lives at that moment, but
also what they are feeling. Teachers use
music to help students to learn. Parents
use it to connect with their children.
Today, healers are using to assist in reaching a patient, assisting in
their healing process.
Karen Merzenich said, “we use music to make your life
better. Whether you need help socially,
cognitively, physically, or developmentally, music can help you get better…and
music therapists are well-trained on how to do that.”
There is a natural rhythm to each and every one of us. It starts as a heartbeat in the womb, and
turns into a rhythm in our brains. Using
this, therapists can help people whom have had strokes relearn how to walk or
talk again. It can aide people with
dementia to connect to memories. This is
a remarkable ability of music, and should start being used more.
In Robert Gupta’s TED talk, he talks about the story of Nathaniel
Anthony Ayers. Ayers, having trained at
Julliard as a double bassist, had once had a very promising music career. It was short lived, as he was afflicted with
paranoid schizophrenia. His life on the
street, and his friendship with a man named Steve Lopez, is depicted in the
movie The Soloist.
Lopez developed a relationship with Ayers, and used his love
of music to help bring him back from his episodes. Gupta talks about meeting Ayers, and the
ability of using music to relate to each other, and the influence that music
had to break Ayers from the delusions he was having.
As Gupta said, “through playing music and talking about
music, this man had transformed from the paranoid, disturbed man that had just
come from walking the streets of downtown Los Angeles to the charming, erudite,
brilliant, Julliard-trained musician.
Music is medicine. Music changes
us. And for Nathaniel, music is
sanity. Because music allows him to take
his thoughts and delusions and shape them through his imagination and his
creativity, into reality. And that is an
escape from his tormented state.” Imagine
how many people could be helped if more people used this medium to r
elate.
These stories about healing is very inspiring. Knowing that you can reach people before they
can talk, after they have lost the ability to communicate, or lost touch with
reality is very encouraging. It is this
ability of music, and even film, that has made me love it. Being able to reach people, and help them
heal, that has motivated me to continue with my career in this field.
Gupta puts it best, “this was the very essence of art. This was the very reason why we made music,
that we take something that exists within all of us at our very fundamental
core, our emotions, and through our artistic lens, through our creativity, we’re
able to shape those emotions into reality.
And that reality of that expression reaches all of us and moves us,
inspires and unites us.”
