Music therapy as an organized profession goes back to the middle of the last century, when doctors found that it had a soothing effect on the combat-wracked nerves of World War II veterans. But shamans have used tribal drumming to heal for centuries, and today music therapy has expanded to help people who are living with depression or severe mental illness, children with autism, people in hospice, people with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or other kinds of neurological damage. Dr. Oliver Sacks has written of music’s “unique capacity to organize or reorganize cerebral function when it has been damaged.” (Sacks once took a patient with a brain tumor to a Grateful Dead concert, and the patient’s beloved music actually woke him, albeit temporarily, from his stupor.)
Listening to music also lowers stress hormones, raises levels of oxytocin (the tenderness molecule) and boosts an antibody that fights infection. It’s used to calm patients before surgery or dentistry, or help them through grueling cancer treatments. U.S. Senator Harry Reid summed it up:
“Simply put, music can heal people."
Board-certified music therapist Crystal Weaver works with patients at the Saint Louis University Cancer Center, and I ask what kind of music she uses. Brahms for insomnia, Bach for mental clarity, maybe a little Motown to pep somebody’s mood? That kind of stereotyping is, she tells me, “a fallacy. What’s therapeutic depends on the patient.” An old rocker might find solace in the Grateful Dead, but my great-aunt would’ve sailed through chemo if they’d played her a polka.
In the first session, Weaver finds out what kind of music a patient loves and/or wants to hear. “We take our lead from the client,” she says firmly. “They have limited options during treatment—there’s so much they have to do, and so much they cannot do. So we give them choice and control.” And if somebody’s not in the mood for music at all, they just talk. Music therapists learn different counseling theories—sometimes people want to talk even more than they want to listen, and music shakes loose all sorts of feelings. And because therapists aren't playing just to entertain, they learn how to adjust a piece's tempo for different purposes.
“If I’m seeing a patient who has anxiety issues, I know I can set the music to a certain tempo so their pulse and biorhythms will slow to match,” says Weaver. “Stress makes your heart rate and blood pressure soar, and your veins close a little and the medication doesn’t take effect as quickly.” The converse holds for perky, sped-up rhythms, too—which can be great when somebody’s going through rehab in physical therapy. A Sousa march with a strong beat can help someone who’s had a stroke relearn how to walk with a steady gait.
Therapists must be proficient at least at guitar and piano, and able to learn new music overnight so they can play—well—whatever their patient requests. “And some of the modern country music is not that easy to learn,” believe it or not,” Weaver adds. She can’t cheat with a playlist—human beings respond more strongly to the vibrations of live music. On her guitar, she’s managed jazz, blues, Big Band music, Christian Science hymns, Jewish music. She also sings, and if her patients or their families like, they sing, too. When a physician walks into an impromptu jam session, “it’s a great equalizer,” she says. “It brings everybody together.”
When family members stood helplessly at their mother’s deathbed, not knowing what to do, Weaver told them, “You can help me more than I can help your mother, because I don’t know what kind of music she liked.” They brightened. Church hymns. Weaver launched into “In a Garden.” “If you want to sing with me, that will give her an opportunity to hear and recognize your voices,” she said, and they joined in softly through “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace.” “They were crying, but they wouldn’t let me stop. They said, ‘This is wonderful.’ They got to say goodbye in a poignant and peaceful way.”
I ask Weaver what genre she’d find comforting, were she ever ill or in distress. She chuckles. “I actually absolutely personally love pop punk music.”
Her music therapist will have to find a way.
Tomorrow: how sad music can make you happier.
