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MUSIC MATTERS Music therapy and its power to heal
is slowly being recognised as a powerful component in rehabilitation. We meet some of the people instrumental in championing its cause and effect. words Zara Hedderman photos Molly Keane Cast your mind to a time when you felt particularly low. Is there a song, album or artist you associate with that moment? Perhaps you turned to Bob Dylan’s seething lyricism on Blood On The Tracks or turned your pain into pleasure to Robyn’s exuberant Dancing On My Own. Elsewhere, in the mid-2000s, Arcade Fire’s Funeral articulated the alienation of grief and Modest Mouse encouraged fans to stay afloat. Personally, I go straight to Radiohead or Scott Walker. In 1970, John Lennon opened his debut solo album, Plastic Ono Band, with a song called Mother. The song morphs into a harrowing incantation; “Mama don’t go, Daddy come home.” Lennon screams so ferociously that you can almost feel the heat, brought on by his impassioned plea, emanating from his body coupled with the image of pulsating vocal cords on the cusp of eruption. Produced by Phil Spector, the overall tone of the album was influenced by Lennon’s exploration into Primal Therapy under Arthur Janov. The extent to which Lennon reveals his childhood trauma can, at times, make for uncomfortable listening. It’s like we’re eavesdropping by a door left ajar or scanning the pages of someone’s diary. There’s a long history of artists sharing their experiences and emotions through song; (“I hope you can hear, hear me singing through these tears,” Dylan intoned on You’re A Big Girl Now.) From those examples, we’re given an insight into how songwriting can enable unfiltered self-expression; to become in tune with one’s mental health, body, and heart. We may not always realise it, but music’s function reaches further than entertainment. Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne prefaced his book, How Music Works, with the proclamation that, “Music can get us through difficult patches in our lives by changing not only how we feel about ourselves, but also how we feel about everything outside ourselves. It’s powerful stuff.” This is a befitting synopsis when we consider how music helped countless soldiers suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, incurred from the harsh realities of combat, following the Second World War. Professional musicians performed in the hospital for the soldiers, providing an escape from remembered sounds of thundering explosions and the fuzzed drones of aircraft searing through the sky replacing them with beautiful melodies that evoked a calmness within the patients. In ‘Music and the Wounded of World War II’, an article by Margaret Ann Rorke, published in the 1996 edition of The Journal of Music Therapy, she reveals that, “The healing powers of music were witnessed on an unparalleled scale. For the first time in history, a military, the American Service Forces, officially recognized music as an agent capable of helping its mentally and physically wounded. This was, indeed, a major turning point in the longstanding partnership between music and medicine, and the beginning of the modern music therapy profession.” From there, the practice experienced a surge in popularity across Western culture. Prior to that, there had been a few instances in the early 1900s where music therapy had been written about under clinical consideration. The actual practice of music therapy, however, is an ancient one. In mythology, Asclepius, son of Apollo, is said to have cured illness through song. Elsewhere, the philosophers Aristotle and Plato were advocates of music as a source of establishing an inward connection. In The Republic, written in 380 B.C., Plato professed that “Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.” In Ireland, music therapy’s journey has been a gradual one. While it has become increasingly popular since the turn of the millennium, music therapists are still waiting for statutory recognition of their profession. Until then, there’s little protection on the regulation of the practice which is worrying to many professionals within the field due to the sensitivity of the cases they treat. The Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists (IACAT), a body formed in 1992, has been campaigning for the inclusion of Creative Arts Therapies – music, dance, art, and drama – in the Health & Social Care Professional’s Act (2005). Hopefully, the current climate of open conversation about mental health will provide a catalyst for this much-needed change of legislation. In Dublin’s music scene, there’s been a significant increase in artists speaking openly about their experiences with mental health. The correlation between mental health and musicians isn’t a recent or surprising occurrence due to the nature of the profession and lifestyle. Since 2014, First Fortnight has hosted a plethora of events, with a strong emphasis on music, with the intention of diminishing the stigma surrounding mental health. Outside of the annual twoweek festival, the organisation provides services to support people suffering from a range of disorders. These foundations provide a solid frame for Ireland’s music therapy model. What we’re seeing is the building of communities and natural source of healing through creative instincts that reside in everyone. 22