Beverley,
Massachusetts (AP) - Seventeen-year-old Tony Bacon
sat at the parlor window seat, his eyes glued to the driveway.
He settles into the same spot every Wednesday afternoon.
"What are you waiting for?" asked his mother,
Susan Williams.
"Music therapy," he
said, his words fast and slurred.
For the next 45 minutes, Tony, who has autism, and Krystal
Demaine sit face-to-face in the sunroom. She plays guitar
as he beats on a drum.
Demaine, a graduate of the music therapy program at Boston's
Berklee College of Music, has been going to Tony's house
for four years, using the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
for exercises in enunciation, volume and breath control.
Beating along to "Blackbird" tests the teen's
coordination and motor control.
It's part of a session known as music therapy, which is
used to help people with various medical conditions develop
everything from language skills to motor coordination.
It can provide a drug-free way to regulate moods in people
with depression or foster socialization in those with
limited means of communication.
The first music therapy program in the country started
at Michigan State University in 1944, according to Alan
Solomon, former historian for the American Music Therapy
Association and current dean at the Potsdam State University
of New York's Crane School of Music.
He said it gained popularity in veterans' hospitals in
World War II as doctors became interested in music's ability
to heal soldiers with both physical and mental problems.
These days, Berklee's program is one of the largest among
the 70 that have sprouted up around the country. In the
upcoming school year, Berklee will have 100 students in
the program.Music therapists take advantage of the ways
mind and body are stimulated when people listen to and
make music to hone motor and brain functions, said Al
Bumanis, spokesman for the American Music Therapy Association.
"Music impacts a person viscerally, physically,
immediately and directly," said Suzanne Hanser, founder
and chairwoman of Berklee's music therapy program. Its
undergraduate program is one of 70 in the country.
Demaine, who graduated from the program in 2000, said
a patient in music therapy works on many senses at once.
"I'm using my hands, I'm using my eyes, I'm
using my ears -- I'm using all these different senses
and I'm receiving something that makes me feel good,"
said Demaine, who also has a certificate in neurologic
music therapy and a master's degree in education.
Tony's mother said she enrolled him in music therapy because
she thought it could help his communication skills.
The therapy "forces language" when he and Demaine
sing, Williams said, which makes it easier for Tony to
communicate with others.
"I think there's
something so basic but so complicated about rhythm,"
she said. "I think it really helps organize the brain."
Students in the Berklee program spend most of their time
off-campus, in hospitals and schools where they work with
patients under the supervision of professional music therapists.
They must pass a national certification test to be recognized
as music therapists.
Adam Sankowski, a 2003 graduate of the program, works
at the Kennedy Day School at the Franciscan Hospital for
Children in Boston, where he uses music therapy to foster
socialization. Many of his patients are nonverbal and
use machines with recorded phrases to communicate.
The idea, Sankowski said, is to make the setting similar
to other groups of friends hanging out. "People are
talking, everybody takes turns," he explained, "we
try to create that same thing but in a musical context."
The first song the group sings every day is a greeting,
used to help the children interact and learn to use the
technology they depend on. Several students have such
limited use of their bodies that all they can do is hit
a switch with their heads. But during music therapy, hitting
that switch lets them sing along with their classmates.
The Berklee students help doctors and other caretakers
understand that music therapy "is an art and it is
also a medical science and it is based on current theories
as well as research," Hanser said.
For instance, in a 1986 paper published in the Journal
of Music Therapy, Hanser, a research associate at the
Dana Farber Cancer Institute, described the effects of
music therapy on women in labor. For 10 contractions,
women listened to songs they had used previously as part
of relaxation techniques. That was alternated with five
music-less minutes for the duration of labor.
The women had fewer physical pain responses -- tense muscles,
clenched teeth, raised shoulders and requests for painkillers
while music played.
And recent research at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation
suggests listening to music can reduce chronic pains and
depression by up to 25 percent.
But it wasn't such research that brought Sankowski to
the Berklee program.
"I wasn't sure what
I was going to do, but I made the decision that music
was going to be a big part of my life," he said.
"It's more about connecting with people."
MORE
INFORMATION
To find our more information
about Music Therapy, visit the American Music Therapy
Association's website at www.musictherapy.org.
To learn more inormation about Autism, visit the National
Autism Association's website at www.nationalautismassociation.org.
Music without words means leaving behind the mind. And leaving behind the mind is meditation.
Meditation returns you to the source. And the source of all is sound. — Kabir
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