Music Soothes Not Just Savage Beasts,
But Aches and Pains
by Alice Giordano
All Tony Morley wanted was to bring a little peace to a comatose patient's pain-ridden face.
But when the registered nurse started playing a CD by a young Maine musician at the Haverhill long-term care facility, something more happened: The patient, an elderly woman injured in a car accident, seemed to breathe easier. Fluids didn't build up in her throat and lungs as much, so she needed less care.
"'When the music is on, you don't have to go in and suction her as much,'' Morley said. ''For some reason, you don't have to tend to her as frequently.''
Almost by accident, 33-year-old composer Tim Janis of Kennebunk, Maine, has become a ''healer.'' His ethereal instrumental music - which evokes oldtime movie soundtracks with its energetic blends of orchestra and folk instrumentation - is played in operating rooms, delivery rooms and nursing homes across New England and the country.
The prestigious Mayo Clinic plays it daily for patients after surgery. In New York, Janis's CD, ''Along the Shore of Acadia,'' based on the ocean cliffs of Mount Desert Island, Maine, provided a cancer patient the only relief from the severe nausea that occurred with her chemotherapy treatments. And a California woman decided to have an at-home birth to the tune of Janis's music.
His new CD, ''Water's Edge,'' has reached No. 2 on Billboard's Top New Age Album chart, passing such well-known artists as George Winston, Yanni, and John Tesh. The penny flute-dominated title track would have been right at home in the movie, ''Titanic.''
Rolland Smith, a nine-time Emmy-award winner for broadcast journalism who collaborated with Janis on a poetry and music CD in 1998, described him as ''a composer of profound abilities who can create a theme, a melody, a score that transports one to a place of grace and joy.''
To be sure, not all critics adore Janis. A reviewer in Billboard said the new CD is ''dripping in more sentimentality than an Academy Awards acceptance speech.'' But there is something quietly compelling about Janis that stirs people.
''I first heard Tim's music at a mall while shopping with my 7-year-old granddaughters,'' wrote a Connecticut woman in a review for Amazon.com. ''His music was so breathtaking that we had to sit and listen.''
For Janis, the idea that he is considered a doctor of melodic medicine is as humbling as it is unexpected.
''I'm just really blown away by all of that,'' said Janis, who records under his own label at a 200-year-old, still-working farm he owns with his wife, Michelle, a music professor at the University of Southern Maine. ''I guess I'm lucky that what I like to do helps people.''
But, even though Janis may play the part of a modest, independent artist (his albums even include his phone number so that fans can contact him), he is actually a big hit in the music business. His CD, ''December Morning,'' was one of the top 15 selling CDs for the entire Barnes & Noble chain last year, and two years ago his compositions were chosen as background music for the world tour of Princess Diana's famed dresses.
Now, Janis is making music for a medical cause, planning a CD to raise money for cancer that will feature Billy Joel on the piano. The CD, ''Music For Hope,'' also will feature works of his played by the London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and an orchestral arrangement he wrote of ''Amazing Grace.''
''A mainstream musician in the world of alternative medicine is a bit unusual,'' said Suzanne Hanser, chairwoman of the music therapy department at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Of course, the use of music to heal the sick is nothing new: Studies have shown that music can actually have a physiological and neurological effect on a person's health condition, something the health-care industry has increasingly recognized.
McLean Hospital in Belmont and the Fernald Center in Waltham, both of which treat psychiatric patients, have music therapists on staff. Children's Hospital and Boston Medical Center use Berkley students as music therapy interns. And Hanser, who has been practicing music therapy for 30 years, is running a music therapy program sponsored by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
All told, music therapy is being used in facilities around the country to treat Alzheimer's disease, brain-injury patients, and the mentally ill, according to Tammi Zavislan, director of development at the American Music Therapy Association in Washington.
''It's just not as simple as take two Mozart tapes and call me in the morning,'' she said. But music therapy, said Hanser, is usually designed on a case-by-case basis and played live, not prerecorded. Hanser, for example, recently went to a cancer patient's room at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and played improvisationally on a 12-string lyre until the woman, who was in so much pain she couldn't speak, fell asleep. For another patient, who was being prepped for surgery, she brought a keyboard and played Mozart's ''Raindrop Prelude'' to help ease her anxiety.
Recorded or not, however, people such as Morley at the Haverhill long-term-care facility swear it lifts patients up.
''There's something about the tone,'' said Morley, who also relies on Janis's music to him wind down after a long shift, ''and his music is patient when it builds up. It's not angry or loud, yet still it hits you with so much emotion.''
Janis, who is as passionate about the tomatoes, pumpkins, and other produce he grows on his Maine farm as he is about his music, said he uses his coastal surroundings for some of his inspirations, transforming rolling waves into shimmering cymbals, songbirds into a sweet violin.
He also draws inspiration from his past experiences, noting for example that his piece, ''Watch Hill,'' is based on his many memories of a Rhode Island seaside retreat.
And Janis acknowledged that he is a patient of his own music. ''I need it as much as my most ardent fan,'' he said.
But it wasn't until members of a family from Deerfield, Mass., told him that they play his music as part their 24-hour vigils over their dying mother that the therapeutic benefits of his music hit him.
''Here's something so very serious,'' Janis said, ''and to be a part of that, what can somebody say?''
Ironically, it was while Janis, a Manhattan native who grew up in Connecticut, was attending military school that he developed a love for composing his beautiful melodies.
In the early '90s, he moved into his first studio, a barn in York, Maine, with no plumbing, heat, or electricity. For a month, he lived in his car, working as a dishwasher to save up enough money to hire musicians to perform his music.
Today, groups of musicians, all under the name of Tim Janis Ensemble, tour the country, playing in malls, at fairs, and other crowd-drawing venues.
Although Janis counts among his fans famous people such as Billy Joel, he said his best review came from an autistic child who seldom speaks. Since the boy heard it, his parents say the boy asks for Janis's music by name. Tim Janis's CD is available through Amazon.com.
MORE INFORMATION
Alice Giordano is a Globe Correspondent. The Boston Globe may be found at: www.boston.com/globe
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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