The Origins of Music, Health, & Wellbeing

"The great saxophonist Charlie Parker once proclaimed "if you don't live it, it wont come out your horn". This quote has often been used to explain the hedonistic lifestyle of many jazz greats; however it also signals the reciprocal & inextricable relationship between music and wider social, cultural, & psychological variables. This link is complex & multifaceted & is undoubtebly a central component of why music has been implicated as a therapeutic agent in vast swathes of contemporary research studies. Music is always about more than just acoustic events or notes on a page.  Moreover, music's universal, & timeless potential to influence how we think, & feel, lies at the heart of our motivation to produce this edited volume.
   Music has been imbued with curative, therapeutic, and other medical value throughout history. Musicians, therapists, philosophers, as well as other artists, and scholars & scholars alike  have documented its physical, mental & social effects, in treatises from as early as 4000 BC to the present (Spintge & Droh 1992). Clearly the relationship between music, health & well-being is complex & involves numerous facets & challenges. To begin with, there is considerable debate on all three of the terms in this volume. Leaving aside  the intracacies, of etymology & translations into various languages, one significant challenge is the establishment of causal links between musical activities on the one hand, & specific individual, health & wellbeing benefits on the other. This book is conceived to accept this challenge by means of building evidence-bases in different areas of music & health research & we hope that this collection of chapters will further our understanding of music as a part of both human nature, & human culture"


& so begins the book that I have just received, and am reading avidly

The Hilda Ross CD

The Hilda Ross Glee Club is formed from the residents of the villas (independent living units) at the Ryman Healthcare Hilda Ross Retirement complex in Hamilton, New Zealand.  Formed two years ago as a research group for Dr Julie Jackson-Gough, this group has continued to grow from strength to strength. In November 2007, they were the focus of a presentation done by Dr Julie made at the gerontology conference. The Glee Club performed at the luncheon, and then were featured on National Radio the same evening.

The group is non-auditioned, anyone from the villas or studios, may come and sing. In 2007 the were twelve regular singers, in the Glee Club.  In  the interim three of the Glee Club have died, and the group is now 16-strong, including Marie Jenkins, Hilda Ross Activities Co-ordinator.  The average age of the resident Glee Club singers is 78.5 years. They have performed at the village, and also at the nearby University of Waikato, where Dr Julie is a senior lecturer.
Julie continues to train the Glee Club and accompany them on the piano. The rising standard of the participants' singing has been a joy to hear and this CD shows what they have achieved in the last two years. To check out Dr Julie's ongoing research:
Gerontologyandsinging.blogspot.com

A NEW FESTIVAL

We are planning to run a Non Competitive Choirs Festival in Auckland, in March 2015.

It will be a chance for choirs to hear each other, and get ideas for their own choir. Depending on who joins in it may be an all-day festival, or a half-day festival.

If it is an all-day festival, then it will be catered, at cost.

There is a choir from Tauranga, that has shown interest and there may be other choirs from around the upper North Island that may be interested in coming as well.

Follow my blog to get updates.

Evidence of the ongoing effects of the 8 to 80 concert.

In 2012 the Forest Lake Gardens Choir sang with the Forest Lake School in the 8 to 80 concert as part of the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival.
It was a tremendous event attended by 500 people, in the English Garden.

The event was always intended to link the village to the school, and to set up ways that the village residents could support the school.

Helen Glynne now goes to the school as Whaea Helen, and gives reading help to students who are behind in their reading. It started from the relationships that were established as part of the children and the 'Village people' interacting. The Principal saw an opportunity, and took it.

Helen's husband, Jim, has Alzheimers and the other men in the village look after him when she goes to the school.

She how has recruited three other people to go and work in the school as well to support the children's reading. Raewyn Beard, Babs Miller, and Eric Ashton.

Let me tell you about Eric Ashton. Eric was becoming frail. Helen recruited him for the reading programme, and he has found a new lease of life. He has been energised by finding that he is useful again!

This is Eric in 2013, it was the publicity photo for the 2014: 8 to 80 concert, which did not happen, as the new festival organiser said it was not suitable!

Dr Graham Stokes 2

We don't know why dementia starts. It is striking at random. It is a disability. It is a person with a disability. They have rights. The person is still there, it is just that they are disabled. The new always stays strange, so it is good to keep people in their own place. Layers and layers of intellectual devastation. In the beginning it is subtle, changes in concentration. It could be depression, thyroid problems, but needs to be checked out.

Concentration deficits: Capture successes by putting their house number on their door (for Health and Safety, put actual room numbers on the frame of the door). Activities need to be meaningful to the person.

Incidental and intentional learning deficits: Incidental learning is no longer possible. Intentional learning cannot occur. What they know is all that they know now. They become like Teflon, nothing sticks.

Loss of established memories: Forgetting personal history. What they learn last, they forget first.

Disorientation: New place, new room, new toileting place. Don't know where you are, or what time of the day it is.

Language impairment - speech and comprehension: What the person with language impairment suffers from is that they are not able to communicate. People can sing when they cannot speak. Sing directions to them, and they may respond.

Executive dysfunction: inability to make decisions for self. It starts right at the beginning. People make very bad decisions. It is an indicator of problems ahead

Apraxia: loss or impairment of the ability to execute complex coordinated movements without muscular or sensory impairment. Loss of coordination, related to dressing themselves, ido-motor apraxia is unable to make a deliberate movement, like pick up a cup, to drink the tea.

Agnosia: loss or diminution of the ability to recognize familiar objects or stimuli usually as a result of brain damage. Loss of meaning, nothing makes any sense whatsoever. Proso-agnosia, means faces all look the same. Babies have agnosia, until they make sense of the world.

                                                                               - evolving dependency

Dr Graham Stokes part 1

Dr Graham talked about himsef:

He is uncomfortable with people behind him. When he goes out for dinner with his wife, he sits against the wall, and she sits across the table from him.

Move on to if he gets dementia. He is seated in the middle of the room, and he gets up and moves to another seat. Somebody not understanding, leads him back to his seat in the middle of the room, and he gets up and moves again. He is taken back to the seat in the middle of the room, and moves again. By this time the meal is over, he has not eaten, because they have seated him in a place where he has never been comfortable.

It is important to know about people's back story, and the things that make them feel insecure, get the story from family members, or write your own story, the things that make you insecure, and the things that conversely make you secure.

75 in Wanganui part 2

I forgot to tell you about the role playing. which was not very effective, as those who volunteered want the programme in their village or rest home. What was valuable was that none of the used the graphic that I had given them showing the brain when listening to music (entertainers) and when performing music.
The difference is MASSIVE.
One part of the brain lights up when listening to music and all seven parts of the brain light up when performing music.
I can't paste the graphic here, but the following tells you how the brain uses all seven areas when performing music:

Performing music: There are few activities that require more of the brain than performing music. It uses complex feedback systems that take in information, such as pitch and melody, through the auditory cortex, and allow the performer to adjust his, or her, playing (or singing).

1.    The visual cortex is activated by reading — or even imagining — a score;

2.    the parietal lobe is involved in a number of processes, including computation of vocal folds; (voice)

3.    the motor cortex helps control body movements;

4.    the sensory cortex is stimulated with each touch of the voice;

5.    the premotor area remains somewhat mysterious, but somehow helps perform movements in the correct order and time;

6.    the frontal lobe plans and coordinates the overall activity;

7.    and the cerebellum helps create smooth, integrated movements.

–     By Steven Fick and Elizabeth Shilts

75 in Wanganui

I was expecting 60 Diversional Therapists in Wanganui, but there were 75, including four who had driven down from Auckland! They came from Tauranga, and New Plymouth and Wellington. It was most exciting to work with the whole group.

We started with breathing, as that is one of the definite benefits of singing: improved oxygenation. At this point I had someone who tried to take over my workshop. She wanted the people to breathe into their backs, (totally valid for people standing, who have a well developed understanding of the extra breath that is available when expanding the floating ribs) and would not listen to the fact that I was modelling for seated people who could see what they were doing. I had her sing a song, that she suggested, and then was able to control her. She had a very nice voice, and entertained well. Needless to say I am not going to tell you her name :-)

I had duplicated the lyrics to four songs from the first disc, but the CD player that had been supplied was not loud enough for the space, and I was glad that there was a piano available, which I had set up, pulled away from the wall, at an angle, which made the sound bounce off the wall and fill the space.

I had the group set up the chairs against a solid wall as that is the most supportive place for singing. During the session, I asked half of them to experiment with singing in a space, and they noticed the difference straight away, they had to work much harder, and the sound disappeared into the space.

During question time I did not have the current prices available, but when the pastor of the Wanganui Central Baptist Church came in, I was able to get online. The church has a completely unhackable password, but I managed to get all 20 characters in, in the right order.

Many people said that they were going back to their site and going to sign up for the programme. I do hope that they take the graphic showing the brain when listening to music, and when singing, to their manager when they ask for funding.

FYI the do-it-yourself price is $9 a week with chance to cancel at any time, or $7 a week if locked in for 12 months.

To have access to the training for the diversional therapist and the manager it costs $15 a week to cancel at any time or $11 a week if locked in for 12 months.

Going to Wanganui to present to 60 Diversional Therapists

Diversional Therapist Elizabeth Juden (who I have known since we were children, and lived across the road from each other) was at the conference in Hamilton last year.

She has invited me to speak to the lower North Island Diversional Therapists at the end of this month, in Wanganui. I will be travelling there by bus, rather than driving, and it is far cheaper by bus. I get congitation time :-)

I have two sessions with them. The first will be a chance to sing, and use the products. This is to get them to reflect on how good singing makes them feel. (I know this because singing releases endorphins, and those are happy hormones, furthermore in increase oxygenation, as people breathe with the musical phrase, and therefore breathe more deeply). Having experienced it for themselves is important, as they know that the same thing will happen to their residents, as they use the programme.
The second session will be helping them to work out how to engage with their manager. Having had experience with Diversional Therapists and their place in the 'pecking order' of a retirement site, this is important: for them to be able to start a conversation about why they need our singing programme in their facility.

For starters, all the work is done for them. The songs are chosen, the lyrics are provided, in size 20 font. They get a singalong disc to learn the songs, and an accompaniment disc to use when the songs are learnt. They get ongoing training to apply the benefits of the singing programme, with Monday Monthly webinars on different topics. This is relevant, as DHB funding comes to each facility, and it is increased, when the facility can show that the staff are undertaking training.


This is what one of the users of the programme says:

 “Singing for Seniors has done all of the hard work” says Bronie. "You get an email every-time a new resource is made available. Every month there is a new health theme for us to focus on, like depression, or the health benefits. We know our residents, but Singing for Seniors give us the confidence to work with them in the best way possible. We even have a lady on oxygen 24/7 who joins in. We wouldn’t have known that this is good for her if it wasn’t for the Singing for Seniors programme.

Training is 30 minutes long, once a month and they gives me new ideas I introduce each month. Because can’t leave the village training is easy to join, and I spend more time with our residents. I don’t have a computer at work so I call in by phone and if I can’t dial that month because we’ve short staffed I watch the training at home and if I have any questions I just email Dr Julie. "

 Singing can alleviate the effects of a Stroke

(Natural News) The damaged brains of stroke patients can be "rewired" by
singing, restoring the ability to speak to patients who have lost it, according to a
study conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School and presented at
the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
in San Diego.

The findings came out of an ongoing trial in which stroke patients who have
lost the ability to speak are treated with music therapy and taught to put words
into simple melodies that they tap out with their hands. According to Schlaug,
patients who had previously been unable to form any words at all became able to
say "I am thirsty" after just one session.

Music has been used as a form of therapy for stroke patients since the discovery
that damage to the brain's speech centers did not affect the ability to sing.
"People sometimes ask where in the brain music is processed and the answer
is everywhere above the neck," said Aniruddh Patel from the Neurosciences
Institute in San Diego.

"Music engages huge swathes of the brain - it's not just lighting up a spot in the
auditory cortex."

Speech and movement are mostly controlled from the left side of the brain,
making them vulnerable in the case of damage to that side.

"But there's a sort of corresponding hole on the right side," Schlaug said.
"For some reason, it's not as endowed with these connections, so the left side is
used much more in speech. If you damage the left side, the right side has trouble
[filling that role]."

Putting words into song, however, appears to stimulate the formation of speech
connections on the brain's right side.
"Music might be an alternative medium to engage parts of the brain that are
otherwise not engaged," lead researcher Gottfired Schlaug said.

Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/

8526699.stm.

Latest News: Singing can decrease snoring

But it is not quite as simple as that.
Research in the UK has resulted in exercises that strengthen the throat and mouth muscles, so that they do not get slack, and then vibrate, causing snoring.

The singing comes in, as it is much easier to sing the exercises than just speak them, and therefore the repetition is easier and more interesting to do.

Here is the website that will tell you more about this new finding

http://www.singingforsnorers.com/

Here is a link to an interview with Alise Ojay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23753524

Just returned from ICVT conference July 10 - 15 at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music

The ICVT conference in Brisbane, Australia was stimulating. Known as the International Conference of Voice Teachers, it was for singing teachers, not speech therapists.

There were over 500  people in attendance, but only two presentations about working with seniors and their voices.

At the same time, there were many interesting presentations given on voice, different styles of singing, the science of voice, in many different forms.

Professor Ingo Titze  is an expert in this field, and he produced one of the images that I found most useful in talking to my own students about where the vowels are placed in the mouth and throat, which I have reproduced below.  I have in the past drawn it in a circle, with  the 'i' vowel and the 'u' vowel close to each other. The formant frequency mentioned is the harmonic of the note that is being sung. Fascinating stuff!!

Diversional Therapist's Conference

I was pleased to be able to present the Singing for Seniors programme to the attendees at my workshop on Music Therapy at this conference, held in Hamilton, my home city. The biggest barrier that we have found, for people implementing the programme, is that people with no confidence in their own singing just can't get started. So the presentation took them through the steps, which are reproduced here.

There are 8 steps to implementing the programme

1.     Visit the www.singingforseniors.co.nz and read (especially) the frequently asked questions. You will find out all about me,  about the company, and the programme.

2.     Order the discs, after discussion with your manager. The Do-It-Yourself plan comes with no support. If you want phone support to get your programme off the ground, go for the $11 per week programme. (How much do you pay someone to come in and entertain, without any guarantee of audience involvement?)

3.     Duplicate the lyrics, either A4 or A3 depending on the sight capabilities of your residents.

4.     Talk to residents & find people who want to sing. Get them to talk it up among their fellow residents.

5.     Find a time and space where you can play CDs (or order the DVD programme, which is now available, where lyric are on the screen in large font).

6.     Publicise your first event, with posters at appropriate places in your facility.

7.     Listen to (or view the DVD) to familarise yourself with the products.

8.     Run your first session.

It was interesting to be able to help one participant find her upper voice, and she is going to be meeting me in Skype for some singing lessons, so that her residents do not criticise her singing any more.

At the dinner that evening, with a wine or two under their belts, the whole conference were happy to join in singing the chorus of the song that I always use in workshops: the Happy Wanderer. I use it because there is always laughter "Val de ri, Val de ra, Val de ri, Val de ra ha ha ha ha ha Val de ri Val de ra, my knapsack on my back"

Go to my Facebook site: Harmonic Health, to see the images from the conference.

Melody, Rhythm can Rewire a Damaged Brain

 This article appeared in the ABC news website:

It has been two months since the Tucson shooting spree that killed six people and injured 12, including Arizona Rep.Gabrielle Giffords. Now Giffords, who survived a gunshot wound to the left hemisphere of her brain, is finding her voice through song. 

"Gabby responds to music because she knows a lot of songs," said Maegan Morrow, Giffords' music therapist and a certified brain injury specialist at TIRR Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital in Houston.  Since Giffords was transferred to TIRR Jan. 21, reports of her singing "Happy Birthday" for husband Mark  Kelly and Don McLean's "American Pie" have signaled what some have called a miraculous recovery. 

"The brain can heal itself if you do the right protocol," Morrow said. "It just needs lots of repetition, lots of consistency."  Protocols like music speech stimulation and melodic intonation therapy can help patients with damage to the brain's communication center, like Giffords, learn to speak again.   "It's creating new pathways in the brain," Morrow said. "Language isn't going to work anymore, so we have to go to another area and start singing and create a new pathway for speech."

Music therapy was first recognized as a tool to aid soldiers returning from World War II with brain injuries.  "It was discovered that music was more that a diversion or recreational activity -- it could be incorporated into the overall treatment of an individual," said Al Bumanis, director of communications for the American Music Therapy Association. "It could address non-musical goals in a very unique way -- sometimes coming in through the backdoor where some therapies can't."   Indeed, a person who has suffered an injury due to stroke or trauma may have difficulty speaking but be able to sing. 
 

"Patients can be essentially mute, unable to utter a single word but put on the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" and suddenly patients can sing. Substitute some of the words and now patients are speaking again," said Dr. Michael De Georgia, director of the Centers for Neurocritical Care and Music and Medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. "Music is very powerful." 

Music Can Rewire the Brain 

Evidence supporting a healing role for music in the recovery from brain injury is mounting. But many people remain skeptical, and few insurers will cover it.
"I think the name, 'music therapy,' is a barrier. Most people are like 'what is that?' It sounds childish," Morrow said. "I know that it really works. They're already seeing that healing in Gabby."
Music is very closely linked with language. Some people believe that we may have started to sing before we started to speak, De Georgia said, citing "The Singing Neanderthal: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body," by British archaeologist Steven Mithen. 

"In fact, one of the reason we enjoy music (particularly tonal music like Bach, Beethoven) is that it follows clear structural, syntactical rules that we can follow, understand, and anticipate," said De Georgia. "We tend not to enjoy atonal music as much (like Schoenberg) because it is all over the place tonally and structurally. Our brains don't get it." 

Music is also linked to brains areas that control memory, emotions, and even movement.
"The thing about music is that it's something that's very automatic -- part of our old brain system," Morrow said. "If I play a rhythm, I can affect the rest of the body. The body naturally aligns with a rhythm in the environment."

www.singingforseniors.co.nz 

From one of my singing students

I have really grown with my singing with Julie as my teacher. She really helped me understand how to breathe and bring out my voice.  There was so much I learnt from Julie in my lessons, that each week I was amazed at what I achieved with my voice. She gave me the confidence to take each step.  Each lesson was added to, and easy to get to grips with. Julie is fun and has a unique way of teaching that I felt myself on a huge learning curve and felt that I achieved so much. I feel very grateful for the lessons.
Thank you Julie
Annie Jameson
higher-realms.co.nz

From Brian Age 82
Retirement Village Resident
Member of the Hamilton Chorale

"In retirement years I find there are two things that make a whole difference to life. These are a satisfying activity to give a measure of achievement and a comradeship with like-minded people. Singing with a performance choir gives both.

As with everything else, frequent use of the singing voice improves its performance. Practice under a helpful and knowledgeable conductor extends that, as well as giving physical and mental improvement. Put simply, physical and mental well-being is improved.

Belonging to a group that has an adequate and improving level of performance has many benefits, as teams on a sports field will agree. It promotes pleasure in belonging to the group, which satisfies a fundamental human need.

These benefits are those which retired people need to hang on to, in order to gain personal satisfaction from life, otherwise living becomes just a continuance of existence, and the thrill of it diminishes.

So join a choir and get cracking!"

Michelle & Elizabeth

Michelle came to her singing lesson, reporting that she had been hospitalised because of tightness in her chest and loss of breath when going up stairs. This had gone on for a week and was getting worse. She was put through a barrage of tests, including treadmill, and ecg.

Within 10 minutes of her arrival the chest pain had gone, and she was breathing naturally and efficiently. What I did was to get her to lie on the floor, with a book under her head (important, otherwise the head goes back too far and the throat closes), and just relax. We than chatted about what had happened for a few minutes, and then I got her to concentrate on the breath going 'into her abdomen'.  She realised that she had somehow got herself into upper torso breathing patterns, by lifting and lowering the ribcage that were unsatisfactory which had led to the tightness-of-chest pains, as it became more and more frustrating.

This is Elizabeth, in her own words
"After 65yrs with Chronic Brochierctasis and unable to sing, I've been able to take part in 3 choirs, thanks to Julie Jackson-Gough. The physiotherapist at Waikato Hospital was most impressed that someone suffering a lung condition would be able to sing, and recommended the activity as an excellent pursuit for improving breathing and keeping lungs expanded."


www.singingforseniors.co.nz

Neurological Journal reports benefits of music to mental and physical health

The Neurological Foundation of New Zealand's newsletter has arrived and contains the following article, which was reprinted from Trends in Cognitive Sciences

It was written by professor Daniel Levintin, who is the James McGill professor of phsychology and behavioural neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, with additional appointments in music theory, computer science, and education.

It is a meta-study, a distillation of 400 research papers in the neurochemistry of music, which found that music can improve the function of the body's immune system and reduce levels of stress.

Here is the article:

Research by Professor Daniel Levitin demonstrates that listening to music is more successful than prescription drugs in decreasing a person's anxiety before undergoing surgery. A report from 2011 indicated that anxiety in cancer patients can be reduced by music. Prof Levitin explained: 'We've found compelling evidence that musical interventions can play a health care role in settings ranging from operating rooms to family clinics. But even more importantly we were able to document the neuro-chemical mechanisms by which music has an effect in four domains:management of mood, stress, immunity, and as an aid to social bonding'

Results showed that music increases an antibody that plays an important role in immunity of the mucous system, known as immunoglobin A, as well as in natural killer cell counts, the cells that attack germs and bacteria invading the body. Listening to, and playing (singing) music can alos lower levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), according to Prof Levitin and Dr Mona Lisa Chanda, his post-graduate research fellow.

Previous research in the British Journal of Psychiatry  demonstrated that music therapy when combined with standard care, is a successful treatment for depression.

The experts reccommend a number of areas for later trials in the field. For example, identifying the relationship between the "love drug" oxytoxin, group affiliation, and music. They suggested administering naltrexone (and opioid antagonist drug used when a person is having alcohol  withdrawal) to determine whether musical pleasure is encouraged by the same chemical systems in the brain activated by other types of pleasure, such as food.

a 2011 study suggested that thrilling music is similar to food and sex - more pleasure and anticipation means moire dopamine. The authors also urged for studies "in which patients are randomly assigned to musical intervention or a rigorously matched control condition in post-operative or chronic pain trials" They poinetd out that proper controls include TV, comedy recordings, audio books or films. Additional the scientists developed an outline for future experiements with questions including:

• What are the different effects, if any of playing (singing) music compared to listening to music?
• Are the positive effects of music a result of mood induction, distraction, feelings of bonding/support, or other factors?
• What stimuli can be used as a foundation o comparison to match music along dimensions of arousal, attractiveness or lack thereof, engagement, and mood induction?
• What role does "the love drug" (oxytoxin) play in mediating music experiences?
• Are certain people ore likely to experience a positive impact form music than others? If so, what individual differences, such as personality traits, genetic, or biological factors, aid the success of music interventions?

The word is spreading

It is exciting to have contacts from around New Zealand and further afield asking about the Singing for Seniors programme. Following up is being done by my commercial manager. I have been contacted by the woman who ran the Weekend of Workshops in Tirau, to ask if I want her to contact groups there about the programme. She will set up the visits and we will visit together. Krissy Jackson, part-time high school music teacher of New Plymouth is planning how to market to the 23 villages in the greater New Plymouth area. Christchurch villages are being followed up in the next week. A day is being planned for the Rotorua area, and a three-day campaign around the Auckland villages.

from the book "Music, Health and Well-being"

When this book came out, it was one that I had to have, because it speaks so well into what I am passionate about. In the conclusion for the article "Music Therapy: Models and Interventions" by Gro Trondalen & Lars Ole Bonde there is this statement.

"Expressive and receptive musicking (music making) allows for experiences at different levels through a present aesthetic participation within a multi-layered framework of interpretation. Such a musical relationship based on empowerment and attunement supports affirmative, corrective, emotional and relational experiences through musicking, and it defines music therapy as a specific health promoting practice."

In the article "Musical Flourishing: Community Music Therapy, Controversy, and Wellbeing" by Gary Ansdell and Tia DeNora has this paragraph

"Aristotle, unlike Plato, did not think that music helped because of metaphysical correspondences with the planets, but because it promoted earthbound conviviality and communality (wine, women and song, to paraphrase!). Well-being is not just the absence of illness, or just an individual matter, or just the result of the provision of 'health technology'. It is, as Mark Vernon suggest, part of our pursuit of the 'spirit level' part of our seeking the good life, through which we may find well-being together. For many people well-being emerges in the spaces made between people and music. This was, after all, an insight that the pioneer music therapists Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins came to 50 years ago: that when music flourishes, people flourish too."

I trust that this give you informative reading material.
Julie