My mom and I were just talking about the study of music and art therapy. When I was at Berklee, I thought the music therapy majors were kind of a New Age cult. I have since learned how Music Therapists use art and music as methods of helping those who are in a morbid state to use the creative process as a way of crossing over and those who are grieving to use art as a method of working through their loss. I still think it’s hokey. Somehow in our conversation I got on a rant about how I don’t think some aspects of music therapy are valid and really require the patient to have an interest in music before becoming effective. If I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and I was in constant pain, I doubt Bill Evans is going to help me through it if I never liked Jazz before I got sick. I think there is a placebo element in play as well. Anyway, we diverted to the use of Music therapy to aid the mentally and physically handicapped and how it can cause them to express themselves in ways that they are otherwise unable.
It’s funny to say, but I think most musicians fall into this category. Deep down I think all great musicians are socially awkward “special children” who use art as a form of expression. Kenny Werner wrote a whole book about the dysfunctions that can arise from this nature (also, kind of hokey, but good). Pete Townshend’s first composition was called “I Can’t Explain” and he claims to have spent the rest of his career trying to explain himself. I think all of us that gravitate towards art early in life do so in an effort to say the things we cannot annunciate with our lips. When I put this in perspective I wonder if part of the reason I feel so shitty lately is because I haven’t been using music as an outlet. I am tense and irritable because I am filled with things to say and no medium to express them. It’s hokey– just as hokey as music therapy– but I wonder if Music Therapy really isn’t just a bottled, over-the-counter version of music education that can walk someone through the creative process and allow them to see how it benefits them.
I guess music therapy is like music education, but more specialized. I have physically seen the result of teaching 12 year old awkward, goofy, pasty, nerdy kids who don’t think they are good at anything. Once they get that bass in their hands and they start learning their favorite songs, there is a transformation that takes place. Not only does it conflict with their cultivated belief that they aren’t good at anything, but it also makes them wonder what else they could possibly be good at, occasionally sparking an interest in other class subjects (by no means does this phenomenon retard the funding cuts that art and music programs receive every year..). I can only imagine what the results of coaching a terminally ill or handicapped person through this process would be like. I don’t have the background or skill set to ever take on a project like that, but I would be interested in it if an opportunity ever presented itself.
At any rate this conversation with my mom somehow turned into me introducing her to the musical stylings of Wesley Willis (a mentally ill person who used his ridiculous music to self-medicate his illness) and now I think she’s a big fan.
You say rock.
You say roll.
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