Tennille Taylor: Hi. My name is Tenille Taylor. And I'm very happy to be here to discuss music and healing today.

I have a degree in music therapy from Arizona State University. I grew up in Farmington and I came back 20 years ago to open a Suzuki Violin School. I have 30 young violin students that I see twice a week for lessons. I'm also a member of the San Juan Symphony, which is your regional professional orchestra, and I've been a part of the San Juan Symphony for 24 years.

But let's dive right into music and healing. Music therapy versus music for healing. Music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of musical tools and activities to bring about non-musical changes in behavior in treatment sessions with a credentialed music therapy professional.

An example of music therapy would be meeting with an Alzheimer's patient and having them sing along with the music therapist playing guitar in a song from their youth. Often old memories are stimulated and they're able to verbalize these thoughts in relation to the song. The field of music therapy is vast and is highly effective in the fields of autism and Alzheimer's. But many cultures have used music for general healing for thousands of years to help heal their people in a non-professional setting.

And this is what I'm here to talk about today, is music for healing, which one might call music therapy. But I like to call it music for healing or music for therapy.

Music heals. Music is undoubtedly a great way of healing pain. It makes us forget about unpleasant and disturbing thoughts by taking us into the world of melody. Sometimes it brings out the memories and the pains of life and creates an environment for us to confront, process, and even navigate through those emotions. Relaxing music can lower the production of cortisol, which lowers stress, and in turn, lowers elevated heart rates and blood pressure. But this is where it gets tricky, because not every person finds the same type of music to be relaxing or healing.

Choosing music for healing. Music is highly subjective. Just flip through the radio stations and listen to all the different types of music that have been created. Add in the variable of music from around the world and you'll have nearly endless options to pick from. Music can have an incredible power to touch the soul, but only if the individual allows it or is open to it, and if they understand the language of that particular music.

I'm a classical violinist. So, let's talk about classical music for our example. If you Google something like music for relaxation, often your search will give you classical music selections. And many people turn that on and fall immediately to sleep. In fact, many people that attend the symphony fall asleep while listening. Some musicians might find this rude or disrespectful. I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma. And we actually discussed this, and he said, "If I'm able to create the environment and backdrop to allow you to let go and take a nap in the concert, then I am happy to provide that opportunity for you and hope you are able to fully enjoy it." I have to agree with him. Maybe the only time these concert sleepers get a nap is in the concert hall.

But back to music for healing. For me, classical music is not relaxing like it is for these concert sleepers. As I and many other musicians will be tracing the music closely for every harmonic and melodic change, as well as evaluating technical aspects of the performance itself.

Some people need music for relaxation in order to heal. Maybe they're recovering from surgery or preparing for childbirth and need a backdrop of relaxation to help the process. Others might need music to work through mental struggles or emotional trauma. I think for most people, this would be different music than that of relaxation.

The big focus here is that whatever type of music is selected by a person is fine because it is the reactions music evokes that are important. It's not the music itself. These reactions are not actual feelings, but they are the images and the memories of feelings. These are the things that promote healing.

Classical music certainly provides strong reactions for me. But each person's reactive music will be very individualized. Every song tells a story. Music with words tells a pretty specific story, but it's still open for a little interpretation from the listener. But music without words is even more open to interpretation based on the listener and the current going ons in the listener's life.

Anthony Storr is a music psychologist, and he wrote, "Life is better to feel tragic than to be indifferent to it." The writer William Styron provides a striking example of this preference of life being tragic than being indifferent. For months, William had been suffering from severe depression. And realizing he could not get through the following day, he made preparations for suicide. He wrote, "My wife had gone to bed and I'd forced myself to watch the tape of an old movie in which a young actress was cast in a small part. At one point in the film, which was set in late 19th century Boston, the characters moved down the hallway of a music conservatory. And behind the walls of which, from unseen musicians, came an alto voice, a sudden soaring passage from the famous Alto Rhapsody by the composer Johannes Brahms. This sound, which like all music, indeed like all pleasure, I had been numbly unresponsive to for months. Pierced my heart like a dagger, and in a flood of swift recollection, I thought of all the joys the house had known: the children who had rushed the halls, the festivals, the love, and the work." The music's sudden impact made him realize he could not injure those close to him by committing suicide. The next day, he had himself admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

This reference is similar to the psychological inkblot test, where a subject looks at an inkblot and tells what they see. Since there's nothing actually in the inkblots, it is supposed that any content the patient sees is a product of their own mind. They see what they want to see. They hear what they want to hear.

Expectations of music. Music creates anticipation through phrasing, dynamics, melody, harmony. As you listen to music, your mind creates expectations. And whether or not those expectations are met, create emotional and even physical responses.

Let's take a very, very simple example. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. So we all know the tune goes like this. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. So, hearing that melody may make you feel nothing, or makes you satisfied that it's a cute old folk tune, or maybe you learned it on the piano as a child.

But let's go a step further. What does this do for you? Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Because the expectation of the last note is not met, it creates a response. It may be good, it may be bad, but it is a response. It's this type of expectation and realization, or unrealization, that makes us feel something in music. If we get what we expected, we feel something. If we don't get what we expected, we feel something too.

And I'll tell you that sometimes when we get what we did not expect, sometimes it's even better. The next time you're listening to music, pop music, jazz, classical, even Christmas music, think about what you expect is going to happen next and then see if it happens and then trace your emotional response to it. Oftentimes, we'll discover this when we hear a new version of an artist's old song or even another artist's version of an old song. Sometimes a harmony has been changed or a tiny variation in the melody. Our reaction to every little change, based on our expectations, is where our response to music comes from, physiological and emotional response.

So, using music to heal. In looking for music to promote healing, sometimes we need to look out of our comfort zones, especially if you're looking for music to help someone else heal. Often we need to look in other cultures and genres. For relaxation, I think the sky is the limit, and I think even unfamiliar music can promote relaxation.

In dealing with emotional and mental healing, I think music familiar to the person is probably helpful, so they can use the idea of expectation and realization that we discussed before. Sometimes music from other cultures can be so different that the tension and resolve in the music is not the same as we use in Western music, and that can be hard to have much response to until it becomes more familiar.

In Western music, there are some basic characteristics that cause physiological or emotional responses in music such as timpani rolls, swelling dynamics, long sustained chords. If you listen closely to music and watch your heart rate, you'll see your physiological response to some of these things.

Music is such an easily accessible tool to use to promote healing in this day and age, because you can literally access anything online. The best thing about using music to promote healing is that there are no negative side effects. You're certainly not hurting anything to give it a try.

So, thank you for joining me. And I hope you can use music in your daily lives somehow to heal your body, nurture your soul, or just simply to escape and enjoy the moment. And hopefully, you can share these ideas with others. We would also love for you to join us at the San Juan Symphony. We play four concerts per year, plus an additional family concert here in Farmington. You can check our website for details, www.sanjuansymphony.org. Thank you for listening.