Music Therapy and Aging | Baycrest | June 9, 2016 | Atrium - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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Speaker 1: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for coming out. Today, our program
is Music Therapy and Aging, and we're very lucky to have with us Chrissy Pearson from
the Baycrest Center. She has a Bachelor of Music Therapy, is a registered psychotherapist,
and a fellow of the Association of Music and Imagery. She received a Bachelors of Music
Therapy from the University of Windsor in 2002, interned at Sunnybrook Health Sciences
Centre in Aging and Veteran Care, and she has worked in various settings, including
long-term care, palliative care, acute care, adult group homes and schools. And in addition
to practising traditional music therapy, Chrissy is a fellow of the Association of Music and
Imagery, and practice guided imagery and music as well. And currently works at Baycrest as
well as in the Music Therapy Center, so it should be quite a fascinating program. And
here's Chrissy Pearson.
[applause]
CP: Thank you so much, Greg, and thanks for having me here. I don't know if you can see
me over this, I'm not very tall, but I am back here. And we're getting beep, beep, beep.
Here we go. I'll just use the keypad. So I'm here to talk to you today about music therapy,
and specifically music therapy and aging. Here's a little bit of an overview. So I'm
gonna tell you a little bit about myself and why I'm even interested in this field and
how I came to the field. I'll give you a short explanation about what exactly music therapy
is. I'm gonna talk about music therapy and dementia, as well as music therapy for caregivers,
and also music therapy for what I'll call "normal aging", I'm not sure there is such
a thing as normal aging. But focusing in those three areas. And we'll talk a little bit about
some case examples I'll share with you from clients that I've worked with to give you
some examples, and finally, we'll maybe talk a little bit, if we have time, about how you
can use music in your day-to-day life just to simply be more wild, no matter what stage
in the aging process you're in. So I'll tell you a little bit about my interest. I had
a very musical childhood, I... My mother forced me to start piano lessons when I was very
young and I hated playing the piano, and she insisted that this was a good skill for me
to learn.
CP: And when I entered the sixth grade in elementary school, I was fortunate to be in
a school that had a music program and I chose to play the flute and I loved playing the
flute, and I went home and begged my mother, "Please can I stop with piano lessons and
take flute lessons." And fortunately, they said yes, that that would be alright with
them, and I started playing the flute and practising the flute with an independent teacher,
and in school, and played in all the bands, and did all of those musical things that I
was able to do throughout high school.
CP: And at the same time, my grandparents were all aging, and two of my grandparents
developed different kinds of dementia. And without knowing anything about music therapy,
I, especially with my grandfather, would go to his long-term care home and play music
with him, and sometimes some of the other residents would come and we'd sing together.
It didn't occur to me at the time that that was something even interesting, it was just
something that I was doing. And as it got time for me to graduate high school, I was
thinking about, "What am I gonna do and what do I want to study?" I was interested in clinical
psychology and thought, "Okay, I'm gonna go to university and study psychology or maybe
I'll study social work."
CP: I wanted to work with people, and my mom, who was a guidance counsellor, came to me
and said, "Look at this really neat program, it's called Music Therapy." And it sort of
beautifully blended my love of music with my desire to help people, and that's sort
of what got me to that place. In terms of the other thing that really made this click
for me, was just my own sort of life philosophy that no matter who we are, no matter what
our challenges are, what our abilities are, if we're living independently or needing support,
that we all have a right to live in a way that I would call well. We deserve to live
well, we deserve to have the resources that can help us to live well, and I really believe
music therapy, as a profession, is something that can help people to achieve that. And
being well is defined differently depending on who we are, and as we go through today's
presentation, you may see yourself in the presentation or other people from your family
that you love and care for, and how you feel about wellness might be different than the
next person, so I encourage you to sort of keep your own values in mind and your own
philosophy around what it means to be well as we go through the process of aging. What's
the saying? It's not how long we live, it's how how well we live, and that's sort of the
philosophy that guides me.
CP: So we'll talk a bit about music therapy. What is it? To become a music therapist, some
people are always surprised when I say to them, "I have a Bachelor of Music Therapy."
There's a degree that you take to become a music therapist. The degree involves being
part of the music department, part of the psychology department, and part of the music
therapy department. So it's three areas that you study, lots of practicum experience because
we are trained to work with lots of different kinds of people. So not just people who are
aging or have challenges related to aging, we work with many different kinds of people,
and our education prepares us for that.
CP: After we graduate, we do a 1,000 hours supervised internship that is within an area
that really interests us, and followed by a certification process. So once we've received
the certification, we can confidently say that we're ready to practice music therapy.
In Canada, there's five schools only that offer the training program. If you're interested
in the training program, I can... You can e-mail me and I can send you lots of information
about that. So the Canadian Association for Music Therapy, that's our national governing
body. They're the ones who set out all the expectations for education.
CP: They set out our code of ethics, our standards of practice. They oversee all the certification,
they make sure that our membership is up-to-date and that we've been continuing our education
so that their members are professionally competent across the country and practising appropriately.
And areas and scope of practice, I'm not gonna talk a lot about this because I could talk
about it for hours. Essentially anyone who could use music... Sorry, rather anyone who
could use therapy could work with a music therapist.
CP: So whether it's a teenager in a youth program who's suffering with depression or
a person in long-term care who has dementia, a child in palliative care who's dying of
cancer, no matter who you are or what you're trying to cope with, probably a music therapist
could help you work toward some of the goals that you're trying to achieve. The goals could
be behavioural in nature, so, for example, trying to stop a difficult behaviour for someone
who's in the later stages of dementia. It could be social in nature, so for children
with autism, helping them to be able to integrate and interact with each other. It could be
psychosocial in nature, so people who have maybe had trauma in their lives and working
through those traumas and helping them to understand them and work through them in an
easier way.
CP: The goals could be about communication, so very physical goals of regaining speech
and the ability to speak. It could be self-expression. There are sometimes musical goals as well,
sometimes we work with people who are coming to us to actually work on something that is
musical in their life. But generally, it's not really about the music at all, it's about
what we're trying to achieve with the music. And that's something that some people struggle
with, they think they have to be musical to benefit from music therapy and it's actually
the opposite.
CP: I find the people who are, let's say, less professionally musical are often more
open to participating in music therapy. So, no experience required to benefit. So, what
does music therapy look like? Again, it looks different depending on who you're working
with. Obviously, working with a street youth looks completely different than working with
someone who's dying in palliative care, and what we are trying to do is to use music and
to use musical elements in a way that meets the person's needs. So today we're gonna be
focusing on aging, we're gonna talk a bit about dementia, we're gonna talk about music
and the brain. What I'd like you to take away from this as well is that music therapy really
spans all ages, all abilities, all different challenges that you might face in life.
CP: And if you want more information about music therapy with different kinds of people,
that's something... I do have a handout if you want more information that you can take
with you before you go, and certainly, you can look some things up or contact me and
I'd be happy to tell you more about the different kinds of people we work with and what that
would look like.
CP: Okay. Oh, the one thing I forgot to mention: When we're talking about what music therapy
looks like, I often have people who are musicians or entertainers who say, "Oh, yes, I do music
therapy," and so, I always like to explain the difference between music entertainment
and music therapy. Entertainment, I'm gonna say, most of the time is very therapeutic,
and the therapeutic value in going to a concert or the therapeutic value in having someone
sing for you or being part of a choir, all of those things are very therapeutic. What
makes music therapy different is just the therapist, that you're working with someone
toward specific goals, you're working with them continuously to help progress through
some goals or to help achieve a sort of level of wellness that you're not able to achieve
without it, and that, that sort of defines the entertainer from the therapist. But I
always tell the entertainers, "You're not wrong, you're just not a therapist."
CP: So yes, what you're doing is absolutely valuable and probably therapeutic for many
of the people who are coming to listen to your music and to interact with your music,
maybe dance and move to your music. That can be a beautiful, therapeutic thing, and music
therapy is what we're gonna talk about today, which takes it to a different level.
CP: So music in the brain is something that is being talked about in the media all the
time right now. I'm very, very sure that most of you have, have heard about some of the
interesting stories. What comes to mind right now is Gabby Giffords in the US when she was
shot, part of her recovery was working with a music therapist to regain her ability to
speak. Stories like that are everywhere right now and getting lots of attention, which is
really exciting for music therapists because it's been a long time of trying to educate
people about how this all works.
CP: And as we age, no matter what challenges we face, our brains are gonna change. That's
just what happens are... From the time that our brains are developing to the time that
we leave this earth, our brains are constantly changing, and as we age, the changing starts
to happen faster and in different ways.
CP: And sometimes that involves additional challenges, whether it's a memory loss or
physical ability that we lose. All of those things are going to happen no matter how deep
the challenge. We're probably gonna encounter something. And now that we have all of this
research that talks about the brain, we really understand why music therapy is so effective
and we can thank MRI machines and all the other scanning machines out there that look
at what's happening when we... Not only when we listen to music, but when we participate
in music and when we're working with a music therapist.
CP: So it's neat, they can see the difference between putting a CD on and listening to the
music versus singing along to the music or moving our bodies to the music versus sitting
with a music therapist and working through something musically. The scans all look different,
but what does look the same is that music is everywhere in our brain. It used to be
that people thought... Not people, researchers, scientists thought that music had a place
in our brain, much like speech has a place, much like movement or memories or emotions.
A lot of things have specific areas of the brain and if that area gets damaged, then
that skill gets damaged or that ability is damaged. What makes music so effective is
that it is literally everywhere in our brain.
CP: So when we're listening to music, lots of different areas light up. When we're participating
in music, even more areas of the brain light up. And that's why, especially as we age and
have challenges with memory or have challenges with speech or have challenges with movement
or physical abilities, music can often be helpful. There's four areas up there that
I've connected to the brain. You can see rewiring, I'll talk a little bit about that because
I find it to be really fascinating, memories, cognition and movement, and pleasure's there
at the bottom.
CP: Pleasure is a really important one. If we're not enjoying the music that we're listening
to, different areas of the brain light up that say, "Yeah, that's... I don't really
relate to that." So one thing to remember is that enjoying the music that you're...
Whether you're listening to it or working with a music therapist, you have to have that
pleasure principle for it to be really effective.
CP: Okay, so let me let me look at a few of these areas of the brain. Now that we know
sort of how effective it is, I really think it's... It's kind of the simplest and most
complex thing that we could talk about, is how music impacts the brain. When one part
of the brain is damaged, so for example, we have a stroke or we get dementia, we start
to lose our long-term memories, our short-term memories, music has the ability to sort of
rewire the brain.
CP: So if I've had a stroke and I can no longer speak, but I'm looking at you and I want to
say something, I cognitively know what I want to say but I don't have the ability to actually
say the words, we can often sing before we can speak. And I've worked with many people
through different music therapy techniques, singing always comes first, and it's really
fascinating to see that progression. And now we know what's happening is that the pathway
that's not working anymore, the pathway that's cut off or blocked or damaged is not needed
because music can help create a new pathway. So once the singing develops and making musical
sounds develops, that can transfer into speaking the sounds, and that's kind of the simplest
way to explain it. We could go through lots of scientific papers about how that works,
I'll just tell you from experience, it's fascinating to see and it really does work. The same is
true when we look at memory and things like dementia or other brain injuries that maybe
affect our memory. The last thing that we lose in terms of memories are musical memories.
Music sticks around, probably now we know because it's involved in so many different
parts of the brain.
CP: So often someone who's in the late stages of dementia can no longer recognize their
spouse's face or can no longer get up and feed themselves, when I go to see them and
if I know that they are you know, a really big Frank Sinatra fan, if I can pick a song
or run through a series of songs, chances are, something will catch their attention
and things in the brain start to line up and go, "That's familiar," and maybe they open
their eyes and they look at me, or maybe they look around the room and smile at people.
Maybe they even start singing. So we know now the reason that this is happening is that
the brain is experiencing the music in many, many more ways than it experiences one scale
or one... One thing that we're trying to do.
CP: Okay, to make sure we stay on time here so that I get through all of this, I love
talking about it so I can take up too much time. We're going to start by looking at music
therapy and dementia, and then we'll talk about caregivers and people who are not experiencing
challenges and how music therapy works and how it can be helpful. So when we're working
with a music therapist, we are doing consistent work. We're working on goals that are tailored
to the individual or tailored to a group. The therapist is going to develop a treatment
plan and make goals that they can track.
CP: So it really is something that we want to... As therapists, we want to see that what
we're doing is working. We can only do that if we have a plan and if we're writing our
observations and tracking things, trying different things to see if something might work better.
All of that is really important. That's also what kind of sets us differently from entertainment,
we really are looking for results and how we can better achieve those results.
CP: So I wrote down a couple of examples of some goals that I might work on with someone
who has dementia, keeping in mind that it's tailored to the individual. So if depression
isn't an issue, then that's not a goal, to help them with that, but for a lot of the
people I've encountered, depression and anxiety are often really prevalent when you're experiencing
those kinds of challenges. Self-expression and communication can be a challenge, that's
something we might work on.
CP: Helping someone to have meaningful interaction, again when we lose the ability to connect
with people, music can often help to facilitate that. Reminiscence and also maintaining memory,
so as things start to deteriorate, sometimes through music therapy we can extend that ability
to remember, whether it's a short amount of time or a longer amount of time. Any amount
of time is good if you're starting to lose those skills.
CP: And also decreasing difficult behaviour. A lot of the time as we're aging and if our
minds are not functioning the way they once were, and we get confused or we get agitated
or we don't know where we're going, we can have behaviours that are really difficult,
whether it's constantly wandering or becoming aggressive or behaving inappropriately with
other people. Music therapists often work to help decrease those behaviours and to help
the staff or the caregivers to understand how they could use music to help decrease
those behaviours.
CP: So those are some examples of what a music therapist might look at. At any stage through
the process of living with dementia, we can also help to facilitate whatever musical identity
that person had. So the reason I mention that is if you were a concert pianist, that identity
is probably really important to you, and so, a music therapist can sometimes work also
to really help maintain and to preserve the person's musical identity, which may be more
important for those who perhaps made a career out of music than someone who is a casual
concert-goer. But it is an important part of our identity sometimes and music therapists
can certainly help with that.
CP: So these goals will change depending on the stage of dementia, depending on what the
challenges are, but again, the important thing is that it's specific to the person or the
group of people, and usually, when I'm talking about a group, let's say we're talking about
a long-term care home, the nurses, the doctors, the other care staff will say, "You know what?
We have a bunch of men in this unit that are really not coming out and participating, they're
experiencing a lot of depression. They really don't want to get up and even go to their
meals, let's start a group for them." So they have common needs that the music therapist
will focus on and help them with those challenges. So group goals are really important, but it's
not just a group of people with various needs, we really wanna focus in and help people that
have similar needs.
CP: Okay, so these are the various places you might find a music therapist working,
if we're talking about working with people who have to dementia. That's a client of mine
that, during a group... This is a group of of men who had sort of early to mid-stages
of dementia and a big part of the group was to encourage any kind of spontaneous reaction
to active music-making. So I was always providing live music, it was very personalized to the
people that were in the group.
CP: And this particular group member, without fail, when a certain song was played, wanted
to get up and to move, and the other group members encouraged him and it was sort of
a big part of the... I guess the culture of the group that we had. It was a very successful
group, about seven men who supported each other, I would say right up until each of
them became too impaired to come to the group anymore. So this is a very special experience.
You'll also find music therapists working with people in a hospital setting, so often
there are places, at Baycrest, for example, complex continuing care in the hospital where
people live a long amount of time and music therapy can help them with the challenges
that come from living in a hospital setting.
CP: Also in palliative care, which palliative care of course spans through the ages, but
there are different challenges. I think when we reach palliative care, if we have aged
without any challenges versus are dying with dementia or dying with a disease that makes
our brains not cooperative and can be a very confusing time and a music therapist is often
a great addition at that time to help them to feel more secure and to feel less afraid
at that time, toward the end of their life.
CP: Day programs also, so music therapists will often provide services in a day programs.
Obviously, in a day program there's a lot of participants, so sometimes it's sort of
a community group that happens and other times the staff at the day programs have targeted
certain people to go off and have a group together. Okay, this is a photo of one of
our music therapists at Baycrest working with a gentleman in another music therapy group.
I'm going to take some time and actually, Greg, how much time do I have left? I didn't
bring my watch up here. I want to know how many stories I can tell you.
[background conversation]
CP: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. I will give you a few stories to sort of illustrate
how I've worked with different people and what music therapy looks like at the different
stages of living with dementia. These are just some examples, but hopefully they give
you a little illustration of what this can be like. First I'll talk about Susan. I worked
with Susan at the Music Therapy Center, so that's my... The second hat I wear, I'm here
representing Baycrest, but I also do work at the Music Therapy Center.
CP: Susan had the early stages of Alzheimer's and she actually found us on her own and learned
a little bit about music therapy and thought it might be useful for her. So she called
and referred herself for music therapy and started coming to see me for one-on-one individual
sessions. She was really aware of her diagnosis obviously and not coping well with the fact
that this was going to be what the rest of her life looked like. She was very cognitively
able to understand how the disease would progress and what that would mean for her, she had
a lot of anxiety about not knowing how fast it would progress or what her family would
do without her, what kind of care she wanted as the disease progressed.
CP: So on the one hand, she had the opportunity to have a say in what her wishes would be
as the disease progressed. On the other hand, she lived a very long time in the early stages
and had a lot of anxiety and worry about what kind of burden would ensue as it progressed.
So we worked through a lot of grieving, she was grieving the life she had and also grieving
what she knew would be losses that were coming. We... I should say her husband brought her
for these sessions and while she was in the session with me, he would go and let her have
that time.
CP: It was really important for her to work through some of these things, knowing that
she could share things that she felt would burden her husband to share with him. So it
was very much a private session and very confidential as well. So we worked through a lot of things.
We always had some form of expression, so she sort of listed out music that was important
to her and we would always sing. Susan couldn't sing at all, and it took a while for her to
be comfortable using her voice. I kept saying to her, "We're not at Carnegie Hall, it's
just you and me." And eventually, she felt more comfortable with that.
CP: And the physical effects of singing are extremely beneficial if you're going through
something like anxiety or something where you kind of feel the weight of the world on
your shoulders, listening to music is great, singing music and making music has an even
greater effect physically on how you're feeling. So we got to that point where she was really
able to open up and express herself musically, we wrote songs together. Now she was not...
She had no formal music training, so obviously I facilitated the songwriting, but she ended
up writing five or six songs, two of them that she kept private, that I kept and did
not share with anyone after she wasn't able to come anymore. They're locked away in her
file privately and they were really about the struggle and about all of the difficulties
she was facing, but not things that she wanted to share with people.
CP: The other four songs were written for the different people in her family that she
wanted to leave a legacy for. She asked that I... After we recorded them and she did participate
in the making of the music. In one of the songs, she played a tambourine, in another
song, she did sing parts of it. We wrote the music together. So I would play, "What do
you want it to sound like?" and play something and she'd say, "No, no, no, that's too fast.
It needs to sound like this."
CP: So we worked through some songwriting together and produced a CD together that she
made the cover for with some meaningful pictures, wrote some messages inside the CDs. We put
them in a box, gave them to her husband, and the instructions were, "Once I'm not able
to remember anymore, once I don't know my children anymore, can you please give everybody
these CDs?" And the last thing that we did is she worked on creating play-lists for herself,
so a few years ago, the Alzheimer's Society started their Music and Memories program,
and we started hearing about personalized music and personalized play-lists. She found
that really fascinating, and so together we made, I'm gonna say, eight different play-lists
that, through music therapy research, I helped her to place songs in different orders and
with different tempos for different times of the day. So a play-list to help her to
wake up and become energized in the morning, a play-list to help her sleep at night, a
play-list for exercise, a play-list for relaxing. So we worked through that together as well.
So, that was Susan. Someone with sort of the mid-stages of dementia that I worked with
in long-term care, his name was Albert. He was no longer able to recognize his family.
He was usually quite happy, usually telling the same jokes and the same stories over,
and over, and over again. He wandered pretty constantly and was a really restless guy.
CP: So he was referred to me, number one, to give him an outlet for telling those stories
and hopefully to allow him to go beyond that constant repetitive storytelling and express
himself in different ways. So he... And it was a group that he was referred to and the
group was for people who were wanderers. People that couldn't sit down, couldn't stay still.
Magically enough, when you're focused on music, it's a lot easier to focus and to sit still.
So most of the patients that were part of that group were really able to focus. We worked
up from sitting for 20 minutes, and then the next week we'd try for 30, and the next week
we'd try for 45, and eventually, when it became a routine that felt familiar and felt good,
we were able to have one-hour sessions together.
CP: So that was a big goal for Albert, was to sit and to focus on something for an hour.
We really facilitated a lot of connection and interaction, so we used a lot of hand-held
instruments, and part of the goals that we had for the people in the group were to share
instruments. So after some directives, "Let's all play this with the drums. Now pass the
drum to your neighbour," those sort of interactive things that don't come naturally once our
minds start to become confused.
CP: We also really were trying to decrease his repetitive jokes, and then, initially,
he told the same joke throughout the entire group, and some of the other group members,
who were aware of the fact that they'd heard it five times, would get really frustrated
with him. But the more he came to the group, it was a weekly group, the more familiar he
became with the routine. Even though he didn't remember what he did last week, that routine
becomes familiar because it's consistent.
CP: And by the end of the time that we worked together, he would maybe come in and share
a joke at the beginning and then he was able to focus on what we were doing that day. Maybe
as he left, he would say, "I got another joke for you." But two jokes as opposed to 50 was
a really good accomplishment. What else here? Oh, the other goal that we had was for him
to have moments of accurate memory, and that one was really remarkable for Albert. There
was one group session we were all drumming, and for whatever reason, we talked about the
brain things lining up sometimes. Whatever it was with the rhythms we were keeping and
how we were drumming together, his son came through the doorway, and he turned and he
said, "David, come on in, pick up a drum." So in that moment, for whatever reason, things
were... If we had an MRI machine at the time, maybe we could have understood it more.
CP: All I know is that whatever was happening musically was working for him in that moment.
Things in the memory centers of his brain went, "Dut-dut-dut-dut-dut," and he looked
up and said, "I know that person." Now, there was no understanding around the fact that
usually he doesn't recognize that person, but in that moment, for the 10 seconds that
it took for his son to come and sit and to play the music with him, everything made sense.
And those kinds of moments aren't usually goals that we have because we can't expect
those things to happen, but when they do happen, it can be something really special for the
people that are there to witness it and there to feel it. And for that person, we really
hope that's a moment where things make sense, where things feel not confusing, where things
are meaningful to us. So that about five minutes at the end of the music therapy session, where
he and his son were really connected, that was an incredible five minutes for both of
them. As they left, the son kept singing with him and he reported to me that after their
one hour visit, he was still saying his son's name and still sharing about the music that
they were singing. So again, as the music kept going, we were able to have that successful
connection, which was a big gift for both of them.
CP: And lastly I'll talk to you about Barry; Barry had late-stage dementia, he lived on
a different unit in the long-term care home, this is at Baycrest. He's in a wheelchair,
he was completely dependent so not eating on his own, not able to grasp things or manipulate
things. So people were caring for him in terms of all the activities of daily living, he
usually had his eyes closed. Usually during care, so being showered or changed, he would
get really aggressive; which makes sense.
CP: If someone were to come and try to give you a bath and you didn't understand why they
were doing it, you would probably act aggressively. So he was referred for a few reasons, they
would have me come in the morning before they were getting him out of bed, so that I could
perhaps get him into a place where they could get him out of bed without that aggression
coming up. I also had sessions with him when his wife was there to try and facilitate some
connection between the two of them because otherwise she was really frustrated that he
didn't open his eyes, he never looked at her, she wasn't getting any responses from him.
CP: So we did those one-on-one sessions in the morning before care, and we did the sessions
with his wife once a week. We were trying to increase his alertness, so, "Can we help
him to open his eyes? Can we help him to connect on an alert level?" We were trying to increase
the interaction with his wife, and not just interaction, but meaningful interaction where
she could feel that he was there with her. Also trying to get some moments where he would
use his voice, whether that was just a sound or whether it was singing, that was something
that we were hoping for.
CP: It was one of those goals where we weren't looking for it every week, but when it did
happen, it was lovely. We also were trying to provide him with some sensory stimulation,
so if you've ever been in a long-term care home, you know that a lot of the time people
with late-stage dementia or people who require continuous care are often found sitting in
their wheelchairs in the hallway or sitting in front of a TV and not really aware of what's
going on around them, and this was really a way for us to provide him with stimulation
that he wasn't getting at other times of the day. So the musical stimulation, I would play
instruments and use his hands like a... If you know what a Cabasa is, it has a nice texture
to it, so using tactile things to stimulate him, to use my voice. And all of those things
together resulted in a few things.
CP: Number one, it was usually easier for the nurses to get him up in the morning and
to get him changed. So even though he wasn't opening his eyes and participating with me,
hearing the music is active participation. The brain is doing something, we don't know
what, but we hope that it's having a pleasant experience and we hope that it's providing
a sense of calm or a sense of feeling familiar. So I would come in, I knew which kind of music
he liked, which is a huge bonus. If I don't know what somebody likes, I usually improvise
music because the worst thing you can do is play something someone doesn't like and then
you're getting the opposite effect. But for him I did know what music he liked, so I would
spend about 10 minutes with him just playing music. In between the songs, I would improvise
and sing "It's time to get up, it's time to get up," and kind of cuing musically that
it was the morning, and that the staff were coming to get him soon. The staff would come
and they would sing with me and we would try to keep the music going while they started
to move his bed and get him sitting up and remove his clothing and do the things that
they needed to do to start his day.
CP: So after, I'm gonna say five or six sessions together, number one, the nurses kind of got
it more and were a little more receptive to participating in it, and then I'm gonna say
maybe two or three sessions later, we had our first really successful time where he
did not once lash out, he didn't call out. He wasn't opening his eyes or participating,
but he was very calm and very cooperative. So that was a big success, and the other thing
we were working on with his wife and interaction and some kind of level of alertness and level
of expressing, that was really, week-by-week, variable, and like I said with the last example,
when things did line up and really sort of visibly happened, those were gifts.
CP: On the times when that didn't happen, it was important for her to remember that
the music was still stimulating his brain. The music was still being registered no matter
what we were seeing from him. We can, through science now, understand that that was still
something that was happening for him. When we did have success, I would play a song that
he was familiar with, usually guitar and voice was what I would use, and sometimes if we
were having a day where it was really connecting, he would start to move his head a little bit
to the music.
CP: And after the song, I would say to him, "Barry, you're hearing that music," and he
would sometimes say, "Mmm," and the wife would say, "Ah! There he is." We would continue
and sing another song, and she would take his hands and start to move with him, and
sometimes he would squeeze back. So those little things were what we were trying to
achieve, sometimes our sessions were about half an hour because it was apparent that
he just wanted to sleep, other times when he would sort of have those signals that he
was more and more alert, we would keep going, and after an hour, sometimes he was vocalizing.
Never with words, but sometimes the melody. So if we were singing a song like 'You Are
My Sunshine', we wouldn't hear him sing the words but we would hear him, "Mmmm." Those
were moments where the wife would get out her tissues and sing along with him and say,
"There is my husband, that's him. I can hear him." So those are some examples of the work
that we do with people who are living with dementia. I wanna quickly talk about you heard
me talk about Susan and making personalized play-lists, this this really got big in the
media, especially in Toronto with the Alzheimer's Society Toronto and the project where they
were giving out iPods to families who had a person living with dementia.
CP: And at Baycrest, what I was finding was that families were accessing the service,
but they didn't really know what to do with it. The Alzheimer's Society does a great job
at providing the instructions for how to how to make the play-list, how to put it on the
iPod, how to use the iPod and charge the iPod and care for it, but they really weren't giving
any information around, "How do you make a good play-list? One that's gonna be really
effective for that person? When should you play it? How should you play it? How do you
do it in a way that's gonna really benefit them? And then what do you do if you are there
and something really emotional happens, if the person starts to weep or if the person
becomes aggressive. How do you respond to that?"
CP: So this... The picture that is up here is the picture of a booklet that we developed.
It's really aimed at... Well, it's really for everyone. We have some seniors at Baycrest
who use it for themselves, people who don't have cognitive impairment, family members
can find it very useful, some of the nurses who help facilitate listening to the music
find it really useful.
CP: So it's really meant for anyone that's interested in using music in that way, and
our hope is that some of the things that I was seeing were people left in the hallway
with headphones on and they're kind of slouched over and I'm thinking, "Okay, who put that
on them? How long have they been sitting here? Are they even processing this music?" It's
not an effective way to use a tool like this, so we're hoping that this document will help
people to better understand how they can use it in a way that's really effective. The problem
with what I just... The example I gave of someone sitting by themselves with the headphones,
that can be a barrier, that can be a boundary where the person doesn't hear what's going
on around them. If their eyes are closed and they're listening to the music, we don't really
know how they're processing it or or what they're experiencing. So this gives some tools
for how you can do that better, how it can be more effective, and really how it can be
a more safe experience. Music... If we're saying that music is very powerful, which
we know it is, then we also have to acknowledge that it can do damage as well. It can can
be something that, if we're not aware of it, could be doing something negative to the person.
So we really wanna be aware of those signals and be able to respond to them to make sure
that we're giving the person what they need in that moment.
CP: The other thing I wrote up here, real expectations. I had a grandson call me at
Baycrest and he said, "I've got the iPad... " Or iPod, "I've got the iPod, I've got the
play-list, music. I know my grandmother loves this music, I'm putting the headphones on
her, she's not waking up." And I thought, "Oh goodness. You poor thing, you're trying
so hard." And he had seen the YouTube clip of Henry, have you seen that? With the gentleman
in long-term care, and he's sitting in his wheelchair and he's kind of slumped over,
and the recreation person comes in and puts headphones on him and plays a song that they
know that he enjoys, and he sits up and his eyes open and he sings along to the music.
CP: And this was a really powerful clip, the movie itself is really powerful, but some
people got some unrealistic expectations that this magical thing was going to happen. If
they got the right music and they put the music on their loved one, that their loved
one is gonna sing and they're gonna come alive. So this document also is hopefully gonna help
people understand that even if your grandmother is not coming alive, if you know that that's
music that she loves, something in there is benefiting then, and on some level she's processing
that music.
CP: And there are some instructions in the guidelines as well for different things you
can try because on one day there may be nothing, on other days you try it differently and something
amazing might happen. So hopefully this will be a good resource. I do have a couple copies
of it, if anyone would really like one. I do have a couple. I think... Here at the bottom
there is a website, and I'm going to, if you'd like... If anyone is wanting to write this
down, I'm gonna tell you right upfront, it is really hard to find this on the Baycrest
website. It is hidden under every single tab that you could could ever come across.
CP: So maybe I won't say it right now, but if you're interested in finding this online,
come and talk to me afterwards and I'll tell you exactly where you can find it on the website,
or my e-mail's at the end of the presentation. You can take down my e-mail and I'd be happy
to send you a copy of it. It is on the website, but [chuckle] it's extremely difficult to
find it. Okay, so we're gonna talk about caregivers because when you're looking after someone
who has a cognitive impairment or a physical impairment or any kind of challenge, it's
often the caregivers that don't get support, and often they're the ones who need it the
most.
CP: In order to take care of others, you have to take care of yourself, that's something
that I've said to many of my family members. "You're doing a great job, but what kind of
care are you getting?" Music therapy might help caregivers to explore challenges and
emotions that are related to caring for someone. I've worked with some support groups, support
groups are a wonderful way for people to share what's happening and what they're going through,
to share ideas, to share advice with each other, but also to really work through that
it's difficult. And music therapy can be a means to work through those things, whether
it's in a group setting with other people in similar situations, or it might be something
you really wanna work on one-on-one and have that private therapeutic time. Music therapy
can help to achieve some balance, decrease burnout, burnout is a really difficult thing
for people who are caring for others. It can just be a way to promote wellness, and I'm
talking about physical wellness, feeling good in the morning, but also emotional wellness.
So even though your body might be going strong and you feel like, "Yeah, I can go and make
breakfast and get him dressed and get him out the door to the day program. Then I'm
gonna do this, this, this, and go pick him up again, and we're gonna come home. I'm gonna
turn on the monitors so that he doesn't get up and wander off the property."
CP: All of that stuff over and over and over again, you are going to experience burnout
if you're not taking care of yourself, and you are gonna be emotionally very, very taxed,
and music therapy can be sort of an accessible way to to go through some of that stuff. And
the last one I listed here is to increase connection with a loved one. So we have had
clients at the Music Therapy Center that come with their loved one, so someone who has an
impairment with their spouse, and it's a way for them to do therapeutic things together
and to leave feeling more connected and to leave feeling a little less stressed out,
a little more physically able, a little more emotionally ready for the rest of the day.
CP: So I really... If you are caring for someone in your life, I'd encourage you, if you're
looking for support, to consider something like music therapy as something that might
be really helpful for you. So "normal" aging, normal in quotation marks, there really is
no normal aging, but the people that I've lived with who have been fortunate enough
to age without having any kind of official diagnosis of some sort, still have challenges.
My dad is nearing 70 and he constantly says to me, "Aging is not for sissies. You have
to be tough to age," and I think, "Yeah, based on what I see in the work that I do, you're
right." No matter what you're going through, aging can be really difficult.
CP: There are challenges at every stage of life, aging is no different, and even those
who are healthy are gonna need some support in their life if they choose to seek it out.
If they choose to increase their wellness and increase their positive experiences, we
can preserve what's working well. So now we're learning more and more that, leading up to
older ages, there are things that we can do to help preserve what we have, to sort of
guard against things that might come up. Music therapy is a tool that can help with that
as well, especially when we're thinking about things like memory or cognition. There's lots
of research now that says learning an instrument or participating in a choir, those things
that exercise the musical brains that we have, maybe that can help to slow down a disease
progression. Maybe that can even stop the progression of the disease. We don't know
that exactly yet, but that's what we're hoping to find out as we do more and more research,
but certainly we know that it can be something to increase your wellness and hopefully preserve
what's working well for you and prevent future challenges.
CP: I know there's a choir that I lead at Baycrest in the day program, some of the people
there have mild cognitive impairment, some of them have physical needs that make it hard
to get through daily life, and the day program's a place they come together to do things that
make them feel well and also to give their spouse some respite to go and do all the errands
that need to get... It's not really giving the spouse a break, I don't like it when people
say that. They're not getting a break, they're going off and doing a million things before
they come back to pick up their loved one and get on with their day.
CP: But certainly the choir that we do, one of the goals is to be well, to sing together,
to make music together, hopefully to preserve some of the memories, hopefully to allow them
to take a deeper breath if they're having trouble with breathing, or to move their arms
and to move their bodies if their body is giving them difficulty with physical movement.
So participating in music therapy, hopefully we can help, that there won't be future challenges
with your cognition. Or maybe it will help you preserve memories longer than you would
have if you didn't seek something like this kind of intervention. Okay, what am I forgetting?
CP: Here we go. What can you do all by yourself without seeking the music therapy or working
with a therapist of any kind? Music is pretty accessible for us, especially now. Greg and
I were talking about technology and the challenges it creates and also the accessibility that
it creates, so make music. Even if you're not feeling like you're someone who could
sing in a choir, make music, sing in the shower. When you're on the TTC, sing and see what
people think. Maybe that's not a good example, but find places where you can be musically
active. If you're not comfortable doing that with others, find private time to make music,
whether it's to bang along on a drum or on some pots and pans while you're listening
to your favorite music, whether it's singing in the shower or singing in the car, singing
along when you have some private time.
CP: The singing part and the making music, the beating out the rhythm or dancing to the
rhythm, that's... The more that you're doing, the more parts of your brain are benefiting
and being exercised. Just like physical exercise, that brain exercise is gonna do good things
for you. So make music, listen to music consciously, and consciously is the important part. Just
putting on the radio and then mindlessly doing the dishes, you're not really exercising there,
you're just kind of...
CP: It's like standing on the treadmill without walking. You've got the tool there, but you're
not really using the tool. So actually sitting down, putting on music intentionally, whether
it's classical music that you've been meaning to listen to or your favorite... I don't know,
your favorite Justin Bieber CD, choose something for the moment that you really want to listen
to, put the music on and sit down and listen to it. Don't do anything else but listen to
the music and see what you notice about the music. Where do you feel the music in your
body? How do you experience that music? That's how you're gonna listen consciously, that's
how your brain is going to get the most out of the music that you're listening to. Learn
an instrument, and I would say 90 percent of the people that I have talked to who are
65 years and older, let's say, say, "Learn an instrument? Why would I do that? I've never
played an instrument. It's too late to learn an instrument. Why would I wanna do that?"
Well it's not too late. I've had a few clients who have come to the Music Therapy Center
saying, "I really would love to play the guitar, but I don't want to have to go through all
those lessons and I just want to make it sound good. How can I do that?"
CP: And I've worked with many people where I've said, "You don't need to know what all
these strings need. Give me some stickers, I'll show you where to put your fingers. That's
gonna make a beautiful chord. And then I'll show you how to make the next chord. And you
can go back and forth between those two chords and sing probably most of the popular music
from the 1940s."
CP: So there are ways to learn musical instruments without having to take role conservatory music
lessons and practising scales and learning all of the technique. That's not the only
way to learn music, so... And there are places out there in Toronto that will teach music
in sort of non-conventional way. So if you are interested in learning an instrument,
I would encourage you to talk to the music schools and say, "I really wanna learn how
to play the banjo, but I'm not interested in learning the technique. I just want to
know how to make it sound good. Can you help me to do that?" Hopefully they say yes, or
if they say no, ask them for a recommendation. "Do you know of anybody who would help me
with that?" "Yes."
S?: The Beat Goes On is a band...
CP: The Beat Goes On.
S1: And it has three levels; beginner, intermediate...
CP: Very neat, yes. So there are different... There's also Choir, Choir, Choir; some of
you may have heard of that. So there are different groups in Toronto. We're kinda lucky in this
big city, there's lots of opportunities where you can be completely... If you want to call
yourself this, you can be completely non-musical and go and participate and nobody's going
to fault you for that. So find a way to learn a new instrument. Singing is a new instrument.
If you have never been a singer before, learning how to use your voice.
CP: Some people think, "I don't need a teacher for that." You'd be surprised at what going
and working with a music therapist or working with a music teacher can do to help you to
use your voice in a way that's gonna be much more therapeutic than doing it on your own.
So there are some things you could do on your own. When might you want to seek a music therapist?
So you've been doing the music thing or maybe you're not sure about the music thing on your
own. It might be worth seeking a music therapist if you are trying to work through something
difficult. It's kind of the difference between talking to your friend and talking to a talk
therapist, or exercising at the gym versus working with a personal trainer, or working
with a physiotherapist. If there's something that you're really wanting to work through,
it's worth it to seek a music therapist and see if they can help you.
CP: They have the training to help you explore things, to resolve some personal issues, maybe
even things you didn't know that you were struggling with. If it's things around end-of-life,
helping you to create a legacy through music, it's a wonderful way to work through those
kinds of challenges. Also to help you and support you to focus on wellness. I know for
me, exercising doesn't happen unless I have support. The music part, that's easy for me,
I can do that by myself. Although I have worked with music therapists, we help each other
out as well. So know when you need support and you need help to work on being more well.
If it's something you're not motivated to do, then you definitely should seek out a
music therapist, have some sessions, see what that does for you. You may... Maybe you only
need two sessions to get you going and help you create a wellness plan, or maybe seeing
someone once a week becomes part of your weekly routine that you really benefit from. So no
matter what stage of life you're at, whether you have a challenge or an impairment, or
whether you're a healthy person, no matter what you're going through, consider music
therapy as something that is an option. It's something that is a tool that you can use.
CP: If you have loved ones who are going through challenges, certainly help them to explore
it as well, it could be useful for someone that you know, and I hope that in the future,
when you're looking at resources for yourself, certainly come back to this and consider that
this might be an option. So I think at that point, I'm gonna open it up for some questions.
Greg has a microphone so maybe if you have a question, you could put your hand up and
he can come and find you. I'm also gonna put some handouts just at the front of the stage
so if you do have to get up and leave and you'd like one, just come up and get one.
S?: Hi, thank you very much. The presentation was very informative and enlightening. Can
I ask you about the service that you provide? If I were to call you as a therapist, where
are you located? And do you determine with each person how many sessions they need or
is there a standard group program where you're there several times? Thank you.
CP: So it really varies. So again, I have two jobs, I work at Baycrest. Now to access
music therapy at Baycrest, you have to be a patient or a resident. So if that's not
the case, then my other job at the Music Therapy Center is really open for anybody who's interested
in music therapy and you work with your therapist to determine what you need, how much of it
you need, how regularly you need it. It's really individualized for each person or each
group.
S?: Yeah, yeah. Hi, I'm wondering... I used to hear that music like the music of Bach
had... It was scientifically proven to be actually beneficial, healing perhaps even.
Has there been more research done on Bach or other kinds of musics that supports that?
CP: Great question. Immediately when you said that, I thought about the Mozart effect, which
was really big a few... 12 or 13 years ago, they had the CDs for children to help them
learn better. It was called the Mozart Effect. And I think what... It's important to understand
two things: Number one, they're doing research on lots of different kinds of music and no
matter what kind of music it is, it depends on how you enjoy the music. So the pleasure
part of it, the part of your brain that says, "I like this, I want more of it," is more
important than the actual music. So if you're listening to Bach and you're going, "Oh my
gosh, when is this CD gonna be over," or, "When can I leave this concert," it's probably
not gonna be super useful for you. If you love Bach, then absolutely.
CP: I think the benefits of... Western classical music is special because it has so many layers.
There's so many different instruments being played. When you look at the score that the
composer writes, it's miles long with all the different textures and instruments that
you're hearing. That does make classical music special, it does offer sort of a special way
that is different from listening to popular music you hear on the radio, where it's really
about the bass, beat, and the melody. You've got those two layers versus possibly 50 layers.
CP: So certainly, I think there is a lot of research looking at the complexity of classical
music and how that impacts the brain and how it benefits the brain. But most importantly,
if you're listening to it and you don't like it, it's probably not gonna be a big benefit
for you. Yeah, thank you.
S?: Hi. How do you work with somebody who is resistant to music? So for example, if
you turn on the music station that is just on the radio, and he will turn it off.
CP: So the question is working with someone who usually will turn off music. First, the
easy answer is if someone really isn't enjoying it, then music therapy maybe isn't for them.
I've never had that happen, but I think it could happen. If someone really is not a person
who [A], is open to interacting with music or listening to music, that would be a challenge.
However, when I go and meet new clients, I usually go without music. I don't turn on
the radio, I don't put music on a CD player, I don't bring my guitar, I don't play the
piano, I go and I talk to them first. Even if they're someone with an impairment, I'll
go and I'll talk to them first and try to get to know them a little bit and see how
comfortable they are with me.
CP: And if I can get a little bit of trust from that person before I suggest music, that
sometimes opens the door. I have found with people who have impairments, that instinct
to turn the music off is sometimes impaired as well. So it can sometimes open the door
a little bit easier if the impairment sort of helps me to get through that door, but
certainly, there are people who music therapy is maybe not for them, and if they're resistant
to it, they're not gonna benefit from it. So I might try meeting with them a few times
to see if they'll become comfortable with me and trust me to try a few things. And after
I've done that, then you wanna respect their wishes and say, "Okay, this isn't for you
maybe." You're welcome.
S?: Hi. Good evening.
CP: Hi.
S?: Excuse me, my voice is a little...
[chuckle]
S?: But here we go. My question is for you. Looking at the slide in front of us, there's
a conductor. Now...
CP: That's me up there.
S?: Right. Well done.
[laughter]
S?: Now, I'm a little intrigued as to... Well, my question actually goes with the, obviously,
learning to play an instrument. Where, basically, locally could you learn to be a conductor?
CP: Ah, interesting question. So the picture that you're seeing up there with my hands
waving in the air, that's the choir I was talking about earlier at Baycrest. It's a
community music therapy group. The goals are very broad. It's not as... We're not as interested
in tracking things as we are the experience, and something the group decided to take on
together was to create a CD. So what you're seeing is us creating... Or recording, rather,
a CD that was produced, and conducting, in and of itself, I've often had clients who
I put a conductor's baton in their hand, and even if they've never held one, that instinct
to move your hand with the baton is incredible.
CP: No matter what culture you come from, no matter how young or old you are, for some
reason, if music is happening and a baton is placed in your hand, it's kind of an instinct,
I have no idea why, to move the baton or to move your hand. Now, if you're asking me where
can you go to learn how to conduct, I would say you'd have to find a special music school
that would be open to doing that with you. And truthfully, I have no idea offhand. I've
never had someone ask that before. But I think there's a few schools, one that comes to mind
is called The Toronto Institute for the Enjoyment of Music. It's a big title.
CP: It's on Queen West, and they're one of those schools that's really open to teaching
in non-conventional ways and they might find your request intriguing. And most music teachers
would have had... Even in my music therapy degree, I had to take an conducting course,
so if you've done a degree in music, then you've had at least a beginner's introduction
to conducting. So there may be music teachers out there that would say, "Yeah, awesome.
I would love to teach you to conduct." Alternatively, if you're looking at working on some some
stuff through the conducting, a music therapist could definitely work with you.
S?: Getting back to the gentlemans' question about the music of Bach. I read an interesting
article in Epoch newspaper, you may have heard of that, it's all over and it's a free thing.
It's Chinese... Or English. Or Canadian-Chinese, American-Chinese, but there was a very interesting
article by a neurologist who was an opera singer. Have you heard of her? She did research
and came to the conclusion... All research, I suppose, is tentative conclusions, but nonetheless,
that Baroque music was the most desirable for people with Alzheimer's because it did
not have that much emotional content compared to, let's say, Beethoven or Strauss or what
have you. And I thought that was very interesting and I wonder if you know anything more about
that.
CP: I have never even heard of this person, but now I'm going to look her up because that
is really fascinating. You know what? I would have to say that there's so much research
happening on different composers, and the theme is that they find out that music does
good things. And so, no matter which composer I'm reading about or which performer is performing
the music, I think the general theme is that I've never heard one researcher say that that
music doesn't do interesting things to the brain.
CP: So I think no matter what you're looking at... I think she's probably right, she probably
looked at how people with dementia respond to the music, they probably responded positively
to the music. And her theory is that it's because the music is like this. My personal
opinion is that she would probably find that with other composers too, but maybe more or
less depending on the personal preferences of the subjects that she's studying.
CP: So it's a good point for when you're looking at your own music. Listen to Bach. How do
you feel about it when you listen to it? How does it impact you as a person? And if you're
thinking about putting together some personal play-lists as you get older and you wanna
make sure you've got the right music, maybe you add Bach to the list because that research
resonates with you, and you listen to the music and you think, "Yeah, what she said
makes a lot of sense."
CP: But, yeah. I'm not speaking from my own research, but from my personal experiences.
There are lots and lots of studies that say, "Beethoven is good. Bach is good. Mozart does
this." And I think all of it is true and I think probably you could lump it into a great
big pot that says, "Wow, music does incredible things to the brain." And then I would pull
over the other pot that says, "You gotta like the music." If it's something that isn't pleasing
or doesn't turn on the pleasure center in the brain, then all of the results she would
have, would have gone blah. Yeah.
S?: Yeah, thanks very much for a very informative and useful presentation on the obviously rapidly
evolving state of knowledge and practice, in terms of musical therapy, at least, for
those of us who are in our final quarter, shall we say.
[chuckle]
S?: I'm expecting... Next time I walk by the Royal Conservatory, I'll see they're promoting
the advantages of music in the later stages of life. They haven't yet got to that point,
but I expect any day now. So I have two questions, one specific and one general. One, is there
any evidence in recent research that, for people with mild cognitive disorder, musical
therapy will create new memories or would help in the rewiring?
CP: Right. That's a great question. I don't know if everybody heard that, that... Can
we create new memories for people who have mild cognitive impairment? I will speak from
a couple of research articles that say maybe, [chuckle] and then I'll speak from my personal
experience and there are a couple of community groups that I work with where it's the same
people that come every week. When you have that consistency, when you're working with
people at the same time, week after week, even if they have that impairment, it becomes
familiar. So they may not remember my name, but they remember that... They recognize me
and that they're there for music and this is the routine.
CP: What I find incredible is that if we've been, perhaps, using a song that one person
has never sung before, or doesn't know, but it's someone else's favorite, after repeating
that song week after week, suddenly the people who didn't know that song can sing it without
me prompting them with the words or without me starting the song. To give you an example,
there was a guy in the group, I don't remember his name, but he came in and he hated, hated
the song Mack the Knife.
[chuckle]
CP: I don't know why he hated it, but another group member, it was their favorite song.
So of course as the music therapist, I'm saying, "Okay, so let's figure out a way that we can
work with this. This guy loves it, this guy hates it. We're gonna include it, but we're
gonna recognize that you don't like it and that's okay." And after about five or six
weeks, the gentleman who hated it and didn't know any of the words 'cause he never listened
to it, didn't really familiarize himself with it, came in and he saw the other guy and he
said... He remembered his name. I don't remember it right now, but let's say it's Joe, and
he said, "Hey, Joe, 'When the clock strikes half past 6:00, babe,'" and started singing
and then he kind of... It petered off and he lost track of it.
CP: But I think absolutely, with consistency... It has to be consistent and with a familiar
pattern, I think... I would say from experience, absolutely we form new memories. Whether that
transfers into other contexts or not, I don't know. So whether he would have remembered
those lyrics outside of the context of the group that we were in, I have no idea, but
certainly in that moment, nothing triggered that memory except his own doing. So I think...
There's more research being done, but absolutely I think new musical... Especially musical
memories can be formed.
S?: And the second part is, in the wider view, from an evolutionary standpoint, man being
somewhat unique in its... In our musical abilities and interests and delights, does this confer
some particular advantage? Or is it just an adjunct of our large cortex in which case
the birds of course do it well with a very small brain?
CP: Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to remember what kind of... It must've been a neuro-researcher
who actually looked at birdsong and how we hear birdsong and how it's different in the
birds' brain than it is in our brain. I think the big difference between now and then is
we know more about it. I think... With children, for example, who nobody's taught them anything
yet, they are just sort of instinctively musical. And now what we know about how we... Our brains
work and our bodies work, we know that everybody's musical, whether they like the sound of their
voice or not. We are musical beings, so I think historically, there weren't those inhibitions,
there weren't those rules around what it should sound like or what the experience should be.
And it's really fascinating how, over time, things shift with humans, but they're the
same with the birds, they're the same with the animals, and that's been going on for
as long as the bird has been going on. So humans are kind of unique in that way where,
over the decades, over the years, the rules shift and the social norms shift, and what's
good and what's not good shifts. The birds always sound the way the birds should sound,
for sure. Thank you.