Informative Essay: The Benefits Of Music Therapy

What makes you feel better when you’re sad or upset? Why do average human beings spend large amounts of money on tickets to concerts? Do you like to ride in the car without listening to the radio? The answers to these questions all relate to the common fact that people like music. However, for many, music is more than a form of entertainment. For many people music is the reason that they live. Music offers careers and music offers happiness. Music can also help people with speech, as well as various diseases and disorders. This is called music therapy. Music therapy is evidence based use of music interventions to accomplish goals within a therapeutic relationship by a professional who has completed a music therapy program. Music therapy is proven to have positive healing effects based on various strategies used since before it was officially categorized as a form of therapy.

Music therapy is developed when the study of music and the study of psychology is combined. In an interview with music therapist, Elizabeth Huss, Huss mentions that she works with children with severe emotional disturbances and developmental handicaps in their homes once a week. She takes an improvisational approach, treating each child on an individual basis. The results of her work with

children who have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and cerebral palsy, have shown that these children often respond to music in ways that are very different from traditional therapy responses. A common goal of music therapy is to bring out a more positive emotional state through the communication of music, but some have other goals, like learning expression or patience. After receiving a bachelor’s degree or higher in music therapy, therapists such as Huss, work in a variety of different places, including contracting companies, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and even prisons. Not only can music soothe the savage beast, but it can heal people in other ways too. Music has been proven to enlighten mood and even help people physically. In “The Healing Power of Music,” an article about music therapy, the author states that when World War II ended, soldiers came home from the war with horrific injuries. Musicians began to visit military hospitals to perform for those who were injured. Doctors said they noticed that the patients felt better physically and emotionally after visits from the musicians (Graf).
Music can also help those with brain disorders, speech and hearing impairment, stroke patients, and those with emotional issues. Allesandro was a music therapist who worked with an emotionally disturbed man. “Each time Allessandro walked through the door, an invisible wall formed around them, creating a comfortable space in which a trusting bond of friendship would quickly form,” said Forence Cohen, daughter of a music therapy patient. “Allesandro brought with him happiness, encouragement added a sense of meaning and purpose to Dad’s life, and in doing so, resuscitated his spirit” (“The Knot at the End of the Rope”). Many would consider music therapy to be a wise choice because the results are rewarding, inexpensive, and basically free of side effects. People experiencing music therapy are also far more likely to be willing to stay in therapy longer.
Stroke, dementia, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease are all things that can leave their hosts unable to speak, although they are still able to sing. “My daddy had Alzheimer's Disease,” said Donna Smith, literary specialist at Davidson County High School. Alzheimer’s Disease is a brain disorder that causes memory loss. “In the later stages of the disease, he couldn’t remember who I was. He couldn’t call my name, but he could remember and he could sing every word to the songs that he had learned in church,” (Interview. Smith). It is things like this that emphasize the true effect that music has on certain individuals lives.
Music therapists help their patients by using techniques involving beat, rhythm, and vocals. This works because music therapy can affect every part of the human brain. Reducing stress is also a big part of music therapy. Neurologist Barry Bittman works at the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Bittman believes that group drumming, through it’s “camaraderie, support, exercise, and music making, signals the brain to lower the production of cortisol, a stress hormone secreted by the adrenal glands. Less cortisol has been associated with a heightened immune response and may help the body fight off infection” (Glausiusz). People are happier when cortisol levels are lowered. The music therapist must select the right strategy which can include regaining speech, lessening the effects of dementia, reducing pain, improving communication skills in people with autism, improving sleep patterns in infants, and improving motor function in people with Parkinson’s disease because what works for one patient, may not work for another. There are plenty of exercises that work for all ages and all situations. Some examples of strategies that work very well with patients with Down Syndrome are chanting math facts, counting and sounds of letters to a beat, teaching piano to help with fine motor skills, making up new lyrics to a song to increase time on a task, drawing pictures that go along with a song and having the patient put them in order, and saying challenging words or phrases to a slow rhythmic beat and having the patient repeat it. Playing an instrument or even playing musical chairs could also be considered music therapy.
Although music therapy had its start in the 1940’s when Michigan State University offered the first music therapy program for college students, music has always had a place in society when it comes to health and culture.

Shamanism is the world’s oldest method of healing. Shamans, who are religious individuals from north Asia, use chanting and drumming rituals as their primary tool for healing. Shamans were considered the doctors of ancient time, even though it is still practiced around the world today. The Ashanti people of Ghana accompany healing ceremonies with drumming and in the fourth millennium B.C., Egyptian frescoes showed how music enhanced fertility in women

(Thompson).
In ancient Greece, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, used music to treat his mentally ill patients. Pythagoras, the famous Greek philosopher, mathematician, and musician, also believed in the power of music. He said that listening to music every day was good for a person’s health. Aristotle and Plato, also famous Greek philosophers from that time period, included similar statements in their writings. The ancient Greeks recognized the connection between music and medicine so much that their god Apollo was the god of both medicine and music” (Graf).

It is no exaggeration that music has been around forever.
Music therapy has been proven to not only being a satisfying career to people who choose to work in that field, but is also effective in treating many kinds of emotional and mental disorders. Since the beginning of time, music has been a perfect resource for entertainment, healing, and stress relieving. Music therapy will continue to help with tons of disorders and diseases. It will lighten a person’s day when all they see is darkness. When there are no other available resources, music will always be around. As Sen. Harry Reid said, “Simply put, music can heal people.”