music

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

i think music is innate in all of us. we are born with a natural rhythm. think about babies moving to the music. think about that video of that baby bopping along to beyonce ...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU9MuM4lP18&feature=kp
we are born to move to the rhythm of the earth, the sky, and our hearts. 

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” 
― Bob Marley

music was always complicated for me. i loved music from the time i was born. but at school, i always felt discouraged from singing and making music. i felt like the other kids were given opportunities and that i was left on the sidelines. so i made it my mission to immerse myself in music. between the ages of 6 and 14, i learned:

• piano
• violin
• guitar
• drums
• recorder
• and even the glockenspiel 

all as a way to find my voice. to find a way to speak that which had no words. 

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” 
― Victor Hugo

it wasn't until grade 8 that i discovered i could sing. i had always been discouraged from singing. my aunt once told me, "CP is talented, but you, you just have an average voice, anyone can sing." so i hid in the background. 

then i had a teacher, one i wish i could track down in the world and thank for saving my life. for changing my life. for believing in me. and she encouraged me to sing. she made the music teacher give me a solo in the concert. and she helped me audition for an arts school. 

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.” 
― Albert Einstein

music became my refuge. that same teacher helped me get my first guitar when i was 13. and i played that old nylon-stringed guitar every day for my entire teen-aged years. my guitar became an extension of mySelf. 

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” 
― Maya Angelou

i love the way the curves of the guitar fit on my thigh and cradles my breast. i love the smell of the wood, the feel of the nylon strings as i strum, the echo of the notes in the body of the guitar. 

“Where words leave off, music begins.” 
― Heinrich Heine

there are things that words can't express and that is where music takes over. there is nothing like singing in harmony in a group of people; letting the notes ring. 

“Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!” 
― J.K. Rowling

music is magical. 

if you don't play or sing, you can listen. with earphones. (my new favourite song is by Hedley and it is called "Headphones" ... have a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcKCOS6bhN4 ) let yourself be immersed in the sound of the music. sing along. loudly. dance in your kitchen when no one is watching. feel the rhythm. 

“Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” 
― Leonard Bernstein

be kind to yourself, and let yourself feel the music,

xoxo

...

kitchen dance party

did you know that it is impossible to cry while listening to "sweet home alabama", singing along, and dancing in your kitchen? 

nosy nora watched a documentary about music therapy for patients with alzheimer dementia. She suggested making a playlist of uplifting music, putting in earphones, and listening to it the next time i get sad. 

i thought it was a little kookie .. i mean, if i am sobbing and miserable, how is listening to music going to take away from the sobbing and from the miserable? how can music stop a panic attack? how can music lift me from "the depths of despair"? (anne of green gables) ... it's just music. 

WRONG

friday night i was crying and crying, huddled on the couch, safe in the cocoon of my misery ... and then i remembered the music idea. so i put in my earphones, and turned on "sweet home alabama" ... i don't even know why i like that song. it's just the perfect song. the accompaniment, the melody, the mood, the tone ... everything about the song is just great. 

so there i was, crying over (in)fertility, a few meters away from the depths of despair, with earbuds blasting music into my skull ... and the tears slowed down ... and then they stopped. and then i stood up and started dancing. 

i'm not kidding. 

i went into the kitchen, turned on the kettle and had a kitchen dance party all by myself. 

music. 

music is the solution to many of the world's problems. but since we can't change the whole world at the same time, we can work on changing ourselves. 

i challenge you to make yourself an uplifting playlist. choose songs that remind you of happy moments or periods of your life. choose songs from your childhood. choose songs that get your toes tapping. my challenge is, the next time you are feeling down, put in your earphones (earphones are important for this to work), listen to your playlist, and experience what happens ... then tell me about it!

here is my "happy" playlist:

click on the title for links to some songs on my playlist ...

lodestar
get out the map
diamonds on the soles of her shoes
top of the world
buildings and bridges

any other suggestions of songs that i could add to my playlist? what will you put on your uplifting playlist? if you're stuck, click here to listen to "sweet home alabama" 

how does music help? i could make up my own reasons, but here are 12 reasons from a music therapist:

1. Music is a core function in our brain. Our brain is primed early on to respond to and process music. Research has shown that day-old infants are able to detect differences in rhythmic patterns. Mothers across cultures and throughout time have used lullabies and rhythmic rocking to calm crying babies. From an evolutionary standpoint, music precedes language. We don’t yet know why, but our brains are wired to respond to music, even though it’s not “essential” for our survival.
2. Our bodies entrain to rhythm. Have you ever walked down the street, humming a song in your head, and noticed that your walking to the beat? That’s called entrainment. Our motor systems naturally entrain, or match, to a rhythmic beat. When  a musical input enters our central nervous system via the auditory nerve, most of the input goes to the brain for processing. But some of it heads straight to motor nerves in our spinal cord. This allows our muscles to move to the rhythm without our having to think about it or “try.” It’s how we dance to music, tap our foot to a rhythm, and walk in time to a beat. This is also why music therapists can help a person who’s had a stroke re-learn how to walk and develop strength and endurance in their upper bodies.
3. We have physiologic responses to music. Every time your breathing quickens, your heart-rate increases, or you feel a shiver down your spine, that’s your body responding physiologically to music. Qualified music therapists can use this to help stimulate a person in a coma or use music to effectively help someone relax.
4. Children (even infants) respond readily to music. Any parent knows that it’s natural for a child to begin dancing and singing at an early age. My kids both started rocking to music before they turned one. And have you seen the YouTube video of the baby dancing to Beyonce? Children learn through music, art, and play, so it’s important (even necessary) to use those mediums when working with children in therapy.
5. Music taps into our emotions. Have you ever listened to a piece of music and smiled? Or felt sad? Whether from the music itself, or from our associations with the music, music taps into our emotional systems. Many people use this in a “therapeutic” way, listening to certain music that makes them feel a certain way. The ability for music to easily access our emotions is very beneficial for music therapists.
6. Music helps improve our attention skills. I was once working with a 4-year-old in the hospital. Her 10-month-old twin sisters were visiting, playing with Grandma on the bed. As soon as I started singing to the older sister, the twins stopped playing and stared at me, for a full 3 minutes. Even from an early age, music can grab and hold our attention. This allows music therapists to target attention and impulse control goals, both basic skills we need to function and succeed.
7. Music uses shared neural circuits as speech. This is almost a no-brainer (no pun intended), but listening to or singing music with lyrics uses shared neural circuits as listening to and expressing speech. Music therapists can use this ability to help a child learn to communicate or help someone who’s had a stroke re-learn how to talk again.
8. Music enhances learning. Do you remember how you learned your ABCs? Through a song! The inherent structure and emotional pull of music makes it an easy tool for teaching concepts, ideas, and  information. Music is an effective mnemonic device and can “tag” information, not only making it easy to learn, but also easy to later recall.
9. Music taps into our memories. Have you ever been driving, heard a song on the radio, then immediately been taken to a certain place, a specific time in your life, or a particular person? Music is second only to smell for it’s ability to stimulate our memory in a very powerful way. Music therapists who work with older adults with dementia have countless stories of how music stimulates their clients to reminisce about their life.
10. Music is a social experience. Our ancestors bonded and passed on their stories and knowledge through song, stories, and dance. Even today, many of our music experiences are shared with a group, whether playing in band or an elementary music class, listening to jazz at a restaurant, or singing in church choir. Music makes it easy for music therapists to structure and facilitate a group process.
11. Music is predictable, structured, and organized–and our brain likes it! Music often has a predictable steady beat, organized phrases, and a structured form. If you think of most country/folk/pop/rock songs you know, they’re often organized with a verse-chorus structure. They’re organized in a way that we like and enjoy listening to over and over again. Even sound waves that make up a single tone or an entire chord are organized in mathematical ratios–and our brains really like this predictability and structure.
12. Music is non-invasive, safe and motivating. We can’t forget that most people really enjoy music. This is not the most important reason why music works in therapy, but it’s the icing on the cake.

i think that using music to cheer ourselves up ... to break ourselves out of the cycle of sadness and shame ... i think that using our own choices of music empowers us to step out of despair and into the light where shame can't live. 

be kind to yourself, and have a kitchen dance party,

xoxo

...

for more information on alzheimer dementia and music, or how you can donate, see the following links:

http://www.alzheimertoronto.org/ipod.html

http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/alive-inside-new-documentary-shows-how-music-can-reawaken-alzheime

http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/18942539/reload=0;jsessionid=WOWierFhrjG84r0pos3O.18

http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/10550905

http://www.alzfdn.org/EducationandCare/musictherapy.html

sing like no one is listening ...

a bubble of happiness. i used to know how to create those ...

once i ate an entire box of strawberry shortcake cereal in one sitting and the sugar and red dye entering my bloodstream and creating a hypoglycemic nightmare in which i literally was bouncing off the walls (and the floor, and the bed, and anyone who got in my way). i was sent to my room to let the sugar and dye work it's way through my system while my cousin L begged me to eat the protein i was being bribed with in an attempt to bring me down from my over-the-top-ridiculous sugar high. but i didn't want to come down from the bouncing goodness. 

another time, the bubble was created by lying on the raft in the moonlight, holding hands with O, after a weekend fraught with drama. and we left all the drama causing people alone with their drama and found time to be with each other, in the moonlight, sharing our compassion for each other. 

click here for photo credit

bubbles of happiness don't happen on their own. they aren't random. they need to be sought out, created, and maintained. they might be spontaneous and unplanned ... but they still need crafting and care. 

i wanted to share one of my bubbles of happiness from my childhood ...

when i was 7 years old, my cousin B and i used to have weekly sleep-overs, mostly at my house. we would make up ridiculous games, like building a snow village for little plastic bunnies that our grandmother gave us for Easter. or naming the yellow foam rabbit from my magic kit "honey bunny." those sleep-overs are one of the highlights of my childhood. B was older and wiser and beautiful and smart. and fun. purely joyfully fun. i bet that when she reads this (and i will be sending it to you B, because i WANT you to read this) she will be taken aback by some of the words i used like "beautiful" - our childhoods were not built around people telling us that we were beautiful, or smart ...

as the years went by, the 4 year age difference between us became too much of a gap and we spent a period of time being cousins, but not friends. at 13, i was only 9 and that was too big of a gap. 

when B went to university, and i was in high school, i went to visit her. and it was so kind of her to take me in for a week and show me her life. over the years, we have traveled in and out of each other's circles, losing touch and finding each other again. always connected by our friendship and by our family ties. 

but this post isn't about B or how important she is to me. this post is about being little, loud, obnoxious girls on the danforth. invincible, noisy, and not caring what anyone else thought about us. 

i have no idea where we were going. it could have been ballet class, or the library, or just the store. but for some reason, we were being taken somewhere and we had to walk for awhile along the busy danforth. and B and i decided that it would be a GREAT idea to sing. loudly. a song we made up. at the top of our lungs. 

i remember walking along the street feeling pure and unbridled JOY with B. 

picture this, the busy danforth on a sunny day. people out walking, shopping, running errands, or just enjoying the day. and then 2 little girls skipping, arm in arm, scream-singing at the top of their lungs:

1, you're a nun!
2, a piece of poo!
3, a drop of pee!
4, shut the door!
5, stick your head in a beehive!
6, pick up sticks!
7, go to heaven
8, shut the gate!
9, drink some wine!
10, START AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and then we would repeat our made up song. and then after that, we would repeat it again. 

i don't know why that was so much fun. i don't know why scream-singing about pee, and poo, and beehives, was hilarious and joyful and exciting and made us so damn happy. but we were giggling and singing and skipping and yelling. i wish that i could recreate that feeling, bottle it, and give it away. because everyone needs to feel the elation of scream-singing on a busy street in the sunshine while skipping arm-in-arm with a cousin-friend, not giving a shit about what anyone else thinks because the joy of scream-singing a made up song puts you in a bubble of happiness that is even better than a blue duvet cocoon. 

i wonder if B would be willing to skip arm-in-arm scream-singing with me now? i think that perhaps i need to find a new way to create the bubble of happiness. maybe i can teach her children our song and find joy by enabling the joy of watching them scream-sing and embarrass their parents ... 

any other ideas? 


xoxo
...

when singing, there is only music ...

"If i cannot fly, let me sing." 

- Stephen Sondheim

singing. music. guitar. piano. singing solo. singing in a choir. singing in an ensemble. 

music has been part of my life for as long as i can remember. 

sitting at the campfire, singing silly songs. singing in circle time at school. joining the school choir. taking music lessons. learning recorder, violin, flute, drums, piano, and eventually my voice. 

music plays a role in my life in so many situations. 

first, there is the choir that i sing in. 

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

- Brian Eno

singing in the choir, whether it is a capella or accompanied, is a means of connection on an inexplicable level. blending your voices in harmony, having one message that touches people emotionally and/or spiritually. singing with a group is like communicating as a group; a mutual understanding of something greater than ourselves. AT said she sings in a choir because "it's a source of feeling connected, of sharing a love and working together for a common purpose. it's a safe place. where i feel secure. both in who i am and my ability to make a meaningful contribution to the group."

singing in a group is also a way to come together and focus on something outside of ourselves and our lives. AG said "i like the sense of teamwork. i like making music with other people. it requires dedication and focus. takes me out of my head, for 2 hours i focus only on the music, not work or life stress."

for me, going to choir every week is my church. we come together as a community. we have routines. we stand up and sit down a bunch of times. we sing together. we listen to a "sermon" by the director. we break bread together. and then we stand together and sing our private song and go our separate ways until the following week. 

Brene Brown wrote: 

"Laughter, song, and dance are so woven into the fabric of our everyday life that we can forget how much we value the people who can make us laugh [...] laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration, or healing: we are not alone."

singing with other people confirms, affirms, and reaffirms that i am not alone. that i am part of a community. that no matter how alone i feel; no matter how lonely i am: i belong.

then there are the songs that touch me and move me through life. songs that i turn to when i need to be cheered up. songs that remind me of my first love, or the love of my life. songs that i listen to when i am sad. lonely sad songs that i can sing along to. at the moment, i am OBSESSED with karen carpenter. i am listening to her music on repeat. all the time. when i want to be cheered up, i listen to Jambalya on repeat ... for hours ... it is my happy place at the moment. and i sing along at the top of my longs. Click here to listen. Rainy Days and Mondays Get me Down is one of the ones i am listening to through this depression. Click here for a listen. 

For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.

Reba McEntire

then there are the songs that feel like they were written FOR you. like the artist climbed into your head and wrote the song through you. i have 3 of those. and they are my private songs. for now. 

this post has been the most difficult that i have ever written. music is such an important part of my being. someone asked me once, "why do you sing?" and my response was "because i can't not sing." 

yes, i sing in the shower. but i also sing in the kitchen, and in the car (at the top of my lungs), and in the living room, and sometimes in bed. i sing through the day. i sing with people. i sing alone. i make up songs about what i am doing. i sing songs that are stuck in my head. i sing songs that i have been listening to in the car. i sing and i sing and i sing. 

i really wanted to write about singing and music. and i had no idea that it was going to be such a challenge! i encourage you to find your music. find your song. laugh, dance, sing, play, bang on some drums (or pots and pans), and find people to do it with. 

i think that ella fitzgerald said it best:

"The only thing better than singing is more singing."

xoxo

...