More Senior Singing Superstars!

It's so fantastic seeing all the smiling faces in my Singing For Health class! I always have 'superstars' who come up front and help me with leading the songs, and they love it! Singing makes you happy; it makes you laugh; it brings people together, especially when some seniors tend to get isolated and socially reserved. Here are two superstars, Don and Jean!

Singing for Health Superstars!

Here are two Senior Singers, John and Shirley from my Singing for Health Class. They are so exuberant - just love them!

Singing Therapy Helps Speech-Impaired Stroke Patients

If you can’t say it, then sing it! Experts researching patients who have lost their ability to speak after a stroke are now suggesting that they could be able to communicate with music using Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT). Using MIT, the scientists showed that patients who were earlier communicating only in mumbles and grunts could now learn to sing out basic phrases like “I am thirsty.”

The study was conducted by Harvard Medical School neurologist Gottfried Schlaug on 12 patients whose speech was impaired by strokes, and showed that patients who were taught to essentially sing their words imrpoved their verbal abilities and maintained the improvement for up to a month after the end of the therapy. 

The researchers worked with stroke patients whose speech was incoherent, and who had damage in a region of the left side of the brain that is typically involved in speech. Schlaug’s research suggests that the brain can be essentially rewired. Stroke patients can learn to use a region on the right side of the brain, which is typically involved with music, for sing-songy speech instead.

 

Using MIT, therapists taught patients how to sing words and phrases consistent with the underlying melody of speech, while tapping a rhythm with their left hands.  After frequent repetition--1.5 hour-long daily sessions with a therapist for 15 weeks--the patients gradually learn to turn the sung words into speech.  When Schlaug compared images of the patients’ brains before and after the therapy, he found that the right side of their brains had changed both structurally and functionally.

Though it has been known that patients who can’t speak clearly often do better when they sing the words, this is the first time anyone has shown the phenomenon through a clinical trial that combines treatment with brain imaging.

Excerpted from http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/02/22/singing-therapy-can-rewire-brains-of-speech-impaired-stroke-patients/

Music Helps the Healing Process

Music helps heart patients

A study conducted in Japan might give new hope to heart transplant patients.  Masateru Uchiyama, from the Juntendo University Hopsital in Tokyo, found that mice that listened to classical music after a heart transplant lived longer.

Uchiyama tested the mice's blood after heart transplants and found that those who listened to classical music had calmer immune systems, which is what caused them to live longer after surgery.  The researchers are interested now in what effect listening to this music might have on human heart transplant patients, especially after a 2003 study found that music therapy lessened pain and nausea in patients after bone marrow transplants.

In the study, mice were given heart transplants from an unrelated donor, with the expectation that they would reject the new organ.  The mice were split into four differnt groups, each listening to a different type of musc.  The groups listened to: a Verdi opera song, Mozart concertos, Enya, and montone sounds.

The final results found that mice that listened to Verdi lived for an average of 26 days, while the group that listened to monotone sounds only lived for an average of seven days.  While we don't yet know exactly what this study means for humans, it is definitely a promising insight into the healing process for transplant patients.

Taken from Making Music, July/August 2012

Music and Alzheimer's Research

Music may help Alzheimer's disease

The early symptoms of Alzheimer's--memory loss, forgetfulness--are so similar to those of natural aging that the disease is often diagnosed too late for effective treatment.  Now an MIT team has created music software to help diagnose the disease much sooner.  Users compose songs and then play a Concentration-like game that involves recalling excerpts of melody pairs and other memory tasks.  You can track your own results and watch for signs of more serious cognitive decline.  "If Alzheimer's can be detected early, medication and mental exercises have a better chance of stabilizing memory loss or at least slowing down the progression," says one of the software's creators, Adam Boulanger, Ph.D.  The software is currently in clinical trials, but researchers hope to release a commercial version to the public within the year.

From AARP: The Magazine, August/September 2012  http://aarp.org/magazine

Music Relaxation

Music promotes relaxation

Music can promote relaxation of tense muscles, enabling you to easily release some of the tension you carry from a stressful day (or week).

It can help you get ‘into the zone’ when practicing yoga, self hypnosis or guided imagery, can help you feel energized when exercising, help dissolve the stress when you’re soaking in the tub, and be a helpful part of many other stress relief activities.  It can take an effective stress reliever and make it even more effective!

Music can help your brain get into a meditative state, which carries wonderful stress relief benefits with it.   For those who find meditation intimidating, music can be an easier alternative.

Excerpted from http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/a/musicrelaxation.htm

Benefits of Music

Music is therapeutic

Music can be used to bring a more positive state of mind, helping to keep depression and anxiety at bay. This can help prevent the stress response from wreaking havoc on the body, and can help keep creativity and optimism levels higher, bringing many other benefits.

Music has also been found to bring many other benefits, such as lowering blood pressure (which can also reduce the risk of stroke and other health problems over time), boost immunity, ease muscle tension, and more. With so many benefits and such profound physical effects, it’s no surprise that so many are seeing music as an important tool to help the body in staying (or becoming) healthy.

With all these benefits that music can carry, it's no surprise that music therapy is growing in popularity. Many hospitals are using music therapists for pain management and other uses. Music therapists help with several other issues as well, including stress. 

Excerpted from http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/a/music_therapy.htm

Music As Therapy

Music can counteract stress

Research has shown that music with a strong beat can stimulate brainwaves to resonate in sync with the beat, with faster beats bringing sharper concentration and more alert thinking, and a slower tempo promoting a calm, meditative state.  Also, research has found that the change in brainwave activity levels that music can bring can also enable the brain to shift speeds more easily on its own as needed, which means that music can bring lasting benefits to your state of mind, even after you’ve stopped listening.

With alterations in brainwaves comes changes in other bodily functions. Those governed by the autonomic nervous system, such as breathing and heart rate can also be altered by the changes music can bring. This can mean slower breathing, slower heart rate, and an activation of the relaxation response, among other things. This is why music and music therapy can help counteract or prevent the damaging effects of chronic stress, greatly promoting not only relaxation, but health.

Excerpted from http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/a/music_therapy.htm

 

 

Music Therapy Promotes Health

Music Therapy Affects the Body and Mind

Research has shown that music has a profound effect on your body and psyche. In fact, there’s a growing field of health care known as music therapy, which uses music to heal. Those who practice music therapy are finding a benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children with ADD, and others, and even hospitals are beginning to use music and music therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to promote movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension, and for many other benefits that music and music therapy can bring. This is not surprising, as music affects the body and mind in many powerful ways. 

Excerpted from http://stress.about.com/od/tensiontamers/a/music_therapy.htm

Music Improves Reading Skills

Music Can Help Those with Dyslexia

Do you know anyone who has dyslexia?  If so, music can help some of the skills associated with reading and compre-hension!   Fascinating!  This is an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times:

 

Research suggests that people with dyslexia, or difficulty reading, also fare poorly on tests of auditory processing. Their timing is also poor. They have difficulty filtering out unwanted background noise and "tuning in" to sounds — such as a teacher's instruction — that they want to hear. Intensive music instruction has been found to improve those skills, and with them, some skills related to reading.

Music Improves Memory for Dementia and Alzheimer's Patients

Music Can Help People with Dementia

Music is so powerful!  I have worked with dementia patients, and even though they may not have spoken for years, the moment I begin engaging them with music and songs - they begin singing along!  Read more from this Los Angeles Times article.

Memory: The progressive degeneration of memory in Alzheimer's disease cannot be reversed or slowed by any intervention. But music can temporarily unlock memories for patients who have lost their grip on nearly every other detail of their daily life and relationships.

Patients in the depths of Alzheimer's and other dementias regularly respond to — and even play and sing — music from their distant past, without missing a word or a note. Nursing homes have seized upon that fact, exposing residents to the songs of their childhoods or courtship years to help reunite spouses in dancing and singing and try to coax dementia sufferers from their isolation. One study even found that dementia patients allowed to punch a button on a robot and hear a familiar song experienced improved mood, function and performance on musical memory games.

Parkinson's Patients Walk With The Help of Music

Music helps Parkinson's Patients

This excerpt from a Los Angeles Times article further confirms the almost miraculous power of music in helping Parkinson's patients to walk with a rhythmic gait.

Movement: If you're old enough, recall John Travolta walking down the street to the song "Stayin' Alive" in the opening scene of "Saturday Night Fever." Now imagine a patient with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative brain condition that affects the initiation and smooth completion of movement. Here's where music's rhythmic qualities appear to get in the back door of a patient's brain and provide a work-around to brain functions degraded by Parkinson's. By engaging the network of regions that perceive and anticipate rhythm, music with a steady, predictable beat can be used to cue the brain's motor regions to initiate walking.

Once off the dime, a Parkinson's patient can use the music's beat to maintain a steady, rhythmic gait, like John Travolta.

"It works well and it works instantaneously, and it's hard to think of any medication that has this effect," Schlaug says.

Neuroscientists suspect that music may work in much the same way for stutterers, who can experience difficulties initiating speech and maintaining a steady flow of words. Case studies have long observed that when stutterers sing, their halting speech patterns disappear. Music's predictable beats may help them initiate speech and continue fluently.

If you are interested in learning more about my Viva La Voice program that uses singing as the basis for helping Parkinson's patients speak clearly and understandably, contact me here.

Mary Blige Uses Music As Therapy

Mary Blige Uses Music As Therapy

In an article by Malcolm Venable in the Virginia Post, he talks about how Mary Blige has used music to heal her own demons.  In this article about her latest concert, Venable says," Blige, who's been public about her addiction, abusive relationships and rough inner-city upbringing, demonstrated the legitimacy of music as therapy.  Women in the audience - most of them African American - roared as she sang mantra-heavy songs like 'Good Woman Down.'"

 

Later, he quotes Blige as saying, "Ladies, we are so necessary!" she said. "We're very special, very beautiful! There's not a man or woman or child that would be here if not for a woman that carried them for nine months and pushed them out into this Earth!"

 

The next time you have challenges in your life, try writing a song about it. Write down your feelings, stream of consciousness if necessary, and then let yourself make up any melody that comes to mind. It doesn't have to be perfect; let the melody come from the emotions or frustrations you're feeling. There's no right or wrong; no one's listening, but it's a great way to heal you with music. When you bypass your thinking brain, and begin singing your lyrics you can tap into that emotional place that needs expression and healing.

Music has been used as therapy since time began. Next time you have a challenge in life, do as Mary K. Blige has done - write about it.

Singing and Brain Development

Singing causes endorphins to flow, stimulating good feelings throughout the body and stimulating brain activity.  
Singing encourages deep breathing, which brings more oxygen to the brain.  
Singing requires the brain to work at many tasks simultaneously.  
Singing strengthens memory.  
Singing teaches opposites, such as fast and slow, loud and quiet, long and short, tension and release. Every good song carries some of these elements of contrast in it.

In short, singing helps to develop your brain.

Singing causes your brain to be fit

Face Lift Surgery Aided by Music Therapy

New York Facial Plastic Surgeon Andrew Jacono, M.D., F.A.C.S., has developed a quick recovery face lift procedure which combines state-of-the art, minimal-incision face lifting techniques and homeopathic medicine performed under a local anesthetic for an easier recovery and natural-looking result.

Until recently, patients desiring a younger look have had to submit to a face lift procedure that required a two to three week recovery and a risk of visible scarring. "Today, a highly skilled facial plastic surgeon can perform a face lift without "tell tale" scars and by combining several techniques the patient can look exceptionally well in as quickly as two or three days," says Dr. Jacono.

  

Using Novocain-like drugs, Lidocaine and Marcaine, to numb the face with several painless injections from a tiny needle that spreads the medicine slowly to avoid even the slightest discomfort, Dr. Jacono performs a quick recovery procedure while the patient is awake and alert, yet totally comfortable. "General anesthetic drugs cause major physiologic changes that cause bruising and swelling and without them, the recovery is significantly and even amazingly faster," says Dr. Jacono. Additionally, general anesthesia can induce vomiting which can lead to further trauma and torn sutures for some patients.

To ease the stress and fear some patients may have about being awake during surgery, Dr. Jacono also incorporates Music Therapy. "Studies indicate that the use of music helps lower patient's blood pressure during surgery, which limits bleeding, and therefore minimizes bruising," says Dr. Jacono who references a March 2006 article in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Lavender aromatherapy is also being introduced prior to surgery to help promote relaxation.

Music therapy eases the trauma of face lifts

Music Eases Pain

In a 1986 paper published by the Journal of Music Therapy,  a research associate at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute described the effects of music therapy on women in labor. For ten contractions, women listened to songs they had previously used as part of their relaxation techniques. They then alternated five music-less minutes for the duration of labor.

The women reported fewer pain responses--tense muscles, clenched teeth,  raised shoulders and requests for painkillers--while music played.  As I've said in earlier blogs, music is a great analgesic for pain!

Dentists have also discovered the effect of music on patients who wear headphones while having dental procedures.  The music blocks the sound of the drill, diminishes pain, and reduces patient anxiety.  Next time you go to the dentist, ask to have headphones with your favorite music, or bring your own ipod!

More and more hospitals are using music to speed healing and relax patients during surgery and in post-operative situations.

Music can relieve pain at the dentist's office

Singers - Tight, Tired Throat?!

I recently got a question from a reader on my ASKBETHLAWRENCE.COM site who wrote:

 "I am contacting you just with a concern.  I am a musical theatre major, which requires me to sing on a regular basis.  I am planning on seeing an ENT within the next week or so, but I was just wondering what all could cause fatigue in my upper registers.  It is mainly when trying to sing soft that I experience this.  Is this most likely only related to technique?  Or could it be more serious than that?"

This was my response which I believe could be helpful to a lot of singers who have the same issue:

Sorry you're having challenges with your voice.  Without hearing your voice, or seeing you in person, I can only give you an answer based on my experience in what you're describing.  It could be any number of things, but it doesn't sound to me like you're having these symptoms based on anything more than poor technique, but it's good you're going to the ENT to check it out.   I had lots of vocal problems early in my career until I found a Maestro who saved my voice.  I hope you can do the same!  

If you're planning on having a career as a singer, then you owe it to yourself to sing effortlessly and easily, as your voice IS your career!

By fatigue, a singer could mean just a 'feeling' in the throat (tightness?), or actual hoarseness which would indicate damage.  Number one, are you supporting your tone?  Your breath support is critical and you need to make sure that you are breathing fully; expanding the ribs and belly; softening the belly but not 'pushing out' or having any tension in your belly, diaphragm or throat.

Two, if your throat is feeling tight and tired when you sing, your tongue may be the culprit!  If you're not supporting, then your body compensates by tensing the base of the tongue in an effort to 'hold' the tone, which is really uncomfortable.  This also causes the larynx to jam up, which again, causes a tight throat.

If your throat is tight and the larynx raised you're causing constriction which not only feels bad, but forces you to push the voice to get more sound out.

All in all, a cascade of events  is set in motion that feed upon each other creating a pinched sound, excessive force on the vocal mechanism, mental distraction, a tight, tired throat, and ultimately can result in vocal nodules.

If you haven't already done so, go to my website and read 'A Singer's Story' and some of my philosophy on voice.  

Do you have any questions about voice?  Let me know!

Joyful Singing Class - laughter and tears!

First of my 'Joyful Singing!' classes last night - we had lots of laughs, and even some tears as the attendees shared their desire to sing without fear. I love empowering people to get rid of their old beliefs and sing with CONFIDENCE! It's life-changing! Class continues next Monday in Salt Lake.

3rd Grade Singing Humiliation!

In my Singing For Health class yesterday I had each student sing a solo line, then had the whole class do an appropriate exercise that would address the vocal challenge the student was having.  After class a woman came up to me and said that she had had a humiliating experience at the hand's of her 3RD GRADE choir teacher, and had never sung again until yesterday.  Unbelievable how long we carry these old hurts that hold us back from enjoying life fully!

Prioritize Your Passion!

It's easy to let our passions assume a place of lowest priority in our lives; but when this happens we suffer. We feel out of balance, unfulfilled and resentful. Take time, make time, to indulge in those activities that you love, that bring you joy and peace; that make you feel good about yourself.