... eColumns >> music and health

This eColumn will address and amplify upon two rapidly growing “megatrends” in music education:

1. Ways that music-making, listening to music, and education in music can result in physical and/or “mental-emotional” benefit to human beings, and

2. ways that music-making, listening to music, and education in music can result in physical and/or “mental-emotional” harm to human beings.

The Coordinator of this eColumn and its Reporters [presented below] will be the primary contributors. The reporters include two physicians, a music therapist, a speech pathologist/voice specialist, an audiologist, a movement specialist, and an infant/early childhood development specialist. Submissions also are invited from any MayDay Group member or from any person who has deep knowledge and experience in any aspect of health for music educators and music learners.

When you click on the Views button, you will be transferred to a section of this eColumn that will contain [1] informed and documented perspectives that are related to music and health as well as [2] descriptive anecdotes of events that music educators have experienced directly. As the eColumn grows, it will be further categorized with drop-down menus for easy access to specific topics. Currently, an introduction to views about music and health provides a contextual perspective on relevant areas of inquiry and knowledge. The introduction is a work in progress. It is not the “complete and final word” on the subject, and periodically, it will be revised, expanded, and updated. Contributions may be sent to the Coordinator at lthurma1@fairview.org

When you click on the News button, you can obtain information about upcoming regional, national, and international conferences, symposia, and courses on topics that are related to music and health, and any other news that may be of interest. Music educators are invited to send related conference notices and news items to the Coordinator at lthurma1.fairview.org.

The Links button will take you to a list of relevant organization websites. Music educators are invited to suggest additional links to the Coordinator at lthurma1.fairview.org

The Bibliography button will send you to the first major posting for this eColumn, a “starter” bibliography of references that have been categorized [and subcategorized].

A brief biography of the current coordinator and the eColumn’s reporters concludes this “homepage” of the Music and Health eColumn.

Coordinator

Leon Thurman, EdD, is Specialist Voice Educator at Fairview Voice Center, Fairview-University Medical Center, Minneapolis Minnesota, USA. He also is founder and Development Director of The VoiceCare Network (see Links). He teaches singing and speaking skills to classical and popular singers, actors, storytellers, broadcast media talent, businesspersons, and clergy, and participates in the therapeutic care of singers and speakers along with Carol Klitzke, his speech pathologist/voice specialist colleague.

In Australia, Europe, and North America, Leon has presented workshops, seminars, visiting lectureships, and professional convention sessions on effective, healthy speaking and singing, voice health and protection (based in the voice and voice medicine sciences), and “human-compatible learning” (based in the neuropsychobiological sciences. He is principal author and co-Coordinator of a 3-volume “encyclopedia of voice” titled Bodymind and Voice: Foundations of Voice Education. In 1994, he co-authored, with Carol Klitzke, a chapter titled "Voice Education and Health Care for Young Voices" in a book titled Vocal Arts Medicine: The Treatment and Prevention of Professional Voice Disorders. In 1986, he co-authored, with Anna Langness, Heartsongs: A Guide to Active Prenatal and Infant Parenting through Language and Singing.

In the mid-1990s, Leon was deeply involved in an effort to create a Fairview Arts Medicine Center (FAMC) for Fairview Health Services (FHS, a Minnesota non-profit corporation that owns seven hospitals and a number of medical clinics, including the Institute for Athletic Medicine). He interacted with physicians in Family Medicine and Orthopedics and with Physical Therapists that included specialists in hand-arm therapy. The collection of affiliated health practitioners represented a variety of specialties such as Respiratory Medicine, Neurology, Otolaryngology, Psychology, Chiropractic, and so on. A local Alexander Technique person also was included. After two years of extensive work, the FAMC project was discontinued due to budget constraints.

eColumn Reporters

Bridget Doak, ABD for PhD, NMT, MT-BC, is a board certified music therapist with additional certifications as a neurologic music therapist and a listening fitness instructor. Bridget has more than eighteen years of experience as a music therapist in hospitals, nursing homes, elementary schools, a correctional facility, and a crisis shelter for victims of domestic violence. Since 1991, she has been employed as a music therapist in the Department of Behavioral Medicine at Fairview-University Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She also is an adjunct instructor in music therapy at Augsburg College (Minneapolis) since 1996. Bridget is currently completing her doctoral work in music therapy at Temple University. Her research on the relationships between adolescent's music preferences, drug preferences, and psychiatric diagnoses was published in the Spring 2003 issue of Music Therapy Perspectives. Bridget has also given presentations at regional and national conferences of the American Music Therapy Association and she is currently the president of the Music Therapy Association of Minnesota.

Darrel Feakes, AuD, CCC/A, is Senior Audiologist at the Minnesota Ear, Head and Neck Clinic, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has over 25 years of clinical experience in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. He is a strong advocate of public education about the important role hearing plays in the intellectual, emotional, and social development of children. Darrel especially emphasizes the importance of early detection and assertive treatment of middle ear abnormalities that can lead to temporary or permanent hearing impairments that, in turn, can result in the impairment of language, singing, and musical learning. He has given over 300 in-service presentations to physicians, allied health professionals, pre-school organizations, school systems, and head-start programs, and has appeared on radio and television programs to promote this cause. He has given presentations to senior organizations on the nature of hearing loss in older adults and the benefits of hearing amplification, and has consulted with representatives of various business organizations on the nature of noise-induced hearing loss, and to music educator organizations. He has received awards for his educational work from the University of Wisconsin at Stout and from the International Hearing Foundation.

Elizabeth Grambsch, BA [Music, Smith College], MA [Human Development, St Mary’s University], is Director of Crescendo, a nonprofit educational organization in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, USA. Elizabeth is a comprehensive prenate-infant-toddler-early childhood educator. Music is the primary means by which she helps children and their parents develop auditory, kinesthetic-tactile, visual, physical coordination, language communication, and empathic abilities. By closely observing their behavior, she can detect when children-parents need to get medical-therapeutic help with health issues that can interfere with the development of those abilities. She has studied prenatal and infant development with Thomas Verny, M.D., the psychiatrist who founded the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, of which she is a member. She also is an active member and former officer of the Early Childhood Music and Movement Association. She is co-author of two chapters in Bodymind and Voice: Foundations of Voice Education that are titled, “Foundations for Human Self-expression during Prenate, Infant, and Early Childhood Development”, and “How Vocal Abilities Can Be Limited by Diseases and Disorders of the Auditory System”. She has taught classes titled “Music, Movement, and Voiceplay”, sponsored by the Birth and Family Education Department at Fairview-University Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

Jon Hallberg, MD, is an at-large reporter for the Music and Health eColumn, providing global information about arts and music medicine. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, School of Medicine, University of Minnesota. Jon’s baccalaureate degree was earned at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, USA, where he played in the St. Olaf College Concert Band. The arts and music medicine are his abiding passions. He is company physician for the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and often does post-production discussions with audiences about health topics that relate to a production’s playwright(s) or the plot of the play. He also works with the Minnesota Twins baseball team. His wife is band director at Minnehaha Academy [a private high school] and they have a son [age 8] and a daughter [age 4].

Carol Klitzke is the Speech Pathologist/Voice Specialist for the Fairview Voice Center, Fairview-University Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She and Leon Thurman have teamed together since 1989 to provide voice therapy in cooperation with ear-nose-throat physicians who practice in the upper Midwestern United States. Carol has provided voice rehabilitation for singers (all styles), actors, clergy, teachers, professors, businesspersons, and public speakers in the Midwestern United States and southern Canada. She has presented training in voice therapy techniques to speech pathology departments at several universities and school districts, and has presented seminars on voice care for singers and various professional groups including the Music Educators National Conference. She also is co-author of several chapters in Bodymind and Voice.

Babette Lightner, BA [Dance/Asian Studies], is Director of Lightner Resources. She is a Certified Teacher of The Alexander Technique (1988) and currently is a Senior Apprentice Teacher of LearningMethods. She has spent most of her life exploring human movement and design. Her explorations have taken her around the world from dancing with a folk dance troupe in the villages of South India to performing with a post-modern physical theatre company in the warehouses of Boston to studies in Laban Movement, Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, ethnic dances, and much more. Babette’s current work includes leading-edge, science-based models of human design and function along with her wide ranging experience and expertise. She provides a variety of services to help people with stress, pain, and performance issues. She is on staff with the VoiceCare Network and has created human coordination classes for the Music Department at the University of Minnesota and at MacPhail Center for the Arts. For ten years, she taught in the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Minnesota. She also has lectured and taught for many institutions, organizations, colleges and Universities including the Guthrie Theater, St Olaf College, Fairview Voice Center, Sister Kenny Institute, Balk Opera Music Institute, and Minnesota Music Educators Association.

Patrick Morris, MD, is reporter for neuromusculoskeletal health among instrument players and conductors. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, School of Medicine, University of Minnesota. A few years ago, he completed a fellowship in sports medicine but his passion is arts and music medicine. Pat’s baccalaureate degree was earned at St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA, where he studied trombone. He also occasionally toured with the choral ensembles that were conducted by Axel Theimer, DMA. (also conductor of Amadeus Chamber Symphony, central Minnesota, and Kantorei, a Twin Cities semi-professional choir). Pat is the University of Minnesota doctor that people are referred to when they have injuries or diseases that interfere with their music making.