Speaker 1: The brain is this plastic organ right, it can change,
Speaker 1: and music kind of sets up these new pathways. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good Wolfe thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Dean Quick, the program
Speaker 1: director and board certified music therapist for transcend E d,
Speaker 1: a treatment center for eating disorders. He also provides broader
Speaker 1: music therapy through his personal practice. Dean is a member
Speaker 1: of the Music Therapy Association of North Carolina. If you
Speaker 1: value the content we put out each week, then we
Speaker 1: need your help. As the show has grown, so have
Speaker 1: our expenses and time commitment. Go to one you feed
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Speaker 1: goal is to get to five of our listeners supporting
Speaker 1: the show. Please be part of the five percent that
Speaker 1: make a contribution and allow us to keep putting out
Speaker 1: these interviews and ideas. We really need your help to
Speaker 1: make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again, that's one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash Support. Thank you in advance
Speaker 1: for your help. And here's the interview with Dean Quick. Hi, Dean,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on because we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about one of my very favorite things, which
Speaker 1: is music and the role of music as a therapeutic
Speaker 1: device and how we can all use music deeper in
Speaker 1: our lives and we use it today. But let's start
Speaker 1: like we normally do, with the parable. There's a grandfather
Speaker 1: who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear, and the grandson stops, he thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second, looks up at his grandfather, and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you. To me, life is really
Speaker 1: about finding a balance, right, And so when I hear
Speaker 1: that parable, I think it does a really good job
Speaker 1: of honoring balance, right. So the energy you put in
Speaker 1: is the energy you get out. So my mind first
Speaker 1: goes to the word balance, right, because sometimes feeding the
Speaker 1: good wolf all the time you can get us into trouble,
Speaker 1: just as maybe even feeding the bad wolf a little
Speaker 1: bit can get us into trouble. I first go to balance.
Speaker 1: I like that balance has been on my mind a
Speaker 1: lot lately. I've been thinking a lot about the Buddhist
Speaker 1: teaching of the Middle Way, and and just how many
Speaker 1: times in my life that is a very valuable thing
Speaker 1: is to just try and find somewhere that's in the
Speaker 1: middle of the two extremes I tend to go to.
Speaker 1: So that's an interesting way to look at the parable.
Speaker 1: Let's start off from here by maybe you just telling
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the work that you do,
Speaker 1: and we referenced it a little bit in the introduction,
Speaker 1: but maybe you can give us just a bit more
Speaker 1: insight into what you do. Yeah. So, I'm a board
Speaker 1: sort of music therapist, and primarily with the mental health population,
Speaker 1: specifically with folks with eating disorders. But in private practice,
Speaker 1: I see individuals with all sorts of mental health issues
Speaker 1: and I used music to move them towards their non
Speaker 1: musical goals, be at playing music, singing, music assisted relaxation
Speaker 1: and imagery techniques, songwriting. I use a lot of improvisation
Speaker 1: in my work. When I was thirteen, I cut my
Speaker 1: cut my jazz teeth and found jazz and you know,
Speaker 1: from there found improvisation and like to incorporate that into
Speaker 1: my clinical work as much as possible. So making music
Speaker 1: is really important to me in my personal life in
Speaker 1: addition to the clinical work that I do. So help
Speaker 1: me understand how do you work with someone in therapy
Speaker 1: who maybe is not a musician. How can music therapy
Speaker 1: work for people who don't actually play. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: a great question. So that's a lot of our training
Speaker 1: as music therapists determining how to best support a client musically.
Speaker 1: So you know, people meet music a lot of times
Speaker 1: with hesitation, especially if I'm handing my drum, like, okay,
Speaker 1: you play this and how do you do that? Right?
Speaker 1: So a lot of times I will start with something
Speaker 1: like a drum that doesn't require a lot of fine
Speaker 1: motor activity. But that doesn't mean I can't use something
Speaker 1: like a piano or a guitar. So I might adapt
Speaker 1: the tuning of a guitar so they only have to
Speaker 1: use one finger like an open tuning. Or I may
Speaker 1: label strings if they really want to get into like
Speaker 1: if they really want to play the guitar and it
Speaker 1: looked like they're playing the guitar, I might label the
Speaker 1: strings and show them simple chord progressions. Um label the
Speaker 1: keys of a piano is another way to do it.
Speaker 1: And if someone's really hesitant about it, then maybe that's
Speaker 1: not the best thing to do. Maybe they won't make
Speaker 1: music with me, and maybe we'll just talk about the
Speaker 1: music they love, where I'll play and sing the music.
Speaker 1: Maybe they will just sing along. So talk to me
Speaker 1: about how what are some of the ways that you
Speaker 1: can use music to help people with mental illness, and
Speaker 1: just real quickly to frame this up, I'd like to
Speaker 1: talk about it in the strict therapeutic setting, which is
Speaker 1: kind of what you do for a few minutes here,
Speaker 1: and then I'd like to turn to a broader discussion
Speaker 1: about what you know about how the rest of us
Speaker 1: can use music in our own lives. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about it from a therapeutic sense right now, like how
Speaker 1: does this work, what's the theory behind it, and then
Speaker 1: what are some of the approaches you take with people
Speaker 1: to help them heal through music? Okay, great. From day
Speaker 1: one in training as a music therapist, you learned that
Speaker 1: live music is most effective, most research based, so live
Speaker 1: music and the client's preferred music. Let's say someone comes
Speaker 1: into someone who might benefit from music therapy and they're
Speaker 1: suffering from just crippling anxiety or like some really tough
Speaker 1: depression and great depression in their lives. So I'll start
Speaker 1: with finding out what kind of music they love, and
Speaker 1: then I'll do research into some music that really sticks
Speaker 1: out to them. And this has taken a really kind
Speaker 1: of receptive music therapy approach in the beginning, you know,
Speaker 1: just connecting with the person initially to build rapport and
Speaker 1: giving them kind of a foundation to stand on. Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I understand the music that you're listening to, and here's
Speaker 1: how I kind of see it fold into your life.
Speaker 1: So we might from that point, once we have rapport established,
Speaker 1: rewrite some of that music about their specific situation, Like, um,
Speaker 1: if let's say a lot of their anxiety derives from
Speaker 1: the relationship with their mother, right, so we might adapt
Speaker 1: the song and rewrite it together about that situation, about
Speaker 1: their reactions to their mother or family or whoever it is.
Speaker 1: And then taking into step further, we might then take
Speaker 1: that same thinking and apply it to active music making,
Speaker 1: where they will explore some different sounds, and they'll choose
Speaker 1: instruments that represent the feeling that family member gives them,
Speaker 1: that represents a relationship, that represents h and the anxiety
Speaker 1: itself separated from everything else. And then I'll choose a
Speaker 1: musical instrument to support their music, or to challenge their music,
Speaker 1: or to hold the space so that they can fully
Speaker 1: express and work through that feeling. Is there also therapeutic
Speaker 1: conversation that's happening along with this, and you're you're you're
Speaker 1: combining sort of a traditional therapeutic approach and using music
Speaker 1: maybe as a way to reach parts of the brain
Speaker 1: in a different way than our normal language does. Absolutely
Speaker 1: because the same music therepies kind of have a foot
Speaker 1: in the door when it comes to those things, because
Speaker 1: people clam up sometimes when you asked them to talk
Speaker 1: about things that are difficult for them, right, maybe trauma
Speaker 1: related or otherwise. And I absolutely wouldn't just jump right
Speaker 1: into trauma with someone. But music kind of bypasses those
Speaker 1: kinding of processes that we need to just kind of
Speaker 1: speak about emotions. Right. So we've all experienced if you
Speaker 1: love music, that feeling of like you don't really know why,
Speaker 1: but the hairs are kind of standing up on your
Speaker 1: arms and and you're just really into it, right, Or
Speaker 1: maybe you don't realize how much time has gone by
Speaker 1: and you just kind of feel transported. Right, So we
Speaker 1: don't have to think about that. That's just a response
Speaker 1: that we as humans are lucky enough to have, right.
Speaker 1: So I might use music to evoke that response. I
Speaker 1: might use music once I really have a report established
Speaker 1: with the client to evoke that anxiety, to evoke that depression,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards talk about the experience and why so
Speaker 1: using those verbal therapy techniques, traditional techniques after the fact,
Speaker 1: after we've used music to get them to that place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was fascinated by some of the articles that you
Speaker 1: sent me, And the couple of things that really fascinated
Speaker 1: me was the one about the man who had dementia
Speaker 1: so dementia could not remember who he was for more
Speaker 1: than five minutes, completely clueless, and yet when he would
Speaker 1: start singing with his family, he would sing perfectly, he
Speaker 1: would interact with them, he would harmonize. It was like
Speaker 1: it went to a completely different part of his brain.
Speaker 1: And along the same lines, there was an article about
Speaker 1: Gabby Gifford's, the Arizona senator who was shot, and how
Speaker 1: she has used music to retrain her language. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about those two examples. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I think Oliver Sachs really talks about music just igniting
Speaker 1: the brain in ways unlike anything else. Right, So, when
Speaker 1: you have someone who has dementia, there are parts of
Speaker 1: the brain that can be damaged by you know, this illness,
Speaker 1: so much like in the work that happened with Gabby
Speaker 1: Gifford's neural pathways are essentially recreated. You know, the brain
Speaker 1: is this plastic organ, right like it can change over time,
Speaker 1: and music kind of you know, sets up these new pathways, right,
Speaker 1: So the brain learns through music to achieve a similar goal.
Speaker 1: Now that that's more so with the Gabby Gifford's situation
Speaker 1: with someone with dementia, you know, they can't access parts
Speaker 1: of the brain because of the illness. But music, because
Speaker 1: you essentially use your whole brain. Yeah, not the whole brain,
Speaker 1: but most of the brain when you're singing or or
Speaker 1: listening to music sometimes, but more so when you're singing
Speaker 1: and engaged in your preferred music, you can do those things.
Speaker 1: It's like a different you know, it's not memory as
Speaker 1: much as it's the brain re experiencing. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I have one of the worst memories of anybody I've
Speaker 1: ever known, not like a single bad memory. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't remember things well. I have almost no childhood memories,
Speaker 1: and yet I can sing songs from that time that
Speaker 1: come on. I can't play it, but I can remember
Speaker 1: how a guitar solo is going from that. It's just
Speaker 1: bizarre to me that that's all right there, and yet
Speaker 1: everything else it just doesn't seem accessible to me. You
Speaker 1: think about how many senses are engaged when you're just listening, right, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're hearing it, but then what happens after
Speaker 1: you listen to the music? Right, what's going on internally?
Speaker 1: Like fireworks are going off? You know. Yeah, let's pivot
Speaker 1: now a little bit. Where would somebody go to explore
Speaker 1: this a little further if they wanted to do it
Speaker 1: in a in a strictly therapeutic sense, in a professional setting,
Speaker 1: like if someone wanted to become a music therapist, or
Speaker 1: somebody wanted to get musical therapy. If someone wanted to
Speaker 1: get music therapy and they're not local to me, I
Speaker 1: would really suggest reaching out to the American Music Therapy
Speaker 1: Association and the Certification Board for Music Therapists and they'll
Speaker 1: kind of pinpoint where you can find someone whose board
Speaker 1: certified to do music therapy and in your area. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And aside from that, you know, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have this conversation with you is
Speaker 1: that music can be used on its own to clinically.
Speaker 1: There are reasons why a board certified music therapists should
Speaker 1: implement music therapy, right, you know, in these really serious
Speaker 1: situations where children with developmental and intellectual disabilities, uh, folks
Speaker 1: with memory imparamids, folks with neurological disorders who could benefit
Speaker 1: like Gabby Gifford's well just brain injury, those instances where
Speaker 1: board sort of music therapist is absolutely necessary. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I was so excited to talk to you
Speaker 1: about it's cause I think everybody should be using music more.
Speaker 1: I think music is one of these underrated healers that
Speaker 1: if people just paid a little bit more attention to
Speaker 1: their listening habits, that'd be really reflective of their process
Speaker 1: of life. I really think to being that awareness too. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to this music a lot lately. Is
Speaker 1: it just the music or is it what the music
Speaker 1: speaking to me? Or is it how the music is
Speaker 1: making me feel? And why do I need that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know why? Why is it that this music is
Speaker 1: really doing it for me? Now? Yeah? So that's I
Speaker 1: think what I'd like to spend the rest of the
Speaker 1: time on is exploring, you know what, what those of
Speaker 1: us who listen to and play music in life, how
Speaker 1: we can use it in a deeper way than we
Speaker 1: already do. The show is about the parable of the
Speaker 1: Good Wolf. What are some ways that people can use
Speaker 1: music in their own life to feed the good wolf. Personally,
Speaker 1: for feeding the good wolf with music, I think people
Speaker 1: should like be more mindful of using music more often. Right, So,
Speaker 1: what's a party without music? Right? Think about any party
Speaker 1: you've ever gone to. If there's not music there, then
Speaker 1: it can get kind of kind of strange, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really seem like a party anymore. So I
Speaker 1: think people using music more in their lives, more than
Speaker 1: just something to put on in the background, right. You know, people,
Speaker 1: I know people a lot of times when I'm assessing
Speaker 1: them for appropriateness in music therapy, they say, oh, I'll
Speaker 1: put music on in the background while I'm doing X
Speaker 1: or Y or Z. And I really think we could
Speaker 1: be doing more outside of traditional music therapy, you know,
Speaker 1: more as people, we could be doing to feed the
Speaker 1: good wolf of music by bringing it to the forefront. Right,
Speaker 1: So being more mindful of the power of music. Right,
Speaker 1: So saying, okay, well I really did pink Floyd, But
Speaker 1: if I'm going to listen to us and them, you know,
Speaker 1: it makes me feel this way. But you know, if
Speaker 1: I listen to comfortably numb, I feel this. You know,
Speaker 1: you go through and like just really pay attention, not
Speaker 1: just to the artist, but to help a song, maybe
Speaker 1: even parts of songs affect you. Hi, friends, The show
Speaker 1: is listened to over fifty thousand times a week, which
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Speaker 1: even try and get Chris on. But even more than
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Speaker 1: that they love and keep it going. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: and back to the interview. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I've done is I've recognized that there are certain moods
Speaker 1: for me that the only answer is loud rock music.
Speaker 1: And I've had a couple of the people in the show,
Speaker 1: Frank Turner and Mike Scott from the water Boys. I mean,
Speaker 1: those are two things that when I put on the
Speaker 1: radio relatively loud and listen to those two, it does
Speaker 1: something for me that I am unable to get any
Speaker 1: other way. And the other thing I've done is I've
Speaker 1: created like a playlist of songs that have some effect
Speaker 1: on me in that direction, because when I'm feeling kind
Speaker 1: of blue or I'm wrestling with depression, if I ask myself,
Speaker 1: does that sound like a good thing to listen to him,
Speaker 1: He's like, no, I don't want to listen to that, right, Like,
Speaker 1: but I found that by knowing that like these set
Speaker 1: of songs help, I can just naturally turn to them, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need a little pick me up here, So this
Speaker 1: is what I'm going to go to, um, instead of
Speaker 1: relying on what sounds good to me in that moment,
Speaker 1: which is probably like what depressing thing we could think of.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well I think in that same light, I
Speaker 1: would encourage you to start with something that does honor
Speaker 1: that initial feeling of blue. Right, And that's something that
Speaker 1: we talk about, and music therapy is acknowledging the feeling
Speaker 1: in the moment and then moving it towards something rather experience. Right,
Speaker 1: Especially with all this, you know, music streaming services that
Speaker 1: are out there that like create these playlists just you know,
Speaker 1: based on your listening prices, and some that are out
Speaker 1: there that just create oh well this is you know
Speaker 1: outside of like the top one hundred Billboard songs or whatever.
Speaker 1: But there's other ones like like, there's a playlist on
Speaker 1: on a music streaming service side subscribe to that has
Speaker 1: a decompression playlist, and I love it so sometimes, but
Speaker 1: I don't love every part of it, you know. So
Speaker 1: my encouragement to people would be to, like, if it's
Speaker 1: difficult to create your own playlist, because there there are
Speaker 1: people out there who would just rely on a playlist
Speaker 1: it's his decompression, and not change it at all. My
Speaker 1: encouragement is to really adapt and make it your own, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if it's not starting where you need it to, then
Speaker 1: you know, borrow from the playlist what you like and
Speaker 1: and build from there. You know, music is this living thing,
Speaker 1: Like I don't look at it as like just you know,
Speaker 1: it's just music, right, It's not a non breathing thing.
Speaker 1: Like I believe music is really organic experience that should
Speaker 1: be treated like a living thing. And in saying that,
Speaker 1: I believe there's a lot of flexibility and how we
Speaker 1: can use music outside of therapy, So making sure that
Speaker 1: we're honoring our feelings and then also honoring where we'd
Speaker 1: like our feelings to go. There's no shortage of sad
Speaker 1: sack music coming through my my player, no need to
Speaker 1: worry about that. Yeah, Like some of my favorite music
Speaker 1: is you know Tom Waits his ballads, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I love his ballads, and I listened to my wife's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that guy he sounds Yeah, he's so
Speaker 1: he's so grumbly. I don't understand it, you know. I
Speaker 1: think that's a good illustration of well for me. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, when I've started listening to Tom Waits, like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh gosh, you know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: long I could listen to you know, his voice is
Speaker 1: something to get used to for for me, the more
Speaker 1: I tune into the lyrics and then the thought that
Speaker 1: goes into the music behind it, the more I'm excited
Speaker 1: by it, right, and the more my feelings feel honored
Speaker 1: by his music. You know, I think that's probably one
Speaker 1: of the biggest takeaways that I want people to think
Speaker 1: about when they're looking at music and how to use
Speaker 1: music to enhance their lives, is how am I honoring
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling right now? Am I honoring this feeling
Speaker 1: only to get to another emotional state, or am I
Speaker 1: being true to myself in this moment in the music
Speaker 1: that I'm listening to, Like it essentially, am I jumping
Speaker 1: the gun by trying to get myself out of this state?
Speaker 1: You know, that can be be frustrating. That could be like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I have someone in their eighties or nineties who's like,
Speaker 1: really loves the music of Irving Berlin. You know, they
Speaker 1: might be familiar with who the Beatles are, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to care to listen to the people or
Speaker 1: furthermore than Nirvana or you know, Alice and Chains or
Speaker 1: someone who I really most of them are really into
Speaker 1: Alice Cooper, though strange, I find most nine year olds arts.
Speaker 1: It's odd but true. But that could be frustrating if
Speaker 1: I took that music in there, right, so taking that
Speaker 1: same thinking of okay, well, I may be feeling this
Speaker 1: way and I don't want to feel this way. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I might need to start with some of those
Speaker 1: things that could make me more sad or more depressed.
Speaker 1: But it's worth giving some attention to that before you
Speaker 1: move on, because it could be important. And I think
Speaker 1: that kind of ties back into music can be reflective
Speaker 1: of our emotional states more so than we believe. You know,
Speaker 1: I always encourage people to look up their lyrics. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe, like, how many times I'm in a session,
Speaker 1: I'm using someone's favorite music. Now, I never looked up
Speaker 1: the lyrics. I never realized, like there's an arc to
Speaker 1: the story, like it it's there's a story here. I
Speaker 1: never realized that because we talked about certain lyrics and
Speaker 1: how they might be powerful or in this moment when
Speaker 1: you're listening to it. It really stuck out to me
Speaker 1: because of the emotional state of man. But in that conversation,
Speaker 1: people never really look at the lyrics in the entirety.
Speaker 1: They just kind of liked the song and they sing
Speaker 1: along with it. So I encourage people to take a
Speaker 1: step back and really look at what they're listening to.
Speaker 1: It can it can be a window into their emotional
Speaker 1: self They really didn't think was there. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: an old question running around among people who listen to
Speaker 1: what would be considered depressing music, which was what came
Speaker 1: first being depressed and that made you listen to that
Speaker 1: type of music, or did listening to that type of
Speaker 1: music turn you into a depressive person. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a funny question, but I'm always sort of interested in that.
Speaker 1: That is interesting. I like that, and I think that's
Speaker 1: a good line of questioning. Yeah, it's good. So you've mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, listening to lyrics. What are other ways we
Speaker 1: can engage with music in a more mindful way to
Speaker 1: increase our enjoyment of it and and the power it has.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that you might have to do
Speaker 1: or be a sign to do in a music appreciation class,
Speaker 1: I always like to talk about that, and in regard
Speaker 1: the listening portion of it. Right, So, you know, people
Speaker 1: tend to listen to one part of a song right there,
Speaker 1: listening to if their guitar player, they tend to focus
Speaker 1: on guitars or whatever like that. But for non musicians,
Speaker 1: I feel a lot of times you really listening to
Speaker 1: what's making the move, like dance or the lyrics. They
Speaker 1: really like how how the singer is singing. But try
Speaker 1: listening with an open ear. So the next time you
Speaker 1: hear the next song that comes on or whatever, try
Speaker 1: and listening to the drums instead of the vocal track.
Speaker 1: Try and find the bass, guitar, try and find the
Speaker 1: strings and listen to it and listen to the intermingling
Speaker 1: of the music itself. I find that can be gratifying.
Speaker 1: Are people have reported that's that's a gratifying experience, and
Speaker 1: you're telling me there's people out there that don't already
Speaker 1: do that. I'm sort of still stunned from the lyric thing,
Speaker 1: but I guess I just have been such a fiend
Speaker 1: for so long that those things seem completely foreign to me.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure it's true. There's times where I'm meeting
Speaker 1: with people that they'll they'll hear it and they're they're
Speaker 1: unable to identify the guitar, yeah, or they'll think that
Speaker 1: the electric guitar in somewhere or another as a keyboard
Speaker 1: or a synthesizer, and you know, in some instances it
Speaker 1: might be, and it might be sometimes. Yeah. So just
Speaker 1: deepening a basic appreciation for music, I think is one way.
Speaker 1: And I'll go into cooler ways too, but that that one,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important if people aren't already doing that.
Speaker 1: I think finding a nice relaxing place and finding something
Speaker 1: like progressive muscle relaxation or something imagery based. There's kind
Speaker 1: of a gray area of that with like implementing it yourself,
Speaker 1: because you know, things can come up if you're in
Speaker 1: an altered state of consciousnes. So let's say you talk
Speaker 1: yourself into a relaxed state and you've got some music
Speaker 1: on and imagery comes up that's uncomfortable. It would be
Speaker 1: good for music papists to be there. But if you
Speaker 1: choose music that's really predictable, and you choose the script
Speaker 1: that's really kind of surface level, it can be a
Speaker 1: really relaxing experience, right. And I'm not just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: choose orchestral music, but choose music that's um, that's really comfortable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: excubers great. I'm just doing this for Chris. He's out
Speaker 1: here with me right now, so not that he's a
Speaker 1: big Alice Cooper fan, but it's kind of a joke, okay,
Speaker 1: but using your preferred music to just get yourself into
Speaker 1: that altered state. Right. So, progressive muscle relaxation, you can
Speaker 1: find scripts online for that, and it's you know, the
Speaker 1: systematic tension and release of the different muscle groups as
Speaker 1: you go through your body while you're listening. You know,
Speaker 1: music can be a good way to kind of gauge
Speaker 1: the tempo of that experience. That's what I found fascinating
Speaker 1: when I was reading that in your work, was that
Speaker 1: idea of so, I know, progressive muscle relaxation I know music.
Speaker 1: I never thought of that as a way to like
Speaker 1: you just said, to pace it, you know, all right,
Speaker 1: for four beats, I'm going to clench my foot, and
Speaker 1: then after four beats, I'm going to release, and then
Speaker 1: four beats later I moved to my cab. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just as a really interesting way to think of
Speaker 1: approaching that. I'm going to give that a shot sometime. Yeah, excellent.
Speaker 1: This is one that I'll use with clients to get
Speaker 1: them to an altered state. Is to visualize a color
Speaker 1: and when you breathe in, you breathe that color into
Speaker 1: your lungs, and then you follow that color as it
Speaker 1: moves through your lungs and then into your blood strain
Speaker 1: and then out to your fingertips, and then you exhale,
Speaker 1: and then it comes back, and then you inhale, and
Speaker 1: you visualize it going out until it fills your fingers
Speaker 1: up with color, and then until it fills your hands
Speaker 1: and arms and so forth. You think about it. By
Speaker 1: the time fifteen minutes has gone by and you've listened
Speaker 1: to a couple of tunes, I mean, you're pretty relaxed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and you shifted your attention from anything that's stressful,
Speaker 1: your work day, school, whatever it is you've taken time. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a fun way to just kind of
Speaker 1: increase your awareness of your body, stay and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of remove yourself from any thing that's going on emotional.
Speaker 1: It's a good distraction technique that people can use on
Speaker 1: their own. Well, it's also a useful mindfulness technique, right,
Speaker 1: because mindfulness and meditation can be challenging. Right. I have
Speaker 1: a brain that does not settle down easily, and even
Speaker 1: after many, many years, it still is a fairly untamed
Speaker 1: horse in certain regards. So sometimes just sitting and following
Speaker 1: the breath is not workable for a lot of people. Meditation,
Speaker 1: if you think of meditation, is an idea of there's
Speaker 1: some anchor that we keep our attention on. Then our
Speaker 1: mind wanders off, as it naturally will, do we bring
Speaker 1: it back to the anchor. Music that doesn't have like
Speaker 1: lyrics and stuff can be a really useful and stronger anchor.
Speaker 1: As we learned to be able to concentrate better. A
Speaker 1: lot of times I'll get like if someone finds out
Speaker 1: on a music therapist, you know, I use that at home.
Speaker 1: You know, I found a CD at the store, you know,
Speaker 1: music for relaxation, and you know, I'm glad that those
Speaker 1: work for some people, but I always encourage people to
Speaker 1: choose their own music and not buy these CDs that
Speaker 1: are designed for music relaxation, because essentially, what someone's done
Speaker 1: most of the time is they've just thrown some piano
Speaker 1: music on a CD and said this is for relaxation,
Speaker 1: you know, without putting much thought into it. So I
Speaker 1: encourage people to put a lot of thought into the
Speaker 1: music they choose because it's their experience, you know, And and
Speaker 1: and there should be thought put into the music that's
Speaker 1: used because it's this important thing, right it affects how
Speaker 1: you feel. Has there ever been one of those CDs
Speaker 1: that did not have Pocabell's cannon on it. That's really
Speaker 1: the big question of this interview. I'm pretty sure it is.
Speaker 1: It's it's been on them all. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: I believe. So there's some version. This one's got harpsichord,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, it's always there. This one has piano,
Speaker 1: but there's a drone behind it, you know. So choosing
Speaker 1: your own music, I agree, is important. There it seemed
Speaker 1: to be some characteristics of the music that tend to
Speaker 1: be helpful. Like I used to try and do this
Speaker 1: with classical music, and a lot of classical music I
Speaker 1: found that challenge. I also used to try and sleep
Speaker 1: to it, and there can be variation in tempo, there
Speaker 1: can be variation and loud versus soft, and for me,
Speaker 1: that's a little bit more Joscelyn. And so the music
Speaker 1: that's more aught of as meditative music at least the
Speaker 1: things that I'm looking for is a fairly repetitive theme.
Speaker 1: I mean, it can vary a great deal and a
Speaker 1: fairly level volume, and usually that it plays for a
Speaker 1: long period of time, so I'm not having to go
Speaker 1: from track to track. Is often that's great, You're on
Speaker 1: the right track with that, I mean, because what people
Speaker 1: typically call classical music can be very evocative, right, like
Speaker 1: emotionally evocative, and it's it's written for that purpose, right,
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons, Like in my music
Speaker 1: therapy sessions, if I'm with a client and we're using
Speaker 1: like we're trying to do something imagery based with the
Speaker 1: music relaxation, I use that evocative music, but for someone
Speaker 1: in their home that that wants to use it to relax,
Speaker 1: you do need something that's gonna repeat and that's predictable,
Speaker 1: and that the dynamics are really level, and the tempo
Speaker 1: isn't too fast or too slow, like it's just kind
Speaker 1: of right in the middle, especially if you're going to
Speaker 1: use it for something like progressive muscle relaxation where you're
Speaker 1: really pacing it and something that's somewhere between ten twelve
Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes is ideal for progressive muscle relax station.
Speaker 1: Or I mean just to kind of zonk out for
Speaker 1: a little bit and just focus on on the music
Speaker 1: and let it kind of take you where you need
Speaker 1: to go. If anybody listening to the show has ever
Speaker 1: used Slayer for progressive muscular relaxation, please give me a call.
Speaker 1: I'd like to tell you can be on our next episode.
Speaker 1: So I want to wrap up here in a minute,
Speaker 1: but let's finish for those of us who are musicians,
Speaker 1: and there's a good number of people I know who
Speaker 1: listen to this show who are musicians, and Chris and
Speaker 1: I are, what are some ways that we can make
Speaker 1: music in a way that it furthers our wellness, get
Speaker 1: away from the page, and that a lot of times
Speaker 1: what you'll see in musicians is that you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta nail this lick just right, right, like it's it's
Speaker 1: got to sound exactly how it's written, and I say,
Speaker 1: make it your own, right, So um, improvise. That's that's
Speaker 1: my biggest thing for folks who are musicians is to improvise.
Speaker 1: So take to you know, take a couple of bars
Speaker 1: of something that you're working on and just improvise right.
Speaker 1: And you know, take a melody like if you're if
Speaker 1: you're playing and singing, take that chord progression and change
Speaker 1: the melody. Or I encourage people to make music together.
Speaker 1: You know. It's one thing to improvise on your own,
Speaker 1: and that's great and you can get a lot out
Speaker 1: of that. But if you have the opportunity to improvise
Speaker 1: with someone else, that that to me is where you
Speaker 1: know someone else or more people in a group. That
Speaker 1: is just so gratifying, I think for people, and I
Speaker 1: mean think about what that does for self expression, Think
Speaker 1: about what that does for relaxation or distraction. To me,
Speaker 1: people have made music with over the years, I have
Speaker 1: some of the deeper connections with I might not even
Speaker 1: talk to those people anymore, or you know, we might
Speaker 1: not even been that closer friends at the time, but
Speaker 1: because we made music, we have this deep connection. Like
Speaker 1: I I know, like if I start playing this, you're
Speaker 1: going to come in and take it this way, you know,
Speaker 1: And like that musical relationship I think does a lot
Speaker 1: for our overall well being. So my biggest thing for
Speaker 1: musicians that I encourages, you know, improvise. Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: That idea of playing with other people can be so powerful.
Speaker 1: And I never really learned to play other people's music,
Speaker 1: which has been a drawback in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: but then in a lot of other ways it's been
Speaker 1: good because that's really all I know how to do
Speaker 1: is basically partially figure something out and then steal it
Speaker 1: from my own and you know, and and just kind
Speaker 1: of play. But it is really such a powerful thing.
Speaker 1: And I've been reflecting lately on how grateful i am
Speaker 1: that I learned to play the guitar. What a thing
Speaker 1: that is that I have in my life that is
Speaker 1: kind of always there for me. It's a hobby, it's
Speaker 1: something I like doing, it's something that challenges me. It
Speaker 1: just has so many wonderful benefits. And Chris and I
Speaker 1: write all the music for the show, all the music
Speaker 1: breaks are and sometimes it's Chris, sometimes it's me. My
Speaker 1: favorite ones are certainly and it's the both of us
Speaker 1: working on it together. You know exactly what you're describing,
Speaker 1: that sort of that sort of thing happens. Another thing
Speaker 1: I would encourage musicians to do is to, you know,
Speaker 1: try new instruments too. I personally get a lot of
Speaker 1: joy out of that. Like every every year a year
Speaker 1: and a half, I'll try and pick up something new.
Speaker 1: My primary instrument has always been drums and percussion, but
Speaker 1: when I entered in degree program for music therapy, it
Speaker 1: was required that I pick up guitar, piano, and boys
Speaker 1: and that kind of ignited this firing me was, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you know, okay, So I went through these
Speaker 1: classes and I learned how to play these instruments to
Speaker 1: It's pretty high level of expectation, you know, because as
Speaker 1: music therapists we have to be able to support the
Speaker 1: clients with whatever we have around us. But it really
Speaker 1: ignited this fire me. So, you know, after guitar was ukulele,
Speaker 1: and after ukulele was banjo. And I've been on the
Speaker 1: banjo for a little bit because it's pretty difficult, so
Speaker 1: I don't know what's X, but maybe mandolin or you know,
Speaker 1: fiddle or something. But and just finding a new instrument
Speaker 1: and learning how to play it is a really gratifying experience. Too.
Speaker 1: What I've had fun with is a lot of the
Speaker 1: music we make for the show I do on garage band,
Speaker 1: So I'm using other instruments that I don't really know
Speaker 1: how to play in a normal way. It's just a
Speaker 1: different way to sort of approach music, and it's a
Speaker 1: it's a fun one to do it. And I think
Speaker 1: the other thing about music and playing guitar and being
Speaker 1: a musician, I always encourage anybody like, if you don't
Speaker 1: play an instrument, you want to just start. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how old you are. You don't have to be
Speaker 1: great at it to get a lot of enjoyment out
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, I'm not great at it by
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination, and yet I've gotten years
Speaker 1: and years and years of joy out of it. It's
Speaker 1: about the process, not about the product. You know that.
Speaker 1: That's what I love about music, And that's a lot
Speaker 1: of times what people's biggest fear is when they're in
Speaker 1: a music therapy group, and you know that hesitation that
Speaker 1: resistance playing an instrument and non musicians like I'm a
Speaker 1: gonot sound like crap. It's like, okay, well that's that's
Speaker 1: you're feeling towards it. But it's not about how you sound.
Speaker 1: Regardless of how you sound, it's your emotional expression. We're
Speaker 1: going to use it. So it's it's really about process
Speaker 1: and so little about product. And once people get that
Speaker 1: in their minds, then they really do free themselves up
Speaker 1: in the sessions that we can use music to work
Speaker 1: towards their goals. You know, musicians tend to be kind
Speaker 1: of perfectionists, I think, so getting musicians away from the
Speaker 1: page and improvising and trying new musical instruments are two
Speaker 1: really great ways for musicians to kind of use music
Speaker 1: as their own therapy. Excellent. Well, I think that is
Speaker 1: a perfect place to wind up, particularly the it's about
Speaker 1: the process not the product. That is a line that
Speaker 1: you can use in all aspects of your life and
Speaker 1: can be very valuable. So Dean, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to come on. It's been fun talking
Speaker 1: with you about music. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: It's been great. All right, take care of you as well.
Speaker 1: Bye bye, m If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you. Please consider making a donation to the One
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Speaker 1: Net Slash Support. You can learn more about Dean Quick
Speaker 1: and this podcast at One you Feed dot Net Slash
Speaker 1: Dean