My First Hate Mail

While it may be true that “you haven’t made it on the web until you’ve got hate mail,” it still bothered me when I got my first non-fan hate-mail. It ruffled my feathers a bit. Why would people take the time to read or listen to your stuff if they think it’s crap? Nonetheless, apparently some people do that. I got my first nasty non-fan feedback today.

I got all distracted from work with this annoyance bouncing around in the back of my mind. I thought about meditating, but I’m really not very good at that yet, and if my mind wanders when I’m relaxed, I doubt I can stay in a meditative state long enough to get any benefit from it, when I’m annoyed like this.

Getting Unnecessary Anxiety Out of My Head

But then I saw my flute leaned in the corner. I actually had taken it out yesterday, because, after posting my first video for my website, I was seriously wired with that excited I-don’t-know-if-it’s-good-or-bad kind of thing.

For me, playing the flute is a good release at times (uff da, especially when I play for a funeral). And when I have any kind of anxiety, if something has me rattled, playing the flute, practicing a little bit in particular, actually, can really help.

I’m not a great flute player any more. My technique now is probably something akin to what it was when I was a freshman in college just starting my music major (there was a time when I was rockin’ on the flute and piccolo, practicing three to six hours a day for a year or more will do that to you). So I pretty much can only play stuff that is the difficulty level I was at back then. But it’s complicated enough and uses my entire range (which is incomplete, in terms of what a flute is capable of), so when I practice, it consumes my attention. You could walk right up alongside me talking the whole time and I still wouldn’t notice you unless I was trying to perform. (That has actually happened before, more than once. Especially for the holidays, the churches overflow their seating and invariably people end up coming up to the choir loft or music area to sit. Then there are these people less than a foot behind me, chatting as if they’re having lunch in a mall with elevator music playing in the background. When I’m performing, when I’m trying to put my energy into the sounds and project an emotion to the listeners, that’s when someone talking a foot away can annoy me a little with their distraction, and lack of respect.)

Giving Music My Full Attention

Anyway, when I practice, I’m trying to play things that require my full attention and concentration. And there are always noises in the background when you practice. These days, for me that’s usually just the cats trying to escape the high notes, but still.  J   And when the music has my full attention and I’m focused so intensely on that creation, well, it almost always gets me through anxiety better than any meditation. It’s not just the distraction, it’s the fact that if you are the one playing the instrument or doing the singing, you are the one creating the sounds. And even when the music is sad, it can still be beautiful, and even if you can’t actually play it right, you are still creating. And for me, that feeling of creation trumps all other emotions (unless I’m playing The Prayer or On Eagle’s Wings for a funeral, then I cry while I play and maybe stop projecting good energy because I’m using it all up myself, though in that case I tend to think it’s a good thing I bring it all in, because I know the emotion coming of the flute has an even greater impact then).

Creating Music

Sometimes when I’m visiting my parents, I get to play with the organist at my mom’s church (Mom sings in the choir, so sometimes I get to play with the choir too). Now that’s freaking cool, playing with one of those huge old pipe organs. In that case, I enjoy the rehearsals much more than the performance to be honest, because when we release the last note, the sound gets to bounce around in the space, and dissolve into the silence of space as oppose to being absorbed. And playing with a big ol’ pipe organ is a treat. Talk about a workout! Four keyboards and both feet going in all different directions plus opening and closing stops with one had or the other to make different sounds all the while playing these complicated riffs so no one realizes they’re only using one hand and both feet on the keys at that moment. Organists are insanely good musicians. Though I think violin is the most difficult instrument to make sound good.

Studies have shown a measurable enhancement of the effects of music when the person is playing the instrument or making the music themselves. Even if you don’t think you’re musical, this may be reason enough to pick up a used guitar and take a couple lessons. Some guitar basics can be picked up very quickly, and you can feel like you’re making music right away, and thus benefit from the increased effects of creating and participating in music, as opposed to passively listening.

Lifted Just by Listening

The thing is though, you don’t have to be the musician or the one creating, to benefit from music therapy. I went to Vespers last night (I was, after all, a Catholic schoolgirl growing up, and my parents both still participate in the religions they grew up with, though we’ve had some interesting conversations when they’ve questioned organized religion). There was actually a full orchestra playing prelude when I got there, but Mom had saved me a seat. And in the Vespers service, they used the orchestra sometimes, or often the orchestra with one of three choral groups.

Now, I know what I feel and what music does to me and for me. What was interesting to me in the Vespers last night is the effect it was having on the people around me. First of all, it was quiet, n chatter, which I’m sure helped a lot. There is also, of course, no applauding in church, at least not the kind my parents go to. And these were very, very good musicians, it was the state symphony orchestra. So the music was well played both by the individuals and in their sections and as a whole. And when all that happens, the music can take the entire room away with its beauty. That’s what happened last night. So many people were being lifted by this beautiful energy of the music that they were projecting that energy back to the orchestra, sometimes.

The Academic & Medical Perspective

You shouldn’t think that because I’m a musician and a personal and spiritual growth seeker, that I have any kind of academic authority in the area of music therapy. All I can tell you with absolute certainty is about my own experiences.

Not only can you become certified as a musical therapist, there are undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees in music therapy as well. The American Music Therapy Association (www.musictherapy.org)  describes music therapy as the use of music interventions to accomplish individual goals, such as:
promote wellness
manage stress
alleviate pain
express feelings
enhance memory
improve communication
promote physical rehabilitation
Music therapy is even a reimbursable healthcare expense by Medicare and Medicaid as well as many private insurance providers. That surprised me a little, but given all the healthful side effects, it makes sense.

There are a number of facets of music in therapeutic treatment, including physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual. Play something you find soothing and pay attention to how you feel. A couple things happen almost right away. First, you start breathing more deeply, which is a a stress-releaser. Listening to music can also help to reduce your heart rate and promote higher body temperature – both indications of the onset of relaxation.

Musical Variety for Varying Stresses

This is why I’ve been listening to pandora recently, especially while writing. It’s all kinds of music, and I’ve discovered that certain kinds of the New Age stuff, while not distracting me, can give a kind of calmness to the space around me. I like to play New Age in the background when I’m writing Cielem’el. I don’t play it when I’m working my day job though. It just never occurs to me. It would probably make answering calls a bit more complicated, and you couldn’t have it on during conference calls, so I guess that’s why I don’t play it when I’m working for my day job. I also tend to get right in it (work) and immediately forget anything else while I’m solving a problem or working through an issue with a client. I’m going to have to try it though. I wonder if that should be a 30-day trial? Actually yeah, I’m going to do that starting Dec. 1. The handwriting trial is going to have to be a series and progress will be less apparent since I physically write as little as possible, which makes the neuropathy in my hands easier to bear. So I don’t expect the handwriting trial to get interesting until January anyway.

Anyone Can Benefit From Musical Therapy

The point is, you don’t have to be the musician to benefit from the emotional therapy of music. When you are anxious or stressed, try playing something calm and soothing on your stereo or mp3 player or your computer, close your eyes for a few moments, and let go of whatever it is that’s giving you stress, if only for a few moments. I also try to visualize being back down in the Grand Canyon sometimes, to remind myself that whatever this little thing is that’s bothering me, it’s just a single brief blip on the radar of my life even, and completely irrelevant in the big picture. For some reason that often helps me put my issues back in perspective, or at least reduces how much stress I feel, knowing that the world won’t even come close to stop spinning if my latest video isn’t perfection personified.

Which reminds me . . . I need to think of some way, in an ongoing and consistent manner, to get it in my head that perfection is not necessary, because quite often so much more effort goes into the perfecting that you could have completed another entire activity instead of dwelling on minor imperfections that no one but you will notice. Perfection is boring, actually, that’s why I prefer college sports to pro. Unexpected things happen and it’s more interesting to watch because the recovery is never the same twice so the game changes a lot more frequently than pro sports. Anyway, back to the primary subject.

Give Musical Therapy a Try

So when you find yourself stressing about something you know shouldn’t really matter so much but for some unknown reason it’s giving you grief, try music. If you play or sing, go practice for 30 minutes, or sing along with a CD. And for anyone, letting yourself have a break to float away on whatever kind of music lifts you up, can be an easy and quick way to get back energy that you’ve been burning up with your anxiety. And don’t think that it has to be New Age music or anything particular. Studies have shown that native American and African music can be very therapeutic for some people because of the constant strong drum beats. Those constant strong beats can be like a heartbeat, like between mother and unborn child, or so some say. If you do go for something with a strong steady drum beat, try to listen to something with a beat generally slower than your heartbeat (give or take, 72 beats per minute).

If you do want to treat your music therapy as a form of meditation, start by focusing on your breathing so that it deepens, slows, and regulates. For relaxation, concentrate on the silence between the notes. I have trouble with this since I was a music major in college, playing and composing all the time. My ears and brain automatically go into analytical mode, focusing on transitions, chord structures, and so on. For me to hear music and have it NOT be a distraction, it basically can’t have a lot of interesting musical structure (no offense to new age musicians out there since that is music I can be calm to).

You don’t have to know how to meditate, you don’t have be all Zen or whatever, and you don’t have to be a musician. Anyone anytime can put on a pair of headphones for a few minutes to escape in your own personal music therapy.