Rhythm For Good

Tag Archives | wellness

How to Use the Voice for Self-Care

By Kat Fulton on April 27, 2010 in Music & Wellness

In the People Inspire Me post a couple of weeks ago, The Crazy Music Lady asked me exactly what I do with the voice in self-care sessions for healthcare professionals. The Crazy Music Lady shares very funny stories from the front lines of mental health, (I LOVE her posts!) and when I read Threats on your Life, I understood why she may be interested in self-care. Check it out~

The reason I write about using music for self-care is that I enjoy the challenge of experientially connecting everyday, regular people to the field of music therapy. Music therapists are highly qualified and trained to work with Alzheimer’s, oncology, and autism. But relating music therapy to your average Joe is just a bit outside the box. That’s why I like to attend extra conferences, continuing education opportunities, and workshops, apply new techniques to my practice, then pass on what I’ve learned. Many of my friends, family, and readers work in an office, so I wrote 9 Crazy Ideas for Playful Spontaneity during the Work Day in order to connect them to the idea that making music is good for your health. Toning goes a step further.

Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world.
–Guiseppe Mazzini

Toning

I was first introduced to toning in my internship at Musicworx of California. Since then I’ve read a few books by Jonathan Goldman on the topic of toning. The basic idea of toning is to create a massage on the inside of your body with an elongated vowel sound. We get massages on the outside, but the voice is a simple way to loosen up muscles, organs, and tissues on the inside with your own vibrations. Makes sense, right?

Jonathan Goldman’s audio CD on vocal toning is a good resource to learn about vowel sounds corresponding to specific areas of the body.

Quick Tip

I usually start a toning session with beginners by demonstrating an easy trick to move vocal vibrations from the top of the head into the chest cavity.

Put one hand on your jaw. Put the other hand on your chest area. Now tone on eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Then tone on ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. You should be able to notice the way that you can intentionally move the vibrations up and down your body, using vowels and pitches. Eeee goes with the jaw, ahhh goes with the heart. I invite you to experiment with timbre, pulse, and volume as well.

Exercise

Center Yourself: Take a few deep breath, and bring your awareness to your body.

Warm Up: Hum. Hum anything. Hum a familiar tune. Make up your own tune. Continue to hum. Hum with an open mouth, and experiment with different vowels.

Be Present and Tone: Close your eyes and bring awareness to your voice. Make each breath slower and each vowel longer. Continue toning (humming with an open mouth) for several minutes. With each exhale, notice the vibrations that are produced in your body. Enjoy. Take this exercise as far as you are comfortable, even into deeper meditation and relaxation.

Regroup: Slowly bring your awareness back into the rest of your body. Wiggle your fingers, your toes. Open your eyes. Move the rest of your body gently and slowly. Stretch.

Process

What was this like for you? Did you notice any difference between the higher pitches and the lower pitches, louder and softer, different vowels? Did you notice a change in your body temperature? Any other discoveries?

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on the practice of toning, so feel free to leave a note and get in touch!

Comments { 3 }

9 Great Self-Care & Music Therapy Posts in the Past Week

By Kat Fulton on April 13, 2010 in For Music Therapists, Music & Wellness

There has been an explosion of great blog posts in the past week, and I want to share them with you. They have enhanced my every day practice of self-care, wellness, and music therapy.

Self-care & Wellness

1. Rest and Recovery from the Art of Non-Conformity. Chris describes how to manage energy instead of time. Our energy is something that we can be aware of, something that we can convert, something that we can refuel. Whereas, we have can’t change the pattern of time.

2. The Zen of Doing from Zen Habits. Explore ways to engage in everyday tasks with a deep feeling of inner peace and appreciation.

3. Making Art Instead of Setting Goals from Agile Living. Goals = Future. Art = Now. Give living in the here and now a try between your goal-achieving sessions.

4. Live Your Life as if Everything is a Miracle from Make It Happen. Life, love, the body, nature, creativity. Modern science has not been able to figure out these phenomena. Miracles are everywhere!

5. How to Make your Drumming More Meaningful by former Rusted Root drummer Jim Donovan. Jim describes how to connect drumming patterns to your body and mind by way of movements, breathing, and intentions.

Music Therapy

6. Functional Neuroscience for the Clinical Music Therapist handout by Kimberly Sena Moore, MT-BC

7. Middle Eastern Idiom for Guitar Improvisation by Dr. John Carpente, MT-BC

8. The Mindful Music Therapist’s handouts for Taboo Topics by Roia Rafieyan, MT-BC

9. Book review for Bella’s Blessings by Rachel Rambach, MT-BC

One more for music therapists that you’ve got to check out if you work with kids who have special needs is More with Music. Free songs for music therapists!

Comments { 2 }

People inspire me.

By Kat Fulton on April 2, 2010 in Music & Wellness

Yesterday I facilitated a session on self-care through music for a group of medical social workers.

We loosened up, squeezed out, and brushed off anything having to do with work, the past, or the future.

We created a clean, safe space for self-care.

We were patient with ourselves and allowed plenty of time for focusing on our own personal well-being.

We cleared our minds.

We gave each other drum massages.

We drum rumbled out our cares and woes.

We laughed together.

We created a human toning bowl using our voices.

We created an hour-long moment in time that will never be replicated with the same people in the same way ever, ever again. And furthermore, we proved that every moment in our lives is just as special. Why have it any other way?

We shared what we were feeling during the catharsis.

Here are some closing words that people shared as we closed out the session, passing around the toning bowl:

peace, unity, compassion, love, support, gratitude, humor, fun, together, relaxed.

And now, I extend a big thank you to the session participants. You inspire me.

If you liked this, you’d probably like Humbled and Thankful, too.

Comments { 3 }

Drum Circle Facilitation and Music Therapy

By Kat Fulton on March 30, 2010 in Business & Practice, Drumming

After a meal and an evening of music-making with three amazing women drummers last weekend, I was inspired to write about drum circle facilitation and a program that connects all four of us: Remo’s HealthRHYTHMS®.

Mary Tolena and Jú Linares of ZaBoomBala Drumming Works stayed with me in San Diego for 2 days and told me stories of their recent Drum-About across the United States and through Brazil. Christine Stevens of UpBeat Drum Circles joined us over the weekend, and we four shared music and touching stories about our experiences in our work.

The following paragraphs should clarify the difference between a music therapist (MT) and a drum circle facilitator (DCF). There are MTs, there are DCFs, and sometimes people are both MTs and DCFs (like myself and Christine Stevens). DCFs are not considered therapists, but facilitators, coaches, teachers, and/or mentors. Music therapy is an allied healthcare profession established in the 1940s, while drum circle facilitation is a relatively new field. DCFs come with diverse backgrounds: professional drummers, social workers, music therapists, healthcare professionals, wellness consultants, corporate trainers, and more.

Music therapists ~

Use evidence-based music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship (American Music Therapy Association, 2010)
Are required to obtain a degree (bachelors, masters, PhD), attend a 6-month internship, and pass a board-certification exam.
May be members of the American Music Therapy Association in the US.
Are all formally trained musicians.

Drum circle facilitators ~

Utilize a variety of techniques to make an interactive music experience easy, fun, and meaningful for participants (Drum Circle Facilitators Guild, 2010)
May attend a training program. They vary between 4 days and 2 weeks. HealthRHYTHMS is one such training program. I’ll be writing about more DCF training programs soon.
May be members of the Drum Circle Facilitation Guild in the US.
Are not necessarily formally trained musicians, but some are world-renowned musicians.

MT is an awesome path if you are a formally trained musician and would like to work in the medical, psychiatric, educational, or wellness fields. DCF is a wonderful opportunity for people interested in empowering others to make music in a recreational setting, without having to obtain a degree or become proficient on an instrument. DCF is also great for those already on a healthcare or corporate career path, looking to supplement their current services.

For those interested in continuing education with regards to wellness, the HealthRHYTHMS® training program is a good option because the program focuses specifically on health and wellness through group drumming. The HealthRHYTHMS® research over the past ten years has helped to bridge the gap between the ancient art of healing and modern science.

The body of music therapy literature is prolific, spanning 5 decades of quantitative research that focuses on a variety of techniques with a variety of populations. For instance, I have posted a snapshot of the MT research on infants in a NICU here. MTs are formally trained with regards to the importance of the therapist-client relationship, how to build rapport with the client, how to follow systematic steps for successful client transformation, how to apply these steps with a variety of populations using an enormous variety of music interventions.

Although I was never lucky enough to meet legendary music therapist, Bongo Barry Bernstein, MT-BC, he left his mark in the music & wellness world through his years of service, creative rhythmic interaction, and creating the bridge between music and science. In this video, you may notice that the spirit of Bongo Barry lives on in both the music therapy field and drum circle facilitation.

Image courtesy of Lucas Lee.

Comments { 17 }

6 Studies that Show How Making Music Affects the Body

By Kat Fulton on March 17, 2010 in Research

A couple of weeks ago, Matt Logan of the Music Therapy Source tweeted a completely “irreverent, hilarious, & surprisingly accurate” article entitled 7 Insane Ways Music Affects the Body (According to Science). While I’m constantly reading up and obsessing myself with research on music’s physiological effects, this article opened my eyes to a new perspective. Stepping away from my music therapist mindset, I can imagine how wild it must seem to find out that music can elicit the dramatic effects on the human body as the research has shown.

I can relate to that article. It is insane how music affects the body!

Here are some of my favorite articles on music-making and changes in the body. I found these articles through Google Scholar. We know that making music: