Born in Boston, Massachusetts, I was the youngest of 5 siblings. My father was a mathematician and an old school academic while my mom was a homemaker and eventually began teaching piano as we grew older. It was a very musical home as both my parents loved classical music and whether by hook or crook we all played an instrument at one point growing up. Two of us went into the profession, and the other three remain in touch with their piano skills.
My musical journey has been very traditional, starting at age six, studying privately, going to special music camps and festivals during the summer, attending a music conservatory after high school, free-lancing with ballet and opera orchestras, subbing with symphonic orchestras then finally winning a full-time orchestra position of my own. Yet during all of that time, I knew on an instinctual level that there was so much more to music than what I was learning either in conservatories or on the job. As I’ve grown older this has morphed into a bit of a compulsive curiosity. When I witnessed my parents struggle with dementia and then through my own health crisis, I was beginning to see that this mystery was actually tangible, and in some cases scientifically grounded.
For both my parents, music and the memories associated with it, held up strong against the progressive stages of dementia. Even when they reached the point of not recognizing or knowing their own children, when they either talked about music or listened to it, for that moment, they connected back to us. We were rejoined if only for a moment. And this was both a comfort and mystery for me. I wanted to understand why music remained with them in such vividness when everything else seemed to be fading away
This curiosity became sharper for me during my own health crisis – a cancer diagnosis that, fortunately was found early enough, but required surgical intervention. That meant a standard 4 day, four night stay in the hospital. As many of you know, right after surgery, the first thing they make you do is get up and walk — it doesn’t matter how much pain you think you’re in.
I was assisted by a personal care technician/nurse named Natalia. As it turns out, in addition to being a great nurse she was also a music lover and she recognized me from the symphony. As she was assisting me, she started to talk about the music she loved and asked me questions about the orchestra, what things I liked, what I didn’t…and before I knew it, I completed my first circuit and was rewarded by a round of applause from the nurses.
She was a great nurse because, in just that first walk, she pulled me out of my post-op haze and got me moving; she then engaged me with the conversation which distracted me from the fear of my prognosis and recovery, but most important of all, she was bringing me back to the present and to myself: the person I was before I became a diagnosis. She brought me back to a routine and a rhythm of one foot in front of the other. She brought me back to my beat.
My experience with her reminded me of a case shared by neurologist Oliver Sack in his book “Musicophilia.” It was about a patient that suffered a brain infection that resulted in total retrograde amnesia and the inability to form new memories. Every day, every moment was new and strange to him and he was lost, unable to hold anchor. That is except for his wife and for music. “Clive” the patient, had been a musicologist and keyboardist before the infection.
“The momentum of the music carried Clive from bar to bar. Within the structure of the piece, he was held, as if the staves were tramlines and there was only one way to go. He knew exactly where he was because in every phrase there is context implied, by rhythm, key, melody. It was marvelous to be free. When the music stopped, Clive fell through to the lost place. But for those moments he was playing, he seemed normal.”
Oliver Sacks
“Musicophilia”
Neurologists are still trying to unpack why music memories tend to be untouched in cases like this and other forms of brain trauma like dementia, but it does appear to be the way in which these memories are stored. This only added more fuel to my growing curiosity and it finally drove me to explore the clinical role of music in healthcare.
In March of 2020, I started “Back to the Beat” – a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that is dedicated to bringing in-the-moment-comfort-care to wellness communities. This includes my work with art therapist Dan Anthon in our Music & Art Destinations which was inspired by the Open Art Studio at Moffitt Cancer Center. We brought this mobile studio to the Sarasota Memorial Hospital, the Multicultural Health Institute’s Healing Circle, NeuroChallenge, and (in collaboration with Natalie Helm’s Upward Notes) SPARCC.
