BY NATASHA LIN
Natasha Lin is a concert pianist and educator who has started her journey into music therapy practice. Throughout this year she will share her experiences with us and educate us on the value of uniting music and health.
I was trained to be a concert pianist from a very young age, competing on local and state levels before I hit puberty. That – coupled with a disciplinary upbringing, which encouraged academic excellence – meant I completely lost sight of the meaning of anything in my life by the time I finished my HSC.
I turned down scholarships to esteemed music schools and moved interstate purely based on curiosity. In a sense, having been ‘squeezed’ so much as a kid meant that exploration became the theme of my adult life. I explored concepts of current dental health in a brief dental course, majored in criminology in my arts degree, and thankfully, with my pursuit of music studies, continued on my trajectory of discovering new concepts and life experiences that now inform my practice as a performer.
Through myriad experiences, I realised that this has enriched my human life, my imagination, and my drive to embrace my identity as a musician. Health, in this sense, extends beyond the physical, physiological and psychological – this is the spiritual health that I needed to explore in order to appreciate a holistic understanding of my musicianship.
It is important for performers to think about the value of music in health when they are entering their careers or academic life. This has steered me toward an interest in the area of music therapy. But before I discuss this further, I would like to offer two overarching frames of thought.
- Firstly, musicians have a gift to share with the world: that is the gift of communication. Musicians are in the field of story-telling; communicating; painting that mood, sensation or memory that can be evoked from the nuances of sound.
- Secondly, as music forms the wordless meanings that can be unique to its consumers, it is the responsibility of musicians to begin to question the beliefs and values they bring into the music they produce, within the spectrum of the music discipline. Why do we, as musicians, do what we do? Behind each sound reflects an idea, a belief, a value that is unique to each of us. Something I always like to remind my students: your instrument is your mirror.
The practice of using music to maintain health has been around for a while. But it’s only with the advancement of neuroimaging techniques and constant improvement in understanding of the human brain that has enabled the profession of music therapy to be continually informed by evidence-based research. This means music therapists are deemed qualified with university education in the field, and with registration with the Australian Music Therapy Association, which is the organisation that oversees this quality and ethics of this profession. You’d most likely find Registered Music Therapists practising in schools, private practice and various health sectors such as specialisations such as palliative care, oncology, paediatrics, neurorehabilitation.
There is burgeoning research that is slowly enabling us to understand more about how music facilitates our mental, physical, psychological, cognitive and spiritual health. Authors such as Oliver Sacks have really helped propel concepts of ‘music on the brain’ into the mainstream, but we also need to be reminded that music extends beyond the health of the individual to the health of a society.
Although there is scattered knowledge in how music first began with mankind, theories which postulate that the first existence of music may have influenced communication methods, languages, ideas and aesthetics give clues on the fundamental social aspects music had, and still has, in societies and cultures. The fact that music has a place for celebration, mourning, as a way of expression where words fail, to pass time, for travel, for contemplation – even to persuade, convince or torture – places music as a fundamentally powerful element in the health of human existence.
This is the first blog in Natasha Lin’s My journey into music therapy series. In her next piece, Natasha will educate us through her experiences in academia, and placement in palliative care and oncology. We look forward to bringing you more of her words in the important area of music and health.
Natasha will speak at the MCM IgniteLab DIY Concert Hacks event on April 27. Learn more about the pianist on her website.
Have you had an experience with music therapy you’d like to share? Or do you have a question Natasha can help answer? We’d love to hear from you.
Images supplied. Featured image Josep Molina.
