Music in the environment

A few posts ago, I discussed how I use music as my own personal therapy. I gave four ways that I intentionally use music to enrich my life and mentioned that maybe I'd try to break each of these down at some point. Well, my friends, that time has come.

I guess I should start by stating what exactly I mean by "environment". Essentially, I mean that music is playing for anyone within ear shot to hear. For people to hear, people need to be around. Seems basic enough, right? For me, then, music in the environment is used to foster social support and promote interaction. I'm not a very extroverted person. I'm the guy at the wedding reception who stands off to the side and watches people dance not because I can't dance (although that's what I'll say whenever someone tries to get me to do it), but because there are always so many people out there dancing. Plus, it's too loud for me to talk over, so I end up just moving around, trying not to bump into people, and not talking. Knowing this, then, maybe it makes more sense that I try to use music as a way to break the ice in small groups. I love talking with people about music and playing new music for people. Many times, I will just put a record on and talk with people when they come over to visit. It seems that when people hear music that they know they don't have to listen to, they feel more inclined to talk. This includes myself.

One reason I bring all this up is that it appears that music is becoming a personal experience. People have mp3 players and headphones nowadays, not radios in their homes. Computers have speakers, but I bet if you go to coffee shop, you'll find that people with computers are using headphones, isolating themselves from potentially disruptive stimuli. I can't help but wonder how this isolation affects us as people in the 21st century. We can listen to what we want to listen to through headphones. We can watch what we want to watch on one of hundreds of channels. We can decide who we do and do not interact with by denying "friend requests." We can essentially create our own world where we don't talk to people, listen to music, watch shows, or hear news we don't like. This may make us less annoyed, but is that really how many of us want to live?

These ideas have implications for music therapy. Yesterday, I did a music therapy session for a gentleman where we had arranged to pick up lunch for him at his favorite restaurant, and brought along several of his friends that would meet there. I played music and, for the first song they listened quietly and clapped. I said, after that, "What are some stories you have of Eddie?" and that got the ball rolling. People started telling stories back and forth and, once they were in a good pace, I started playing again. You could tell that the stories got more animated the longer I played and, when I decided to eat my lunch, the stories slowed down more. I wish I had kept playing, and was planning on it, but people started to leave. The music seemed to, for that period of time, spur on conversation and interaction between old friends.

Trygve Aasgaard talks a lot more about music therapy as an environmental factor in his chapter in "Music Therapy in Palliative Care: New Voices" edited by David Aldridge. Aasgaard's chapter, entitled "Music Therapy as Milieu in the Hospice and Paediatric Oncology Ward", holds a lot of information about how environmental music therapy is used at his hospice in Oslo. Check it out!