Creating music as “seeds” for the future

I’ve long wondered what seeds are planted in the inner landscape of a child while we work with them in the hospital.  Brianna Negrete, one of our Music Therapists at Benioff Children’s Hospital recently shared with me her experience growing up in a very musical family.  In fact, Brianna first started learning the oboe on the same one that her mother, Abra, played.  She was in a band with both her father (percussions) and mother.  She also went to the same performing arts school that her sister (playing piano) attended.  Brianna’s sister later went with the school to perform at Carnegie Hall, which has been a family story ever since.  When Brianna was 16, her experience with her mother’s cancer diagnosis brought her to the awareness of music therapy as a profession rather than down the more typical path of performance.  The seeds of the music they shared as a family grew into a career and broad recognition of the many forms of professionalism that Brianna offers through her work. 

Do you imagine when Brianna is bringing a vibratone, or ocean drum or guitar (and her great singing voice!) into the room of a child in the hospital that she is planting seeds as well?  It is always so interesting to see how music slips into the cracks of our own bodily rhythms and inherent musicality.  She speaks to the melody of a parent’s voice with a new born premie.  The way our heart and lungs and feet maintain a steady beat.  In talking, she speaks with awe about the tender and intimate moments of helping a parent and infant bond for the first time with the comfort of music as a guide.  What does the very young and delicate spirit of a premie take in about the meaning of music when it is a conduit to bonding with one’s parent?  Will that baby girl have that awareness, even if not conscious, as she bonds with her children years later?  Does that little boy learn how to regulate himself just a little better by “discovering” later in adolescence that music helps him have less anxiety and social angst? 

Brianna is known for her expertise in working with infants.  She receives requests regularly to share her knowledge for this cutting edge use of music therapy in neonatal intensive care units.  She studied at some of the best schools in our country, especially for how to offer music therapy to infants and their families.  She relishes in the inclusion of the family and maybe even staff of the child making music together in the patient room.  Given she works in two of our ICUs (Neonatal and Cardiac), she has monitors that show how the music is positively effecting the heartbeat.  She can point that out to the parents and help them feel less daunted by a baby attached in so many ways to machines and equipment. 

Music therapy can offer entrainment.  As the authors of this article (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01185/full ) state “the discovery that a musical element such as rhythm can be a very effective driver of therapeutic learning and training, has led to a new look to consider the therapeutic potential of all musical elements within a framework of music perception and music playing.”  Imagine you are a young child in a cardiac intensive care unit.  Brianna comes in to spend some time with you and she brings a vibratone, an ocean drum and a few other potential instruments to try out.  All the choice and the sense of control that offers!  Music playing encourages lowered heartbeat rates of a recently operated on heart.  She teaches musical skill as well to children in the hospital.  These young people not only respond via their nervous system, but also find through emotional expression a sense of being the master of their own creative experience.  Maybe the children in our care are not yet ready for Carnegie Hall, but they leave the hospital with more skills, both internal and external, to help them feel they have much to offer themselves and the world around them.