After two years of COVID-related cancellations, the coveted South By Southwest Festival returned to Austin, Texas starting on March 11. On the fourth day of the fest, MusiCares hosted a special panel titled Music As A Tool For Healing.

Moderated by MusiCares’ Executive Director, Laura Segura, the hour-long panel focused on how music is pivotal in helping treat mental health and other health issues — as well as the technology behind it making this all possible. Joy Allen of Berklee College of Music, Elina Brown of Headspace, and Cassie Shankman of Sounds by Cassandra all took part in the discussion.

Below, here are five of the most important points made during the event.

Music Is Far More Than Just Entertainment

Music is multi-dimensional. It has the power to evoke emotion, memories, physical responses, behavioral responses, and more from us. The multi-dimensionality of music is what makes it so healing.

We, as humans, are also multi-dimensional. All of us respond physiologically to music, as listening to it impacts every part of our brains. It can even aid in the process of learning new information. For example, cognitively, we all were taught the alphabet through the singing of our “ABCs.”

Given music’s strong ties to emotion, many of us use music as a form of communication. You might share a song or even an entire playlist to a friend or on social media to explain how you are feeling or how you felt at a specific moment in time.

Music Has Been Used As A Tool For Healing Since The Beginning Of Time

Music has been prevalent throughout history. Indigenous populations utilized music not only as a tool for building communities, but also as a way to help people medically. Music would be prescribed medicinally to individuals experiencing health issues. Prescriptions were based on the way that our bodies respond rhythmically to different types of music.

Allen shared that the true beginning of music is within all of us: our heart rates. Our heart rates house rhythm inside of us, and when our rhythm is off, that generally signals that something is off within us. Through every era, physicians have prescribed specific sounds, instruments, and pieces of music to treat illnesses far before the introduction of pharmaceuticals.

Music therapy that is used today began in the military. Soldiers were injured on the field, and they couldn’t get medicine quickly enough, so nurses would sing to the wounded on the field. This was in an effort to calm and comfort those who were hurt, bringing their internal rhythm and response down. We have used these kinds of experiences as a guide to utilizing music as a tool to trigger other health-benefiting responses.

People Seek Immediate Relief

Brown touched on her experience at Headspace during the pandemic, noting that people were looking for new ways to cope with all that is going on in the world. This has led to a spike in practices like meditation, but that is a practice that yields results over time — and as Brown noted, people are currently particularly interested in finding relief available to them “in the moment.” Everyone wants the instant gratification of feeling better than they did before. Music is such a powerful tool in this way, as it is easily accessible to everyone and able to provide immediate feelings of relief.

With the implementation of short-form music consumption as a mindful practice, the hope is that many will be converted to long-form listeners. An individual might transition from listening to a song when they feel sad to making sure that music is implemented into every part of their daily routine.

Everyone Responds To Music Differently

When asked how to create music that heals, Shankman shared her experiences utilizing music in a clinical setting, and how responses differ from individual to individual. Her process is heavily influenced by the reactions that she gets from people based on the types of music that she is playing.
She takes these base ideas and crafts them to be specific to each individual she works with in hospitals, research labs, etc. A lot of it comes down to trial-and-error and experimentation in terms of complete personalization. Specific instruments can be used as tools in the crafting of healing sounds.
As an example, the use of a hi-hat might trigger feeling uplifted for some.

Shakman’s creative process is surrounded by the idea that instruments are tools, and she layers them into tracks with this in mind. Each individual stem has a specific purpose to benefit the individual the track is for.

Collaboration & Technology Will Drive Innovation & Accessibility To Music Therapy

Given the fact that music therapy involves such a personalized experience, collaboration is key to driving further innovation and accessibility to services. There is a huge opportunity to explore new technologies when it comes to crafting a personalized experience for patients.
Allen mentioned that there are only 9,000 music therapists in the United States. That is nothing compared to the population that exists that could benefit from music therapy.

Additionally, there is room for innovation when it comes to the continuity of care in music therapy. Many patients go home and have no way to track and continue gains from this care. Technology could help greatly here, as well in granting access to services to a greater number of individuals in need.

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