“As a music therapist at Keech Hospice, I witness the power that music has in expressing feelings that words alone can’t. Patients and their family members often come to a session unsure of what to expect, exhausted and with a multitude of mixed emotions. Throughout the therapeutic process and within the safety of a trusting relationship, feelings begin to be expressed using instruments, voice, our bodies and recorded music.”
Research shows that medically, music can help reduce anxiety, regulate breathing, ease muscle tension and support the development and maintenance of physical skills in patients and support emotional expression in patients and their relatives.
Kirsty continues, “What I am witness to every day is the power that music gives to people – space to breathe, to focus and leave a session feeling lighter, even hopeful.
I’ve watched a couple sharing favourite music with each other and dancing their last dance, teenagers losing their inhibitions and rapping freestyle into a microphone. I have witnessed pre-verbal children hearing their vocalisations in song accompanied by the guitar and laughing, children with disabilities overcoming their physical difficulties to use instruments to make music with their parents looking on in tears.
Patients relax, having been whisked away to a fantasy place, using recorded music as a means of relaxation or share lyrics from songs that can express how they feel without having to explain it. I’ve watched a parent near to tears as their child shares with them what they have done in their session – sharing that it was the best day ever!
No one comes into the room needing to have learnt to play instruments. Music meets them where they are, whether that’s in anger, sadness, confusion or hope.
The most powerful moments may not be loud or huge. They’re the intentional small movements of delicate fingers playing the chimes in a song, it’s the relaxation of limbs when ordinarily tense and painful whilst actively listening to favourite music, it’s when hope is shared of a future never expected within the safety of the music room.
It’s the sharing of laughter as we play the kazoo together and the shedding of tears when a patient realises they don’t have to hold everything alone.”
Could you fund music therapy sessions?
£250 could fund sessions of music therapy for a child or adult patient, or relative who needs a safe space to be heard and to express what feels too enormous for words.
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