Um espaço para partilha de ideias relacionadas com as práticas artísticas
e os seus efeitos terapêuticos, com destaque para a vertente musical

sexta-feira, 22 de fevereiro de 2013

The Benefits of Drumming

This article was taking from Back Mountain Music Therapy


"The wonderful thing about a drum is that there are no wrong notes. This makes playing successful to anyone who tries it. Who would ever think that giving some drums to a small group of chaotic, unfocused, hyper children could actually pull their attention together and help increase their social skills. 
Knowing that children automatically speed up and automatically want to bang away as soon as they get the drums, stir some doubts. But with careful management, the magnetic pull of a good beat pulls our brains in its direction. Watch a classroom move in sync as a good beat is pumped into the room. Most all children will move in one way or another. They may all move in a different way, but their movement and attention is pulled to the same direction at once. All are moving at the same time: they can’t help it. Doing this in a fun, game-like way is much easier than trying to “teach” them how to follow a beat or pay attention. “Teaching” requires too much attention on “getting it right,” while playing puts us all on automatic. 
When children are all beating together, the social skill possibilities are endless; impulse control, attending, focus, listening to others, sequencing, turn-taking, and the list keeps going. Drumming in this way build self-confidence and self esteem and allows safe nonverbal communication. Drumming in this manner simultaneously raises the level, focuses, and contains the children.
The added plus to the scenario is that it leaves little room for interruption and will likely continue in their head after the session ends. Rhythm now creates organization, actually changing a neurological pathway and helping the child focus.
There are also children who have such poor fine motor skills they can barely hold a drumstick. Many of these children who are slower at developing these skills are pulled so by the beat that they continue to try until they gradually get there. I have often seen children who begin poking a drum occasionally with the wrong end of a drumstick because of such fine motor delay, hat within one or two sessions are pulled so by the pulse they they are using an alternating hand pattern and beating the drum the right way with delight. Some of the children’s muscles that are too rigid and tight to beat a drum find that an accompanying beat pulls their bodies and arms to move in the direction of the beat with significantly greater ease.
Drumming helps us get out of our own heads. Drumming gets us to play. We are moved to play through the pulsating rhythm. It can not only facilitate physical, but also emotional, cognitive, and neurological change. Playing a beat, coming in the back door, effecting change."



quinta-feira, 21 de fevereiro de 2013

Nursing home patient reacts to music

In this amazing video an unresponsive nursing home patient reacts to hearing music that he loved from his era. Previously hunched over, his eyes widen, his whole being "quickens". He recalls who he is and how his favorite songs were sung.

The nursing home music program hopes to transform the lives of residents — especially those experiencing dementia — by giving them their favorite music. 

The clip below is part of a documentary called Alive Inside, which follows social worker Dan Cohen as he creates personalized playlists for people in elder care facilities, hoping to reconnect them with the music they love, reports NPR News.

Cohen says the YouTube video of Henry is a great example of the link between music and memory. Cohen says his goal is "to make access to personalized music the standard of care at nursing facilities."

Alive Inside screens April 18, 20 and 21 at the Rubin Museum in New York City.



Text adapted from GoodNewsNetwork