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The Wonders of Music Therapy
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Are you curious about music therapy, as you see new and fascinating instruments appearing regularly at Full Circle Studio? An April 8 article in the New York Times offers a good overview of the growing scientific evidence for the healing power of music.
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According to the NYT article, a review of 400 research papers conducted by Daniel J. Levitin at McGill University in 2013 concluded that “listening to music was more effective than prescription drugs in reducing anxiety prior to surgery.” Music therapists use a wide range of traditional instruments and have even created special instruments for newborns, that simulate the rhythms of a mother's heartbeat and the whooshing sounds in the womb.
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Another article on thestrad.com offered additional example of the effectiveness of music therapy, citing the violin as an effective instrument for connecting with and soothing patients because its sounds are "so close to those of vocalization."
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Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah
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If you watch the video at the end of this month's newsletter, you may be inspired to want to learn how to play Hallelujah. Here's a link to a play-along version on YouTube. You'll probably want to download the sheet music first here, then once you've practiced the tune, you can go to YouTube and play along. Enjoy!
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This version is already fairly slow, but remember, in YouTube you can almost always slow down or speed up the tempo of a play-along video by left-clicking on the settings gear under the video, and choosing "PlayBack Speed."
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St. Patrick's Day and April Fool's
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Since our last Full Circle newsletter, we've celebrated two important holidays!
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What better way to observe St. Patrick's Day than with a bit of Irish fiddle music? Here, Karen Orsillo and Dee McEneaney put on the green and strike up a tune!
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And then, on the first of April, we volunteered to test Fiddlershop's new product: the Gigger's Little Helper. (Don't try this at home.)
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I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by.
– Billy Joel
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Hallelujah for the Neighbors
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Over the last year, one bright spot has been the way many of us got to know our neighbors better – whether it was by helping older folks do their grocery shopping or by simply chatting over the fence. Marta Z, in Long Beach, California, treated her neighbors to a concert on her electric violin.
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