Music Makes Sense

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Research Shows Music Training Valuable to Older Adults

The Daily Muse

Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense! This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives. You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Many years ago I was part of the Lowery Organ program for Wellness. This program encouraged learning to play the organ as a leisure skill, but also as part of a more holistic wellness program. As a music therapist, I have an intrinsic belief that active-music making can help maintain a healthy lifestyle in addition to providing some quantifiable physical results. It is really nice when the research starts to validate our clinical experience!

A new study, just released, provides further evidence that music training can help us in our older years. The research points out that not only does significant musical training in your younger years impact some skills when you are older, but that older people can also benefit from musical training at any time!

One of the more specific findings in the research was that musical training helped people to have better timing in aural-cognitive processing that helped them distinguish consonants. This skill was dramatic enough to make a difference in speech processes as well as hearing in noisy environments!

The full news story is here: Music Training has Biological Impact on Aging Process

You can find the research abstract here.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Hey Guys! Carry Your Boomwhackers in Style!

Michelle Erfurt over at Music Therapy Tween has been blazing the trail of the Boomwhacker's tote bag since last year. I am apparently only one of the people who asked her about making a Boom Tote that was a bit more masculine!

She has taken up the challenge and is now offering her first "less feminine" boom tote! I had suggested a "fatigues" pattern or African "kintecloth" type pattern, but the solid colors might just work too!

I also like the puzzle piece one she has pictured! If you have Boomwhackers, this is really the way to go! Much more stylin' than a trash bag or large duffel!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Matching Music Tempo and Physical Activity Increases Endurance

Sports psychologist, Costas Karageorghis, at Brunel University is validating a key idea used in music therapy. The "iso" principle basically maintains that music is most effective when it is matched to the current excitement level and emotional state of a client. The music stimulus can then be used to help guide a client in the desired direction of excitement or emotion by slowly changing its characteristics.

You can find the original Graph online at National Geographic (September, 2011). Because I can only find it online in Spanish, here is the basic idea of the article:

The major categories are: Largo = resting, Andante = Walking, Allegro = Training, Presto = High-intensity training. I have no idea how they picked the song examples, but I think it was interesting to look at the songs and how they compare to each other in tempo.

Mr. Karageorghis reported that when the tempo and physical performance are well matched, an average person's endurance is prolonged. This makes sense just by thinking about how long you can stick with an aerobics or spin class routine with or without the right kind of music!

It is nice to see researchers outside of the field of music therapy picking up on this idea!

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