Art in every form improves quality of life

"As an art therapist, I have spent hundreds of hours witnessing the profound therapeutic effects of art making for adults and children of all ages and with a wide range of physical and psychological conditions. Brain research into neuroplasticity, as Dr. Martiquet points out, shows the beneficial effects of art activity in improving neural networks.

The good news is that our brains, like gardeners, constantly prune away what isn’t used and bud in new directions as we do new things.

Creativity is a powerful source of new life, no matter where a person starts from, and art making is one of the few treatments that is actually inherently pleasurable. Art making can be used in so many ways: problem-solving, expressing what is too complicated or difficult to say with words, focusing, relaxing. And the beauty is that you have a visual record of the process.

I hear so many people say they have no ability, but those are the discouraging messages that people were given as children — I’ve seen over and over that creativity has no limits and no special skill is required to begin.

Art in every form improves quality of life: it is not a luxury, but a cost-effective way to improve our society."

Rose Clarke, Gibsons

Info from Coast Reporter

EISA - 4º Encontro Internacional Saúde com Arte

O EISA, Encontro Internacional Saúde com Arte, é um espaço de encontro para reflexão e formação em torno do papel terapêutico da Arte no Ser Humano. Promovido pela SAMP – Sociedade Artística Musical dos Pousos, tem no som e na música o seu principal eixo de trabalho, e no ambiente hospitalar, com especial ênfase na primeira infância, o seu campo privilegiado de intervenção.

Depois de termos viajado nas últimas 3 edições pelos projetos europeus e norte americanos mais significativos de música em ambiente hospitalar, em 2013 abrimos um espaço para a temática específica da Dor, em muito estimulado pelo novo programa de parceria entre a SAMP e o Centro Hospitalar Leiria-Pombal, o DoiMenor.

Para além das comunicações que decorrem durante as manhãs, teremos várias oficinas práticas em cada uma das tardes, bem como dois momentos de improvisos inesperados que levarão os participantes até ao final dos trabalhos.

O EISA é dirigido a todos os profissionais com interesse pela relação Arte e Saúde. Inicialmente concebido para os profissionais SAMP envolvidos em programas de âmbito terapêutico, o EISA tem hoje como destinatários artistas e profissionais de saúde, educadores e professores de ensino especial, médicos, músicos, enfermeiros, assistentes sociais e animadores socioculturais. Está igualmente aberto a estudantes de qualquer uma das áreas anteriores.

Programa aqui

Mais informação em SAMP

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."

by Antoinette

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

Art Therapy Fundamentals I - What is Art Therapy?

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Music and Dyslexia

Learning to play a musical instrument may help students with dyslexia. A study completed at Stanford University [Musical Training Helps Language Processing, Studies Show, 2005, Stanford News Service]. The study showed that mastering a musical instrument improves the ability to process parts of the spoken language. The researchers believe that additional research might develop a way to use the knowledge obtained in the study to increase language development for individuals with dyslexia or cognitive disorders.

Studies Show Music Helps Increase Test Scores and Language Skills

While there have been other studies that have shown the relationship of music to increased IQ [Music and the Mind, Music From the Inside Out, PBS] or to increased standardized tests and SAT scores [Music and Literacy, 1999, The Association for Music Education], this is the first study that has shown a direct correlation to mastering a musical instrument and learning the spoken language.

Music Therapists, however, often include Learning Disabilities in their list of conditions helped by music therapy. Music Therapy is sometimes included in a child’s IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) as a way to help improve communication skills and to improve physical coordination. The Learning Disability Association of America encourages parents and teachers to include music to improve early reading skills.

Parents and Teachers Can Help Incorporate Music into Learning

Teachers and parents can incorporate music into everyday learning to help children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities to improve school performance and increase reading and writing skills. Tunes to popular children’s songs, such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” can be used a the basis for learning math facts and formulas or grammar rules. By using familiar songs, children can hum to themselves while completing homework or taking a test, reminding themselves of the facts or the rules they must follow. This method is not limited to younger children, even high school and college students can benefit from using familiar tunes to remember facts for exams.

New Horizons for Learning lists specific ways music can help students succeed:

• Students can learn to break a word into syllables by clapping or tapping for each syllable.
• Students can use rhymes or songs to learn grammar lessons, such as “I before E except after C”
• Students can learn spelling words or history facts by putting the information to music.
• Students can improve listening skills by listening to short songs and writing the lyrics down.
• Songs from different eras and cultures can help students to learn history and social studies and improve their understanding of the many different cultures around the world.
• Math classes can be enhanced by using clapping or rhythms to improve understanding of patterns and sequences.
• Multiplication facts can be learned by setting them to music.

Info from Music-helps-children-with-dyslexia

TENORI-ON: the future sounds like this

No, this isn’t the first good-to-go version of Minesweeper: this baby is for making beautiful music with.

The Tenori-on is an electronic musical instrument designed and created by the Japanese artist Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori of the Music and Human Interface Group at the Yamaha Center for Advanced Sound Technology. It consists of a hand-held screen in which a sixteen-by-sixteen grid of LED switches are held within a magnesium plastic frame. Any of these switches may be activated in a number of different ways to create sounds. Two built-in speakers are located on the top of frame, as well as a dial and buttons that control the type of sound and beats per minute v produced.

There are two versions of the device available. The original TNR-W (Tenori-On White) features a magnesium frame, 256 rear panel LEDs and can run on batteries whilst the more affordable TNR-O (Tenori-On Orange) features a white plastic frame, has no rear LEDs and does not take batteries. The modes and sound sets in these instruments are the same.

Both devices have an LCD screen on the bottom edge of the frame. Using the connection function, it is possible to play a synchronized session, or to send and receive songs between two of the devices.

Iwai's intention in creating the Tenori-on is to create an electronic instrument of beauty. In his own words:

"In days gone by, a musical instrument had to have a beauty, of shape as well as of sound, and had to fit the player almost organically. [...] Modern electronic instruments don't have this inevitable relationship between the shape, the sound, and the player. What I have done is to try to bring back these [...] elements and build them in to a true musical instrument for the digital age."