Music and Singing for Health , Workshop Introduces Music as Medicine, Sacred Singing, Healing Harmonies

MUSIC IS MEDICINE: Sacred Singing, Healing Harmonies

Workshops with Don Hill

Modern neuroscience is affirming what vocalists and shamans have known for years: Singing is healthy for you and specific vocal styles that play on 'harmonic overtones' stimulate the sense of well-being.

Harmonic overtones are embedded within sacred choral music performed worldwide.

In this introductory workshop, you will hear and learn how Tibetan monks, Gregorian chanters and Mongolian overtone singers create the powerful healing and meditative qualities associated with ritual chanting and overtone harmonics.

A complementary instructional DVD is bundled with the workshop.

The introductory workshop will be held in MONTREAL: Friday 10 JULY (beginning at 7 PM) and all day Saturday 11 JULY at 5706 Queen Mary Road (Hampstead).

In EDMONTON: Friday 21 AUGUST (beginning at 7 PM) and all day Saturday 22 AUGUST at the Westwood Unitarian Congregation church at 11135 - 65 Avenue (close to the Parkallen community centre).


Don Hill, formerly host of CBC's "Tapestry ", is a member of the creative faculty and the podcast voice of The Leadership Lab at the Banff Centre's Leadership Development Program. His counsel is part of a gathering of leading edge thinkers from the areas of leadership, popular media and the voice and vocal arts. He has been commissioned (2009) to develop ‘sound explorer’, a new acoustic modality for teaching the art of leadership. With the CKUA Radio Network (2007-2009), a listener-supported public broadcaster in Alberta, Don created and hosted Inspiring Leadership (20 half-hour episodes), and Inspiring Leadership 2.0, a thirteen-part documentary series, which featured conversations with over one hundred leaders about the challenges of sustainability and environmental leadership in the 21st century.

Advance registration for Music is Medicine required with annehill (at) telus.net

Medicine, Arts and Culture Important Intersections for New Advisory Board Member

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

Journal Welcomes Dr. Michael Hutcheon to Advisory Board


The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE) has recently announced that Dr. Michael Hutcheon has joined the journal Advisory Board. Dr. Michael Hutcheon is Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Education, The University Health Network. His research training in respirology was in pulmonary physiology and lung mechanics both at The University of Toronto and the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Hutcheon is a physician who has explored the intersections of the arts and health. Opera in medical education is a particular interest. He reports, "I have explored the meanings taken on by illnesses and the people who have them when medical information is interpreted in a social or cultural context. We have used opera as the cultural vehicle for this exploration. This has been my primary research interest for the past ten years."

Michael Hutcheon and collaborator Linda Hutcheon, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, have published a number of articles and three books. Their work on the cultural construction of sexuality, gender and disease in opera has been published in a book entitled Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (1996). Their second book, a study of both the real and the represented operatic body entitled Bodily Charm: Living Opera, was published in 2000. They have also published articles in this area in journals such as The Cambridge Opera Journal, Opera Quarterly, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. Their latest collaborative book called Opera: The Art of Dying, was published by Harvard University Press in 2004. They are currently studying creativity and aging through the late style and later lives of nineteenth and twentieth century opera composers.

"Few art forms are as thoroughly dependent as is tragic opera upon desire, suffering and death as narrative and emotional staples. The body, the live singing body on stage, gives voice to the drama of the suffering person."
Michael Hutcheon, Linda Hutcheon

Read more here

Music Therapy, Juno Award Winning Songwriter and Music Therapist Offer Music for Rest and Stress Relief

David Bradstreet

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

I was pleased to hear recently from Juno award winning songwriter, musician and producer David Bradstreet, a multi-talented artist with a special interest in the intersections of the arts and health.

David is widely known as a composer, songwriter and vocalist with nineteen albums bearing his name, a high profile Juno award early in his career and subsequent Juno nominations and music credits including film and television scoring, and record production for a variety of artists from Jane Siberry to Colleen Peterson.

When you hear the name David Bradstreet you might remember his well known song "Renaissance" (Let's Dance that Old Dance Once More). I had an opportunity to hear David sing "Renaissance" at London Ontario's "Home County Folk Festival". If you've heard the song, you may feel it is like a waltz you have always known, stepping in time through life's passages as it moves, a song that recalls the lives of two people in love and their many years together.

In addition to songwriting, performing and producing music for film and television, David has
an interest in the power of music to heal and bring comfort to seniors. After working with the successful company "Solitudes", he began playing and recording music designed for therapeutic purposes to help address sleep deprivation and for stress relief and, working with associate *Amy Clements-Cortes, a music therapist at Baycrest Centre, David launched a new recording company called "Theramusic".

Relaxing music can help slow down heart rate, breathing, thinking and can enable a person to reach a deeper level of rest and tranquility. A study published in February 2005 in The Journal of Advanced Nursing found that listening to soft music at bedtime assisted older adults to sleep better and longer.

I have been listening to the two CDs "Therasleep" and "Theracalm" for the last few days while working and when journaling at night before I go to sleep. There may be an additional creative benefit to "Theramusic" as well. I have found the music helps gently release stress and tension and it has a "sustaining or "flow" quality that opens the mind for reflection and creative thought.

Congratulations to innovators David Bradstreet and Amy Clements-Cortes, for using music to heal while developing drug-free techniques to help enhance care and induce relaxation and sleep.

Go to Theramusic Website for More Information

*Amy Clements-Cortes is a graduate of the Honours Bachelor of Music Therapy Program at the University of Windsor with a voice major and a Masters in Music, University of Toronto. In addition to her research and therapeutic work Amy also runs her own vocal studio.
See http://www.notesbyamy.com/aboutamy.html for more information.

Sweet Music to Patients' Ears, Musicians Help Physicians Tune in to Patients at University of Western Ontario, Schulich School of Medicine

Music and medicine is in the news today at The University of Western Ontario this Tuesday, April 15, with London Free Press reporter John Miner's article, "Sweet Music to Patients' Ears." Miner reports that James McKay, Professor at the Don Wright Faculty of Music, brought music students to the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry to help train medical students how to listen to their patients.

In the article, Dr. Terri Paul, Assistant Professor at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry explains,

"We physicians tend to talk a lot and talk quickly, and usually interrupt patients within about 18 seconds of them starting to tell us their story. This is learning to sit back and listen. It's also about learning to read patients' non-verbal signals."

Dr. Terri Paul

(A recent report on health literacy from the Canadian Public Health Association, found communication between doctors and patients wasn’t as effective as it could be. Western’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and The Don Wright Faculty of Music teamed up to provide medical students with ways to improve their lines of communication. “The Sound of Silence: Developing Effective Patient Partnerships” was one of a series of lectures given by Professors in Music and Medicine which focused on listening and speaking with patients as equal partners and illustrated the skills that musicians use playing in a small group to communicate both verbally and non-verbally. )
source: http://www.schulich.uwo.ca/news/index.php?article=000439


I have published posts about a number of programmes in Canada that use the arts in medical education. This is yet another indication that the arts in many forms when applied in education and training can help increase sensitivity and understanding in the physician, patient relationship. CM

Featured Video Music, Medicine and Art

I thought I would share with you this
youtube video on Music, Medicine and Art
featuring the Longwood Symphony Orchestra

"not only are they fine musicians they are
prominent members of the medical
community as well"
Jonathan McPhee
Music Director
Longwood Symphony Orchestra
Brookline, Massachusetts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMoyt35_wkk