Tinaya Entz works with hemodialysis patients and those in the intensive care unit and says she sees many emotional breakthroughs in her music therapy practice.
She remembers an anxious patient in intensive care who “was intubated so she couldn’t talk.” Entz could see she was trying to communicate and becoming agitated. Picking up her guitar, she “just improvised something gentle and said hello in the music, said her name in the music, and she was immediately quiet.”
She’s the president of the Music Therapy Association of Saskatchewan and an Indigenous music therapist at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon. She remembers afterwards the patient’s health improved, and when the music therapist visited again, the patient said that they remembered that important moment.
“It was something that she really needed. Somebody to see her, somebody to hear her and something to cut through all of the ICU stress,” Entz says.
She explains music is an avenue for articulating our emotions, especially when it feels impossible to express them through words.
“The way that the brain is set up, our language centres and our emotion centres are in different spots. And when we are experiencing particularly traumatic or difficult emotions, that prefrontal cortex, including the language areas, largely shut down.” She says music helps bring those parts of the brain back online.
For Lucas White, music is “another pathway to express yourself.” The University of Toronto student is studying jazz piano performance and it’s not just his passion, it’s the way he communicates.
“Sometimes music will really get my true feelings out … without me even thinking about it. I think it just almost elevates my expressions and emotions and then it makes it even more … grander when it comes out.”
Marina de Oliveira Emerick, a music cognition researcher and a PhD candidate in neuroscience at Western University, says that’s because music is “stronger than most other types of sound.”
In an email to Emerge Media, Emerick writes, “unlike random noise, music is organized in time, with patterns in rhythm, melody, and harmony that our brains are very sensitive to, so music is a powerful form of sound because it is structured and usually has meaning.”
And since it can engage different parts of the brain ranging from emotional and cognitive to motor systems, it is “a very rich and flexible tool.”
Avery Florence, a professional art therapist who calls herself a “soft-soul artist,” uses that tool in her practice.
She supports her clients “to engage with various musical instruments, visual arts media and somatic tools,” with an emphasis on exploring the power of creativity, no matter the level of artistic skill a person has.
Florence says in her therapy sessions, music provides “a very quick emotional access point” that lets the patient lead the way.
“I’m really holding the container and then making them feel safe enough to explore.”
She believes using body movement and voice “to allow a message to come through that you need to hear for yourself is really empowering. Cause the message is really coming from within you.”
White experiences a similar feeling performing live in bars such as The Emmet Ray and The Rex, and it’s helped him grow as a composer and build confidence. In the moment performing with different bands, he says, “the emotions can really put themselves in front of you” and “it’s good when that happens because that means that everyone’s really attached to the music.”
Though he says this doesn’t always happen. “When some people get stuck in their own thing and they’re worried about how they sound, then it’s kind of like … not everyone feels in sync.”
Often this means the audience can feel the weight of the emotions too.
“There’s a few of the shows this year where people have come up to me and been like, ‘dude, this was so good I feel really happy after seeing this.’”
White will be performing at the Heliconian Hall on April 22.
Florence says this is music as a powerful language. In therapy she says, “the music or the art is almost like the third person in the session.”
She encourages people to listen alone as well. “I think music makes you feel less alone,” she says.