Make a Joyful Noise

Playing Music for Fun & Healing

When it comes to making music, children can be fearless. They sing their favorite songs loudly and off key, plunk the piano with abandon, and make percussion instruments out of any object within reach.

By the time children grow into adults, some will decide that only "real" musicians should play music and some may think it’s too late or impractical to engage in musical pursuits. The good news is that an increasing number of adults are rediscovering the benefits of playful music making, and recreational music classes are growing in number and variety.

From drum circles to sound healing events, community choirs to open-mike nights, people are coming out to play with music in greater numbers, according to those who lead and organize the events. Personal benefits include enhanced community, self-expression, stress-reduction, increased energy and good old-fashioned fun. Those who dare to make music imperfectly can also move toward healing emotional wounds and bruised self-esteem by challenging their inner critic and encouraging risk. Others can work to reverse the belief that they are tone deaf, rhythmically challenged or unable to sing.

Reclaiming Our Voice
"With the right coaching, anyone can sing," says Claude Stein, a vocal coach who’s been leading "The Natural Singer" workshops for three decades. He insists that everyone can learn to match pitch, stay in tune and sound good with practice, courage and the right music.

Stein, who’s based in New York, travels the United States to meet the demand for his workshops for would-be vocalists, many of whom have never before sung in public. He becomes part voice teacher, part musical director and part therapist as he helps people to uncover the roots of their performance anxieties and find melodies and words that allow them to sing out loudly and proudly. Others in the workshops act as both support group and audience for those on the mike, and Stein says the results are encouraging for singers and listeners alike.

"If one person sings the heck out of a song, everybody else is moved and more raring to go and take a chance themselves," he says. "The common denominator is heart and courage and the messages and triumphs that we all share."

Vicki Fox took Stein’s workshop at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York, in 1999 after ending a 25-year marriage. She says that she’d always found peace and comfort in music, but didn’t consider herself a singer before entering the class. The workshop improved her voice, Fox says, and changed her life.

"I found what makes me sing out in life," says Fox, who later took lessons with Stein to develop her newfound skills, and now shares them with audiences in and around Pennsylvania. "I started a group called S.I.N.G.—Self-Expression Is Nature’s Gift—and I enrolled six other people to join me in performing solos once a month at assisted living facilities and nursing homes."

Fox says she was so moved by Stein’s "miracles and miraclettes" with people that she invited him to lead workshops in her home to help others as well as herself. "Each time, another layer was peeled off the onion," says Fox. "As I dropped some emotional baggage, the beauty and clarity of my true voice shone through."

Michael Craft is program director at the Omega Institute, where music workshops have become increasingly popular in recent years. He says that name musicians like Bobby McFerrin, David Darling and Jimmy Dale Gilmore draw the greatest numbers to their classes, which reflect Omega’s mission to support lifelong learning, creativity and transformation.

"We often hear that our music workshops have changed people’s lives," says Craft. "We also hear that workshop participants have experienced deep interior healing, whether it be for unresolved past trauma or simply fear of performing in public. And people often say that the work is fun!"

Sacred Songs for Everyone
Not everyone who loves to sing wants to be a soloist, and that’s where singing in community can meet a need for musical expression and participation with a lower fear factor. Adult learning centers like Omega, the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts, and Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, offer workshops in gospel and sacred music singing where people of all religions, races and musical abilities join hearts and voices in song.

"In every traditional village and culture, people sing together, their songs carrying the heartbeat of the people," says Robert Gass, a workshop presenter and author of Chanting: Discovering Spirit in Sound. "Too many of us in modern times have lost the incredible joy of singing together."

Gass has produced 15 sacred music CDs, including the popular Om Namaha Shivaya, derived from the Hindu tradition of devotional chanting. Gass says people from many religious traditions attend his musical gatherings to take part in a community of sound and spirit.

"Many people who do not relate to the particular images or history of Hinduism love to chant the powerful, state-altering sounds of Sanskrit chanting," says Gass. "Chanting opens the heart, clears the mind, relaxes our body, and connects us to others and the larger flow of life."

Singing in a Foreign Tongue
Singing music from other cultures also appeals to those who embrace global community-mindedness. Fred Onovwerosuoke is originally from Ghana, but now makes his home in the United States where he teaches African chorale music to students in various settings. He says the fact that the songs are in African dialects does not deter his singers.

"The beautiful thing about music is that it defies language barriers," says Onovwerosuoke, who patiently teaches pronunciation along with musical notes and rhythms in his workshops. "I think Americans will understand Africa better if they partake in sharing the music and culture."

Onovwerosuoke, who believes that "if you can talk you can sing," says he witnesses exhilaration among his workshop students, who develop relationships with Africa and each other while learning and singing the music. "I see people unify in mind and body," he says. "They go home with new songs, images and spirits of a new world made real to them."

Drums of Passion
The popularity of African drumming in America can be traced to the late Nigerian drum master Babatunde Olatunji, who began sharing his rhythms as a foreign student in the 1960s. Since then, scores of African drum masters have passed on their traditional rhythms to Americans, many of whom went on to become teachers themselves. Today, African drum circles can be found in most cities.

Diana McElroy is a 46-year-old mother of two in Arlington, Massachusetts, who found her way to the drums just a few years ago. McElroy says she always wanted to express herself musically, but felt too timid and insecure.

"I kind of felt this longing around my musician friends who were able to sing and play guitar that this was something I’d love to do," says McElroy, "but I didn’t know how, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it."
 McElroy says that playing with her children opened her up to more music and creativity as an adult. When she saw an ad for drum classes in the Boston area, she signed up, and got hooked.

"African drumming is something to share with other people," she says, "which is one thing that attracted me. And it’s really accessible. I could do it and I’ve always loved rhythm."

Fueled by the positive feelings she had while drumming, McElroy went on to join a community choir, where she uncovered her singing voice and met kindred spirits. Now, she also takes guitar lessons, continuing a journey of musical exploration that began when she sat down at the drum.

Christine Stevens, who teaches African drumming to beginners in California and beyond, believes that everyone is born musical. "We all took our first drum lessons in the womb," Stevens says. "We banged on pots and pans in the kitchen, and we skipped, danced, and hummed a tune as we walked. That rhythm child still exists in every person."

Beating the Blues
Stevens notes that drum circles are considered a holistic health trend today because they can help to reduce stress, increase energy, and improve moods among participants. Other benefits include exercise, active meditation, unity with others and musical expression. Drumming also can help relieve depression, says Stevens, who took her drum classes to schools and hospitals in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"A therapist [there] who was struggling with depression reported, ‘This is the first time I’ve relaxed and let go of the burden of grief and loss I experienced,’" Stevens recalls.

Several corporations hire Stevens to lead drum circles for teambuilding, leadership training and workplace wellness. She says that it only takes a few minutes for the average person to "fall into" a rhythm.

"We never teach people how to drum, we simply guide them to remembering the rhythm," says Stevens. "When I start a beat and invite people to join me, they repeat it for about four minutes, at which point, they are deeply entrained to the rhythm. It demonstrates the principle that it takes a little time."

Randy Brody leads drum circles in Connecticut, where he sees people of all ages and backgrounds building community through an activity that’s brand new to most of them. "Even total beginners can play a drum and get a decent sound out of it," he says. "You have instant gratification and instant success, albeit on a basic level. But this is enough to feel the benefits, such as stress release and camaraderie with other participants."

Brody’s oldest student is 102 years old. She lives in an assisted living center where Brody shows up each month with his drums and percussion instruments. "After every drum circle she slowly walks over to me, using her walker, and tells me what a great time she had," says Brody, who also recalls another resident who appeared catatonic in her wheelchair until he began leading the drum circle.

"She started tapping her fingers, and her husband started dancing around her wheelchair," Brody recounts. "I put a small maraca in her hand and she actually attempted to shake it along with the rhythm of the drums. This is why I do the work I do."

Sound Healing
For those who seek the benefits of making music without having to learn it, sound healing circles can provide the chance to improvise music vocally or instrumentally in an intimate environment. Often people can choose their own level of participation in these circles, where facilitators may invite people to take turns receiving the healing tones and vibrations of those making soothing music around them.

No musical experience is required for these healing circles, only a desire to contribute one’s individual expression to the larger sound. And that, ultimately, is what all music-making is really about.

Source: Kim Childs