© 2011 Sammie Thompson All Rights Reserved
What is Musical Massage?
Musical Massage is a new concept in music developed by Sammie Thompson, Music Lady.
It is:
Music - created expressly for healing and therapeutic use - actual songs, each with the ability to stand alone as enjoyable listening, combined in a certain order which encourages the body and mind to relax, the heart to open and the spirit within to receive nourishment, via the flow of specific vibrational patterns and their Sounds.
This musical application is often perceived by listeners as a "musical massage" of the senses, a rebalancing of personal energies - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Listeners describe their experience with this music as deeply relaxing, calming, soothing, restoring, restful, rejuvenating, reconnecting, centering, peaceful, uplifting, transforming, leaving a sense of well being, much as in a deep physical massage.
What is the history of Musical Massage?
Musical Massage evolved out of my personal and professional experience as a pianist/vocalist performing live music in numerous and diverse venues in the U.S. and abroad. Comments most often heard from listeners were universal: "Your music is beautiful! It's so soothing and healing!"
Once, while performing at a world-class resort, one young woman stated, "I had such a headache when I came in here, I really didn't even feel like hearing any music, or even eating dinner. But now, after listening to your music, my headache is gone, and my appetite has returned. I feel so much better! Your music is really healing!"
While I appreciated the feedback, and noted the same wording repeating time and again, it was never my conscious intent to do music that was healing. I do music because I love it. My only intent was - and is - to play and sing every note with love.
Years later, during a lengthy caregiving stay with my father, he began to ask me to play the piano and sing for him. "It's the only time I get any rest. It's the only time I can really relax." I enjoyed the welcome break from caregiving duties; it was healing for me - on many levels - to sit at the piano,
play and sing a combination of his favorite standards and my own originals.
At first, Dad listened and smiled for a song or two, then drifted off into sleep. As long as the music was playing, he remained totally relaxed, waking again soon after the music stopped. With each successive music session, he went to sleep sooner and stayed asleep longer. After just a few of these special times, within a few seconds after the first note, he would be stretched out in his recliner, snoring deeply. While resting, his body would actually change in appearance, reflecting more light. He awoke glowing with new energy. It was during this time the term 'music ministry' began to come to me. I knew something very special was developing, although I had no idea at that time what it was, or where it would take me. Much later, I would learn about the progressive and accumulative affect of live music applications.
In another incident, I went with other family members to visit our uncle, who was in his hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, resting after surgery. He had a pink, healthy color, but was non-responsive
to any verbal communication. When I had the opportunity to be alone with him, I looked at the monitors he was hooked up to, noticing how rather angry and jagged their lines were.
Instinctively, I touched his hand, began to caress it, and started to sing a little song I made up in the moment, about how much I loved him, and some of our times together as I was growing up. Almost immediately, the lines on the monitors changed from harsh, spiked peaks to smooth rolling waves, and tears rolled down his cheeks. Even in an unconscious state, he was able to hear and respond to my music and love. This was the second strong instance of an inner knowing that something very important was occurring with the use of music in a health-care setting.
A third insight came while sitting in on classes as a visitor to the Chalice of Repose school in Missoula, Montana. Students of music thanatology were being taught to play harp and sing every note with pure love, to help dying individuals cross over in peace and tranquillity. Being in the midst of that healing vibration, I knew I had found my life's calling, my "music ministry." But I would not be able to get into that program for another two years, and on the drive back home, inner guidance gave me to understand I needed to work with the living as well as the dying.
A series of "coincidences" led to finding and enrolling in the Music for Healing and Transition Program on Vashon Island, Washington. In 1996, I graduated from MHTP, became the first Certified Music Practitioner in Washington State, one of the first in the world. I began to play harp and compose new music created especially for use in this new field: musical care-giving at the patients bedside. My music ministry was received in local hospitals, rehabilitation centers and retirement homes, applying live music applications, documenting patient responses, and doing independent research. I knew this new music was something in a classification by itself, but didn’t know what it
was to be named.
In response to requests from patients and visitors to take my music home with them, I began to
record the first two instrumental harp albums. One evening as I was playing for a very tense, rigid
and emotionally distraught woman whose husband had recently succumbed to a lengthy ordeal with cancer, I became aware of the particular ebb and flow of the music, as intuition guided me in which songs to play, in what sequence and manner. The words "Musical Massage" came to me. I recognized this as the term for what I had been doing for several few years as a Certified Music Practitioner.
I remained silent, continuing to play particular melodies for the woman, who had entered into a state of deep, total relaxation - within a few minutes, her head had tilted back, her mouth was wide open, and her body had gone from a bolt upright position to a 45 degree angle, almost to the point of sliding out of the chair! After fifteen - twenty minutes, the music ended naturally, followed by peaceful silence. Several minutes passed before the woman gradually came back into the the waking state. She slowly pulled herself back upright in the chair and rather drowsily declared, "Wow! I feel like I've just had a massage!"
This confirmed the terminology, "Musical Massage"as the name for the new modality that had been evolving with this new music over a period of several years. In October, 1998, I released the first two innovative albums "Journey to the Ocean" - musical massage by instrumental harp, wind and sea (recorded live at the ocean!), and "Journey into the Heart" - musical massage by instrumental harp (100% pure harp!).
(For an updated listing of available releases, go to the recording link.)
I feel blessed and grateful to continue my work as a Certified Music Practitioner, additionally
presenting, workshops, lectures, concerts and other musical performances.
How does music influence healing?
Researchers around the world are exploring answers to this question. While making no claim to heal, studies clearly document that live music can:
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•Help lower blood pressure, basal metabolism and respiration
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•Assist production of salivary immunoglobulin, which speeds healing, reduces infection and controls the heart rate
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•Help regulate and stabilize heartbeat
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•Promote production of endorphins, reducing pain
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•Reduce stress
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•Relieve body and mental tension
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•Aid mental focus
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•Lift and clear the consciousness
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•Shorten the patient stay
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•Ease the delivery process of the birthing mother
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•Facilitate the transition process of the dying
Music is being used effectively to aid digestion, reduce pain, stress, assist in drug and detoxification therapies, and with patients who are:
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•Chronic, critical or temporarily ill
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•Emotionally or mentally ill
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•Depressed
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•Bereaved
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•Alzheimer's patients
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•Birthing mothers
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•Newborn babies
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•Developmentally disabled
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•Dying
How does Musical Massage work?
It works in several ways. Here is a simple explanation ...
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1.The part of the brain that processes information - that which we have our attention on, can be aware of only one experience at a time. If it is aware of pain, then the body feels pain. When attention turns toward music, then the music is all it has awareness of. Pain diminishes greatly, often to the point where it subsides completely, is not felt. This generally lasts as long as the attention is on the music is that is playing, and in many cases, for a period of time afterward, especially if the listener drifts into a sleep state.
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2.The vibrations of the music itself are also experienced directly at the cellular level, in the physical and emotional response systems, impacting influence on the physical body to body produce and release helpful chemicals and nutrients, encouraging a return to natural body functions and rhythms, facilitating relaxation of tension, worries, cares and concerns.
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3.Helps to regulate heartbeat, breathing, sense of well-being, restore balance and harmony.
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4.With repeated use of therapeutic music, an accumulative affect most often occurs. The patient tends to respond to the music more quickly, deeply, with longer lasting results.
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5.Clinical studies have proven that patients who receive therapeutic music applications tend to have less pain, require less medication, heal faster, feel better and have shorter hospital stays.
What is Musical Massage?
