MUSIC MAKES A DIFFERENCE WITH CHILDREN BECAUSE:

• the brain processes music in both hemispheres: music can stimulate cognitive functioning and may be used for remediation of some speech/language skills.
• music can encourage socialization, self-expression, communication, and motor development.
• music therapy can help a child manage pain and stressful situations.
• music is inspires many moods: music can highly motivating, and also calming.
• successful music activities make children feel better about themselves.
• the medium of music therapy allows the joy of play to occur naturally and frequently: children learn best in such an environment.
• music stimulates all of the senses and involves the child at many levels: this "multi-modal approach" facilitates many developmental skills.

Even the most informal involvement in music education can be a vehicle for school aged children to develop social and academic skills including increased motor skill development, improved academic performance, better temporal-spatial manipulation ability, increased self-esteem, greater appreciation of the value of teamwork, a sense of recognition by the community, achievement and a means of self-expression [from Global Education in Music (http://www.get-m.org/whyarts.html)].

Global Education Through Music, a San Diego based organization devoted to the promotion of the arts tells us that the youth involved in its arts programs are drawn by the excitement of:

• creative and artistic expression,
• recognition for performances, exhibitions or public art works,
• learning new job skills, and
• using the arts to communicate difficult thoughts and emotions.
  (http://www.get-m.org/whyarts.html)

In London there are many programs that adopt a similar approach, including Investing in Children’s Kids Count Leadership Camp. At this leadership camp, one elective for the children to chose from has been a drumming workshops led by Dale Marcell. Dale Marcell, master musician and director of The Marcell School of Drum, cites the following benefits of drumming:

1. stress relief: brain wave patterns change after brief drumming sessions to more relaxed states [ see Dr. Barry Quinn];
2. synchronization of brain waves in both brain hemispheres: like deep mediation, may be the neurophysiological basis of higher states of consciousness [Layne Redmond];
3. increase in confidence and self-acceptance, as peers and accept all performances;
4. teambuilding: members of the drumming circle listen to each other, find their own place in the group, assist others, and take leadership roles; and
5. increased cardiovascular performance leading to better health.

The basis of such success may be the unconditional acceptance of each individual musician. As Dale states, “There is no such thing as failure in the drumming circle...”

Read the full Article Courtesy of Investing In Children.

Everyone knows that musical ability is nothing but beneficial to a child.  However, have you ever actually been given a list of the benefits to actually look at?  Well now, you have.  Listed below is the list of benefits a child can experience as a drummer.

1. Being a musician in and of itself is one of the main benefits.
2. It is a physically active instrument to play. Which can only be good for your health and makes for a strong body. It has been shown that drummers have stronger cardio muscles than most!
3. When kids have a hobby such as drumming they are no longer sitting in front of the TV, video games or the computer for hours on end.
4. Exercising the brain as it learns these new tasks.
5. It also exercises the memory, which helps to increase the ability to remember. This may lead to less worry of forgetfulness as a child ages.
6. It will boost a child’s morale to be part of a team such as a band.
7. Having and wanting to practice will teach your child self-motivation because no one can practice for them and if they want to be the next ringo starr they have to put the effort in!
8. It is a safe, effective way for a child to release his or her emotions in a constructive way opposed to a destructive way.
9. Their moods will be “viewable” in the music they play.

10. It gives kids a sense of security.  A sense of a good job well done when a lesson is learned or a song is played well. It lets kids know that yes they can be a music maker.

11. Discipline is needed to play any musical instrument but especially the drums.  Any child that desires to play the drums but lacks discipline will find that they must learn one to learn the other.

12. It increases eye to hand coordination and that is something that is used all throughout life.

13. It teaches endurance and patience.  Time and practice is the only thing that will get that song played right and as your child learns this, they will develop the traits of endurance and patience.

Article courtesy of Articles Base.

"I once worked with a young person with Parkinson's disease who had trouble initiating movement. I explored different rhythm patterns with him. We then made a cassette of different kinds of African drumming that he seemed to find very stimulating and helped him get moving. Anytime he had to walk across a street, whereas in the past he may freeze, he would put on his headphones and listen to African rhythms to get to the other side without freezing in the middle of rush hour traffic. We know that rhythmic cueing works because we have seen it clinically. The underlying mechanisms of how it works is what we are trying to understand better. Freezing in Parkinson's disease is when the person can't initiate movement and literally stops in his or her place. No matter how much he or she tries, he or she can't move. It seems as if the person's will has been removed. Even though the anticipation and desire is there, the patient's body doesn't respond to the signal.

"A man who was in our short-term rehabilitation program had a stroke, and he had a left side hemiparesis which means he wasn't paralyzed, but he did lose sensation in the left side of the body. He was in our physical rehabilitation program and was going to be discharged to the community, but he was still shuffling his left leg and literally dragging it. His physical therapist felt he wouldn't be safe walking outside without supervision. The optimal goal for him was to walk independently with a cane. They asked me if there was something we could recommend with music to help him feel his body so he could sway and lift his left side to get a sensation of lifting the leg even though he had limited feeling. I asked his physical therapist to measure his safe walking speed which was the same rhythm as one of Nat King Cole's songs, "Walking My Baby Back Home." I asked him a couple of times a week to walk comfortably to the song, but what he did was interesting. Instead of just walking to it, he did shuffle steps, moving backwards and forwards, almost as if he were dancing.

"He said he felt like, in listening to the music, he needed to move more, telling me he hasn't danced since he was a kid. It appeared as if the memory of dancing was still there, and the body wanted to move that way.

"In less than two months he was able to lift his leg on the beat, absolutely coordinated in time. In fact, at the end of two months, he actually got the sensation back again so he could again feel the floor. Some might say this is normal recovery, but our guess is that because he was using his leg differently, activating a muscle memory for dancing, there was indication that there is a different motor schemata in the brain for different muscle activity. When you walk you use one, when you dance you use another since it incorporates tempo. Perhaps that kicked in. This is hypothetical. We know clinically that this ability exists. We are trying to prove it scientifically. In this case, the rhythm was more important than the melody, since it was the rhythm at the tempo at which he could walk that initiated the change. The melody helped him sing the song himself and helped him to self-integrate those rhythms."

Drumming and Paralysis
Arthur Hull, a well-known drum circle facilitator, describes an experience involving a woman who used drumming to regain motor function after she was paralyzed.

"I did a program in Mill Valley in a hospital once, and a lady came up to me and told me this story: She had been involved in an accident that paralyzed her. The doctors gave her almost no hope of regaining any movement in her body from her waist down and told her that she had to acknowledge this limitation and live with it. She decided not to. She had upper body movement, and she started playing doumbeks, talking drums and bongos. Because she was a dancer, she didn't think she could live if she couldn't move her legs. She started imagining and moving her body from her prone position, any movement she could manage while she played the drum with her upper torso. She called it "micro muscle movement dancing." Slowly but surely, larger and larger movements occurred to the point that she could wiggle her toes, then move her body, until finally she could sit in a chair and play larger drums. After four years of constant drumming and dancing in this way, she became a dancer again, though now she is a drumming dancer or a dancing drummer depending on her mood. She now has full movement of her body, and she is graceful and beautiful."

The Drum-So Powerful, Yet So Simple
I can honestly say that I never bring drums and people together without several people coming up to me afterwards, expressing wonder, excitement, and even euphoria. The credit belongs to the drum, the magical, sacred drum, which has the extraordinary power to touch something deep and powerful within all. It awakens an aspect of ourselves that lies dormant until it hears an ancient calling through the rhythms of this healing vehicle. These sounds awaken our spirits and speak to our most primal and truest selves.

The drum touches that part of us that knows nothing of cell phones, faxes and deadlines. This part of us to which the drum speaks knows only inner peace, self-expression, and that which is our very basic life force. Drumming creates an island in time, where all else is shut out except the rhythms that issue forth from your fingertips at your pace, expressing your feelings at that present moment. Is it any wonder our souls hunger for it? The only wonder is that a need so vital could be supplied by a vehicle so simple-the drum.

Robert Lawrence Friedman, MA, Remo artist, is author of "The Healing Power of the Drum", psychotherapist, president of Stress Solutions, Inc www.stress-solutions.com. He has appeared on The Today Show in New York, Fox News and most recently on the Class of '75, a Discovery Health channel series, sharing his philosophy of drumming and wellness. The Healing Power of the Drum can be purchased at www.wc-media.com, www.amazon.com and www.bn.com.

Article available on the web here.

 © Robert Lawrence Friedman

By: Mike Aldax
Examiner Staff Writer
August 23, 2009

Bang a drum: Sal Nunez has earned national acclaim for his approach to medicinal drumming. (Mike Koozmin/Special to The Examiner)

SAN FRANCISCO — No need for that apple — turns out that beating on a drum can help keep the doctor away, say San Francisco health officials.

Drum circles are emerging as an effective and respected treatment method for conditions such as stress and anxiety, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which endorsed the practice in a recent agency report.

Medicinal drumming, formerly called “therapeutic drumming,” is a decade-old practice based on centuries­-­old wisdom, and is being used in The City to keep at-risk youths out of gangs and help trauma victims face their demons, among other uses, the city report said.

The practice was developed by Sal Nunez, a psychologist and professor at City College of San Francisco who has earned national acclaim for the holistic approach. He holds circles to treat trauma victims, and also hosts them for youths and adults in need of psychological counseling.

“It’s a really strong, good therapy that’s been very helpful in keeping kids off the street,” said Public Health spokeswoman Eileen Shields.

“Repetitive patterns influence brainwave activity,” Nunez said. “If a person is susceptible to seizures or perhaps psychosis or has been significantly traumatized, repetitive patterns can trigger some of that.”

The medical community is buying into the practice. Just recently, Nunez’ therapeutic drumming was recognized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as a “culturally appropriate” and clinically proven practice.

Nunez credits forward-thinking city officials for helping him foster therapeutic drumming.

“It’s giving a voice to the practices that cultures have been utilizing for years,” Nunez said.

maldax@sfexaminer.com

  Article available on the web here.