Week 4: First Friday group

Welcome to week 4! Since my last blog, I hosted my first music-based Friday group! Although it was my first time leading the discussion, it went incredibly well. We had a great turnout (including one woman who specifically made time just so she could “get in on this music discussion”), and we worked through how music impacts our mood. The question “What is a song that reminds you of a positive moment in your life?” and “What is a song you have turned to during a difficult time in your life? How does this song affect or uplift your mood?” guided our conversation. Not only were the older adults beaming with joy when talking about their favorite songs, but I also got a deepened understanding of how they listen to music. For one woman who has been diagnosed as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), classical music is the only genre she can tolerate, however she still finds her classical music, which she plays in the background of regular activities, to be extremely therapeutic in her daily life. This is a sensitivity factor which I have to consider in my comprehensive review, as a significant percentage of Americans are HSP. 

I certainly learned from this incredible discussion, and the members even gave me homework on fun topics to research for next time (including the benefits of the cello, piano, and kazoo on brain function). This research was fascinating, and I went deeper into the effects of playing music on our fine motor skills and how music’s full-brain “workout” improves communication between our two hemispheres by strengthening activity of the corpus callosum. 

 Our next session will be focused on music and memory, as we discuss how different songs remind us of the springtime (a timely topic for this transition into warm weather). Check back next week to see how that discussion goes!

On Thursday, I hosted my second interview, this time with renowned pianist and staff therapist at the New York University Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy, Renate Rohlfing. Although she could only speak for 15 minutes, we had an amazing discussion about the variety of music therapy and the importance of integrating music into our lives, especially for adolescents. Renate (alongside Olivia Cosío) leads Sounds That Carry, an organization devoted to strengthening community arts programing, and I greatly enjoyed getting to speak to Renate about the importance of this work, especially as arts funding is dwindling.

For my readings, I focused on “Regular Music Exposure in Juvenile Rats Facilitates Conditioned Fear Extinction and Reduces Anxiety after Foot Shock in Adulthood” by Chen et al., another fascinating paper. In this experiment, researchers measured anxiety in 78 juvenile rats (split into two groups: one exposed to music (experimental), another with just ambient music (control)) by examining their behaviors in an Elevated Plus Maze test and in an Open Field test before and after fear conditioning (light electric shocks). Although the electric shocks feel inhumane, this experiment did provide evidence that music exposure in rats facilitates fear extinction and increased brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which can strengthen neural connections. This is great data for my project, and these results are very promising in that music might have the same effect in humans.

On top of all of this work, I kept up with my Monday group and helped with assorted intern tasks at the Life Story Club. I’ll see you next time!