Josh and I went to see YOUNG AT HEART last night. This is a very enjoyable documentary movie about a group of elders–average age of 80–who travel the world from their home in Northampton, Massachusetts, giving concerts of Rock music.

It’s thought-provoking for several reasons.

As one group member says happily, ??????singing is good for you. It clearly makes him feel more alive. It also gives him exercise, since there’s always some choreography accompanying the songs.

It’s also challenging to the brain. The music director, a marvellous man in his early 50’s named Bob Cilman, expects his singers to work: to memorize songs, to grapple with music that is quite foreign to most of this age group (most of whose taste runs to classical music, they say), to sing the songs well.

One singer says ruefully–after being taken to task for not working hard enough at his solo–that Bob is tough, then adds with a grin that he himself is also tough and can handle the heat in this particular kitchen. The group is eclectic and inclusive. It even has room for a 92 year old who can’t really sing but can declaim words with a wonderful British accent. It’s apparent that everybody is having fun even while taking their performances seriously.

This is a perfect example of the power of music into old age. Singing Rock music forces him to stretch the boundaries of his taste, one man says, since he has never really understood its appeal. But when you see him sing with a sparkle in his eye, totally focused on performing, you know that his engagement with this music makes all the difference. It’s fun. It’s rhythmic. It’s loud. It taps the youngster inside each of us.

Several times during the movie the audience we were part of–made up of all ages, from little kids to their grandparents–spontaneously burst into applause, as if we were watching live theater. I’m surprised we didn’t all get up and dance!

Go see it. People can really surprise themselves in a wonderful way when they let down their hair and follow a playful, knowledgeable leader.

Lynne has just shared an absolutely riveting article with me, “Second Nature: “Your Personality Isn’t Necessarily Set in Stone.” It comes from the current issue of Psychology Today (April 2008). What especially caught my attention was a remarkable story of optimism in action.

David Fajgenbaum, a freshman at Georgetown University, was faced with the predicament of a mother dying of brain cancer. Rather than avoid this fact by escaping into the whirlwind of college activities, he spent every weekend with his family. Even more significant, he had an inspiration. Because there was no on-campus counseling for grieving students, he established a support group, Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers. It soon expanded into some 20 chapters and has come to serve high school kids as well. This is an unforgettable example of the way human beings can transcend grief through dedicating themselves to extending comfort to others.

Two of the great composers of the 19th-century, Johannes Brahms and Gabriel Faure, each wrote masterpieces of musical consolation, unique settings of the Requiem after similar losses. Instead of focusing on the usual fire and brimstone of divine judgment, their music transports us to world of serenity, a calming world for the survivors of personal loss.

Brahms began working on his monumental A German Requiem around 1865. Although he said that he had “the whole of humanity in mind,” it is clear that the deaths of his beloved mentor Robert Schumann and then his mother were precipitating factors, intensifying his feelings about both the dead and, more important, the living. Rather than follow the traditional Catholic liturgy, it draws upon such sources as the psalms, prophetic writings, and The Gospels. The general tone of the work is set in the opening movement, which begins with the following quotation from The Gospel According to St Matthew: “Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”

The year 1888 saw the premiere performance in Paris of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem, a work written in the shadow of his father’s death. Like the Brahms, it is sublimely serene, even though the text comes from the Catholic liturgy. One of its movements, “Pie Jesu” (“Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy. You who take away the sins of the world, grant them peace.”) has taken on a life of its own with its otherworldly sound.

Peace and comfort will await you when you immerse yourself in this music, music which has inspired singers and listeners alike for well over a century. Open yourself to its transcendent beauty. Savor the experience and allow it to suggest ways you might, like David Fajgenbaum, transform your loss into some positive action.

“A soft answer turneth away wrath.” The timeless wisdom of this biblical proverb (Proverbs 15:1) has found artistic expression in one of Beethoven’s most divine creations– the slow movement of his Piano Concerto no. 4, a work I have previously written a post about (see post for 14.10.2007)

For some 19th-century commentators, this movement evoked the image of Orpheus taming the wild beasts, even though Beethoven himself is nowhere on record as having claimed any connection with the Greek legend. Yet the music has such compelling power as to make the association quite convincing.

What is unmistakable is the vivid contrast presented at the outset. Using only unison strings playing in angry clipped phrases in an uncompromising martial rhythm, Beethoven has his solo instrument respond in a gently pleading voice. And by the midpoint of the movement it has won over the strings as it grows ever more expansive. For their part, the strings now punctuate the music with subdued pizzicato chords, harmony coming to them at last. And in the exquisite closing moments of the movement, with the piano now in serene control, we hear in the lower strings only a distant echo of the opening anger. In the eloquent words of Edward Downes: “The stern voice of the orchestra relents, the octaves melt into harmony, and at the very end, orchestra unites with solo in a little sigh of acquiescence.”

Lynne suggests: as you listen to this movement, pay particular attention to the musical process Josh has described.

Have there been times in your life when you have felt furious and then, through dialog with a quiet inner voice, been able to bring yourself back to a state of equilibrium? Can you recall times when you have intuitively calmed others’ fury through your quietness?
Savor each memory as you listen to the movement.

If anger has been hard for you to let go of, try imagining that the piano is the voice of your inner wisdom gradually growing strong enough to be heard as you listen with new ears and new awareness.

I had a fascinating experience the other night which just proved to me once again what a powerful effect music and sound have on the human nervous system for good or ill.

I attended a monthly meditation group led by a highly respected oncologist in New York City. Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, who has made many CDs and written numerous books on the healing power of sound and clearly is passionate about the subject. Dr. Gaynor is unusual in combining mainstream and complementary medicine for his patients.

Being with people who have come together with their doctor in a setting other than his office or the hospital is a rare enough experience; watching him expertly play singing bowls as he chanted in (I believe) Hindi as well as English was mind-blowing. Then he asked all of us in the gracious livingroom of the Manhattan apartment to chant OM five times at whatever pace was right for us. At this point chanting truly became singing, since everybody chanted at a different pitch. The sound built and resonated in our ears and bones in that room filled with people.

Some of them were current cancer patients. Others have been, and are not now. Others never have been. Dr. Gaynor focuses on prevention as well as treatment. Does music prevent cancer? That’s not the right question. Instead, do certain kinds of sound and music promote mindfulness, which is a state of quiet in which the immune system can renew itself?

We say yes. We know people with heart diseases who also attend Dr. Gaynor’s group, and we would guess that people with autoimmune diseases that are exacerbated by stress would benefit from this kind of experience too. The focus, peacefulness, and optimism which were present in that room are hard to come by in everyday life.

I think there is special power in group experiences of this sort. Just as groups can engage in mindless violence, so coming together to make “joyful sound” can increase individual mindfulness. But mindfulness is a quality we need to practice daily by ourselves as well.

With that in mind, Josh and I recently bought a crystal singing bowl to play as we listen to certain pieces of music. Our bowl is pitched to B. The chakra is the top of the head. The element is thought or understanding. The color associated with it is violet, my favorite color.

This was a surprise, since when we bought the bowl–we had few choices at the store and were mindful of cost–we were told it was pitched to C, which resonates at the base of the spine and relates to physical needs. But the bowl knew better than we did what we truly wanted, and it’s given that to us.

In today’s New York Times, Daniel Levitin writes on a topic we have already discussed in these posts, because it is fundamental to our workshops. His take on it is worth reading. He calls it “Dancing in the Seats.” (Click on his title to read the original article.)

Levitin, who is a professor of psychology and music at McGill University in Montreal, studies the many aspects of music’s effects on our brains. He points out that “The ancient connections between music and movement show up in the laboratory. Brainscans…make it clear that both the motor cortex and cerebellum–the parts of the brain responsible for initiating and coordinating movements–are active during music listening, even when people lie perfectly still. Singing and dancing have been shown to modulate brain chemistry, specifically levels of dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter.”

The bottom line is his strong belief that we would all have more fun in the concert hall if we could get up and move to the music. He recommends–tongue in cheek perhaps–that when Lincoln Center is renovated, some of the seats should be ripped out to give listeners room and permission to move to the beat of Ravel or Mahler or even Bach.

Try this in your own livingroom: put on a piece of classical music that you love and move to the music in any way that feels “right.” If you can’t actually move around safely, conduct the music or at least sway your body and tap your foot to it from a chair. As`Levitin says, “Music can be a more satisfying cerebral experience if we let it move us physically.” The more open you are to this, the more you’ll get from it.