Music Therapy at Pacific
Social Media Editor Megan Silva discusses Music Therapy at Pacific.
“Humans all have the innate ability to create music, whether you realize it or not” stated Jake Scallan, a graduate student in Pacific’s Music Therapy program. He’s setting up a xylophone for this week’s music therapy session at the Veterans Center. This is the first semester that music therapy is being offered at the center. Scallan works in the center as part of his degree program, he explained that “students do four semesters of field work in the music therapy program, I was placed in the veterans center because I’m a veteran myself, so they knew I could help.”
Music therapy is a rapidly growing field in healthcare. It can be described as utilizing music for a non-music outcome. It has been shown to help people improve speech and motor skills, and it can also decrease anxiety. Daniel Beseda, a board certified music therapist at Sutter Pediatric Hospital (and a graduate student and assistant with the Conservatory of Music), wants people to know that “music therapy isn’t just playing music for someone. That’s about five percent of what we do. Primarily, music therapy is a more interactive experience”.
Scallan demonstrated one such activity with the xylophone. The xylophone had 10 pitches equally divided between high and low tones. Scallan played a short melody on one side, and the other participant would respond with their own, or occasionally overlap what was being played. Instruments selected for music therapy are often tuned to be accessible and sound nice for non-musicians. This particular activity sounded absolutely beautiful (it’s actually the reason I found out the Veterans Center offered music therapy. I was in another room and heard the xylophone and had to go check it out).
I attended a second music therapy session in the following week that focused on lyric analysis of an old Irish folk song. Scallan played the song for us, and we all started singing by the end. He then explained the historical context of the song and asked us what lines stood out to us. There were only three of us present at the session, which made for fun and personal conversation. I feel that my week was made better by getting to share music with people.
Scallan hopes “to create a safe space for veterans to have fun, occasionally talk about serious stuff, and meet new people”. Scallan will be hosting music therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:00pm to 3:00pm. The Veterans Center is located on Pacific Avenue across from Knoles Way.