Music Interactive Arts The Band Plays On Presented by Cynthia Hill Noll, MA, MS, Expressive Arts Therapist and Counselor Michele Erich, MM, MT-BC, Music Therapist The music interactive arts session began with an inspirational community-building song that verbalized the importance of the therapeutic relationship. Participants learned to play two basic Afro-Cuban rhythms. Throughout the thirty minute session participants explored rhythmical dynamics and heartwarming vocalizations. We are musicians in a band called life. Everyday we decide who to play with in this band. The music sounds the stories of our lives. It is an interactive process that allows us to resonate with one another, to feel connected. In hospice one of my favorite players was a ninety-one year old patient who had traveled and worked in many lands. As we played our drums together the room became magical. The pulse of our hearts connected. Our breathing connected. We were transported to the lands of Africa and Latin America. The hospice room was left behind. Images of lush green jungles and wild animals filled us. All the cells in our bodies became enlivened and free in the richness of these deep earth rhythms. We were a band of two musicians who came together in this most unlikely place. He was playing his final songs with me and I was honored just to be in his presence. The djembe and bongos reverberated through the hospice walls to other rooms. The energy lifted us and those around us. It filtered down the hallway to the nurse's station. One day as we played, I asked him, "What is the most important lesson that I should know about life?" His blue eyes sparkled as he replied, "Stay curious about life; never lose that sense of wonder." It was his childlike spirit infused with this sense of wonder that endeared him to everyone that he met. His face invited you into his world and his contagious laughter warmed your soul. I taught this beautiful chant during this Music Interactive segment of the North Carolina Arts in Health Conference. I dedicated it to him in my heart for he taught me so much about life as he shared his final songs with me. The words go like this: I am a circle. I am healing you. You are a circle. You are healing me. Unite us beat as one. Unite us beat as one. The aforementioned inspirational story of this man and our band became part of the introduction to "The Band Plays On." In the band of the Training Institute, we shared thirty minutes of drumming and chanting in a large group circle. Each band member played a drum or percussion instrument of their choice. The group experience resembled a half hour musical piece that builds to a crescendo then decrescendos to a hushed shhhh. Band members became entrained—feeling a sense of oneness in body, mind, and spirit—as the rhythms moved up and down our spines, tingled in our fingers, and warmed our hearts. The air filled with a red-hot fire energy that was extinguished by a calm blue water energy. Happy giggles, yawns, and long relaxing "ahs" created a sound procession from beginning to end. We were creating a healing circle where we felt connected for a brief moment in time. We were transported to a magical place not the wilds of Africa or Latin America but a powerful united vision for the future of North Carolina Arts in Health. We were united as one. We felt supported by one another in our visioning and music-making. We shared that childlike spirit and "sense of wonder" as musicians in this band called life. Back to Agenda | NC Arts For Health