The One You Feed - Dean Quick

Episode Date: February 15, 2017

[powerpress] Please Support The Show With a Donation   This week we talk to Dean Quick about the healing power of music Dean Quick, MT-BC is the Program Director and Board Certified Music Therapist for TranscendED, a treatment center for eating disorders. He also provides broader music therapy through his personal practice. He is also a member of the Music Therapy Association of North Carolina.   In This Interview, Dean Quick and I Discuss... His work as a music therapist for people with mental illness How he works with clients who have no musical ability or skill That live music is most effective as well as the client's preferred music in music therapy That music bypasses the cognitive processes of trauma and allows a person to reach a place within themselves that might otherwise be difficult to access How Gabby Giffords has used music to retrain her language That music can ignite the brain unlike anything else Where someone would go to explore music therapy as a patient That music can be used as therapy for children with developmental disabilities How music can be used by anyone as therapy on their own as therapy with some simple approaches Being mindful of the power of music in your own daily life Honoring the feeling in the moment with music Asking yourself "how am I honoring my feeling in this present moment" How we can engage with music in a mindful way to increase the power it has in our lives Using music to pace your practice of progressive muscle relaxation Why it's better to choose our own music rather than buying music playlists that are "for relaxation"     Please Support The Show with a DonationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The brain is this plastic organ, right? It can change. And music kind of sets up these new pathways. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious,

consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like... Why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dean Quick, the program director and board certified music therapist for Transcend ED, a treatment center for eating disorders. He also provides broader music therapy through his personal practice. Dean is a member of the Music Therapy Association of North Carolina. If you value the content we put out each week, then we need your help.

As the show has grown, so have our expenses and time commitment. Go to oneufeed.net slash support and make a monthly donation. Our goal is to get to 5% of our listeners supporting the show. Please be part of the 5% that make a contribution and allow us to keep putting out these interviews and ideas. We really need your help to make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again, that's one you feed.net slash support. Thank you in advance for your help. And here's the interview with Dean Quick. Hi, Dean, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on.

I'm excited to have you on because we are going to talk about one of my very favorite things, which is music and the role of music as a therapeutic device and how we can all use music deeper in our lives than we use it today. But let's start like we normally do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops. He thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you.

To me, life is really about finding a balance, right? And so when I hear that parable, I think it does a really good job of honoring balance, right? So the energy you put in is the energy you get out. So my mind first goes to the word balance, right? Because sometimes feeding the good wolf all the time can get us into trouble, just as maybe even feeding the bad wolf a little bit can get us into lately. I've been thinking a lot about the Buddhist teaching of the middle way, and just how many times in my life that is a very valuable thing, is to just try and find somewhere that's in the middle of the two extremes I tend to go to. So that's an interesting way to look at the parable. Let's start off from here by maybe you just telling us a little bit about the work that you do, and we referenced it a little bit in the introduction, by maybe you just telling us a little bit about the work that you do. And we referenced it a little bit in the introduction, but maybe you can give us just a bit more insight into what you do. Yeah. So I'm a board certified music therapist and primarily with the mental health population,

specifically with folks with eating disorders. But in private practice, I see individuals with all sorts of mental health issues and I use music to move them towards their non-musical goals, be it playing music, singing, music-assisted relaxation and imagery techniques, songwriting. I use a lot of improvisation in my work. When I was 13, I cut my jazz teeth and found jazz. And from there, I found improvisation and like to incorporate that into my clinical work as much as possible. So making music is really important to me in my personal life in addition to the clinical work that I do. So help me understand, how do you work with someone in therapy who maybe is not a musician? How can music therapy work for people who don't actually play? Yeah, so that's a great question. So that's a lot of our training as music therapists,

determining how to best support a client musically. So, you know, people meet music a lot of times with hesitation, especially if I'm handing them a drum, like, okay, you play this. And how do you do that, right? So a lot of times I will start with something like a drum that doesn't require a lot of fine motor activity. But that doesn't mean I can't use something like a piano or a guitar. So I might adapt the tuning of a guitar so they only have to use one finger, like an open tuning. Or I may label strings if they really want to get into, like if they really want to play the guitar and it look like they're playing the guitar, I might label the strings and show them simple chord progressions. Label the

keys of a piano is another way to do it. And if someone's really hesitant about it, then maybe that's not the best thing to do. Maybe they won't make music with me, and maybe we'll just talk about the music they love, where I'll play and sing the music. Maybe they will just sing along. So talk to me about how, what are some of the ways that you can use music to help people with mental illness? And just real quickly to frame this up, I'd like to talk about in the strict therapeutic setting, which is kind of what you do for a few minutes here.

And then I'd like to turn to a broader discussion about what you know about how the rest of us can use music in our own lives. So let's talk about it from a therapeutic sense right now. Like, how does this work? What's the theory behind it? And then what are some of the approaches you take with people to help them heal through music? Okay, great. From day one in training as a music therapist, you learn that live music is most effective, most research-based. So live music and the client's preferred music. Let's say someone comes into someone who might benefit from music therapy and they're suffering from just crippling anxiety or like some really tough depression, great depression in their lives. So I'll start with finding out what kind of music they love. And then I'll do research into some music that really sticks out to them. And this is taking a really kind of receptive music therapy approach in the beginning, you know, just connecting with the person initially to build

rapport and giving them kind of a foundation to stand on like, okay, I understand the music that you're listening to. And here's how i kind of see it fold into your life so we might from that point once we have rapport established uh rewrite some of that music about their specific situation like um if let's say a lot of their anxiety derives from the relationship with their mother right so we might adapt the song and rewrite it together about that situation, about their reactions to their mother or family or whoever it is. And then taking it a step further, we might then take that same thinking and apply it to active music making, where they will explore some different sounds. of music making where they will explore some different sounds and they'll choose instruments that represent the feeling that family member gives them, that represents a relationship, that represents the anxiety itself separated from everything else. And then I'll choose a

musical instrument to support their music or to challenge their music or to hold the space so that they can fully express and work through that feeling. Is there also therapeutic conversation that's happening along with this? And you're combining sort of a traditional therapeutic approach and using music maybe as a way to reach parts of the brain in a different way than our normal language does? Absolutely. Because, say, music therapists kind of have a foot in the door when it comes to those things, because people clam up sometimes when you ask them to talk about things that are difficult for them, right? Maybe trauma-related or otherwise. And I absolutely wouldn't just jump right into trauma with someone. But music kind of bypasses those cognitive

processes that we need to just kind of speak about emotions, right? So, we've all experienced, if you love music, that feeling of like you don't really know why, but the hairs are kind of standing up on your arms and you're just really into it, right? Or maybe you don't realize how much time has gone by and you just kind of feel transported, right? So, we don't have to think about that. That's just a response that we as humans are lucky enough to have. Yeah. Right. So I might use music to evoke that response. I might use music once I really have a rapport established with the client to evoke that anxiety, to evoke that depression, and then afterwards talk about

the experience and why. So using those verbal therapy techniques, traditional techniques after the fact, after we've used music to get them to that place. Yeah, I was fascinated by some of the articles that you sent me. And the couple of things that really fascinated me was the one about the man who had dementia. So dementia could not remember who he was for more than five minutes, completely clueless. And yet when he would start singing with his family, he would sing perfectly. He would interact with them. He would harmonize. It was like it went to a completely different part of his brain.

And along the same lines, there was an article about Gabby Giffords, the Arizona senator who was shot and how she has used music to retrain her language. Can you talk a little bit about those two examples? Yeah. So I think Oliver Sacks really talks about music just igniting the brain in ways unlike anything else, right? So when you have someone who has dementia, there are parts of the brain that can be damaged by, you know, this illness. So, much like in the work that happened with Gabby Giffords, neural pathways are essentially recreated. You know, the brain is this plastic organ, right? Like, it can change over time. And music kind of, you know, sets up these new pathways, right? So the brain learns through music to achieve a similar goal.

Now, that's more so with the Gabby Giffords situation. With someone with dementia, you know, they can't access parts of the brain because of the illness. But music, because you essentially use your whole brain, you know, not the whole brain, but most of the brain when you're singing or listening to music sometimes, but more so when you're singing and engaged in your preferred music, you can do those things. It's like a different, you know, it's not memory as much as it's the brain re-experiencing. Yeah, it's fascinating. I have one of the worst memories of anybody I've ever known, not like a single bad memory. I mean, I don't remember things well. I have almost no childhood

memories. And yet I can sing songs from that time that come on. I can't play it, but I can remember how a guitar solo is going from that. It's just bizarre to me that that's all right there. And yet everything else, it just doesn't seem accessible to me. You think about how many senses are engaged when you're just listening, right? Like, I mean, you're hearing it, but then what happens after you listen to the music, right? What's going on internally? Like fireworks are going off, you know? Yeah. Let's pivot now a little bit. Where would somebody go to explore this a little further if they wanted to do it in a strictly therapeutic sense, in a professional setting? Like if someone wanted to become a music therapist?

No, no, if somebody wanted to get musical therapy. If someone wanted to get music therapy and they're not local to me, I would really suggest reaching out to the American Music Therapy Association and the Certification Board for Music Therapists, and they'll kind of pinpoint where you can find someone who's board certified to do music therapy in your area. Excellent. Yeah. And aside from that, you know, one of the reasons I'm so excited to, you know, have this conversation with you is that music can be used on its own, too. Clinically, there are reasons why a board-certified music therapist should implement music therapy, right? You know, in these really serious situations where children with developmental and intellectual disabilities, folks with memory impairments, folks with neurological disorders who could benefit,

like Gabby Giffords, well, just brain injury. Yeah. Those instances where board certified music therapists is absolutely necessary. One of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you about it is because I think everybody should be using music more. I think music is one of these underrated healers that if people just paid a little bit more attention to their listening habits, that'd be really reflective of their process of life. Excellent. I really think tuning that awareness to, okay, well, I've been listening to this music a lot lately. Is it just the music or is it what the music's speaking to me or is it how the music's making me feel and why do I need that? Yeah. You know, why is it that this music's really doing it for me now?

Yeah. So that's, I think what I'd like to spend the rest of the time on is exploring what those of us who listen to and play music in life, how we can use it in a deeper way than we already do. The show is about the parable of the good wolf. What are some ways that people can use music in their own life to feed the good wolf? Personally, for feeding the good wolf with music, I think people should be more mindful of using music more often, right? So, what's a party without music, right? Think about any party you've ever gone to. If there's not music there, then it can get kind of strange, like, oh, well, it doesn't really seem like a party anymore. So I think people using music more in their lives,

more than just something to put on in the background, right? Yeah. I know people, a lot of times when I'm assessing them for appropriateness in music therapy, they say, oh, I'll put music on in the background while I'm doing X or Y or Z. And I really think we could be doing more outside of traditional music therapy, you know, more as people, we could be doing to feed the good wolf with music by bringing it to the forefront.

Right. So being more mindful of the power of music. Yeah. Right. So saying, okay, well, I really did pink floyd but if i'm gonna listen to us and them you know it makes me feel this way but you know if i listen to comfortably numb i feel this way you know you go through and like just really pay attention not just to the artist but to how a song maybe even parts of songs, affect you.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you.

And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, friends. The show is listened to over 50,000 times a week, which completely blows my mind and is amazing. However, we have under 200 people who are supporting the show via a donation. I'd love to close that gap by adding you to the group of people who are supporting the show via a donation. I'd love to close that gap by adding you to the group of people who are supporting the show. It means so much to us. It helps us to pay the bills. It helps us to keep going. The show takes a tremendous amount of time and energy,

and the donations make it possible for us to continue to do this. If you pledge at the $10 a month level, that's 33 cents per day. So ask yourself whether you've gotten 33 cents per day value out of the show. Have we helped you to feel better when you're struggling? Have we helped you in your relationships? Is there anything, what value have we added and is it worth 33 cents a day? And if you pledge at that level, in addition to feeling good about it, you'll get access to an exclusive mini episode every month just for people who support the show. And I do a once a month, ask me anything live chat. I'll even try and get Chris on, but even more than an ask me anything, it's just a chance for us to get together and talk about whatever things are on our mind, share things we're learning, get tips to do different

things better, but it's an opportunity to interact and become more involved. Donate whatever amount works for you, but the important thing is just that you do. You can go to oneufeed.net slash support and make a donation today. Please be part of the small but growing group who are helping to support the show that they love and keep it going. Thanks so much and back to the interview. One of the things that I've done is I've recognized that there are certain moods for me that the only answer is loud rock music. And I've had a couple of the people in the show, Frank Turner and Mike Scott from the Water Boys. I mean, those are two things that when I put on the radio

relatively loud and listen to those two, it does something for me that I'm unable to get any other way. And the other thing I've done is I've created like a playlist of songs that have some effect on me in that direction. Because when I'm feeling kind of blue, or I'm wrestling with depression, if I ask myself, does that sound like a good thing to listen to? I'm usually like, no, I don't want to listen to that, right? Like, but I found that by knowing that like these set of songs help, I can just naturally turn to them like, okay, I need a little pick me up here. So this is what I'm going to go to, instead of relying on what sounds good to me in that moment, which is probably like what depressing thing we could

think of. But yeah, well, I think in that same light, I would encourage you to start with something that does honor that initial feeling of blue. Right. And that's something that we talk about in music therapy is acknowledging the feeling in the moment and then moving it towards something you'd rather experience. Right. with all this you know music streaming services that are out there that like create these playlists just you know based on your listening preferences and some that are out there that just create oh well this is you know um outside of like the top 100 billboard songs or whatever but there's other ones like, like there's a playlist on, on a music streaming service that I subscribe to that has a decompression

playlist and I love it. So sometimes, but I don't love every part of it, you know? So my encouragement to people would be to like, if it's difficult to create your own playlist, because there are people out there who would just rely on a playlist that says decompression and not change it at all yeah my encouragement is to really adapt it and make it your own right like if it's not starting where

you need it to then you know borrow from the playlist what you like and and build from there you know music is this living thing like i don't look at it as like just, you know, it's just music, right? It's not a non-breathing thing. Like, I believe music is this really organic experience that should be treated like a living thing. And in saying that, I believe there's a lot of flexibility in how we can use music outside of therapy. So, making sure that we're honoring our feelings and then also honoring where we'd like our feelings to go there's no shortage of sad sack music coming through my player no need to worry about that yeah like some of my favorite music is you know tom waits is ballads you know

like i love his ballads you know i listen to it. My wife's like, oh, my God, that guy, he sounds like. You're listening to Cookie Monster again? Yeah, he's so grumbly, I don't understand it. You know, I think that's a good illustration of, well, for me, like, you know, of course, when I first started listening to Tom Waits, like, I'm like, oh, gosh, you know, I don't know how long I could listen to it. You know, his voice is something to get used to. For me, the more I tune into the lyrics and then the thought that goes into the music behind it, the more I'm excited by it, right? And the more my feelings feel honored by his music.

You know, I think that's probably one of the biggest takeaways that I want people to think about when they're looking at music and how to use music to enhance their lives is, how am I honoring what I'm feeling right now? Am I honoring this feeling only to get to another emotional state? Or am I being true to myself in this moment in the music that I'm listening to? Essentially, am I jumping the gun by trying to get myself out of this state? That can be frustrating. That could be like okay well i

have someone in their 80s or 90s who's like really loves the music of irving berlin you know they might be familiar with who the beatles are but they're not going to care to listen to the beatles or furthermore nirvana or you know alice in chains or someone who i really most of them are really into alice cooper though strange I find most 90 year olds are it's it's odd but true ice uh but I um that could be frustrating if I took that music in there right so taking that same thinking of okay well I may be feeling this way and I don't want to feel this way okay so I might need to start with some of those things that could make me more sad or more depressed. But it's worth giving some attention to that before you move on because it could be important.

And I think that kind of ties back into music can be reflective of our emotional states more so than we believe. Yeah. You know, I always encourage people to look up their lyrics. You wouldn't believe, like, how many times I'm in a session, I'm using someone's favorite music. And they're like, oh, I never looked up their lyrics. You wouldn't believe how many times I'm in a session, I'm using someone's favorite music. They're like, oh, I never looked up the lyrics. I never realized there's an arc to the story. There's a story here. I never realized that. Because we talk about certain lyrics and how they might be powerful or in this moment when you're listening to it, it really stuck out to me because of the emotional state I'm in. But in that same conversation, people never really look at

the lyrics in the entirety. They just kind of like the song and they sing along with it. So I encourage people to take a step back and really look at what they're listening to. It can be a window into their emotional self they really didn't think was there. Yeah. So there's an old question running around among people who listen to what would be considered depressing music, which was what came first, being depressed and that made you listen to that type of music or did listening to that type of music turn you into a depressive person? It's kind of a funny question, but I'm always sort of interested in that. That is interesting. I like that. And I think that's a good line of questioning.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So you've mentioned, you know, listening to lyrics. What are other ways we can engage with music in a more mindful way to increase our enjoyment of it and the power it has? Some of the things that you might have to do or be assigned to do in a music appreciation class, I always like to talk about that. And in the regard, the listening portion of it, right? So, you know, people tend to listen to one part of a song, right? They're listening to, if they're a guitar player, they tend to focus on guitars or whatever like that. But for non-musicians, I feel a lot of times they're listening to what's making them move, like dance or the lyrics. They really like how the singer is singing, but try listening with an open ear. So the next time you hear the next song that comes on or whatever, try and listen to the drums instead of the vocal track. Try and find the bass guitar.

Try and find the strings and listen to it and listen to the intermingling of the music itself. I find that can be gratifying or people have reported that that's a gratifying experience. And you're telling me there's people out there that don't already do that. I'm sort of still stunned from the lyric thing, but I guess I've just have been such a fiend for so long that those things seem completely foreign to me but i'm sure it's true there's times where i'm meeting with people that they'll they'll hear it and they're they're unable to identify the guitar yeah or they'll think that the electric guitar in some way or another is a keyboard or a synthesizer and you know in some instances it might be and it might

be really hard to tell sometimes yeah so just deepening a basic appreciation for music, I think, is one way. And I'll go into cooler ways, too. But that one, I think, is really important if people aren't already doing that. something like progressive muscle relaxation or something imagery based. There's kind of a gray area with that with like implementing it yourself because, you know, things can come up if you're in a altered state of consciousness. So let's say you talk yourself into a relaxed state and you've got some music on and imagery comes up that's uncomfortable. It would be good for music therapists to be there. But if you choose music that's really predictable and you choose a script that's really kind of surface level, it can be a really relaxing experience, right? And I'm not just saying, you know, choose orchestral music, but choose music that's really comfortable. Yeah, Alice Cooper, that'd be great. I'm just doing this for Chris. he's not here with me right now so

not that he's a big alice cooper fan but it's kind of a joke okay yeah but using your preferred music to just get yourself into that altered state right so progressive muscle relaxation you can find scripts online for that and it's you know the systematic tension and release of the different muscle groups as you go through your body while you're listening. You know, music can be a good way to kind of gauge the tempo of that experience. That's what I found fascinating when I was reading that in your work was that idea of, so I know progressive muscle relaxation. I know music. I never thought of that as a way to, like you just said, to pace it, you know, all right, for four

beats, I'm going to clench my foot. And then after four beats, I'm going to release. And then four beats later, I moved to my cat. I mean, it just is a really interesting way to think of approaching that. I'm going to give that a shot sometime. Yeah, excellent. This is one that I'll use with clients to get them to an altered state is to visualize a color. And when you breathe in, you breathe that color into your lungs. And when you breathe in, you breathe that color into your lungs and then you follow that color as it moves through your lungs and then into your bloodstream and then out to your fingertips. And then you exhale and then it comes back. And then you inhale and you visualize it going out until it fills your fingers up with color.

And then until it fills your hands and arms and so forth. You think about it, by the time 15 minutes has gone by and you've listened to a couple tunes, I mean, you're pretty relaxed. Yeah. You know, and you shifted your attention from anything that's stressful, your workday, school, whatever it is, you've taken time. So, I mean, it's a fun way to just kind of increase your awareness of your body state and, you know, kind of remove yourself from anything that's going on emotional. It's a

good distraction technique that people can use on their own. Well, it's also a useful mindfulness technique, right? Because mindfulness and meditation can be challenging, right? I have a brain that does not settle down easily. And even after many, many years, it still is a fairly untamed horse in certain regards. So sometimes just sitting and following the breath is not workable for a lot of people. We keep our attention on, then our mind wanders off as it naturally will do. We bring it back to the anchor. Music that doesn't have like lyrics and stuff can be a really useful and stronger anchor as we learn to be able to concentrate better. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's gonna drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. God bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just

stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No, Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A lot of times I'll get, like, if someone finds out I'm a music therapist, you know, I use that at home, you know, I found a CD at the store, you know, music for relaxation. And, you know, I'm glad that those work for some people, but I always encourage people to choose their own music

and not buy these CDs that are designed for music relaxation because essentially what someone's done most of the time is they've just thrown some piano music on a CD and said, this is for relaxation, you know, without putting much thought into it. So I encourage people to put a lot of thought into the music they choose because it's their experience, you know, and there should be thought put into the music that's used because it's this important thing. Yep. Right. It affects how you feel.

Has there ever been one of those CDs that did not have pocket bells cannon on it? That's really the big question of this interview. I'm pretty sure it is, but it's, it's been on them all. Yeah. Yeah.

You're absolutely right. I believe so. There's some version. This one's got harpsichord. That's right. That believe so. There's some version. This one's got harpsichord. That's right. That's right. It's always there. This one has piano, but there's a drone behind it, you know? So choosing your own music, I agree, is important. There seem to be some characteristics of the music that tend to be helpful. Like I used to try and do this with classical music. And a lot of classical music, I found that challenge. I also used to try and sleep to it. And there can be variation in tempo, there can be variation in loud versus soft. And for me, that's a little bit more jostling. And so the music that's more thought of as meditative music, at least the things that I'm great deal and a fairly level volume and usually that it plays for a long period of time. So I'm not having to go from track to track as often.

That's great. You're on the right track with that. I mean, because what people typically call classical music can be very evocative, right? Like emotionally evocative. And it's written for that purpose. Right. And that's one of the reasons, like in my music therapy sessions, if I'm with a client and we're using, like we're trying to do something imagery based with the music relaxation, I use that evocative music. But for someone in their home that wants to use it to relax, you do need something that's going to repeat and that's predictable and that the dynamics are

really level and the tempo isn't too fast or too slow. Like it's just kind of right in the middle, especially if you're going to use it for something like progressive muscle relaxation where you're really pacing it. And something that's somewhere between 10, 12 or 15 minutes is ideal for progressive muscle relaxation. Or, I mean, just to kind of zonk out for a little bit and just focus on the music and let it kind of take you where you need to go. Yeah, if anybody listening to this show has ever used Slayer for progressive muscular relaxation,

please give me a call. I'd like to talk. You can be on our next episode. So I want to wrap up here in a minute, but let's finish for those of us who are musicians. And there's a good number of people I know who listen to this show who are musicians, and Chris and I are. What are some ways that we can make music in a way that it furthers our wellness?

Get away from the page, in that a lot of times what you'll see in musicians is that, you know, I got to nail this lick just right, right? Like it's got to sound exactly how it was written. And I say, make it your own, right? So improvise. That's my biggest thing for folks who are musicians is to improvise. So take a, you know, take a couple bars of something that you're working on and just improvise, right? And, you know, take a couple bars of something that you're working on and just improvise. Take a melody, like if you're playing and singing, take that chord progression and change the melody. Or I encourage people to make music together. It's one thing to improvise on your own, and that's great, and you can get a lot out of that. But if you have the opportunity to improvise with someone else, that to me is where, you know, someone else or more people in a group, that is just so gratifying, I think, for people.

And I mean, think about what that does for self-expression. Think about what that does for relaxation or distraction. To me, people I've made music with over the years, I have some of the deeper connections with. with over the years, I have some of the deeper connections with. I might not even talk to those people anymore. Or we might not have even been that close of friends at the time. But because we made music, we have this deep connection. I know if I start playing this, you're going to come in and take it this way. And that musical relationship, I think, does a lot for our overall well-being. So my biggest thing for musicians that I encourage is improvise. Yeah, that's absolutely true. That idea of playing with other people can be so

powerful. And I never really learned to play other people's music, which has been a drawback in a lot of ways. But then in a lot of other ways, it's been good, because that's really all I know how to do is basically partially figure something out and then steal it for my own and, you know, and just kind of play. But it is really such a powerful thing. And I've been reflecting lately on how grateful I am that I learned to play the guitar. What a thing that is that I have in my life that is kind of always there for me. It's a hobby. It's something I like doing. It's something that challenges me. It just has so many wonderful benefits. And Chris and I write all the music for the show, all the music breaks are. And sometimes it's Chris, sometimes it's me. My favorite ones are certainly when it's the both of us working on it together. You know exactly what you're describing, that sort of thing happens. Another thing I would encourage musicians to do is to, you know, try new instruments too. I personally get a lot of joy out of that.

Like every year, year and a half, I'll try and pick up something new. My primary instrument has always been drums and percussion. try and pick up something new. My primary instrument has always been drums and percussion. But when I entered in degree program for music therapy, it was required that I pick up guitar, piano, and voice. And that kind of ignited this fire in me was, oh my gosh, you know, okay, so I went through these classes and I learned how to play these instruments. So it's pretty high level of expectation, you know, because as music therapists, we have to be able to support the clients with whatever we have around us. Yeah.

But it really ignited this fire in me. So, you know, after guitar, it was ukulele. And after ukulele was banjo. And I've been on the banjo for a little bit because it's pretty difficult. So I don't know what's next, but maybe mandolin or, you know, fiddle or something. But and just finding a new instrument and learning how to play it is a really gratifying experience too what i've had fun with is a lot of the music we make for the show i do on garage band so i'm using other instruments right that i don't really know how to play in a normal way it's just a different way to sort of approach music and it's a it's a fun one to do it and i and i think the other thing about music and playing guitar and being a musician i always encourage

anybody like if you don't play an instrument you want to just start it doesn't matter how old you are you don't have to be great at it to get a lot of enjoyment out of it i mean i'm not great at it by any stretch of the imagination and yet i've gotten years and years and years of joy out of it it's about the process, not about the product. Yeah. You know, that that's what I love about music. And that's a lot of times what people's biggest fear is when they're in a music therapy group. And, you know, that hesitation, that resistance to play in an instrument, a non-musician's like, I'm going to sound like crap.

It's like, OK, well, that's that's your feeling towards it. But it's not about how you sound. Regardless of how you sound, it's your emotional expression. We're going to use it. So it's really about process and so little about product. And once people get that in their minds, then they really do free themselves up in the sessions that we can use music to work towards their goals. Musicians tend to be kind of perfectionists, I think. So getting musicians away from the page and improvising and trying new musical instruments are two really great ways for musicians to kind of use music as their own therapy. Excellent. Well, I think that is a perfect place to wind up, particularly the, it's about the

process, not the product. That is a line that you can use in all aspects of your life and can be very valuable. So, Dean, thanks so much for taking the time to come on. It's been fun talking with you about music. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been great. All right. Take care.

You as well. Bye. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. One You Feed podcast, head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. You can learn more about Dean Quick and this podcast at oneyoufeed.net slash Dean.