Rania Chrysostomou

Even though I haven’t studied music therapy in depth, I have spent time in lectures, reading, researching and discussing about it. It’s undeniable that music therapy can heal a person. But how exactly does it do that? What does the therapist want to achieve by the end of a course of sessions? ”If the point is to make the patient express his inner thoughts (never said the word feelings), how can they talk through art? Unless they are writting down or saying actual words, noone knows what they are thinking so why go through that process?” someone asked me once and they were determined music therapy is just another trend. Well, what are your limits and how can you handle yourself?

When we get angry we don’t explode or errupt like a volcano. We are more like the cassaroles that grandmothers have (mine does) that you turn a nob and it lets steam out slowly, no destruction and you can eat lovely food later. I come to agree with this idea. (In simplistic terms) holding emotions in and then letting our selves explode in merely another bad habit. It doesn’t show power and that you are the voice of reason, like they do in the movies, on the contrary, it shows lack of characters  for not speaking up earlier and not to mention the destruction you might cause on the way to proving a point. I’m not arguing about the act of getting angry but the act of resorting to “volcanoing” as a safe place. So initial steps, detect the situation and trust yourself that you can be a better version of yourself.

Now what I had to do was opening up to the world and explaing my thoughts, anxieties and conserns. This had to be done soon before emotions pile up again.

I had gone through a phase where I loved Chopin and then I was bored of listening to his piano pieces, they would sound a little bit pretencious (this also came from my social surrounding at the time). I opened my book today and found one of his Valses. The brilliance of his writing was just laying there. A melodic phrase, repeated enough times to built a smooth lift off. The pianist announces the idea without having to move his hand, just relaxes the wrist on top of a key position and lets the fingers dance on the keys. The left hand does the dumb-pa-pa-dumb-pa-pa. Sink the fingers in the piano, don’t sit on each note, play the note and it’s gone, you will lock the harmony with the pedal. “Move on, don’t drag the piece, use rubato sensibly, don’t hold back the rhythm.” Right foot and left hand have to coordinate to trap the correct harmony so the right hand can ring out the melody. The music moves forward to come back to the same idea, the comfort zone. The dumb-pa-pa, is one bar and it’s in constant move. It’s there to project anything and everything the right hand says. Even that fleeting little passage you spent hours perfecting and unless you aim after the end of the passage you will never get it right. It is a fleeting melody and giving it more attention than what it needs then you loose momentum from the whole piece. Find the sense of “home” of the piece, that’s where all the melodies lead to. And, oh yes! when you find that feeling of “home” in the piece you know it’s half way there.

Well maybe it’s not all black and white. Take a step back and review the whole piece. You can see what melodies are repeated and how they bloom and blossom only to get repeated again (thankfull for the student player that will find it as an excuse to practice less). Maybe it’s a good time now to talk.

Second time playing the same piece. Ah, yes. I’ve played this before. Why does he use so many black keys? Well, it didn’t make it more difficult to read, did it? Let’s try it in an easier key signature. It’s horrible, it looses it’s character, and my fingers get tangled, they don’t slide so smoothly. Yes, maybe there is another way to look at a problem and the first step is to realise it as a situation and not as a problem. Talk about it again change your angle, there’s always more than meets the eye.

Third time. Playing the same piece. This melody is flying off my fingers. Okay, the left hand still sits on the notes, maybe I should read the harmony. I now can prepare the right hand to play G natural and the left to play Gb. Why didn’t I see it before? The G was running away from home. Gb is where it sould be. Someone is grounding you down. They don’t deserve to be in the dark so to fulfill the old habit of exploding to make a dramatic effect on others that don’t matter and be expected to pick up the remains. Have another talk. It’s alright. You are home, Frederic.

© Rania Chrysostomou, 2017