My Interview with Karl Bruhn
by Carol Porter
 

Courtesy of American Music Teacher Magazine, the official journal of Music Teachers National Association

July 18, 2001
 

Music Making and Wellness for Adults is an idea whose time has come. The wellness benefits of making music are a compelling message to active adults. Research has shown that group keyboard classes can be just the ticket to help adults keep well. I wanted to find out more about this twenty-first-century phenomenon. This is my interview with Karl Bruhn, "Father" of the Music Making and Wellness Movement.

Carol Porter: You wrote in your latest e-mail to me that the focus of the wellness project is on bonding, creating community and recreational music making. What is your response to the role of music technology for seniors?

Karl Bruhn: The use of technology for adults, particularly those who want to participate in music making, represents all kinds of opportunities. First of all, it allows them to easily create exciting, interesting and satisfying music. For example, with today's electronic keyboard instruments they can use the automatic rhythms units, all kinds of different orchestral sounds and voices are available to them. When it comes to recreational music making, I don't think the use of technology has yet been explored fully. The opportunities to use technology to serve this large and under-served market are immense.

Technology can make music easy to play for many, many people. It can make it enjoyable, and it can add to quality of life and life enhancement. It allows people with limited capacity, for example, to make satisfying music. I'm thinking of how older people with arthritis were playing, for example, one-fingered chords in the left hand and one-fingered melodies in the right. You can play extremely satisfying music. Then when that happens, you can enjoy all the benefits of stress reduction and anxiety and tension. Technology used in those ways with age-appropriate music will hopefully also be taught in classes where you have the social benefits. Those are the kinds of things that allow music to really do the healing and the wellness that we're talking about. Arthritis may be only one example. There are other kinds of handicaps that you can think of. So, I think the use of technology for those kinds of people is just marvelous.

CP: Sounds like this should eventually have some impact on the age-appropriateness of materials offered to this market.

KB: When developing materials for children, music publishers often develop materials for categories such as preschool, ages 6–10 and teenagers. However, when it comes to adults, whose interests and needs are more different than the children's categories I just defined, the age-appropriateness of the materials is very important and can even influence whether seniors continue in classes or drop out. I believe there is a great deal to be done in this area.

CP: Such as?

KB: In Age Wave: The Challenges and Opportunities of an Aging America, authors Ken Dychtwald and Joe Flower pointed out that seniors tend to like songs that were popular when they first started dating and having sex. If that's true, and I believe it is, we need to give serious and careful consideration to that fact as we develop curriculum and song collections for this market. And, of course, music teachers will need to learn more about this market and how to serve it properly.

CP: At what point as a professional did you start to work on serving the under-served market of seniors?

KB: I first became really focused on the senior market when I was with NAMM–International Music Products Association and was made aware of a U.S. Senate Aging Committee Hearing, Forever Young: Music and Aging, that was scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., during August of 1991. That's where, I first became aware of the music therapy profession. That hearing and the things that occurred after it led to a change in my life. I started to recognize the power of music and music making and what music making could do for people.

The most basic principle of music-therapy practice is that music is a powerful tool that can improve the quality of life for a wide variety of people. By working together, developing, implementing and promoting the right programs and activities, we should be able to improve and expand the public's perception of the value and benefits of music and music making, increase the number of active music making at all ages and expand the market for music products and services.

I'm fully retired now, but I devote a great portion of my time to my pro bono activities. That includes working with the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), and I also work with Dr. Barry Bittman of the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, Pennsylvania, on projects such as his asthma project that uses musical instruments as medical instruments, which is a very exciting concept. In addition, I'm involved with other organizations that pursue those kinds of projects and activities.

CP: Any particular reason you may be so heavily involved in Dr. Bittman's project?

KB: As a young child I lived in Enumclaw, Washington, a small town at the foot of Mt. Ranier. I had asthma very, very badly. A country doctor told my parents that they should move to Los Gatos, California, which had an ideal climate, and that I should learn to play a wind instrument if they ever expected me to get over my asthma. My parents made the move to California and saw to it that I took up the clarinet. My mother, a violinist, worked with me on rhythm exercises and learning how to breathe properly. I did overcome and outgrow asthma, and music became my career. I'll be forever grateful to that country doctor and to my parents. So in answer to your question, from a very early age I've had an interest in music making and wellness.

CP: How did this experience impact your career in the music products industry?

KB: During my years in the music products industry I worked in a retail music store as a salesman and as a sales trainer, as a manager and a store owner, and for the last seventeen years of my working life in the industry, I was with Yamaha. During all those years, I was frequently approached by people who told me what making their own music did for them. And I should point out that most of them were amateur players—not professional or skilled players. I always listened to their stories, but I, along with the rest of the industry, was so focused on performance that I really wasn't hearing what they were saying. Most music teachers are basically focused on performance. For example, piano teachers are told that, "If your students perform well, it will help build your reputation and you'll always have a waiting list of people who want to study with you." And, of course, that's great. But, when the emphasis is on performance, recreational music making seldom gets much consideration. The result is, I think, that we have simply overlooked the opportunity to serve a vast market out there who would love to make their own music and enjoy the benefits of music making...both from the creative and enjoyment standpoint and from also the health standpoint. There's a vast under-served market that we need to analyze so we can learn how to properly reach and serve them.

CP: Could you say a little more about how music used for non-musical outcomes impacts the music products industry?

KB: Sure. I think it helps create a credibility for the importance of music and music making in people's lives. Let's think of involvement with music in two ways. You have passive and you have active involvement in music making. In essence, World War II was the beginning of the modern music therapy profession. It was the first time in history that the military (the American services) officially recognized music as an agent capable of helping its mentally and physically wounded. During the period from 1944 through the early '50s, there were about fifty published reports on the benefits of music. Perhaps the most important report was something called Technical Bulletin 187 issued by the War Department. Technical Bulletin 187 was the War Department's orders for its wounded personnel. It said, "Music should be provided along with other activities offering to patients because it is one of the most effective vehicles for bringing a group together for releasing emotions and the spirit of fellowship in Esprit de Corps." The military divided music into three categories. The first was Active Participation. That included making your own music and was considered most beneficial. Then there was Passive Participation, which was considered second in benefits derived. The third was Audio-Receptive. The goal for active participation was to aid in the social readjustment of the patient, to boost morale and to provide occupational therapy. Active participation included participation in such things as orchestra, string quartets, glee clubs chorus and barbershop quartets. There were sing-alongs that used the old bouncing-ball technique. The piano and small instruments, such as the harmonica, were used. The goal for passive participation was to assist the patients' social and mental readjustment. This would stimulate the physiological and psychological responses that contributed to the patients' sense of well-being. But again, passive participation was given second in terms of benefits derived. The third was audio-receptive to provide music that patients wanted to hear and to entertain them. During the post-war period, these activities were carried out from 1946 until the early '50s in about 120 veteran administration hospitals across the country. The "big idea" is that music, especially active participation, can be very beneficial.

CP: This historical information sounds critical to the focus of The Music Making and Wellness Project.

KB: Very clearly, music making is something that can make a big difference in people's lives in many, many important ways. The active/passive differences concerning the benefits of involvement with music outlined in Technical Bulletin 187 are very important and something that we need to talk about. For example, you've heard people say, "When I sit down at the piano, suddenly two hours have passed and I didn't even know where the time went." Passive participation allows your mind to stray, but when you're directly involved in making your own music, it requires your attention. Active music making maintains focus. Really what it is, is exercise for the mind. There can be many benefits derived from active music making. For example, it provides an opportunity for emotional expression.

When you make your own music, you can play songs that are happy and songs that are sad. You can play songs that can shift your mood. Making your own music can be very personal, or it can include others. Again, active music making is a way to promote wellness and help to manage stress. Unlike a lot of other activities, music is something you can do for a lifetime. It maintains and provides sharpness of mind and provides opportunities for new learning. All of these things are important. It's an outlet for feelings. Making your own music allows you to do it your way. You can play the songs you like at a slow pace or fast pace or whatever you wish. Music provides ways, if you wish to be with others, to help drop social barriers. It crosses generations. You can go on and on about the benefits and the differences between active and passive involvement in music.

CP: When was The Music Making and Wellness Project actually born?

KB: The Music Making and Wellness Project actually was born as a result of a 1991 United States Senate Aging Hearing, Forever Young: Music and Aging. Following the hearing, funds were made available for research. The University of Miami was a beneficiary of one of those grants. U of M had a decade-long experience of music therapy with Alzheimer's patients. So, working with older adults was something they were familiar with. They wanted the music therapy to make the patients more relaxed and easier to manage. The research involved taking blood draws before, during and after the study. They wanted to study the brain and the immune system of older adults for a variety of perspectives. Their specific aim was to improve quality of life. The health participants became more relaxed, and this enhanced their immune system functions. The hypothesis was correct, and the patients were more relaxed, easier to manage. The people involved with the research said, "If this works on the infirmed elderly, what can it do for the well elderly?" They put together something called The Music Making and Wellness Project. They looked for a real-world laboratory to try their hypothesis—helping people improve quality of life and well-being.

CP: Could you say, specifically, what lesson materials were devoted to seniors' instruction as a result of these findings?

KB: Sure. I think a prime example would be Fletcher Music Centers in south Florida, which usually had about 5,000 students at anytime. They were all 60 years or older. In other words, they were perfect for what the scientists wanted to study. Fletcher had worked with this market for many years, and the company motto was, "Enhancing the quality of life through active participation in music." They had developed a very successful organ course that they had used for a number of years. Working with this research group, the objective was to integrate wellness components into what was already a successful program. I should say that the research team was made up of experts from the fields of medicine, biochemistry, psychology, psychiatry, keyboard pedagogy, aging and music therapy. The objective was to integrate wellness components into already successful programming. The research followed various health measures and 100 students in two groups. This allowed researchers to measure how wellness-enhanced group keyboard lessons, taught in a socially enjoyable setting, might enhance both physical, as well as emotional wellness in healthy older adults. One group took the wellness-enhanced lessons. The other group, the control group, didn't. There were significant quality-of-life changes from pre-test to post-test in the group who took the wellness-enhanced keyboard lessons. No change occurred in the control group. The results were that anxiety decreased in the keyboard group but not in the control group. Depression decreased in the keyboard group, not in the control group. Loneliness decreased in the keyboard group, not in the control group. Participants in the keyboard group showed an increase in the human growth hormone. I think that the key to all of this is what Dr. Frederick Tims, who is the principal investigator for the project, points out. Tims says, "We feel strongly that abundant health benefits can be achieved by older adults who learn to make music in a supportive, socially enjoyable setting. And we're just beginning to understand the positive effects of making music on our bodies and on our physical health." The key here, of course, is in a 'supportive socially enjoyable' setting when talking about group lessons. So, as a result of that study, in parallel, we developed something called the six-minute module, which was a teacher's manual and video. It had eighteen wellness activities that could be incorporated into any well-written curriculum.

CP: Why six minutes?

KB: Because it took six minutes out of every forty-five minute or one-hour keyboard class. It wouldn't dramatically disrupt, but it could add the elements of wellness within six or seven minutes basically.

The focus was on bonding, creating community and recreational music making. We are now implementing the program across the country. The biggest challenge we face when it comes to implementation is that the teachers were taught to teach a subject and not a whole human being. The store staffs do not really understand that as a market we have been so focused on performance that we haven't really worked on understanding recreational music making as such. Also, adults quit when they think that the class expects more from them than they're willing to give. But I think that the real answer is that we can serve society. Society needs what we have. We are in a stress-related society. Anxiety and depression are rampant in older people. In fact, depression, loneliness and those things are just part of getting older. We're hot-wired for that. It happens when we get older. If learning to make your own music in this kind of environment can help reduce stress and anxiety and depression, we really have something that society needs. One of the great things is that there are no negative side effects when you're involved in making music. Unlike, perhaps, with some drugs. Those are important things to think about. The emphasis needs to be on a better understanding by music teachers that humans have a need to belong, to be part of a group—individuals who share interests and who come together for common purposes. Such needs are important to children and teens, as they are to people in mid-life and to senior adults. It is increasingly being understood that this need for connection with others may be the most important component contributing to quality of life.

Now that's just one reason for learning to play a musical instrument. In an organized group setting it can be beneficial, and that's exactly what The Music Making and Wellness Project demonstrates. Most people who learn to play generally know the benefits and joys of music making, but less well known are the additional benefits that come from making music, such as stress reduction.

CP: Can you offer an analogy that will help me to understand your meaning?

KB: I'd like to offer a thought that a friend of mine gave me, and that is, "How many people do calisthenics for forty-five minutes, and how many do calisthenics all by themselves?" And the answer is, "Not many." Most people wouldn't. Bring together a group of people for that same forty-five minutes of exercise, make it fun and exciting and what do you have? You have an aerobics class. Millions of people participate in aerobics classes every day because there's the prospect of groups, companionship and bringing individuals together. When we talk about music making as fun, I think it's important because for the early learner level we must make it especially fun. We need to understand that music also has to be social. Why is it that most activities today are taught in groups? Whether it's golf, gymnastics or tennis, activities that are all primarily individual in nature are generally being taught in groups. And I think that there are some very important things that we in the music industry need to learn from that lesson. There are always going to be the people dedicated to study and working as hard and becoming as good as they can who want the personal trainers and the private teachers. But there's a greater market out there that wants to learn recreational music making. As an industry, we really haven't learned how to do that so that we serve a great number of them.

CP: When do you think we will see that interest of that particular segment of the population being reflected in the music products industry in terms of what music publishers will offer to seniors?

KB: There are things happening already. But let me use an example that I have used many times. "If you wanted to sell tennis rackets, you would have to have tennis courts." It's pretty elementary. If you want to sell golf clubs, you'd have to have golf courses and driving ranges. The most fundamental thing with music is, if most people miss the first entrance opportunity, for example, in the fourth and fifth grades in the public school system, some of them never have another opportunity to take up music in their entire life. They have heard that music is difficult. Basically, we don't have the tennis courts or golf courses or driving ranges for adults that give them the opportunity in mass to learn how to make their own music. As an industry, we need to focus on this. From a marketing standpoint also, we have to recognize that this demographic group is growing dramatically. It is as big as, and actually exceeds, the number of kids in K–12. From a marketing standpoint the older group has perhaps 70% of all the household wealth. They have time on their hands. They have money. They really need what we have to offer. But we haven't figured out how to reach them easily because they're not in a place marked "School." Again, we haven't developed the musical tennis course to serve them properly.

CP: What about the offering of music materials for senior citizens?

KB: Lowery Organ Company is incorporating the six-minute module and the wellness activities into what they call the Lowery Magic Organ Course. This year, they will train perhaps 200 teachers on how to offer wellness activities in the classes that are done in the Lowery dealerships across the country. Yamaha Corporation of America has made the commitment to start training teachers for their dealers on how to use the wellness activities along with the courses they offer. My understanding is that Roland Corporation has something called Club Roland where they talk about wellness activities and the importance of social aspects. So there is a movement that is starting with the supply side, in other words, the manufacturer's side of the industry. Like all movements, it has to start some place. It will start up here on this end and, ultimately, it will move into, for example, the colleges. It will move into the adult education programs. I really believe what we have here is the development of a trend, which could have an enormous impact on society.

CP: Okay. So first the manufacturers, then the colleges and then the music publishers?

KB: I shouldn't put it in that sequence. These manufacturers are doing it now and as a result, they are also working with publishers to develop curriculum that can be used with these courses that they are offering. For example, there are already alliances with publishers who are working to develop materials for these markets.

CP: That's good to know.

KB: Yes.

CP: I will ask you to respond to a quote I've gathered from an article you wrote on The Music Making and Wellness Project last year. You said, "I look forward to the day when the connection between music making and wellness will be reported as history, not as news."

KB: You can go back to the time when the ancient Greeks believed that music was the language of the gods and it was given to humans so that they could assess the mystical realms and retrieve the knowledge of health and healing. They honored Apollo as the god of music and medicine, recognizing the important connection between these two areas of life. Also, from every advanced civilization in antiquity—whether it's Mesopotamia, Ancient China, Egypt, India and the Golden Age of Greece—all of these civilizations affirm music to be a tangible force that could be applied in order to create change for better or for worse, within the character of the individual and within society as a whole. For example, both Plato and Socrates, if you will read their works, felt that music was such a powerful influence that the government should control it. They felt that strongly about the relationship of music. Over the years, music has been viewed as entertainment. It's been viewed as something nice to do, not something necessary. The research that is being done, for example, the asthma research that's being done by Barry Bittman of using recorders and small drums to help children with asthma, is starting to demonstrate the connection. We have very credible scientists making the connection between music and music making and wellness in different ways. For example, the asthma research that Barry did is going to be published in the February issue of the American Association of Respiratory Therapists publication. It will be a long article with pictures talking about the importance and use of musical instruments as medical instruments. There's also the drumming curriculum that's been developed by Barry and others, which is being used for stress reduction. There's just more and more research that's been done right now in the last decade that is leading to the fact that there is a connection between music making and wellness.

CP: It seems that this will ultimately impact the public's thinking.

KB: More and more you will see that brought to the attention of the public. If you want to change public thinking, basically there are three ways. You can have artisans or credible people speak out on behalf of music. You can have spokespersons. You can have scientific research. We've had for 2,500 years people like Socrates and Plato and some of the great thinkers, who've all spoken out. But it wasn't until scientific research came out that we started to change societal thinking, for example, on the effects of smoking. When we go back 100 years, for example, in Vienna there was a physician named I. Philip Semmelweis, who told doctors that they should wash their hands before they operate. They ultimately laughed him out of the corps. He had a nervous breakdown. Well, today that's accepted as common sense, and everyone knows it. The use of Vitamin E, for example, was laughed at for heart patients some twenty-five or thirty years ago. Today, it's being recommended. These are societal movements that take time to happen. The Music Making and Wellness Movement is so strong that you couldn't stop it if you wanted to.

CP: A quote from Plato, The Republic, Book I stating, "Clearly the musician is wise and he who is not a musician is foolish" is not nearly as powerful as saying that music can do what?

KB: Well, let's see. You want a quote from me, huh? You're putting me in that kind of company.

CP: You brought up Plato.

KB: Yeah, you're right I did...and Socrates. Well, let me just think for a moment. I think that there is research now that is knowledge built on knowledge. We have scientific research now that shows that the response to rhythm is basically human function. It highly motivates people of all ages and backgrounds. In these group percussion activities, for example, they keep the mind alert, body active. They are pleasurable. They're satisfying. It's a natural activity, and it's a fun way to socialize and combat loneliness. And making music together promotes a sense of belonging. It encourages feelings of self-worth and the process of learning new skills. All of the research that is being done is leading to, again as I said, this movement. That's not giving you a very good quote that you're looking for. But, I think that Music Making and Wellness is an idea whose time has come, and it will be reported as history during my lifetime, not news.

AMT