I'm sure you
remember Van Cliburn, that long, tall, Texan who won
the Tschaikovsky International Piano Competition in
Moscow in 1958 and was the first American ever to
win this prestigious prize. He was also the
first American musician to receive a ticker-tape
parade in New York City, and there has not been a
musician since them to get a ticker-tape parade.
(These parades are usually reserved for athletes and
astronauts!)
I remember being
introduced to Van Cliburn in 1963 when I received a recording of his for
my 15th birthday. It was a fantastic recording of the Brahms'
Second Piano Concerto in B-flat with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago
Symphony. On the other side was the Rachmaninoff Third Piano
Concerto in d minor and every morning before school I got up an hour
early to listen to one or the other of these pieces all the way through
and dream of becoming a concert pianist!
Interestingly,
Cliburn began studying piano with his mother, Rildia Bee Cliburn, at age
three and was playing in her student recitals by age 4. By age 13
he won a concerto competition to play with the Houston Symphony and
played the Tschaikovsky competition at that tender age. After
that, his mother decided that he needed a professional teacher and took
him to Juilliard in New York City to attend master classes. He was
offered a scholarship to study in their preparatory department but
adamantly refused to study piano with anyone but his mother, so they
returned to Texas. The rest is history.
Please enjoy this
video, highlighting some of the accomplishments of his long career:
Cliburn died yesterday at age 78 of bone cancer in Fort
Worth, Texas, his home town. He leaves many timeless recordings of
the great piano repertoire. He will be greatly missed.
Healing Music Blog
Music and Coma:
Should you play music?
The many applications of music for healing:
hospice settings, coma, stroke and rehab of all
kinds. Enjoy this fabulous story:
Anna Jenkins wears a solemn
expression while she gracefully plucks the
strings on her harp. The notes fill the room
and coat it with an aura of peace. Next to
her, in a hospital bed, a patient is dying.
Jenkins is one of a handful
of music therapists who volunteer at St.
Francis Hospital in Federal Way.
“I usually am serious because I’m playing
for people that are very sick,” Jenkins
said.
The notes are dream-like and seem to float
from the harp, following no recognizable
melody. To play a song a person recognized
would hold them in reality, Jenkins said. An
unfamiliar song helps people let go.
Our new packaging has arrived. The
headphones will ship in a new heavy-duty cardboard box instead of the
plastic clam shell. The new packaging has a small magnetic lock
that will keep the box closed when not in use. It will allow you
to manage inventory in less space. Shipping will improve as the plastic
containers takes up more space and we shipped a lot of "air."
You will now have a quality box that we will be able to
brand with your information. Your customers and clients will
be impressed with the image.
A new Internet website is being developed.
www.SurgicalSerenitySolutions.com is "live" and will be developed as
the main Internet home for the headphones. The website will have
links for our individual clients and friends. It will also point our
professionals, hospitals, and medical organizations to the latest
research and information that is available. The new site will allow us
to concentrate our efforts on a single product family while at the same
time we are developing two distinct customers.
We are positioned to provide a large hospital with the
expertise and personalize product quantities that they need. At
the same time we address the individual needs of a single customer.
Surgery and Music Blog
Surgical
Serenity Solutions: Combating the Side-Effects of
Anesthesia
No one wants to have surgery. No one wants to be in
the hospital, but sometime you really don’t have a choice.
If you are in an automobile accident and seriously
hurt, going to a hospital and having surgery might save your life
when nothing else would. If you’re told you need to have a
colonoscopy for diagnostic purposes or if your appendix is inflamed
and in danger of bursting, you’ll want to be in a hospital.
But there is a very simple procedure that can greatly
reduce the pain, anxiety and side-effects of surgery and anesthesia.
That intervention is music.
The research team showed that music engages
the areas of the brain involved with paying attention,
making predictions and updating the event in memory. Peak
brain activity occurred during a short period of silence
between musical movements—when seemingly nothing was
happening.
Beyond understanding the
process of listening to music, their work has far-reaching
implications for how human brains sort out events in
general. Their findings are published in the Aug. 2 issue of
Neuron.
The researchers caught glimpses of the
brain in action using functional magnetic resonance imaging,
or fMRI, which gives a dynamic image showing which parts of
the brain are working during a given activity. The goal of
the study was to look at how the brain sorts out events, but
the research also revealed that musical techniques used by
composers 200 years ago help the brain organize incoming
information.
For nearly two decades, I've been helping people use the music that
they already love to heal their lives and increase their wellness
quotient!
I
am one of the world's only clinical musicologists and hold
a Masters degree in piano performance, a Ph.D. in
musicology and a Master of Social Work in clinical social work. I
am also a licensed clinical social worker. I work with people and
diagnoses of all kinds, enabling them to find healing, acceptance and
hope.
I love
performing, researching, and teaching and have put them all together
in a career called "Music Medicine."
Dr. Alice H. Cash is often asked to share her
Grand Rounds Presentation with hospitals' doctors and staff. Learn
what is currently happening around the world and the results they are
having.
"It was the
easiest of all hand surgeries! I was listening to music, then a slight
lull of nothing and then back to the music. Wonderfully comfortable. The
best surgical experience yet. I am honored to know, worked with and
utilized Dr. Cash's magnificent creation. I do hope the medical field
understands the import of her invention!"
I
am one of the world's only clinical musicologists and hold
a Masters degree in piano performance, a Ph.D. in
musicology and a Master of Social Work in clinical social work. I
am also a licensed clinical social worker. I work with people and
diagnoses of all kinds, enabling them to find healing, acceptance and
hope.
