This year, my summer vacation took me, and a friend,
to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was a
wonderful, beautiful, magical time, as Mexico always
is for me. This year, to my utter delight, I
got a large order for the Surgical Serenity
Headphones, from a hospital chain that is
international. Needless to say I felt so happy
and grateful that the idea that I had in January
2005, in Cancun, Mexico, has now taken off and is
speeding around the world!
While there, I also began thinking of all the areas
of medical, psychological and educational endeavor
that the headphones can be helpful with.
Almost from the beginning, people have said that the
dental chair would be an ideal place to use the
headphones and I agree. Last month we featured
a new video testimonial from a dental patient that
said using the headphones was great because it
helped her ignore what the dentist was doing while
still allowing her to answer his questions if need
be.
You can
hear her experience here.
On several different occasions during this fabulous
trip, I heard local musicians playing various
combinations of instruments and the effect was so
soothing and relaxing, that I thought perhaps a
South of the Border playlist might be a good option.
As a matter of fact, I have a full-time distributor
of my products in Mexico City, so finding a
hospital, clinic, or dental surgeon that uses the
Surgical Serenity Solution is probably not too
difficult! Mexico is just an ancient country
with art, architecture, and music spread throughout
the country. Although I've only visited the
more "tourist" areas, I would like to see more of it
and learn more about their cultural heritage.
I have certainly felt inspired every time I go
there! Already looking forward to the next
visit!
Healing Music Blog
Music is healing!
A Beautiful Love Song: just
written, after 73 years of
love
Tonight on
ABC News, Diane Sawyer
presented us with a
beautiful song, written by a
96 year old man for his
wife, Lorraine. It has
reached number 5 on iTunes
this week and was after his
wife died just recently.
Fred Stobaugh was chosen
Person of the Week by ABC
News and his song has been
heard over 4,000,000 times
now!
Fred was interviewed and
shared that he met his wife
back in 1930, where she was
a car-hop at A and W Root
beer drive-in. She brought
the food out on a tray to
the cars and he says he fell
in love with her the first
time he saw her. When she
passed away a few months
ago, he took out paper and
pencil and wrote a love poem
to her. About the same time,
he heard on the radio about
a contest for love songs and
decided to send his in, with
a note saying that he was
not a singer, but could give
someone who is, a good idea
of how it would go.
Just watch this touching
video to see exactly how
this love story played out!
For years, even decades, I heard about people who
used music during their surgical procedures
... because I had never had surgery (except some
relatively minor dental surgery) I wasn’t too
concerned about it.
All of that changed in late summer of 1975 when I
found that I would be having a baby in April of
1976. Although I was happy and excited about this
news, my mind went immediately to labor and delivery
and what the pain management options would be. I had
heard my mother’s not-so-pleasant experience in the
hospitals of 1948 when I was born, and I surely did
not want to repeat her experience. She was given
scopolamine for her labor which lasted something
crazy like two days. At the end, she was completely
knocked out and didn’t even see me until I was
several days old! ...
... I decided then and there that I would use
natural childbirth, the Lamaze method, and
supplement that with music. In 1976 that was really
not so easy to do. First of all, there were no CD’s
or iPods, but only records and record-players and
the hospital was not going to let anyone drag in
their record player from home! There were cassette
tapes by then, but the music I wanted I didn’t own
and it wasn’t that easy to make your own ...
A fascinating account of Albert
Einstein’s love and music and his
performance ability on the violin came
across my desk recently. It seems that
Einstein loved music and played the
violin extremely well, for an amateur.
The problem is, he really did not have a
good sense of rhythm. Obviously, he knew
how to count, but simply did not have
that internal sense of rhythm that
allows you to play chamber music or any
kind of ensemble music.
A soloist can “kind of” get away with
this, because there is no ensemble
playing involved, but in a professional
setting, you simply can’t make it in the
music world if you don’t have that
internal sense of rhythm and apparently,
Einstein did not have it. Nevertheless,
because he was Albert Einstein, he had
no trouble finding highly esteemed and
accomplished musicians to play chamber
music with him. However, they did not
hesitate to point out his rhythmic
shortcomings!
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.
