Documentary shows healing power of song
MONTREAL - Isabelle Raynauld grew up feeling guilty about her ability to hear.
“On my father’s side, all my aunts, uncles and cousins were deaf,” explained the filmmaker and Université de Montréal professor. “I felt an immense privilege being able to hear.
But there was music in her home all the time. Her parents met in a choir at university, and her mother played piano. Her grandfather had been an opera singer.
When Raynauld suffered a concussion in 2010, listening to music was part of her path to healing, as prescribed by her doctor. That got her to thinking. As a followup to her 2006 documentary “The Mystical Brain”, about altered states provoked by meditation, she began to wonder about the transformative powers of music.
Her new bilingual documentary, “Tuning the Brain with Music”, began when Raynauld was granted a fellowship at MIT, which put her on a path of accumulating scientific and reallife examples of how human existence is positively affected by song.
“I really think music, for the brain, is the equivalent of oxygen for the lungs,” Raynauld said. “It regenerates you. It can change your mood in five minutes. And there are no sideeffects.”
Among the film’s subjects is Harvey Alter, a former criminologist based in New York, who developed aphasia, losing the ability to speak following a stroke in 2003. He eventually taught himself to talk again, by singing.
Raynauld sits down with Guitars for Vets Canada founder Jim Lowther, who uses music to help his fellow army veterans deal with PTSD.
“These guys play together, and it bypasses speech therapy,” she said. “You can express very, very different emotions with words. You can express yourself in a very profound way and enter into a relationship with somebody else without explanation.”
Raynauld experienced the phenomenon first-hand when she approached Julien Perrin about talking to participants in his musical therapy program for homeless youth at Montreal’s Dans la rue.
Before committing to anything, Perrin asked her to attend the weekly drum circles at the centre.
“I actually really enjoyed the drum circles,” Raynauld said. “They healed me, too. A lot of these young people have incredible stories — a lot of them are extremely talented and profound but life has dealt them another set of cards.”
She was particularly struck by the story of one young man in the group, Mike, and how music has given him a sense of purpose.
“He has such insight,” Raynauld said. “Music saved his life. It has kept him alive. “
In Westmount, a musictherapy program for autistic children helps the youngsters communicate in ways they never could otherwise, as they pick up instruments and microphones and sing about their day.
And at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, a music therapist eases the pain of infants born prematurely, simply by singing to them.
“One of the things that surprised me was the immediacy with which music can affect a person’s anxiety, and cool their burning thoughts,” Raynauld said. “Premature babies can reorganize themselves, calm down and slow their heart rate. I witnessed all that in a 20-minute music-therapy session. These babies would enter a different state.”
To add weight to her survey, Raynauld speaks with neuroscientist David Poeppel at MIT, as well as members of Montreal’s International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research.
“The goal of the film is to find not only stories, but proof of what music does to the cells of the body and the brain,” Raynauld said.