Writing songs with the dying
At Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Sarah Rose Black adds a keyboard’s lively chords to the chemotherapy’s weary drip.
“I bring my keyboard, I bring my (Tibetan) singing bowls, I bring a variety of instruments and my voice,” says Black, an accredited music therapist who has become an integral member of the hospital’s medical team.
Like psychologists or chaplains, Black, 28, sees patients based on referrals from physicians and other health professionals.
“I see people who have been first diagnosed with cancer and who are going through active treatment all the way through to end-of-life and palliative care,” she says. “If patients are experiencing symptoms that are very distressing or have high anxiety or perhaps are experiencing existential distress, I can be referred.”
Princess Margaret is part of the University Health Network, which houses the Open Lab program. Black says anecdotal and academic evidence has convinced her of music’s healing power, a key reason she entered her chosen field. She often works in interactive sessions with patients — pulling them into a musical participation that she and many believe has measurable therapeutic benefits.
“Sometimes patients are interested in picking up a guitar that maybe they haven’t picked up in years, or singing a meaningful song with me,” she says. “Or if they’re well enough, (they can) hold one of my instruments, like a percussion instrument, and we improvise together.”
For those patients too tired or sick to participate, Black will take bedside requests, playing tunes that resonate with the patient.
“But often they say, ‘Whatever. Just play whatever,’ ” she says. “So I end up doing something . . . improvisational.”
Black also works with the dying — patients transferred to Princess Margaret’s 10-bed Kensington Hospice, who might wish to leave a musical legacy of their lives.
“Many, many times I’ve been in with people who know they’re dying . . . and in the course of one or two (visits) we write a song together,” she says. “I put it on a CD and the patient can give it to their loved ones as a gift.”
Black’s Princess Margaret gig began three years ago as a student internship. She now holds a permanent position at the hospital, which she’s using to help her complete a U of T doctorate in music and health.
“People tell me that the experience of listening to music in their hospital room humanizes their care,” she says. “Suddenly they’re not just a patient but they are a human being with complex needs.”
Black says research shows this humanizing effect of music produces consistent clinical benefits, helping with pain and symptom management of drugs, radiation and surgery.
In a cancer hospital, however, music may frequently be the final therapy. “I often get called in when there are no words left. It’s just music, and silence.”