{"id":138,"date":"2007-03-12T12:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html"},"modified":"2007-03-12T12:42:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T12:42:00","slug":"play-or-listen-blues-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html","title":{"rendered":"Play (or Listen) the Blues Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caught in a terrible conundrum of whether I should break my diet over New York Super Fudge Chunk or Chunky Monkey at Ben and Jerry’s<\/a> yesterday, I was reading the different fliers pinned to the community bulletin board inside this 200 square feet of ice-cream heaven.<\/p>\n

One flier read: “Got the blues? Learn to play them!”<\/p>\n

I don’t know whether to blame the kids or my depression for my stupidity (the death of my brain cells in the prefrontal cortex<\/a>), but I had to read these seven words four times (that’s 28 words) before I understood the message, which is an important one: Music can help treat depression.<\/p>\n

Back before my Prozac and Zoloft days, music was my sole therapy. I pounded out Rachmaninoff’s<\/a> “Prelude to C Sharp Minor” as a way of processing my parents’ hostile divorce. My hour or more a day at the upright piano in the family room of my childhood home became a sanctuary of sorts for me. I practiced scales, cadences, and arpeggios until they were perfect, because rhythm–that sweet pattern between sound and silence–was something that I could control with the tip of my fingers. Emotion was translated into melody as I played the ivory and ebony keys, sometimes closing my eyes.<\/p>\n

During the worst months of my depression a year and a half ago, I blared the sound track of “The Phantom of the Opera<\/a>.” Pretending to be the phantom with a cape and a mask, I twirled around our living room, swinging David and Katherine in my arms. I belted out every word of “The Music of the Night<\/a>,” which I had learned to play on the piano for my stepdad as his birthday present one year (It is one of his favorites, too). <\/p>\n

“Softly, deftly, music shall caress you,
Feel it, hear it, secretly possess you . . .”<\/p>\n

The gorgeous song–like all good music–could stroke that tender place within me that words couldn’t get to. <\/p>\n

Everything with a beat moves my spirit. Even Yanni<\/a>, with his long hair blowing in the wind (I saw a video once…and the image unfortunately stuck). But especially the classics. I can’t get enough of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, because I think so much better when these guys are playing in the background. (Consequently almost everything I publish has been written under their influence.) <\/p>\n

And apparently I’m not alone. Because the website of the American Music Therapy Association<\/a> lists 57 pages of research articles chronicling the successful use of music to help treat a host of different illnesses, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and chronic pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caught in a terrible conundrum of whether I should break my diet over New York Super Fudge Chunk or Chunky Monkey at Ben and Jerry’s yesterday, I was reading the different fliers pinned to the community bulletin board inside this 200 square feet of ice-cream heaven. One flier read: “Got the blues? Learn to play…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nPlay (or Listen) the Blues Away - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Play (or Listen) the Blues Away - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Caught in a terrible conundrum of whether I should break my diet over New York Super Fudge Chunk or Chunky Monkey at Ben and Jerry’s yesterday, I was reading the different fliers pinned to the community bulletin board inside this 200 square feet of ice-cream heaven. One flier read: “Got the blues? Learn to play…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-03-12T12:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Play (or Listen) the Blues Away - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Play (or Listen) the Blues Away - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Caught in a terrible conundrum of whether I should break my diet over New York Super Fudge Chunk or Chunky Monkey at Ben and Jerry’s yesterday, I was reading the different fliers pinned to the community bulletin board inside this 200 square feet of ice-cream heaven. One flier read: “Got the blues? Learn to play…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2007-03-12T12:42:00+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html","name":"Play (or Listen) the Blues Away - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-03-12T12:42:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-03-12T12:42:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/03\/play-or-listen-blues-away.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Play (or Listen) the Blues Away"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/9a07cb215ebbbdc185d2b2a55131e7a2","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/402\/402821b1a7d57eb8e3888da97f18b37fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/402\/402821b1a7d57eb8e3888da97f18b37fx96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/beyondblue"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}