Thanks to Daniel Goldberg for this excellent forum and for the introduction!
I'm a musicologist who has taught medical humanities for about 12 years. In that work, I examine philosophical, aesthetic, historical, and modern writings and media for evidence of music's power to influence the human condition. I combine those sources with supporting medical research in offerings such as "The Palliative Benefits of Grieving with Music," "The Power of the Voice, From Mother to Martin Luther King," and "The Blues is the Truth." An article of mine ("How Music-Inspired Weeping Can Heal") is under review with Medical Humanities journal (BMJ).
Of course, board-certified music therapists, as well as other practitioners with less institutionalized credentials but nonetheless impressive results, regularly help patients with music therapies. What I do, however, is very different--I am a musical teacher, researcher, and interdisciplinarian whose target audience is healthcare professionals. During my current research leave, I am converting my 16-unit multimedia course, "Music and the Medical Humanities," into an online format. My goal is to offer that course in open courseware, as a link on various medical humanities websites, and thereby strengthen the place of music among literature, visual art, film, and writing in existing medical humanities curricula.
All my lectures incorporate audio and/or video clips. I cooperate with the U.S. copyright laws by listing required media clips as "texts" for each lecture, along with several access points for each (iTunes, Naxos, YouTube, etc.). So the clips are not, nor can they lawfully be, streamed into open courseware.
In order to make my course as useful as possible, I would appreciate any advice you might offer the best "delivery system" for your university or setting. I'm currently working with ASU Learning Tech people on a SAKAI course and should have a unit up by the end of November.
Here are some highlights from one unit. "The Power of the Voice, From Mother to Martin Luther King," underscores the common knowledge that the voice wields tremendous power in the human experience. The goal is to convince health care professionals of ways they can harness the power of their own (non-singing) voices and those of the patient's family members to affect patient well-being. Topics (copiously illustrated with musical/video examples) include:
• fetal development of hearing and cognitive processes in the third trimester of pregnancy (Querleu and others, 1988)
• physiological and behavioral definitions of "the voice" (the latter, as an agent of change, an expressive tool)
• prehistoric evidence, e.g., "sirens" from Greek mythology (how did "the voice"-distinct from or combined with sexuality-reportedly contribute to their powers?)
• writings of Eastern and Western philosophers such as Confucius, Damon, and Plato
• music history (the 18th-century castrato, Farinelli, who reportedly sang the same several arias every night for nine years to ameliorate King Philip of Spain's extreme depression)
• a musical analysis of persuasive rhetoric, such as MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, and the author's vocal identity
• writings of modern scholars, e.g., George Rousseau, a music therapist who calls for a therapeutic practice that "would teach patients . . . how to come closer to the 'voices' of those they love" (in Gouk, ed., 2000)
• reports of unique MRI with EEG-measured responses to mother's voice in the brain of a patient who has been in persistent vegetative state for 4 years (Machado and others, 2007)
I would very much appreciate your helping me think through the delivery of this course. Thanks in advance for using the e-mail address given below, rather than my regular institutional account.
Sincerely,
Kay Norton, Ph.D.
knortonphd90@cox.net
Associate Professor, Music History
School of Music, Herberger College of Arts
PO Box 870405
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona 85287-0405
480 727-7051 (on leave through Jan 19, 2009)
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