Can Music Heal?

Judy Spencer: All right, so good evening to everybody who is here and everybody on Zoom. Welcome back to science and religion right here at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor. As always, first thing we want to do is a little shout out to Dr. Steve Rosen and Celia Paul, who’ve made this program possible for all of us to enjoy. Yes, absolutely – If you want to have something happen, make it happen. That’s what I’m taking away from them. 

Okay, so today’s topic is: Can music heal? And I wanted to do something a little bit different. So since we’re talking about music, maybe I thought we could just listen to a little bit of music first. So Rabbi Dan is going to queue that up for us so we can enjoy some beautiful music.

So beautiful. So sorry – I feel very moved by the music. So obviously music has an impact on us. It touches our hearts, it affects our bodies, but can music heal? And that is sort of what we’re going to explore tonight. And joining us tonight – I’m very, very excited, is the composer of that beautiful [arrangement] of “How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place” that we just heard, and that is Victoria Bond. Victoria, thank you so much for being here.

Victoria Bond: Well, thank you so much, Judy. It’s a pleasure to be here and pleasure to speak with all of you.

Judy Spencer: So I have to just tell people a little bit about you. Victoria is an internationally acclaimed composer and conductor. Her compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful,” “stylistically varied,” and “technically demanding.” I definitely heard that in that vocal piece. She has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos, numerous orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard compositions. And she also just premiered a piece of – A chamber piece, right?

Victoria Bond: No, an orchestral piece.

 Judy Spencer: Orchestral piece. Right. “Anne Frank’s Tree.” ‘

Victoria Bond: Exactly.

 Judy Spencer: So again, we’re very, very lucky to have you here.

Victoria Bond: Well, thank you. It’s such a pleasure. And the topic of “Can music heal?” actually came about quite a few years ago. I have a new music series in New York called Cutting Edge Concerts. And in that particular season, I decided to explore the healing properties of music. And I worked in conjunction with Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital and their very extensive music therapy program, and the music therapist Karen Popkin. So when I was asked by Steve and Celia to do this talk, I thought, “You know, that’s a subject I would like to revisit.” And I had the good fortune of being able to speak with Karen Popkin again. And there’s an interview, which is available on YouTube, with Karen, talking about “Can Music Heal?” 

Now, when I asked Karen this question, the first thing she said was, “Well, it depends what you mean by healing. Music cannot shrink a tumor. It cannot cure cancer. It cannot stitch up a wound or heal a severe burn. But it does have definite healing properties. And one thing, particularly in conjunction with cancer, is that it can give the patients the will to fight the disease.”

But it does, actually, even more than that. And as I explored this topic with Karen, and then with other source material that I want to talk with you about later, there is MRI research that has been done showing the areas of the brain that light up when various music is played or performed. And this shows that for dementia patients, there is a way of getting through the neural pathways that are otherwise completely blocked. People that actually don’t even have the ability to speak are able to re-energize those pathways.

I don’t know if any of you remember the film The King’s Speech. Well, it was about King George VI. And he was a stutterer. And of course, being a monarch, he was called upon frequently to give speeches, and it was very embarrassing to him because he c-c-c-c-c-couldn’t get the words out. So he went to a speech therapist who had a very novel, innovative way of treating him, because she discovered that when he sang, he could sing perfectly without stuttering – without any interruption in his ability to communicate. And so she – I believe it was a woman – started asking him to sing the words of some of the speeches that he was going to give, and lo and behold, he was able to do this without stuttering. 

Now, this proved one thing. I don’t know if they had the MRI research at that point, but since that time, there is evidence to show that both hemispheres of the brain lit up when people were singing or were given music to listen to.

Music Integrates the Brain

You had asked me just a few minutes ago about “What portion of the brain does music affect?” Well, it’s really rather remarkable, because it’s everywhere – from the brain stem, which, as you know, controls breathing and heart rate – all the way through the higher functions of the brain.

So, music is a way of integrating the portions of the brain. And there are two people that I wanted to talk to you about who have done extensive work in the area of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. And one of them is a woman by the name of Concetta Tomaino. And she has – again, I want to refer to my notes because I don’t remember exactly the name of her organization – but she founded an organization called [The Institute for] Music and Neurologic Function, based in Mount Vernon.

Now, she had a very interesting experience as a young music therapist. She went to a nursing home, and she had volunteered to help the patients. And one of the nurses said, “Well, you know, we have dementia patients, but they’re brain-dead. You’re not going to have any success with them.” And they had put them up in a ward far, far away from everyone else. And they had them heavily sedated – they even had mittens on their hands so they wouldn’t claw themselves, they were fed through feeding tubes. And when she went up to this room, which was sort of far, far away from every other patient, she said there was such a cacophony of screams and wails, and just the most horrible nightmarish scene.

Now, she played the accordion, so she started to play “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” on her accordion. And gradually, the chaos in the room subsided, and people started to listen. And some people actually even started to sing with her. They remembered the words – she picked, on purpose, a song that would have been from the time that these people remembered, a familiar song, so they remembered the words. These are people who were totally incommunicado. And one person actually even got out of his wheelchair and started to dance. Now, that is pretty amazing. The nurses, who had given these people up for dead, practically, they were shocked – happily shocked.

And Oliver Sacks, who’s a big hero in my book, and as a matter of fact, I brought this book to show you. It’s called Musicophilia. And Oliver Sacks was a famous neurologist, and this whole book is about his experiences with patients and music. But apropos dementia, he actually said that some patients – and this is in the present tense, because he was talking about something that had just happened – are “confused, agitated, lethargic. Some have almost lost language. But all of them, without exception, respond to music, especially to songs that they’ve known. There seems to be streams of memory and emotion that may be completely inaccessible to them.”

He goes on to say that the amazing revelation was to watch the phenomenon of these people just responding. As he said, everyone responded to music. So, in terms of therapy, this is something that Karen Popkin, of course, is intimately familiar with. I had the very good fortune to shadow her, which means going into the patients’ rooms with her as she was treating various patients. And the first patient that she treated – and she played the guitar – the first patient she treated fell asleep. And I said to her, “Well, is this an insult to your musical ability?” (Laughter) “I mean, I know as a performer, if I’m performing and somebody in the audience falls asleep, I’m offended. Are they bored?” 

She said, “No, you have to understand. This patient is a long-term cancer patient, and he’s been in the hospital for a long time. He is very highly stressed, and he hasn’t been able to sleep.” So calming him to the point where he could actually fall asleep, that was a big plus. This was definitely not an insult. 

Music Regulates Us

And then she went into another patient’s room who was very lethargic, and she played lively music for this patient, because they needed something completely different. So just thinking about musical traditions and what music we have traditionally used to calm people down – you can think of lullabies, right? Every culture has its lullaby to put a baby to sleep, and sometimes adults also. 

And what are the characteristics of a lullaby? Well, number one, it slows you down. Karen talked about entrainment. And entrainment is when things are disunited and gradually unite. Scientifically, of course, we have an astrophysicist with us – he can probably give us the scientific reason why this happens. But it happens for a lullaby, something that slows the tempo of the heartbeat, slows the breathing rate, is soft in dynamics, is low in frequency – those are all characteristics of lullaby and soothing music.

And on the other extreme, music that is meant to stimulate, such as dance music, such as marches, military music of any sort, generally has a faster tempo to get the body speeded up. Any of you who exercise with music on your headphones, you know that music can help you get that feeling – a lively feeling. Dance-like music is generally higher in pitch, louder in dynamic, and, as I say, faster in tempo. And we were talking about the areas of the brain that music affects. Well, that actually affects, what is it called? The amygdala, the brain stem. But there’s a specific word that I’m thinking of that has to do with reptiles.

Judy Spencer: The lizard brain.

Victoria Bond: Yeah, the lizard brain. There we go. Yeah, I like that.  

Judy Spencer: It’s very visceral. So when we hear the opening of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, we’re having a physical reaction.

Victoria Bond: Absolutely.

Judy Spencer: And we’re seeing the visual, and it all kind of comes together in this sort of big experience we’re having.

Victoria Bond: And your body is actually reacting. So, with the Alzheimer’s patients, it’s the brain that’s being affected, but with this, it’s affecting your whole body system and even your involuntary [functions] – your breathing, your blood pressure, all of that is being affected by it.

Judy Spencer: So we don’t learn that. It’s innate.

The Harp and Language

Victoria Bond: That’s right. Well, and of course – and I’m sure that the rabbi can give us lots of chapter and verse in the Old Testament about music and its healing abilities, David and on and on. I’m not an expert here on –

Dan Geffen: But that is the classic example in the Torah, certainly, is of King David, and – well, at that point, just David – and King Saul. And he’s called into various places, because [it was] the only thing, just as he described it, that one patient who couldn’t sleep, the only thing that could soothe him, the only thing that could give him any kind of respite. Now, the Torah is somewhat vague about what it is that is worrying him, but nonetheless, it’s that harp, it’s that sound. And it’s certainly not just that, but that image is such a beautiful example, in an ancient context, of what you have just described happening in a room at Sloane. It’s that powerful. It can change a person’s way. We won’t talk about what happens with David and Saul at the end of the story – it’s not exactly the best scenario there. But in any case, we’ll come back to me. I want to hear more of what you have.

Victoria Bond: Well, I have a story to tell you about the harp, because the music therapist Karen Popkin played the guitar. And I asked her, at the end of our session – I said, “Are there any other instruments that you can use for music therapy when you go into the room?” And she said, “Well, even a woodwind instrument as soft as a flute, in a small room, can be overpowering.” And I said, “Well, what about the harp?” And she said, “Well, actually, we used a harp in the recovery room, but one of the patients woke up and thought that they had died.” (Laughter).

Judy Spencer: She also had an example of a patient who’d been nonverbal, right? The thing about when she was singing to her “I Want,” and the patient was able to respond –

Victoria Bond: Yes, exactly. This was a patient that was completely incommunicado, and her relatives were there, and of course, everybody was very worried about her. And so the relatives stepped out of the room for a while, and Karen had her guitar, and she was just sort of noodling around, and she started to improvise. And she said, “First they were just breathing – ahh, ahh. And then she said, “Ahh… ahhh.. .I want…” And she was singing that, and the patient said… “to go home.” (Laughs)

Judy Spencer: But the music created a continuity for her to be able to express herself, even though she couldn’t normally. And I wonder if it’s because music does get processed in different places in the brain simultaneously, rather than speech production coming out of one area. So it’s literally coming from a different part in your brain.

Victoria Bond: We talk about left brain, right brain – 

Judy Spencer:  Hopefully, having a brain –

Victoria Bond: Well, it’s interesting, because music unites the two halves of the brain. When you learn an instrument, and I know you have –

 Judy Spencer: … badly …

Victoria Bond:  But you can remember the experience. And, Rabbi, I don’t know, have you also played an instrument?

Dan Geffen: Actually, I failed more instruments than I have fingers, but I come from a family with good ears. So I can sing reasonably well, but I can’t read music. And I come to it sort of backwards that way. But I have nothing but the greatest respect for anybody that can play this well.

Music Coordinates Our Bodies

Victoria Bond: What’s interesting is that music is not just emotion. There’s also a very scientific part of music. I mean, when you are studying an instrument, you need to know theory. You need to be able to, well, use your two hands independently, and there are not very many other things that one does in life where you have to use your hands independently. So that must be working on the neural pathways in your brain in a very unique way. And so, both the intellectual part of your brain, as well as the emotional part of your brain, are being used, certainly, when you play an instrument, but also, to a certain degree, when you listen to music. And so that’s why many portions of the brain are being used in music.

So another thing that Karen talked about, which I think is very important, particularly these days, is acoustic music, as opposed to electronic music, because she said that the sound of an acoustic instrument, such as the guitar – that vibrating string has a kind of a warmth that you do not get from an electronic instrument.

Judy Spencer: I think it’s just a very different sort of a visceral experience, because I remember hearing chamber music in someone’s home. And it is incredibly different because the volume is very different, of course, but you feel the vibration. You get to feel the music in a very different way than when you’re listening to it. And certainly, listening to electronic music is a completely different experience.

Victoria Bond: Well, when you think of the physics of a string vibrating, or a column of air vibrating, or the membrane of a percussion instrument vibrating, I mean, that air is actually touching you, you know.

Judy Spencer: Yes.

Victoria Bond: I mean, it is touching you. And of course, we all know about concert halls and good concert halls and the alternative, but in a good concert hall, the walls are giving you back that sound. They’re reflecting that sound. So she was quite adamant about the importance of acoustic instruments. And so, I mean, as a doctor – and I do have a doctorate from Juilliard ­(laughs) – not in medicine, but in music – as a doctor, I prescribe, to all of you, going to live concerts.

Videos and acoustic audio streaming – that’s all a great supplement. And I certainly would not want to disparage that in any way, shape, or form. But the experience of being in a live performance, as you say, in a small space, to hear chamber music, to be in the concert hall and hear a great orchestra, to be in the opera house and hear a chorus, and an orchestra, and soloists – I mean, there is nothing that can duplicate that visceral experience. So I prescribe live concerts. That’s my prescription. We’ve already been chatting back and forth, and I enjoy that more than anything else. So I don’t know if you want to bring the audience into this as well, actually.

Music Helps Us Remember

Dan Geffen: Actually, if it’s okay, I did have a couple of things I wanted to jump in with, because – actually, too many things. I’m going to try not to talk too much, but a couple of quick points. 

One, when you were talking about the people who were suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s, and who were given music that they remembered from their childhood – I’ve told this story before, but I’ll tell it again because it’s really apt. So my grandfather, who was a rabbi, alav ha-shalom, his memory be blessed – he ended his, or spent the end of his, days at the Jewish Home and Hospital on 106th Street. And in those days, we would go and visit him on Shabbat, on Friday nights, and they would, indeed, wheel him down. And at that point, he really couldn’t remember who I was or who my father was or anything of that sort. He wasn’t unhappy or unpleasant or anything like that, but generally speaking, whatever was current was not there. But the moment that you put a Kiddush cup in his hand to give the blessing that sanctifies the wine on Shabbat, the moment that it happened – he could, without looking at any piece of paper, anything like that – he could sing it just as he sang it for 30-odd years in his synagogue, without any question.

So obviously, that was anecdotal – until I heard other, similar stories. But that always felt to me very tied to the melody. And you know, as we talked about before, there are certainly plenty of stories – King David, others of that nature. But one of the things I point out to our students in the Hebrew school all the time, whenever we’re reading Torah, for example, I point out that the Torah itself is just text on parchment. It’s much more logical to do what most of us do, which is to read it, right. Even the most eloquent reader – sooner or later, right? And again, nobody’s going to fall asleep during beautiful music, but they fall asleep during boring sermons. This I know. (Laughter)

So words can sometimes start to lose some of their energy. And I don’t think it’s accidental that there were decisions that were made at some point or another to affix music to our reading, and not just music – Torah changes. High holidays have a different melody. The festivals have a different melody, Esther – all of them have different melodies. And some of it is a simple thing, just keeping people’s attention. But I think, actually, it’s always been something much, much deeper. 

And I think you mentioned the idea of the sound waves. Right. So, as I explain often, I’m a rabbi somewhat by choice and also by necessity, in that I am not good at anything else. And one of the things I’m most terrible at is science and math. And so when I was in college, they had a whole track just for people like me who they knew were not going to handle the regular courses. And one of them was called “Physics and the Arts.” And so in that class, we sat there with – I forget what it’s called – an oscilloscope. Basically, something you attach a microphone to it, and it shows you in a sine wave the energy and the frequency and all of these kinds of things. You don’t realize, when you just hear things, how much physics is involved. 

But one of the remarkable things about sound waves is that they don’t just hit – they oftentimes penetrate. They go through things that otherwise you couldn’t go through. Sound can very often, as anybody that grew up in New York City will know if you had a noisy neighbor, will travel through brick, it will travel through wood, all sorts of things. So I think when Judy, when you were describing – really, both of you – when you were describing sitting in a real space, especially an acoustically-trained place with real sound, it’s not just about hearing. It really is a full-body experience in so many ways.

So I just love the combination of both the science of this, certainly, but just as a person who is involved in rooms full of people and musically-inclined moments, I’m just seeing very much how all of these kinds of moments can transform people’s lives in small ways and in big ways.

Victoria Bond: Well, in addition to the temple – of course, the church has been very aware of the power of music, and it’s no accident that so many composers worked for the church, because that was their patron. And writing religious music was what they got paid to do, and it was so important. When we think about the great composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and George Friedrich Hendel, that music just got people out of their chairs. Maybe not dancing, but without a doubt.

Dan Geffen: And I always loved, also, the purposeful placement of the organ in a place that no one can see. It gives the image, right, of that person who woke up to the harp – same line of thinking. It’s a little less terrifying, I imagine, but hearing what may sound like the heavenly courts gives us a certain kind of sense of power. And I’ll observe that when we have the High Holidays, the music changes dramatically from the way that it is during Shabbat services. And as a result of that, you get these pieces that are very clearly designed to take us on a spiritual journey of sorts.

And I would say that if it works properly, the way a person feels at the beginning of that service, to the way they feel at the end of it, should be similar to the way a person feels when they walk in to hear a great piece of music at the Philharmonic, and the way they walk out at the end. Again, there is a transformation that takes place that is clearly based in science, but also based in something that we all try to figure out how to articulate.

But it’s not an accident – I think every religion has learned at some point or another that music and sound, in particular, are essential characteristics of the spiritual.

Victoria Bond: You know, you were talking about memory, with – was it your grandfather? Well, there’s a story here in this AARP Magazine – oh, I wanted to show all of you this as well. This issue of AARP Magazine has a whole big article on “The Extraordinary World of Music and the Mind.” So I would refer you to this. It’s also available online, as well as the hard copy. 

But one of the stories in here is about Tony Bennett, who I did have the good fortune to meet when he was in his right mind, but he gradually became more and more incoherent because of Alzheimer’s. However, the author of this particular article visited him, and when he started to sing, when he started to sing – his accompanist was there, and when the accompanist started the music of a familiar song, he all of a sudden became alive. And I think there was a television program also, a documentary, about him, which showed this – that he remembered all the words to his song. There was no problem with his memory at all. And then when it was over, he was…

The Power of Amateurism

Judy Spencer: Yeah, I think Glen Campbell as well. He had Alzheimer’s, and I think, and toured very, very late in his life. And also the music sort of brought him back a little bit to his old self.

But I was thinking about what you both were saying about music, the way it gets used in religion and religious services. But whether it’s sacred or secular, it seems as though music builds community, because we sing together when we’re in church, in temple, that entraining, of – we’re all breathing the same because of the phrasing. And maybe we sort of – it’s such an isolated world that we live in now, and I tend to suspect that’s part of the human condition, is always trying to get out of isolation and into community. And music seems to be such a huge way of how we do that. That’s why it figures so prominently, I think, in religious services.

Victoria Bond: And another thing I want to mention – apropos what you’re saying – is amateur musicians. Now, in America, the word “amateur” is used as an insult, but in other countries, such as English singing societies or town bands, it’s very much celebrated – this idea of, you don’t have to be a professional to get together and make music with other people, to sing with other people, sing in a chorus.

Dan Geffen: For those who remember David Lee, of blessed memory – so he was a longtime member of the congregation, and he led the local band every summer when they would be at the VFW down the street. And it was his greatest joy, so much so that it was the only time, and probably the only time I can think of – where the band played at his funeral here, which was a very unusual thing for a Jewish funeral to happen [with], but that was very much in line with it.

I think you’re absolutely correct. The way that we approach the distinction between professional and what is not professional oftentimes comes with a negativity around it here. But very much that cultural singing is really remarkable in how you see it across the world. I mean, that’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed, being a student of history, is that obviously there are very distinct things that happen in different cultures, different places, different geographies, but there are many things that happen in completely disparate places, when you study and you say, “How is it possible that this group of people, who had nothing to do with that group of people, who would never have heard of them, are doing that like thing?” 

And you see that happen, I think, in particular, with the development of not just musical culture and tradition, but the science behind it. It’s not accidental that music traditions tend to follow the same kind of tenor, the same kind of tone, same kind of pacing. Eventually, things break out from the norm. But there is so much to be said, that you can close your eyes and hear something and know if it’s Irish or if it’s German or if it’s English in its origin, and things of that nature. And I just think that’s really a beautiful, remarkable thing.

Victoria Bond: You know, I could pass this. What is that Greek myth about? They had to pass the eye between them?

Judy Spencer: Is it the Furies or the Fates?

Dan Geffen: It’s the Fates. Oh, boy.

Judy Spencer: This is a good one.

Dan Geffen: I know.

Judy Spencer: There you go.

Victoria Bond: We have an expert in Greek mythology here?

Dan Geffen: We actually have two in the congregation.  They’re just not here tonight. 

Victoria Bond: But when they listen to this, they will correct us.

That was another thing that I was going to say. Making music with other people is something that is so important. And even if you’re not a good [musician] – you don’t consider yourself to have a beautiful voice or play an instrument particularly well, just the act of being together with other people and making music with other people is so valuable and so health-giving that Dr. Bond prescribes.

Judy Spencer: You can’t fight with each other or discuss politics when you’re singing. It’s a good idea.

Dan Geffen: Somehow or another, people will find a way. But that’s exactly –

Victoria Bond: Well, if you’re a performer in an opera, you certainly can fight.

Judy Spencer: Then it’s all murder, mayhem, bloodshed.

Victoria Bond: Exactly.

Judy Spencer: …depending.

Integrating the Physical, the Emotional, and the Ritual

Dan Geffen: I have one more Jewish thing, if I may. Thank you. I think we’re working this out now. I think we’re getting better. So I think, going back to the first thing that you said, because it’s interesting – before you had said it, it was the first thing that I thought about when we came up with this topic, which is: first you have to define what the word “healing” means. And I think this, of course, was the reality of it. I don’t think the expectation is healing of the kind that you defined right at the beginning, the kind that doctors would generally be doing with scalpels and with other forms of technology. 

But the question of what is actually, oftentimes, the hardest part to heal is not the broken bone, is not other, more obvious physical things – it’s what’s going on, for lack of a better term, in here, or in the spirit, or in the soul. And that kind of healing, I know that modern medicine actually has come quite a long way in starting to identify where medicine fits into that equation of how best to help. But I think that we know that most of the effective work in that form, including some of the description of the people that you saw at Sloane, is really more in their mental state of being. But the combination of these two things, I think, we have a tendency to bifurcate and to create false dichotomies – that the mental and the physical are not related to each other, so you treat them separately. I think what this clearly talks about is, actually, the more a person’s mental well-being is taken into account, the more there are services that are provided alongside the other therapeutic things that are being done, the greater the chance of success. So it’s not simply a matter of a sort of hopeful placebo, or even just a “more positive outlook,” as we like to say – that it actually has a physical effect on the body, right? That deeply-embedded stuff, that we don’t really even realize has so much control, suddenly is affected in that way. 

And I think while the rabbis didn’t necessarily articulate it specifically in that way, there are numerous examples. In the Talmud, in particular – in what is not my area of expertise, in the world of Kabbalah mysticism – there are direct references to singing as a means by which to heal. And the rabbis are not necessarily going to specify, again, “Is it a physical ailment or something of that nature?” But I think they understood, especially considering the fact that, quite frankly, most of Jewish existence, the last 2,000 years, has been one that has been fraught with a lot of anxiety, to say the very least. Obviously, we are feeling that very much right now, especially. And some of the most beautiful melodies that we’re familiar with were composed in the saddest moments, right, in the freezing shtetl of Poland, with no food to eat. Somehow or another, that singing – it doesn’t necessarily fix the hungry belly, but it passes that time. It gives a person hope. You sing about things that, again, from an emotional, spiritual, psychological perspective, [and] give a person something to shoot for, right?

A lot of times, that is one of the great challenges, I think, in long term healing, is despondency, of sort of saying, “I woke up today like I did yesterday. Why would I think tomorrow is going to be any different?” And the moment a person decides that, that’s the moment they stop exercising, they stop eating properly, they stop going to sleep; there are lot of things that suddenly go alongside it. 

So I think that while the rabbis would not have been thinking about it from a scientific perspective per se, that from the sort of metaphysic perspective of looking into the soul and seeing – sometimes science ends up being by observation. You don’t necessarily know exactly what it is that’s happening, you just see it happening, and you decide, after the fact, to work backwards from what has appeared. And I think the rabbis were doing that a lot of times. They couldn’t quite articulate exactly why it worked, but that joyful singing, sorrowful singing, lamenting singing, all of these things, in the end, have a healing capacity, and that that healing capacity is, again, not just of a fanciful nature, but of a very practical nature. Something that, quite frankly, you sort of jokingly said, but I think is true – prescribed. “This is what you need to do in order to start to feel better.” And I think that’s really, again, quite a powerful reality, over centuries, that I think is borne out many times over.

Victoria Bond: “Take two sonatas and see me next week.” (Laughter) Well, you know, there are cultures where participating in musical events is a given. I think of African cultures where everybody sings, everybody dances. They’re not professionals, and they don’t feel ashamed that, “Oh, maybe I don’t have a nice voice.” That’s another thing, too, is that we put so much judgment on, “How am I doing? Do I sound good? Do I look good?” Rather than the experience of doing it. So I think that there’s a lot of healing to be done in terms of self-respect when making music with other people. 

Judy Spencer: And it’s okay not to be Reneé Fleming, you know what I mean? You have to sort of be okay with yourself and not deny yourself the pleasure of making music with other people.

Victoria Bond: Absolutely, yes.

Judy Spencer: Unless you’re really tone-deaf, like some people’s husbands (laughter) – you know, it happens. Anyway, do we have a few questions?

Dan Geffen: There is one question from early on, if it’s okay. So, this person wrote, “I have read studies asserting that music can be experienced as touch as well as sound. Can you comment?”

Victoria Bond: Yes, indeed. And I give you the percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, who is a percussionist who is deaf. And very frequently she performs with bare feet, because you can feel the vibrations through the floor. And so she is deaf, but she performs. And as a matter of fact, there have been concerts that have been held for the deaf where they can feel through the walls, through the floor – well, of course, there are a lot of rock concerts where you can feel it through the walls and the floor.

Judy Spencer: – also, feel it for a long time after the concert as well (laughs).

Victoria Bond: This is not necessarily a good thing, but yes. So I think that concerts for the deaf, even though it may seem like an oxymoron, are really something that is very doable, very possible, and very healing.

Dan Geffen: Okay, so we don’t have any more questions in the chat as of yet, but anybody that would like to add questions, you are certainly more than welcome. But we also want to make the opportunity for anybody who is in the room with us now.

Stephen Rosen: So, synagogue music – the music helps you to remember the words. And it’s a very powerful effect. I wouldn’t remember any of the prayers if they weren’t set to music. And some of the music has been written by Hollywood composers for the synagogue, and it’s a really different kind of synagogue music than the normal stuff. I’m thinking of one guy in particular, but I can’t remember his name. Anyway, that’s one point I wanted to mention. 

The other is that every physicist and mathematician I know has an interest or a talent in music. And there are books on the subject, and it turns out that the part of the brain that does physics or mathematics, and the part of the brain that does music, there’s a little overlap between them, and that makes perfect sense to me.

Victoria Bond: Let me just address that for a second, because, of course, music is based on patterns, and higher mathematics – as I understand it, my only expertise is in lower mathematics, like fingers, but higher mathematics, I understand, also has to do with patterns. And so that is why that would overlap. 

Dan Geffen: Well, just quickly – just to say, Stephen, don’t think your rabbi is any different. So when I was growing up, most of the davening, the prayers, that I learned as a child, I learned really first by ear, and only later, when I learned to read Hebrew well enough, could I really read it. The only problem with that particular methodology is when I eventually learned how to read Hebrew, I realized how many words I was getting wrong. And Hebrew is one of those languages where if you’re off by a syllable, sometimes you are saying something very unintended. So you just have to be a little bit careful with that part of it. But, yes, I think there is very much that connection there.

Stephen Rosen: This is a sidebar, but I’ve never met a rabbi who didn’t like a physicist, and I don’t know why that should be. Maybe you can explain that.

So I had an experience many years ago. I wrote a book, and I was sent by the publisher to appear on television talk shows. And I was once on a talk show in Boston, and it was a discussion program, but Ella Fitzgerald was on the program – I will say I was on the program with Ella Fitzgerald. And she was trying to raise funds for – she had problems with her eyes, and she was trying to raise funds for an eye hospital in Boston. And so her purpose was to come on and sing a song and generate interest in the audience to donate money. She sang her song, and it was back in the green room. I went up to her, and I said, “You are the best.” And she said, “Hush your mouth, sonny.” 

But anyway, she sang her song, and then she sat down next to the talk show host, and he said, “So tell me about your charity – the eye hospital.” She could not speak a single word. She was completely inarticulate, but she could sing like an angel. She had this buttery voice. And I was thinking, you can’t be good at everything.

Dan Geffen: Good segue to me!

Victoria Bond: Well, apropos memory – how many of us would remember our abcs if there wasn’t an “A-B-C-D-E”…?

Dan Geffen: Oh, God, yes. I think about that all the time.

Judy Spencer: I think that’s why we say “zee”…

Acoustics and Manipulation

Dan Geffen: Instead of “zed.” Yeah, it fits the songs better. That is very true.

So there was a note in the chat from Rebecca, [who] just noted that Dutch psychologists who’ve been studying this have also done a lot of research showing, indeed, what we’ve said – that singing in groups helps the general well-being, as we discussed. And I think that’s true. I mean, one of the things I say often, especially to our little kids in the Hebrew school, when they’re learning, is when you’re singing in a group, generally speaking, unless somebody is singing particularly loud, it doesn’t matter whether every single person in the group actually is an excellent singer. Usually, as long as there’s somebody who is leading the charge, everyone sounds good together. There’s something about the way that the physics, again, of the sounds merging.

And as I think about this, and as I’m listening to this through the microphone and everything – so I am, for better or for worse, the tech person at the temple, which includes the microphones we’re using, and the sound. And it’s been a constant battle for me to try to figure out all these things, because I don’t really know the science. I just know the kind of the widgets that I turn in order to make things happen. But as I’m doing that, I’m realizing – if I understood the science, [I] can affect almost everything. I mean, almost everything, right? What is heard, what is not heard, what’s amplified, what’s turned down. And in particular, then, the great challenge is and why, when you listen, for example, to a great album and you think about who produced that album and why that matters. Some of the greatest music that’s ever been produced in recording history may not have been the music that we think it is without the person at the mixing board who decided how much of this instrument, how much of this instrument, how much of the vocals, when to change the pitch, and so on.

Judy Spencer: Reverberation – when to stop reverberation.

Dan Geffen: Exactly. But the danger of it, of course, is like, as everything else in our current existence is, once you have that level of manipulative control, is what you’re hearing real? And when it’s not real, that question or that statement, ultimately, about the difference between acoustic music and digital music and the impact of it, honestly, that’s always been sort of a non-scientific feeling I’ve had. But hearing it in this context, I think it clearly makes more and more sense that there are certain things that you can replicate in a digital space, but there are certain things that simply, no matter what, at least at current technology, what we try to do ultimately falls short.

And during the Zoom days, [for] every synagogue, which in particular relied on it, music was the greatest challenge. It was the greatest challenge because you couldn’t sing together. The one thing Zoom can’t do is have two people in two different places sing simultaneously. It just doesn’t work. So we had to do all sorts of things to make that sort of, kind of, work. But the loss was there. And the more and more I think back on that time and on how we sort of managed to get through it, but if that had been our new milieu, right, if we’d had to continue in that kind of thing for any longer than we did – I don’t know. I don’t know how much longer you can hold people together without the singing, without the music, in particular, without whatever it is – either scientific or otherwise – that brings us together when we sing together.

Acoustics and Space

Victoria Bond: One thing I want to say, apropos what you were saying about the ability to manipulate sound with a mixing board – is the difference between a Broadway show and an opera.

Dan Geffen: Oh, wow.

Victoria Bond: I was teaching a course for non-musicians in music appreciation, and one of the things that they did in this course was they went to the Metropolitan Opera, and they were amazed that people did not have microphones. How could they project? Well, first of all, it wasn’t as loud as they expected it to be, because, of course, amplified sound is way over the top of natural sound. But when you think about what it takes, first of all, for a conductor to blend the dynamic of the orchestra and of the singers and of the chorus all together – that is an art. That is an art of hearing. And as a conductor, I can tell you that that is a very large part of when you’re doing a concerto with a soloist, or when you have soloists on the stage in a concert, or when you’re doing an opera and sometimes people are way, way in the back, and the chorus is over there – It’s a very three-dimensional experience.

Dan Geffen: Absolutely.

Victoria Bond: And balancing that is part of the art of the conductor.

Dan Geffen: Wow.

Victoria Bond: And so when it’s in a Broadway show, it doesn’t really matter because a person with a very small voice can overpower all the piccolos and trumpets in the world.

Dan Geffen: Absolutely correct. I mean, I think about, actually, the space we’re in right now. So this, again, being the oldest synagogue on Long island – the building itself was built in 1898. So it’s somewhere, about where you see that kind of cut-out in the ceiling was where the original – this is called a bimah that we’re on right now. So the prayer service leader would generally be not in the front of the room, but in the center. And there are lots of reasons why that’s the case – lots of cultural reasons, historical reasons – but the main reason why, generally, is about amplification. They didn’t have the benefit of these things [microphones] right here.

So, first of all, you had to find somebody with a big enough voice, like in the opera. But a lot of it was also a consideration of some genius architects in days where we take [this] for granted. And interestingly enough, it makes using digital stuff a little bit harder, because this room is so good at bouncing sound off [the walls] that if you’re not careful, it bounces back and you get what’s called feedback. So that was my great struggle the first couple of weeks when we got in the building, was not being able to figure out exactly how to balance out all those pieces. But certainly, I think there is a danger, again, in that sort of over-amplification of everything – aside from what it does to our actual ears and that damage. That’s a serious problem. But I’d love that image of the conductor again, of blending all those pieces together. 

Victoria Bond: That’s one of the important things that a conductor does.

Judy Spencer: That’s why you want to go to live performances. And as an opera lover, I just want to throw this out there. When you do go to the opera, the music is so challenging for the singers, and often, depending upon the composer, for the musicians. Even if you know just a little bit, you feel the audience getting excited at those moments where you go, “Okay, is she going to make that note?” It’s very exciting, those vocal fireworks. And you really get into a vibe with both the audience and the performers, where you feel like you’re all kind of surging towards this one thing. And it does sort of for that brief moment, you’re all in the same place, sort of physically and emotionally – well, maybe not where the singers are at. But it’s just so incredibly joyful. Even if the soprano is about to kill the tenor. (Laughter)

Victoria Bond: Well, it usually is the soprano that gets it.

More Q&A

Dan Geffen: All right, Mike – I think we’ve got a question for Mike in the back here. And then, Mike, what I’m going to ask is, just when you’re done, if anybody else has a question, you could just pass it right to them.

So you often hear about surgeons doing, playing music in those operating rooms. Is that for the surgeon? Is that for the patients? Do we know?

Victoria Bond: I have to give you an example of my husband, who had an operation quite a few years ago. And the surgeon asked him, “Well, what kind of music would you like me to play?” And he said, “Whatever you would like.” He said, “The only thing I don’t want to hear is, ‘Whoops.’”

 I just want to say that we do karaoke at home, and it’s so much fun and we get together as a family and it’s like we laugh because the only one who has a halfway – who has a great voice – was my granddaughter at home. And the rest of us, we just laugh at each other. But it does bring you together, singing and being joyful. So we do do that.

Judy Spencer: It’s probably good for your blood pressure, too.

Dan Geffen: Just one other couple of points in the chat, going back to the sense of community. For those that know about jazz band funeral parades in New Orleans and other requiem-type parades, I’ve always said – it’s probably a little early to have this discussion, but when I go out, that would be, honestly, if it was Jewishly acceptable, that’s the way I’d want to go out. Right? The jazz parade seems like the best possible way. Without a doubt. 

One other point – so Karen Hoppenwasser, MD, spoke earlier today on using sound, such as Buddhist singing bowls and drums, with traumatized patients when they become silent in therapy. And as we know – I’m not sure everybody knows this, but from string theory, everything is vibrating all the time, even though we can’t see. You know, I think, again, that whole image of what we can’t see – that’s the most amazing thing to me about sound – is that while we have developed all sorts of ways of visualizing it, and not even just in the digital sense, right. There are other, analog ways of being able to demonstrate sound, and how we learned about that.

 But just that idea that so many things can be carried by something that is completely invisible to us is the most remarkable. I remember trying to explain the concept to my child, my son Emmett, when he was like 2 ½ – and obviously, a two-and-a-half year old could only grasp so much of what was going on. But as I was trying to describe it to this child, I’m like – again, there are lots of reasons why I can understand the concept of atheism or agnosticism in the world, all of those things, and I myself [am a] complicated theologian. But there are times where you have to sort of look at it and say, “This is the most unbelievable world that we live in, that any of this stuff is possible, and that these – again, invisible – waves can travel across sometimes miles, miles, tens of miles, hundreds of miles, and be able to transmit that information,” so on and so forth.

 I mean, that was one of the things, when we bought these particular mics, the person who sold it to me told me that they would work from here, probably all the way to Main Street, but that he had to check the frequency to make sure that it did not interfere with the local police station’s frequencies. So, again, in our world right now, flying around us in every conceivable direction, are sound waves, oftentimes sound waves that are carrying data, carrying information. And just as we said earlier, right, sometimes that collides with something, and it’s translated into a form we can see or hear, and sometimes it goes right through us, or right through any number of other objects. And to me, that is not just magic, right? That is faith, that is divinity in practice. But I obviously have a bias.

Victoria Bond: I agree entirely. There’s something completely magical about the fact that this is invisible and yet felt, and so strongly felt, by people all over the world – really, it is very magical. And as I understand it, sound can also travel through space – we have an expert in the booth here. And are we hearing sound from outer space as well?

Stephen Rosen: I’m sorry to disappoint. (Laughter) Space is a vacuum, and sound cannot travel in a vacuum. It needs air to compress and relax. And that’s how it propagates, by causing vibrations in the density of the air between us. And there are condensations and rarefactions and sort of sinusoidal wave patterns that allow you to hear what I’m saying. But if we were on the moon or in outer space somewhere, you would not be able to hear me. Of course, we’d both be dead because it’s a vacuum. (Laughter)

Victoria Bond: You mean ET is wrong? (Laughter)

Stephen Rosen: By the way, you mentioned string theory. String theory is very strange, and I don’t pretend to understand it well, but as far as I do understand it, it depicts reality in 10 or 11 dimensions, two of which are time. And the fundamental particles, like electrons and protons and positrons and neutrons, and the quarks that they are made up of, are able to be described in string theory as vibrations in a 10-dimensional space. And the different frequencies of its vibration in a ten-dimensional space identifies which fundamental quark makes up these other fundamental particles. So put that in your amplifier and smoke it. (Laughter)

But just one more for you, just as a hypothetical. If music can heal, and in [the] technology of AI, are we going to be able to come up with an artificial intelligence of music that makes us heal?

Dan Geffen: Whoa – layers. I mean, I think we should give that one to the professional here rather than to the rabbi. I have some thoughts, but I don’t know, Victoria, if you have any.

Victoria Bond: I’m not sure I understand.

Dan Geffen: All right, well, I’ll see if I can unpack. So it’s a few layers to it, right? It’s the combination of both AI, and, in the end, future technologies – using not just the descriptions of what’s going on, for example, at Sloane, but things beyond that. And I think to some degree, if you think about a sonogram, for example, when we think about healing, healing isn’t just about the act of doing surgery, it’s also about being able to see into the body and to know what’s going on. And if you think about how many lives have been saved, both mothers and children, just by that one technology alone…

But I can think of – I hope you won’t be embarrassed when I say this. So I come from a family of kidney stone people. Thankfully, it hasn’t hit me yet, but I know it’s coming. And one of the things that they talked about with my father was that at a certain point, if it’s too large, they use sonic waves to break down the stone in the body. So in my general experience with medical technology in particular – if they can do those things, then it’s usually just a matter of time before somebody either thinks about new applications, or new technologies come along to advance it. The question about AI becomes infinitely more complicated because, like all AI-related questions, AI, in the end, is still a tool. It still operates on what is fed into it, as we learned from one of our earlier experiences. The danger of what can happen by feeding the wrong ideas into it is hopefully not the Terminator, but something terrible of that sort.

But I suspect if AI is leveraged as a tool for the purpose of doing, for example, the kinds of calculations and the kinds of thinking that human beings at this point are not capable of doing on their own, then those combinations of things could very much result in a kind of technology that could change healing, again, on every conceivable level – not just, again,  on the levels that we’ve talked about tonight. But that is a future question that we’ll have to get a futurist here at some point or another to discuss, I suspect. But, Victoria, I don’t know if that clarified the question at all.

Judy Spencer: So I have to say a big thank you to you, Victoria. It has been a personal pleasure for me. I know it’s been a pleasure for everyone. And I’m really hoping that you’re going to come back and we’ll get to hear some of your music here in the temple. Hint, hint, hint. And with that, I guess we’ll say good night to everyone. And thank you again so much.