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AHN Interview:
Gary Malkin, composer/producer, performer and co-founder of Wisdom of the World and Companion Arts
"Intimately spoken word connected to compassionate intent has a healing power that is comparable to the most beautiful music. Therefore, when combined with music, the resulting alchemy is a kind of concentrated 'audio medicine,' worthy of further study of its effects on human beings."
-Gary Malkin
Gary Malkin is an award-winning composer/producer and performer dedicated to making a difference in the world by participating in projects that inspire the heart and catalyze social change. He has enjoyed a highly successful career for over 20 years in film and television, commercials and CD production. Following the combined life events of the death of his father in 1991 and the birth of his daughter in 1992, a desire emerged to use his gifts for public service in more significant ways. One of the ways he has achieved this is through his collaboration with Michael Stillwater on creating musical wisdom products like Graceful Passages: A Companion for Living and Dying and Care for the Journey: Messages and Music for Sustaining the Heart of Healthcare. Mary Daniel Hobson interviewed Gary in November 2005.
Mary Daniel Hobson: How did you get started on your musical path?
Gary Malkin: I grew up in a New York City suburb, within a loving but slightly chaotic Jewish family that was pretty much musically illiterate. One day, when I was about 5 years old, I was playing at a friend's house and somehow found my way to a tiny electronic keyboard of some kind. As the story goes, my mother came to pick me up from my friend's house and found me playing this toy organ with both hands -- melody, harmony, music that I had heard on the radio. The friend's mother remarked that she didnÕt know I was studying piano, and my mother responded with astonishment -- she didn't either.
My mother immediately got me to start taking up piano lessons, and it was quite obvious I was given a musical gift that was, in many ways, both a curse and a blessing. When the teacher would give me an assignment, I would ask him to play the piece that I was to learn for the next week, and, unfortunately, that was all I needed to learn it "by ear" and memorize it, feigning that I was learning how to read the music. While that behavior prolonged musical illiteracy for a few years, I inadvertently developed a keen ability to extemporize musical arrangements of songs that I had heard, thus cultivating the early skills of composing and arranging by using my ear to guide me to ever new harmonies and melodies at a very young age.
I started playing so frequently in the home that it started to disturb the lifestyle of my older brother and sister, who wanted peace and quiet. After much deliberation, to my dismay, my parents moved the piano down to the basement (adjacent to the horrific Dickensian boiler room). What my parents didn't know was that I was terrified of that basement. It was one of the those old English Tutor homes with a basement that had walls that reminded me of the old Bela Lugosi movies that used to be frighten me. Playing the piano in the scary basement was the beginning of unconsciously using music as a self-soothing device. I directly experienced how music could be a consolation to a fear that I didn't want to admit was there.
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Mary Daniel: So at an early age you had an immediate experience of the soothing and healing power of music. Experiences like that must have been like seeds that germinated later in life in projects such as Graceful Passages: A Companion for Living and Dying. Tell me about the inspiration behind this wonderful CD and Book?
Gary: Graceful Passages started with a desire of Michael Stillwater, my creative partner on the project, to create something that would support those facing the challenges of the end of life. In the mid-seventies, Michael started a music ministry, singing spontaneous songs to those who were in spiritual or physical suffering. In the early 90's, he sang at the bedside of his father who was dying. Being with his father in this way was such a powerful experience for him that he was inspired to start singing at the bedside of those who were dying at the Franciscan Hospice in the Pacific Northwest. Invariably, he saw that patients, their families and their caregivers were all much better off as soon as music entered the equation. People were more willing to feel and express their feelings with one another, inspiring a higher likelihood of emotional and spiritual closure. There was less of a tendency for people to be in denial about what was happening to their loved ones, and there was something about music itself that allowed the vulnerability of the human heart to be shared rather than withheld.
Michael and I had been good friends for many years, and he always had a sense that we were going to do something together some day. As a result of his experiences with hospices, he asked me if I wanted to produce an album of his songs that were inspired by those involved with the end of life process. By this time, I was sufficiently aware of the fragility of life. For one, my family watched my Dad contract cancer and ultimately die over a three-month period. While we had experienced the blessing of closure with him, we were all still devastated by his untimely death. Months later, my wife gave birth to my only daughter, and there were so many complications that we nearly lost both of them during the childbirth. All this trauma and loss was within a six-month period, and my soul was shaken to the core, to say the least. As a result of these experiences, I was hungry to create something with music that provided a creative expression for these challenging experiences. Even though I had created music for many socially responsible projects throughout my career, I started to feel a desire to use music to more directly serve others who were experiencing such challenging circumstances.
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Mary Daniel: Tell me about the creative collaborative process of working with Michael to create Graceful Passages?
Gary: First of all, I should say that Michael and I created Graceful Passages over a three-year period. It's a bit embarrassing, but it's also a confirmation of how much of a "labor of love" this project is when I share that we worked on this project in the studio for over 1200 hours.
Gary Malkin and Michael Stillwater
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When we began our collaboration on Graceful Passages, Michael showed me what it looks like to surrender one's personal agenda in order to create something greater than one can envision alone. He came to me with a desire to have his songs recorded and produced for those involved with the end of life process. While we ultimately did work on that project at a later time, he demonstrated enormous integrity in his willingness to let go of his original plan so that we could embark on something that utilized my particular musical skills more than his, namely, the composition of instrumental film scoring music.
At the heart of our creative collaboration was a loving and respectful friendship that helped us to avoid taking comments personally. In every way other than the composing of the music, we were equal partners, committed to having the end result be as good as it could possibly be. It was an invigorating and inspiring collaboration, one that I hope to continue with subsequent volumes.
Mary Daniel: How did you and Michael come up with the idea to combine words of wisdom with music? And how did you select the speakers for Graceful Passages?
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Gary: We both were intrigued with the idea of speaking from the heart -- in a compassionate and intimate way -- to people who were in the midst of a difficult time. Since Michael had been a spiritual guide for many years, I asked him to speak in a prayerful way to a hypothetical person who had just received a terminal diagnosis, while I composed extemporaneously to his message on my keyboard. What resulted was the birth of a new alchemy between spoken word and music that we believe deepens and anchors our capacity for listening with the heart as well as the mind.
We started to ask ourselves, "Had anyone ever dignified the world's wisdom keepers (the world's spiritual and humanitarian leaders) with the kind of musical enhancement that had only been utilized in feature films?" Michael had the good fortune to know many of the people that we interviewed for the project. We recorded many people and had no idea who would ultimately end up on the project. We only knew that we wanted to interview people who exhibited a great degree of presence, authenticity, wisdom, and compassion. We felt from the very beginning that it was important not to restrict the list to those who were famous. The final cut was pretty much decided based on the goose bump factor.
One distinction that many people don't realize is that almost all the messages on the CD were extemporaneous. In fact, we generally requested it be that way, because, like an improvising musician, one can really get a "feel" for where that person is at that given moment in time. The reason the messages sound so deliberate and moving is a result of an exhaustive process of careful editing that, by taking away everything that "isn't it", ends up revealing the perfection waiting to shine through.
As a result of conducting these interviews for a number of years now, I've come to believe that this particular use of the human voice has a healing power all its own. Intimately spoken word connected to compassionate intent has a healing power that is comparable to the most beautiful music. Therefore, when combined with music, the resulting alchemy is a kind of concentrated "audio medicine," worthy of further study of its effects on human beings.
Mary Daniel: You and Michael have created a new CD called Care for the Journey: Music and Messages Sustaining the Heart of Healthcare. Please tell me about it.
Care for the Journey: Messages and Music for Sustaining the Heart of Healthcare. Learn more about it at careforthejourney.net.
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Gary: Care for the Journey came as a result of sharing Graceful Passages with many diverse caregivers. In our workshops and talks around the country, we've seen first hand how deeply in-need professionals are for psycho-spiritual support of their own. Today's health care system seems to be entrenched in a belief that death is a "medical failure" rather than an important part of the cycle of life. This need to control the outcome, no matter what the circumstances, keeps professionals habitually avoiding the issue, even when it is not appropriate. Unattended grief is also a consistent deterrent to fully embodying the presence required of healthcare providers. As a result of these and many other issues, not the least of which was the epidemic burn-out rates in the country, our nonprofit, Companion Arts, initiated a program and project called Care for the Journey, created for the support and spiritual nourishment of healthcare professionals. Michael has been taking the lead on this project, envisioning the final flowering as a professionally targeted, media rich, educational resource featuring the leading lights of the provider-centered care movement.
Essentially, we utilized the very same process we introduced with Graceful Passages, this time recording the spoken messages of mind-body leaders in healthcare such as Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Joan Borysenko, Phd, Christianne Northrup, MD, as well as nationally known nurse educators such as Jean Watson, R.N. and Tom Lant, R.N. We also included inspirational speakers such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Music Superstar, Naomi Judd. All the messages are scored with music, ensuring what we believe to be a more integrative absorption of the material.
We are currently seeking finishing funds for the full expression of the work -- a double CD workbook with tools for the cultivation of greater connection to the vocation, and information for the sustaining of a vibrant and spiritually nourishing career as a caregiver. We're proud of all the testimonials weÕve already received from our first CD, many of which can be found on the website, careforthejourney.net.
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Mary Daniel: What advice do you have for others who would like to turn to music for healing?
 Gary: I recommend that first and foremost, you explore your relationship to music and sound through direct experience, rather than through the intellect alone. Angeles Arrien, the multi-cultural anthropologist, says that indigenous people can't imagine not singing like we can't imagine not breathing or drinking. Therefore, sing, tone, chant, and then sing again. Tuning one's most sacred and powerful instrument is the most direct route to becoming a music healer. Most of all, I would recommend practicing and experimenting with your friends and loved ones. Include and experiment with touch while singing. Drop into your depths and share your true voice with authentic spoken word, accompanied with music.
Of course, all kinds of trainings are available now. The field of Bio and Psycho Acoustics is exploding at this time. Don Campbell of the Mozart Effect has blazed the trail, along with Tom Kenyan, Joshua Leeds, and Sylvia Nakkach of the Vox Mundi Project. The latter is starting a certificate program in Sound Healing and Music with the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco right now. Then there's always the conventional route, the study of music therapy, which has many schools of thought and is taught all over the country.
Mary Daniel: What excites you most right now in your work with music and healing?
Gary: Well, for one thing, I'm excited about continuing to work with Michael to create the subsequent volumes of the planned Wisdom of the World series, as well as finishing the almost completed Care for the Journey initiative. It's in the "add water and stirÕ phase of things – all we need is the funding – and then we can complete what weÕve started. I'm excited about that.
I'm also excited about the possibilities that are yet to happen in the media world. For far too long, media has been created to address the lowest common denominator of our cultures. The media has been called the nervous system of society many times, and if that's so, it's truly frightening. What has to happen now is to use all the media technologies, skills, talents and crafts necessary to enlighten, to inspire, to educate, to transform, and to catalyze change. After being a composer for film, television and commercials for over twenty-five years, I can tell you that I'm ready to see a change. And with projects like those of Michael Moore, (whether you agree with him or not), What the Bleep, Wild Divine (the game), and Graceful Passages, you're starting to see more and more media that address issues like universal spirituality, indigenous wisdom, green capitalism, and death and dying more openly, directly and creatively. And I want to be there as one of the contributors when it happens.
To learn more about Gary Malkin and his wonderful work, please visit the following web sites:
www.wisdomoftheworld.com and companionarts.org
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FEATURED BOOK:
The Nature of Music: Beauty, Sound, and Healing
By Maureen McCarthy Draper
 "What then is healing music?...On the most obvious level, it's music that makes you feel better...The most healing music may be music that carries the eternal dimension into this moment, connecting you with the larger meanings you live by." -Maureen McCarthy Draper
In The Nature of Music, Draper provides an in-depth look at how music can soothe the soul. Each chapter invites one to go deeper into the process of listening to music, absorbing it in a profound way so that it can offer healing, joy, and a feeling of greater aliveness. Draper refers throughout the text to classical works by Bach, Debussy, Mozart, and more -- often providing specific exercises and visualizations to do while listening to specific pieces of music. Much of the music she recommends is available on two Companion CD's that complement the book and are available through Spring Hill Music at www.springhillmedia.com. Other exercises in the book invite you to explore your own voice through singing, chanting and other sounds. She dedicates a chapter to "The Healing Power of Music," describing how music eases suffering and reduces physical pain. She offers suggestions like bringing friends in the hospital some of their favorite music, music that reminds them of a "happy, vibrant time in life." The whole book is full of anecdotes from the history of art and music that bring her points to life. Overall The Nature of Music is a delightful journey into the healing power of sound.
The Nature of Music: Beauty, Sound and Healing was published in 2001 by Riverhead Books, New York. This 228-page book sells for $14. Please click here to order a copy through Amazon.com.
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FEATURED LINK:
Chalice of Repose Project
chaliceofrepose.org
 "In the final hours and days of life, music can dramatically change the quality of life. The Chalice of Repose Project in Missoula, Montana, has pioneered the use of palliative music from voices and harps, with musicians trained to work with the dying. Founder-musician Theresa Schroeder-Sheker was inspired by the practices of the Cluny monks in twelfth-century France, who would hold, sing to, and play for dying brothers. Could the soul have a more harmonious passage from life to death?" - Maureen McCarthy Draper in The Nature of Music: Beauty, Sound, and Healing
The Chalice of Repose project brings beautiful harp and vocal music to the bedside of the dying. Founded by Theresa Schroeder-Sheker, the Chalice of Repose Project's goal is to "lovingly care for the physical and spiritual needs of the dying with prescriptive music."
To learn more, please visit www.chaliceofrepose.org/mission.htm
There is a wonderful video about the Chalice of Repose Project that was produced in 1998. Click here to learn more about it.
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FEATURED LINK:
Positive Music Association
www.positivemusicassociation.com
PMA Founder, Scott Johnson
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Positive Music Association (PMA) is the networking center for Positive Music aka Poz. As their site proclaims, "Poz is music of any style that conveys positive or constructive messages. It celebrates and embraces life. It is often music that heals, inspires, educates or enlightens. It is life affirming and inclusive. It may be spiritual, but not religious. ItÕs music of, and for, the soul." Their site includes a list of of PMA members and links to their websites, member spotlights, music resources, links to other positive media, and positive music events. To learn more, visit www.positivemusicassociation.com
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AHN SPECIAL FEATURE:
Hurricane Art Resources
The October and November issues of AHN News included links offering examples of how artists and arts organizations can and are engaged in helping bring relief to those affected by Huricane Katrina (and now Rita and Wilma too). Below are a few additional links. If you have other suggestions, please email them to ahn@artheals.org. Thank you.
 The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA)
www.musictherapy.org
AMTA has announced the Music Therapy Hurricane Katrina Response which will provide coordination, information, and resources to qualified music therapists interested in providing music therapy services to persons directly affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Americans for the Arts Emergency Relief Fund Recipients
www.americansforthearts.org
In response to Hurricane Katrina, Americans for the Arts established their Emergency Relief Fund. They have posted the initial recipients online and it is an inspirational list of how the arts are being supported in this region right now.
Call for Artists: iCare Village
kenmlund@runbox.com
ICare Village provides housing for relief workers and some local residents as well as offering recreational activites. They are looking for artists to offer art activities to hurricane survivors. If interested, please contact Kenneth Lund at kenmlund@runbox.com.
National Art Education Association Hurricane Katrina Fund
www.naea-reston.org/newsitem1.html
Dick Blick Art Materials has established a Hurricane Katrina Recovery
Fund through the National Art Education Association (NAEA) with an
initial contribution of $25,000 to benefit uninsured and underinsured
schools in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In addition, Dick Blick
will match the next $25,000 in individual contributions to this fund.
Power of Water Benefit Exhibition
www.c3va.org/html/activities/Wall/and-the-levee-broke-medit-2.shtml
The Department of Art Education, School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University is spearheading an exhibition with a goal of providing symbolic and concrete aid to children affected by Hurricane Katrina. The theme is "the power of water." Proceeds from art sales will be donated to the National Art Education Association Hurricane Katrina Fund.
There are more resources listed in the October AHN News and November AHN News.
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READERS RESPOND
 Readers Respond to Music and Healing...
"Your web site is truly inspiring. You may be interested in connecting with the Western Regional Music Therapy Association at www.wramta.org. The next regional conference is next spring in Orange County, CA. Thanks again for all the information you have worked to assemble on your fantastic web site."
-Patrick Kelliher
And Readers Respond to Hurricane Resources...
"I found a nice organization in Hightstown, New Jersey – Artists Helping Children – who are asking for old battered art supplies. You might post a notice that announces how to clean up your art desk and shelves and send to the Katrina Relief for children who are homeless and need art education to help them at this time. Send a box of old supplies to Artists Helping Children, 667 Ithica Place, Hightstown, NJ 08520."
-Tamara Safford
Please send us your thoughts and feedback on this issue of AHN News.
Was this issue of AHN News helpful and how?
Do you have other resources about music and healing you'd like to share?
Are there other topics you would like to see addressed in AHN News?
Please send your comments, ideas, and feedback to ahn@artheals.org.
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