Singing with heart: Penn State professor talks about connection between music and medicine

Though he admittedly is not a therapist or a musician, Dr. Paul Haidet was nevertheless willing to tackle a brief talk on the healing powers of music Sunday prior to an on-campus performance by the Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra.

Haidet, who has a background in general medicine, said that while the proposal of the task was daunting, his own love of music and his own research into the links between music and medicine prepared him for the lecture.

“Communication is central in jazz,” he said, saying his area of research is primarily in doctor/patient health care communication. “I’ve actually been melding my interest in how communication unfolds in jazz and in how research unfolds in medicine to look at the improvisational elements of health care communication.”

This led to the creation of a course called “Jazz and the Art of Medicine,” he said, which he teaches to his senior medical students at Penn State’s College of Medicine.

Haidet’s lecture came before PCO’s “Music for the Heart” concert at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center in conjunction with the American Heart Association, Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Juniper Village at Brookline. A portion of the proceeds for every ticket sold will be donated to the heart association, PCO board Vice Chairwoman Karen Blair-Brand said.

Haidet spoke of the musician Melody Gardot, whose own journey through injury and music highlighted the connection between health and music. According to Haidet, Gardot was injured in 2003 when she was hit by a car while cycling.

Bed-ridden for a year, she suffered neural injuries that left her sensitive to light and sound and required her to relearn simple tasks, he said. She also suffered memory problems.

She was prompted by a doctor to begin writing music, he said. Breaking off from Gardot’s story, he briefly dove into an ongoing project by neuroscientists called the Human Connectome project.

Much like how scientists were able to map the human genome, he said, neuroscientists are working to map the wiring of the human brain.

“There’s a whole group in the neuroscience community that has grown up around the idea of creativity,” he said. “They’re asking, can we look at what the brain is doing while being creative, and it’s centered in music, particularly in improvisational musicians.”

The idea, he said, is music is such a complex activity that all parts of the brain get used when creating it.

Gardot started humming and eventually was able to sing into a tape recorder, he said. After further progression, she began to write original songs. She has since gone on to release four albums.

Haidet welcomed everyone to listen and share in the following concert, to feel the music rather than analyze, and share in the experience with their fellow concert-goers.

This story was originally published February 14, 2016 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Singing with heart: Penn State professor talks about connection between music and medicine."