The harp's beneficial properties may be connected to the way its different notes can resonate positively with different parts of the body, writes Anne Dempsey
'Harpists do it in a heavenly way' read a notice at the ninth World Harp Conference in UCD last week, and there was certainly some celestial fervour at the harp therapy workshop last Thursday. This session explained the role of the harp as an instrument of happiness and healing, with advice and information from experts.
The conference attracted a thousand harpists to Dublin, with master classes, lectures, new music, concerts and recitals. The whole affair was bounded and punctuated by harps, leaning against walls, gracing exhibition stands, standing majestically in various concourses awaiting their time to shine.
While we have always known that music has power to soothe the savage beast, with many instruments being particularly effective, harp music has been associated with spiritual wellbeing since biblical times, and its particular value as part of a treatment modality is now being consolidated.
The beneficial properties of the harp may have to do with its purity of sound, the way its different notes can resonate positively with different parts of the body, and the tension and release involved in plucking strings which can mimic heart rate and breath patterns.
In America, harp therapy has been widely accepted as a helpful adjunct in medical, nursing and psychological settings. Harpists, trained in harp therapy, play for ailing newborns in hospitals, patients suffering from life-threatening diseases, in hospices, nursing homes, to soothe industry's corporate brow, as well as in private counselling practices.
Sarajane Williams is a nurse and psychologist who works in Pennsylvania. Some I5 years ago she began to study vibroacoustic therapy - the use of low frequency sound pressure waves blended with music for therapeutic use. First tried in Norway over 20 years ago to stimulate children with multiple physical and mental handicaps, the equipment has greatly improved since then. Williams brought her harp to work and installed an acoustic relaxing chair for patients.
"While every patient is different, and specific results could not be predicted, patients subjected to 20 minutes of harp music self-reported pain reduction on a threshold of one to nine," she says. Her continued research showed increased attention span, better relaxation, improvement in spastic conditions and reduction in classic Parkinson-type tremor. She is currently studying how harp music can reduce the anxiety suffered by patients being weaned off their ventilator machines.
She edits The Harp Therapy journal, published quarterly as a channel for research and information-sharing between harpists, music therapists, and the medical, psychological and educational professions.
Over in Los Angeles, Irish harpist Una O'Donovan, who trained originally with Sheila Larchet Cuthbert in Dublin, read an article which suggested that playing the harp daily to patients can arrest the development of some diseases. She lives near the world famous Cedar's Sinai Medical Centre, which already has a music programme, so she asked if she could play her harp for patients. Her first effort was initially discouraging. "I started playing and the man lying there said 'no music, I'm sick'. I discovered he used to play Spanish guitar and was so sad at no longer being able to do so. We had a wonderful conversation about Spanish guitar, I played for him and he cheered up greatly. Next morning, one of the nurses said to me 'What did you do to the guy in 610? He's a changed man.'"
A third speaker, renowned harpist Christine Tourin, worked as a volunteer in San Diego hospice, and studied counselling, psychology and resonant kinesiology. A hospice study of 300 patients showed that 84 per cent experienced ease of anxiety, 71 per cent experienced ease of breathing and 63 per cent gained some pain relief after listening regularly to harp music by their bedside.
Ten years ago, Tourin founded the International Harp Therapy programme to train harpists in harp therapy. The year-long programme, taught in three modules, combines music, counselling and some complementary therapies. Affiliated to the San Diego hospice, modules are taught in the UK each summer, and next week the second module will be taught at the Irish Harp Centre, Castleconnell, Co Limerick.
While formal harp therapy in Ireland is in its infancy, there have been a number of initiatives to develop music programmes in healthcare settings, sponsored variously by the Arts Council, Music Network, Dublin City Council and the Midland Health Board.
Dublin-based Anne-Marie O'Farrell, international harpist, singer and composer, says: "Music therapy as a diagnostic tool offering a specially tailored programme is still very underdeveloped in Ireland and there is great scope for its advancement,".
For further information: www.harptherapy.com; www.harprealm.com; www.annemarieofarrell.com; www.irishharpcentre.com