Jerry Coleman and a Challenge to Veterans

Today I was humbled to attend the public memorial for Jerry Coleman at Petco Park. There will be plenty of press about Jerry's service in the United States Marines, in baseball and as a broadcaster, and there is nothing more I can add to what has been and will be said many times. The irony is that, while all of it is true, there was a quiet aspect of Jerry Coleman that embodies character traits many believe are missing in America these days.

Lt Col Coleman served as a pilot in two wars: World War II and Korea. As befitting many in "The Greatest Generation" he was not given to talking much about his military service. Folks from that era were above braggadocious self-aggrandizement, and frequently point to their brothers and sisters as the reason for whatever military or civilian success may have come their way. This was true of Jerry to a fault, as many of today's speakers confirmed, and it is honorable. That kind of character served them well, and gave their kids excellent role models to emulate.

The sad truth is that many of us in the Baby Boomer generation didn't emulate our parents sooner.

Something about what made Jerry Coleman tick got lost during the Vietnam era. We thought, perhaps, that we knew better -- that the stiff upper lip of proud and humble service didn't serve us. But, when some in America spit on the returning Vietnam Veterans, folks like Jerry kept going, continuing to lead by example with the same character that kept them at war until the job was done, honoring the memories of brother and sister heroes who did not come home through their own exemplary lives. Vets like Jerry Coleman spoke little about their military service, choosing instead to show us how being willing to give their lives for America could play out as husbands, fathers and grandfathers. If you are fortunate to have come from such a family, you have received a rare gift.

We are now almost 70 years away from the end of World War II, but the spirit that won that war is not forgotten. There are young Veterans living near many of us today who have the sparks of that spirit in them. Maybe they are noted public servants or businesspeople, or maybe they are homeless, but they share an oath of willingness to sacrifice their lives for...what?

This is today's challenge to Veterans of all eras: make your sacrifice come alive for the rest of us.

Most people are aware of the invisible wounds of war that afflict so many of our young Veterans today. If you are a young Veteran, take those wounds deeply into your psyche and let them inform the passion with which you tell your story, then tell your story. Tell it to those who love you. Tell it with sensitivity to your loved ones' ability to digest the tough stuff. Let your friends and family see the angst that goes with being a combatant today -- show us the tragedy of having to make instant moral decisions that may or may not be the right ones; show us the pain that goes with having to make those decisions. Show us how to make better choices in civilian life as a result of the ones you had to make in the Service. Show us how to lead, how to mentor, how being a brother or sister on the battlefield can strengthen the ties to friends and family here at home. Sure: you may not get it right the first time, but the people around you here at home need your experience -- however horrific -- and your openness. We live in an era where the most difficult choices are happening, not in the boardroom or the courthouse or the halls of government, but in the families and communities of military combatants, and we need leadership.

Most people have an understanding of the history of Vietnam, but not many of us know what it has been like to live as a Vietnam Veteran since then. If you are a Vietnam Veteran, you may have now retired both from the military and from a civilian career or two. You know what it has been like to live with your past. Tell us. Tell us about the choices that led you to Vietnam. Tell us about what it was like to fight there. Tell us how that changed you -- or didn't. Tell us what it has been like since you came home. Tell us how you began to work for peace, or worked for a defense contractor, and why. Tell us about your commitment to your buddies; about the ones that didn't come home; about how you were treated by others -- some of them friends or family -- who became conscientious objectors. Give us some insight into how difficult it has been, into what has made it more bearable. If you became successful in civilian life, tell us about what made that possible and how it happened. Help us understand the adversity and teach us how we might possibly do it better if we were ever given the opportunity. Maybe your grandsons and granddaughters need to hear this; maybe total strangers will hear it -- tell it far and tell it loud and help us understand how you came to be who you are today.

This is hard to do. It's not typically what those in military service do. But if only a few accept the challenge -- if only a few find the courageous humility to do so -- think of the potential for changing the future. Next time you find your kids or grandkids playing war games online, take them aside and tell them what it is really like in battle. Talk to them about what a Purple Heart really means. Give them some real life combat infantry tactics. Most importantly, help them understand what it really means to make the ultimate sacrifice, or to hold a buddy in your arms while he or she makes it. These are beautiful character-building opportunities our world can't afford to miss. Veterans: we need you.*

Jerry, thank you for your noble lifetime of service. Thank you for the inspiration of your service, from aviator to baseball player to broadcaster. Thank you for giving your voice to the Padres for more than 40 years. I hope your passing inspires us to keep on talking...about what it means to serve in the United States Military, as a civilian, as a father and grandfather, as a brother, colleague, mentor, leader and friend. God bless you, Jerry Coleman.

*A great online collection of Veteran stories has already begun at Make the Connection -- please share yours.

Sex, Drugs, Food and Music in the Workplace

One of my favorite go-to researchers on the topic of music and human physiology is Dr Daniel Levitin. He's documented the relationship between listening to music you love and the release of dopamine -- the feel-good hormone. Dopamine is also released by eating, having sex and by some drugs, including many of the illegal "recreational" ones.

Think about it for a second or two and you'll get the visual: romantic dinner, fine wine (a legal drug), soft lighting and music you both love.... But I digress.

Sex and Drugs in the Workplace? 

Now that I've got your attention, this isn't a post about sex or drugs at work -- bad idea, people.

So...how is it possible to feel good at work if your occupation is a grind? If your boss is an ogre? If you are working three jobs to make ends meet? I'm not talking about just making it through the day so that you can go home to your chosen dose of dopamine; I'm talking about using a legal, safe and effective workplace intervention to keep the dopamine going while at work all day long.

Food at Work

By way of an example, let's start with food. If you have ever been out to lunch with your team from the office, or been subjected to one of those embarrassing office birthday things, or keep a bowl of M&Ms or jelly beans or nuts at your desk, you'll have an idea of where this is going. Sharing a snack or a meal with your co-workers is a great way to build rapport "outside" the normal humdrum of workplace activity. Food boosts dopamine, you feel better (at least no longer hungry!) for a while, and in that better-feeling place you naturally feel more secure, lower your guard a bit and get to know something about your co-workers as human beings. However briefly, the shared food-based dopamine boost over lunch can create a way for your co-workers to know and relate to you better, possibly enabling a more productive working environment. Make sense?

Team-building trainings and conferences, especially ones that last a day or more, often have activities in them integrated to food: networking lunches or games during dinner are common ways that food-based dopamine helps people get to know and trust each other. The more time you allow to really enjoy the meal, the better for your digestive system -- and for your dopamine level.

That bowl of snacks on your desk? A great icebreaker, certainly, but I'm not suggesting a sustained sugar boost all day long. If you're going to put out an obvious social offering for your co-workers, please make it a healthy one --something enjoyable that takes a few moments to consume. Taking a snack break with a colleague gives you both time to get the dopamine boost together, and that's what you want when it comes to using food with the purpose of building rapport, getting to know a new colleague, even coming out of a tough meeting and needing that dopamine "reset."

(By the way, it's hard for me to understand folks grabbing lunch alone at their desks. I done it too. Time constraints on the job are a reality, but wouldn't you rather take 15 minutes to enjoy a meal than 5 minutes to gobble something unsatisfying and non-nutritious that you'll pay for later? You can have a nice solo dopamine boost from a slower meal, and a quick walk to the sandwich shop with a team member can work out better for your health and workplace satisfaction than holing up in your cube with FaceBook and fast food.)

The point here is integrating food and the people you work with for the best possible use of dopamine is a good idea.

Music at Work

Isolating yourself under headphones while in the office is one of those good/bad ideas. If you need the solo concentration to work a project well, by all means put on the tunes you love to get you feeling good about your work. On the other hand, your feel-good music might be separating you from your team. This balance is one you'll have to find based on your own specific workplace demands. Of course I'm an advocate for sound-tracking as much of your day to day as you can -- who wouldn't want that musical dopamine high all day? -- but there's a more useful way to bring music into your workplace.

I've spent too much of my musical performance time as a soloist. Don't get me wrong -- I really enjoy giving my one-man show -- but working with other musicians in rehearsal and performance made me realize how much I was missing by performing alone. Here's why....

Musicians playing together are all "on" dopamine. Yeah, I know some bands perform high on a bunch of other substances as well, but whatever the genre, the musical magic that happens is heightened by this shared physiological experience. The fact is, you can't make music you love without releasing some amount of dopamine into your system.

(To be complete, listening to or making music you hate triggers an adrenalin-based fight/flight/freeze response, which tends to isolate you from social interaction and therefore wouldn't be so good around the office. If your occupation happens to involve situation that produce adrenalin, such as "pro athlete" or "military combatant" or "peace office" or "first responder" your training is such that you can effectively do your job under heavy distress regardless of the hormones coursing through your system. Balancing the adrenalin rush with dopamine comes later, "inside the wire" or after the game or once the emergency is over, and without this balancing, your risk of an adrenalin addiction becomes a real concern. If this describes you, please get some professional attention -- you deserve it.)

Back to that making music together scenario....

Whether I lead a drum circle or present the power of music to an audience in a keynote address, there's always a shift in the room once people have made music together. In a small circle, as the dopamine kicks in and you and the other participants tune in to each other, you begin to know each other on a level that has nothing to do with what you wear, whether you like your job or not, what car your drive or the language you speak. Making music together just eliminates those superficial ways we relate to each other and provides a very safe, effective and legal means of reaching a deep connection and understanding with the other participants. In a large group, there's a powerful shared experience of creating music together. You can literally watch a change take place in the participants as the music progresses from start to finish.

Certainly dopamine facilitates that experience, but there are other factors working as well. It's a holistic thing (physical, social, emotional) that's complex enough to bore you completely. The point is that, after a group music-making exercise, there is a new openness in the participants' communication, a certain inflection of joy where there may have been stoicism and a willingness to relate as human beings without considering position, rank and seniority. In that powerfully open place, it becomes possible to achieve things as a team that would not have been done so simply without the musical intervention.

This is not to say that entire companies ought to drum together regularly, although that could be interesting. What I'm suggesting is that team leaders have powerful team-strengthening tools available to them that are safe, effective and legal...and largely unused. Most of the world's music can be found online for free. We can drum on a conference room table with our hands. We can stomp or tap our feet. We can sing -- even badly! or chant. There's quite honestly no limit on the ways we can make music together.

Yes, in America, there is a taboo about shared music making. Back in the day, companies such as Ford Motors and IBM actually began meetings by singing their respective company songs, which every worker -- from the Chairman to the journeyman -- knew by heart and could sing them robustly. Some of this tradition survives in civic clubs and at sports events, but, for the most part, it has simply disappeared at the office. Too bad; singing those songs at work brought people together in a way that felt good (dopamine) and welcomed a better level of interaction. 

The best "modern" surviving example of singing on the job could be the military chants drill sergeants use to keep their platoons moving on long marches. If you are a workplace team leader, maybe you could begin by using the vocal chant cadences here and modifying them to fit your specific team objectives, then trying them on your team in the conference room before meetings. It's a start, right?

(Spoiler alert: sales pitch coming!)

If leading your team in a chant or drumming on the desk isn't your style, reach out to Music Care Inc for some help. Our innovative training can get your team humming (literally!) and give productivity and team interaction a positive boost.

Music at work? Why not? Making music at work? What are you waiting for?

ObamaCare vs Self Care

If you, like me, are attempting to "navigate" the new government bureaucracy that is supposed to be "health insurance" in the United States and are frustrated, I'd like to offer a life line.

Clearly, there are aspects of health care that are beyond the normal ability of most of us: we probably shouldn't perform open heart surgery on ourselves, for example. But when it comes to dealing with distress, anxiety and common-variety depression, there's an alternative to the ObamaCare mess that is affordable, safe and effective.

First of all, please know that most distress, anxiety and common-variety depression are feelings that are normal for most human beings. These feelings arise as warnings to us: ALERT is usually the indication. Notice what's causing the distress. Notice what's causing the anxiety. Notice what's causing the depression.

***BIG DISCLAIMER!!!*** If you can't figure out what is causing your feelings, please stop reading right now and GET HELP. IF YOU CANNOT GET OK ON YOUR OWN, please please please DO NOT self-medicate with harmful substances or hurtful practices. Licensed therapists, ministers, physicians and other professionally-credentialed individuals are available to help you sort out what is causing you to hurt. There's no real reason for your to suffer 100% of the time; there are ways to change that and you deserve to do so if that's what you want. There are many FREE resources you can find online if you need them -- search for your County's health services department or dial "2-1-1" to locate help, for example.

Back to the discussion about noticing the cause of my feelings....

My difficulty with noticing comes from maintaining my perspective; that is, the "bad" feelings, when they become debilitating, sometimes become too much for me to handle without tools and interfere with my ability to notice what's causing the feelings themselves. This blog post offers you some of my favorite musical tools for maintaining perspective so that you CAN notice what's causing your feelings and change them. (If you don't use it to blow your eardrums, music is economical, safe and effective.)

These tools are presented in order -- you will want to experiment with the first ones to help you master the next ones. I will offer you three tools here -- for more, please contact me!

Overwhelmed by your feelings? Go with it!

There is a common practice in mental/emotional health care that seems to have originated in Eastern wisdom and been adopted by Westerners. This practice engages you deeply and safely in a full experience of the feeling, whatever it is. This is in direct opposition to the "stiff upper lip" method of dealing with issues, which is how I grew up, and I find it quite freeing. Here's a quick "how to" for using music to fully experience a feeling.

First, select some music you love that matches the feeling you are having. That is, if you are grieving, don't choose your happy music. Instead, choose music that is sad, melancholy, tragic, depressing. You want the music outside of you mirror the feeling inside you.

Next, find a place where you can put on your headphones and listen without being disturbed by too much around you.

Then, LISTEN. Listen to your music over and over. Listen for as long as you feel sad -- sometimes a few minutes, or sometimes days or even weeks. If you needs days or weeks to fully feel the grief, please know that using music to support your grief in this way will permit you to feel it fully and more beneficially than if you did not consciously sit down and make time for your musical grieving.

You will notice at some point that your grief has passed. It's as if the feeling has been fully experienced and moved through you, leaving room for the next feelings to appear. Don't worry about the next feelings; your objective is to stay with your grief and the music in which you are "containing" that grief until you are done with that particular feeling of grief. 

This process works with ALL feelings. Don't trust me on this; prove it for yourself.

Need a quick pivot? Use a musical "corner."

In a traditional New Orleans funeral procession, mourners accompany the coffin on foot from church to cemetery, often joined by a brass band. The band starts the procession playing a dirge: slow, sad music that permits the mourners to grieve (see above!). At some point during the march, however, the music will change. Usually the same song that was played down-tempo is now played up-tempo. Right there in the funeral procession, the musical accompaniment changes from grief to joy. Why?

Have you ever attended a live concert? Recall the moment in the concert when the band played something slow? Back in the day, we all held lighters (or matches) in the air to join the feeling of the ballad; last time I witnessed such a thing (Hollywood Bowl with Crosby, Stills Nash and Young), everyone held up their lighted mobile phone. This is equivalent to the slow part of the New Orleans funeral procession.

Back to that live concert. Remember what happened after the ballad? Everything went crazy, right? CSN&Y started a medley of all their greatest hits, and 40,000 people sang along. In only a moment, that entire concert shifted from "ballad" feeling to "greatest hits" feeling. This is what I call a musical "corner."

I know: joining a New Orleans funeral procession or getting 40,000 people and a legacy musical act together for YOUR specific issue isn't practical. But you can make a playlist with a musical corner in it. All you need are two songs with clearly contrasting feelings. From the music you love, pick a song that's slow and one that's not slow, put them into a two-song playlist, put on your headphones and listen. It only takes as long as the two songs you love and you're done. Pivot accomplished.

Here's the magic: you don't even need a music player!

Need to support or corner a feeling? No music player handy? No problem!

Fortunately for you, human beings have a unique ability to recall music accurately. Ever been bugged by an ear worm (that annoying song stuck in your head that won't go away)? Use that ability of your brain to recall the music you WANT and put it to work.

You'll need a way to shut off the world while you "play" your music in your head (soundless, but you will respond as if you were actually hearing the music). I use noise-canceling headphones if they're available, or a walk outdoors, or just sitting in a chair for a few minutes. Even if I'm in the office, there are ways to "take 5" that are relatively quiet -- a restroom stall works OK. The point here is to turn off as much of the external noise as you can to give your ears a break.

Once you have relative silence around you, make the voice in your head become a DJ and tell it to play the song you want. This will take some concentration because that voice in your head like to talk about what it's doing ALL THE TIME, but with practice you will find you can rely on it to shut up and just listen for a bit. You can help the voice to stay quiet by focusing your attention on the music of your choice playing in your head. Try to stay with the music from beginning to end -- as you remember it. Whether you're supporting a feeling or creating a corner, you will find that the results surprisingly similar to the ones you get when you actually listen to a recording or live concert. Really.

Plan in advance: playlists for when you need them.

Last thing: you can organize your music for when you need it. Thanks to tools like spotify.com and GrooveShark.com, you don't have to settle for whatever Pandora gives you. If your music isn't inspiring you any more, apps like Songza will actually serve up feeling-based playlists assembled by real human musical experts for your delight and edification (and use!).

I like to have a few feeling-specific playlists stashed away in Spotify for when I need them. It only takes a few minutes to organize your songs in this way, and when a feeling shows up that needs expression, my latest playlist is right there at my fingertips. You can make a two-song corner playlist from longer ones of contrasting feelings, or make specific two-song corner lists that work just as well. Go nuts! Storage is free (mostly -- I DO keep some songs in iTunes or offline Spotify playlsits for when I don't have decent cell coverage) and the music is "mostly" free (you know how it goes: pay the subscription to avoid the advertisements -- I don't like audio ads honking up my self care).

Happier new year....

I hope you'll join me in working to improve this year over last. (I don't actually make resolutions for the new year, but the notion of working to make things better is a practice I remember every time January First rolls around.) If there's any way you can make music a bigger part of caring for your sanity, that's a great start. If you find it works for you, spread the word. I'm just one person, and so are you, but if more an more of us start adding music to our practice, perhaps some of the world's noise will also be transformed.

Blessed

B 

Thanks to Nordstrom....

One of the laugh lines in my show makes fun of how unrewarding it is to play piano at Nordstrom. That's not entirely true, and I want to explain why, because I'm indebted to many people I will probably never meet again for the true gifts they gave me while I sat at the piano and they...were my customers.

Back in the early late 80s and early 90s, I was invited to join the piano staff at Nordstrom Main Place Mall in Santa Ana. I did so as a part-time pianist for a year or so before moving to Pennsylvania to take a promotion at the company for which I worked full time. A few years later, back in Southern California, separated, trying to keep my business afloat, keep from being homeless and see my kids as often as possible, playing the piano at Nordstrom was literally my only steady -- if meager -- income. I took every opportunity to play because I needed the money and, for a time, the Steinway grands in the Nordstrom Main Place and South Coast Plaza stores were the only pianos available to me to play semi-regularly.

I've observed lots of audiences, both as an audience member myself and as an onstage performer, but it was the Nordstrom "audience" that gave me my real education on the ways that music actually works on listeners, whether they are consciously paying attention or not.

I made some close friends while playing for Nordstrom, and I'm honored to know from their stories how deeply music moved them. Most of them are now passed away, a few remain with whom I'm no longer close. I'm humbled to have had their friendship, wisdom and insight, as well as their candor about the music I played while they were listening. Each one has had an impact on my life. But this story is about the others who heard my play and what I learned from them -- the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who floated through Nordstrom back in the glory days of the Internet.

Most of the time, sitting there at the piano pretty much on autopilot with the latest Disney movie themes or pop tunes, I could look around at what was happening in the store. After a few months I could recognize most of the employees who worked in departments close by the piano, as well as the roaming personal shoppers and plainclothes security. Eventually, I could recognize most of the employees throughout the store, if only from the frequency that they appeared floating by me through endless streams of people. Both the Nordstrom stores at which I played positioned their pianos close to the incoming entrance to an escalator, so there was always a constant surge of people coming from behind me towards the escalator and moving past me either on their way up or down a level or just alongside the piano to some other part of the store.

Once in a while, someone would stop somewhere near a railing or counter, not to look at the displays or purchase something, but to...what? Rest? Wait? Listen? In a constantly-churning river of shoppers and employees, one person stopped still stands out sharply. Most of the time, in that fixed place, the man or woman would look sort of aimlessly around (this was before everyone had smart phones for distraction at those resting moments), sometimes scanning for someone else, or admiring the decorations at holiday times, or semi-focusing on where that piano music was coming from.

Part of the job of a piano player at Nordstrom was to be a kind of greeter. We were encouraged to make eye contact, smile, speak to people if we could while playing or during breaks between sets, give directions if asked. If you think about it, seeing someone in a tuxedo or evening gown making amazing music at a very large grand piano in the middle of a department store is a bit of a novelty -- and Nordstrom was quite effective at exploiting it for many years -- and the novelty is enhanced when the pianist actually takes time to smile and say hello while playing. It's a unique personal touch, and Nordstrom was "high touch" with its customers in those days. I really enjoyed this part of my job which, in a formal concert setting, would have been mostly Vorboten, so when I offered a smile or "hello" to someone stopped in the store observing me, I can imagine it being surprising to a customer at first, and then somehow welcoming.

Meeting the eyes and smile of some random person stopped in the store and just gazing around to find the piano happened often. What happened next was always amazing and unpredictable. Some folks would collect themselves and whatever bags they had momentarily set down and scurry away on some quickly-remembered errand, almost as if they had been caught napping at work. Some folks would pretend not to have shared my greeting and keep scanning the store. Some folks would stay focused on listening and watching, even from far across the atrium, until the end of the song or sometimes until the end of the set, intent on the music. Some folks took the time to approach the piano and stand closer until I finished whatever I happened to be playing. The people who showed interest, it seemed, always were the most interested when I played music one wouldn't expect to hear playing in a large, elegant department store: ragtime, dramatic Rachmaninoff, Chopin or Beethoven, odd arrangements of TV theme music. Their interest wasn't derisive, it was mostly curious and (I'm glad to say) appreciative. Random people told me how pleasant it was to hear music other than the top-40 sound tracks most retail stores use, but I began to understand something else was going on. The only way I can describe it is that the folks who listened somehow had a need for the music.

A Nordstrom piano player was not supposed to be an entertainer, in the sense that many street musicians actually have a carefully-constructed performance that produces donations in the guitar case (for example), so I wasn't thinking or attempting to put on a show, but it started to be clear to me that people wanted some sort of presentation in the music, especially when they stopped to listen. Their generous offer of musical time with me needed to be met with a satisfying musical experience that sent them along to the next purchase or errand. People expected more, and Nordstrom was about exceeding customers' expectations, even when that included making live music for them.

This challenged me to not only play the very best I could but also to assemble the music I used in a way that listeners felt was satisfying and somehow complete, all spontaneously and without much (if any) direct input from the listeners. Sure, I was often asked for the same song multiple times each shift, but if that happened I had to figure out how to turn out a fresh "product" each time, or weave together a medley with a clear musical direction -- beginning, middle, end -- and a satisfying arc of emotion. I'm sure I kludged a few loser playlists back in the day, but over time, people taught me what worked, and I started to get better at it.

There were a few setbacks, but I'm still grateful. One crowded holiday some college frat brat came up behind me while I was playing and lifted my arms and hands off the keys. He's lucky he didn't get clocked on both sides of his head -- pianists have fairly well-developed arm and back muscles -- and instead received only a smile and a nod and very little interruption in the music. There was always the superior person who scoffed: "I can play that piece much better than you!" (yup: really happened...a lot) or who observed loudly to companions: "He must really be desperate to waste such talent on Nordstrom." They all got a smile, sometimes a grin. They all helped teach me about live performance and what it takes to produce one in a very un-concert-like environment. Every one of them gave me a gift I could take back to the recital hall and use in some way. Often, in addition to giving a smile to these difficult customers, I'd intentionally play a wrong note in an obvious way just to further their superior self impression, often to the delight of other folks standing by who had observed and heard the interchange. In this way, even the hard stuff became pleasant -- almost a game -- and my fear of going into the crucible of a concert hall lessened.

Like the trapeze artists who intentionally fail a stunt twice to build their engagement with the audience, playing at Nordstrom taught me the value of vulnerability and the joy of sharing a listening experience with an audience. So much of what appears as live music in a concert hall situation is about an audience's expectation of virtuosity from the performer -- of how he or she will "interpret" some classic, difficult work. Will he be able to play the really hard part? Will the interpretation be "correct?" If it is a premiere, will the piece of music and the performance pass critical muster in the highbrow word of musical sophistication? The opposite of that was happening to me at Nordstrom, even if I played the same music I took into a formal concert: all those formal expectations, while still there, took the form of a delightful shared journey with the audience.

So I'm writing today with thanks for Nordstrom. Playing piano at Nordstrom literally kept me fed and housed when I had no other income. Nordstrom taught me the importance of being able to perform under any circumstances, and to make every rendition of the latest Disney tune fresh, even if playing it for the tenth time in four hours. But my biggest gratitude for Nordstrom goes to the people who came there: employees, shoppers, folks just passing through from one part of the mall to another. Without Nordstrom and its commitment to having a grand piano and pianist in every store, the people who listened there would never have inspired me and taught me to do what I do today, and I'd be just another guy in a tux on a stage with a big piano.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you Nordstrom!

Blessed

B

On My Second Wedding Anniversary – 11/11/2013

Maybe (I would explain later) the middle-aged woman in the silver Audi sedan just happened to have her arm out the window, and maybe (I would have to say) she was randomly giving the bird to those autumn-yellow leaves hovering there against Cathedral Rock and to the rest of the south-facing world in general for a present in which having red dust removed from the Audi by that twenty-something tan Island boy who might have been a champion surfer and works now for the detail service was no longer economically feasible given that your ex left you here in Sedona with the house you can no longer afford…

…or maybe that bird was really meant for me, here in your city with my wife the artist on our second anniversary – you know, the celebration you don’t have any more? – stopped politely in the through lane of your roundabout waiting for traffic to merge and looking so happy together...

…or maybe it was our California plates or the CalVet magnet on our tailgate (I hope that the need for Veterans doesn’t make you angry) or maybe the Pepperdine Law window sticker enraged you because your ex’s attorney is an alum…

…but (as I must eventually admit) I think the Audi’s busted-up windshield and multiply-dented driver-side door really need explaining since you were clearly not pleased to have blown your horn so forcefully at me driving like a tourist lost in a roundabout, and it was that sound that got me into gear to persevere so enthusiastically with that escape hammer/tool/thing I keep in the door pocket just in case – which in this case meant relieving myself of a momentary rage and leaving your Audi’s ingress, egress and view ahead somewhat marred…

…Yes, that is how I would tell them it happened, if any of it ever had….

The Ghost in the Machine

Working with music as a transformative modality brings me up smack against the research by neuroscientists. There seems to be a consensus that sound can cause release of, say, serotonin, and that varying amounts of serotonin have varying effects on the human system, ranging from very good to very bad. Anyone who's working through the issue of getting their psych meds "right" can confirm that.

Notable physicians, neuroscientists and surgeons playing around with the effects of music today include Dr Oliver Sacks ("Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain"), Dr Daniel J Levitin ("This is Your Brain on Music") and Dr Claudius Conrad ("A Musician Who Performs With A Scalpel"). Also, if you haven't heard this remarkable segment from radiolab.org on "blame" it is VERY worth an hour of your time, especially because it got me thinking about how little we really know about the human brain.

Like music therapy, neuroscience is still in relative infancy. Both music therapy and neuroscience are making incredible strides forward in research and treatment, but based on the actual science we have for both disciplines, we're a long way from consistent results. That is, the skill of the music therapist or neuroscientist is still the biggest factor in applying research to successful treatment. One neuroscientist, interviewed on the radiolab "blame" segment, compared what we know about the human brain to viewing the Earth from space: we can see a lot of stuff happening, but we are a long way from understanding what's really going on. The analogue to this, from a musical point of view, are last Century's musical over-simplifications: "listening to Mozart makes you smarter" or "listening to rap makes you angry." Hogwash. Sort of.

The real issue is that, thanks in part to the profit-based medical industry, medical research is overly fascinated with quantifiable results. The search for quantifiable results -- the scientific method, if you will -- only leads us down a rabbit hole that keeps getting narrower and narrower until we can reliably make a conclusion that something -- albeit a very small thing -- changed as a result of our intervention (drugs, surgery, music). For music, this is exactly the wrong measurement. Music is too broad to be pigeon-holed so neatly.

I agree that a singular effect of a specific sound can be quantified, but that's not the same thing as understanding how even the simplest melody can create such a huge range of emotion, varying from individual to individual, and it's certainly a long way from being a determining factor in treatment of a particular symptom. Serotonin's effects can range from more peaceful sleep to schizophrenia, depending on the quantity present in the human system, and music-induced riots -- the premiere of Stravisky's "Rite of Spring" is one well-known example -- probably trace their impetus to a measurable overdose of serotonin. I'm not encouraging neuroscientific research in a mosh pit, but it could be instructive....

The big point here is that too narrow a focus on a particular result and connecting it too specifically to music, in my opinion, misses the powerful and holistic nature of "music therapy." What little scientific knowledge we have about the effects of music -- by the very nature of the way in which that knowledge was obtained -- does not give a very big picture of the potential music has for results. Our medical need to quantify a particular effect obscures our view of the hundreds of other effects happening simultaneously.

Music therapy, for example, has been found to be quite beneficial in "treating" autism. That's wonderful, to be sure. But not everyone in the world has autism. On the other hand, a huge majority of people in the world have stress-related issues -- too many of them to quantify, certainly -- and it's well known that music can "help" with distress. Unfortunately for the measurement-based treatment community, nothing is going to be done to advance music as a "cure" for distress, specifically because "stress" is too general and the effects of music are too broad. That's a shame, because nothing works better for self medication in distress than music. Sadly, both the medical and music therapy communities consider themselves successful for alleviating the symptoms of many stress-related illnesses while forgetting that they haven't done a thing about the actual stress-producing causes....

Until we have a better understanding of neuroscience, and of music's ability to trigger predictable responses in the human system, a more holistic approach is needed. The medical research and treatment community is going to have to accept a more qualitative perspective. Patients' response to intervention must be allowed to go outside a multi-point checklist and numerical scale if we are to have any chance at understanding the more complex results of that music-based intervention. This isn't a new idea, but it's use is overdue. How many patients are killed by well-meaning physicians who administer the wrong drug? Our reliance on smaller and smaller slices of understanding is useful, but the interaction of the entire human system with any given intervention is critical. We delve farther and farther into isolated effects at our own peril, and folks who deserve better care ought not pay for it with poorer health.

On the other hand, music is safe, effective and freely available. In addition to mental, emotion and physical benefits, it also has positive social implications. Most importantly, one doesn't need a credentialed therapist to experience and enjoy the effects of music -- even the therapeutic ones! Anyone experiencing distress who is within range of a computer or a smart phone is also within range of treatment for that distress. 

How does this work? You can either wait around for an expert to answer that question with "science" your health insurance might just pay for, or you can begin NOW to use music for your own relief. Ask yourself: would I stop eating because I don't understand the science underlying my digestive system and biology of nutrition? Music and sound have been available for millennia. What are we waiting for? Some doctor to tell us to fire up Spotify or Pandora or Songza? The ghost in your machine is hungry for music! Time to start listening!

Time to start giving ourselves better care. It's not hard -- and it might even "treat" issues we didn't even consider transforming in ways we hadn't thought possible.

Get your music on!

How to Fill the Biggest Gap in Veterans Services

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with a professor from San Diego State University School of Public Affairs. This distinguished gentleman has spent a good deal of effort in the area of re-integration of justice-involved individuals to "normal" society. He made the observation that re-integration works best when the receiving social structure is properly prepared.

This means that we have a much better shot at keeping recidivism rates low when "the public" has the skills and knowledge to help provide a smooth ride from prison to life free society.

Do you have those kinds of skills and that knowledge? I'm not sure that I do...but I'm motivated to learn.

This got me thinking about what folks in "Veterans Services" social enterprises like to call "transition" -- the period of time and the associated activities that members of the United States Armed Forces undergo prior to and immediately after "separation" from active duty and integration into life as civilians.

Here in San Diego, Veterans Services organizations of all sizes and kinds have begun to work closely with both government and military command to re-define the process of transition and the continuum of services necessary to help folks in that process be more successful at it. Many other communities around the United States are actively thinking about the same things, developing best practices and dramatically improving their local transition processes to be better than they may ever have been.

I honor that hard work and commitment and want very much to see it succeed. I have no doubt that it can, but the professor's comments about re-integration made me wonder: is the public ready for this? As a civilian in San Diego, am I prepared for this?

Why me? Because after a Service member separates, I'm part of the community he or she lives in. I'm part of the workforce Service members expect to contribute to. I'm part of the social fabric a transitioning Service member hopes to weave their skills and capabilities into. What do I need to do, learn, understand and appreciate to be ready to help transitioning Service members become successful in civilian life?

We have a very progressive Chaplaincy at our local Veterans Administration Healthcare Center. One of the interesting programs these Chaplains launched is a couples retreat called "From Warrior to Soulmate" that seeks to help military members and their significant others become a strong family unit. Warrior to Soulmate was so successful, both with Veterans and with Active Duty Service members, that the program went nationwide less than a year after it was launched.

The VA Chaplains also began a program of education for church leaders and congregations throughout San Diego County. This program helped clergy and regular citizens gain an appreciation for the needs of transitioning Service members beyond housing, employment and physical care. It was useful to the clergy as counselors and mentors, and I hope it was also useful to the members of their churches -- the people in a transitioning Service member's faith-based community.

The gap, however, between what we have today in San Diego County -- as good as we think it is -- and an informed compassionate and effective citizenry able to properly support and mentor Service members in transition is a big one.

Employers need to have understanding and compassion as well as skills and tools to mentor Service-to-Civilian Veterans. School teachers and administrators need the same skills and more to provide compassionate care for the children of ex-military families. Government and civic organizations have awareness but they also need to strengthen their skills.

And regular folks like me, my wife, our kids and our friends need to know what to expect when we encounter a Service member in transition.

So do you, in your community, when newly-minted Veterans transition out of Service to be your community members, friends, co-workers, parishioners, parents of your kids' school friends...you get the picture.

And, by the way, Veterans are just one of the very important groups of transitioning folks you might find in your community. Others include formerly-justice-involved individuals, folks moving from homeless to domiciled and large populations of recent immigrants or refugees -- there are most likely others.

To close this gap in services we need a new kind of agency or non-government organization: one that teaches regular folks how to mentor folks in transition.

Mentor? Yes: mentor. We don't need more clinicians, therapists and professionals to fill this gap -- there are plenty of opportunities for those specialties, too, in their own domains. What we need are regular everyday folks who are spooled up on what it takes to be both useful and compassionate resources for transitioning folks. 

Not everyone is going to want to be a mentor of course, but everyone -- yes everyone in a high-transition community -- must be aware of what's happening around them and, most importantly, at the very least must be able to offer someone in transition a word of support. It is critical to transitioning folks that the communities around them don't express ignorance nor ignore their specific needs -- this harms the entire community, not just those in transition.

Will you step up to help? Here's an action plan:

1. Learn about the transitioning folks in your community and what their specific needs might be.
2. Teach people close to you what you've learned. 
3. Volunteer your skills in a way that seems meaningful to you to assist with transitioning folks' integration to your community -- if that's mentoring, that's best!
4. Interact in some natural way with folks in transition -- just showing up reliably shows your compassion and empathy and this means so much to someone in transition.

If you are a community leader, you can also encourage agencies and organizations around you to bring their energy and resources to this effort. You may find that, even though a specific agency may not be chartered to fill this gap, they will be able to offer some kind of assistance to do so, such as the San Diego VA Chaplains' initiative to educate ministers, preachers, pastors and priests about the needs of Service members returning from deployment or becoming Veterans.

Remember that old World War II poster of Uncle Sam with the tag line "I want you?" It's no longer about a war, it's about an opportunity to change communities at the grass roots. Uncle Sam still wants you, but now it's about what you can do to create a stronger more resilient sustainable community that does more than just assimilate folks in transition. We have a unique opportunity today to create stronger communities, filled with extraordinary potential, provided we are ready and willing to engage those who want very much to belong.

We can do this. We must do this. Every one of us deserves it.