by Ed Drury
[Ed] How where you first introduced to the didjeridu?
[Ashley] I received my first didjeridu while running the music therapy program at George Pearson Centre, one of Vancouver Hospital's extended care units. Cloud 9, a weekly relaxation/meditation group that I was facilitating, involved guided imagery and live music to help participants relieve stress and improve their quality of life. I kept my ears open for different sounds to try with the group and used a wide variety of instruments in the sessions including the flute, gong, guitar, piano, rain-stick, saxophone, synthesizer, Tibetan singing bowl, Tincha bells, Tuvan throat singing, voice, etc...
I recalled seeing a didjeridu on the television years ago. With an enthusiastic "Aha!", the sense of captivation that I had once experienced upon drinking in that intoxicatingly rich sound was rekindled.
As a gift from my father for my 25th birthday, he took me didj hunting. After playing several I selected a light bamboo didjeridu in C#. Although I have tried many didjeridus, I have not yet found one to better suit my needs. It has an open, bright, fairly resonant tone, reasonable response to fluted harmonics and a little backpressure thrown in. The didjeridu was a wonderful gift and I knew I would play it often; however, I never dreamed that it would become a primary tool and catalyst in the discernment of my life's calling!
[Ed] How do you use the didjeridu in your work?
[Ashley] The didjeridu is my healing tool. I play inches from a client's body, pouring sound vibration and positive intent into their subtle and physical bodies. Although each case is distinct, remarkable results are typical. I treat individuals with issues ranging from acute injuries to chronic pain, from internal medical concerns to pregnancy and labour. The results are truly incredible, miraculous by some accounts.
During a typical hour-long session, I will play on a client for 45 minutes and spend 15 minutes on intake, assessment, history, and recording results. I document as much as possible because I find that in such subjective work, what was felt, noticed, and said is easily lost.
When working with someone with arthritis for example, I record their perceived intensity of pain on a scale from 1 to 10 for a baseline score. I note the quality of their pain and the history of their condition. Immediately after and one week following treatment I document their perceptions again.
When I play the didjeridu, I sing almost the entire time. I often sing songs very slowly. For example, I sing Amazing Grace as a prayer for my clients' highest good. I can sing just over two octaves above the C# fundamental (in falsetto) and an octave below. I also use the Tuvan 'Sygyt' style of harmonics and have a practical range of the 4th through 12th harmonic partials.
My work with the didj began at Vancouver Hospital. One day I was in the hall of the hospital and one of the Cloud 9 participants asked me if I'd play on his forearm, which he said was aching. I began to play at him, a foot away, and he said, "No, closer." This was the first time that I had played on any one "up close." After about 3 or 4 minutes I stopped, and he told me that his pain was gone. I was in disbelief. I remember saying, "Really?" I asked him what it felt like and he said it felt like there was an "aliveness inside, like the cells were lighter." From that day on I used the didjeridu with increasing frequency at the hospital and eventually began my own private practice, Sound Mind, Sound Body.
In the beginning I kept wondering whether people could actually be helped by my playing. I am a critical thinker and early on I suspected coincidental correlation or even wishful thinking as possible explanations for what I was noticing. I often experienced a sort of dream-like quality in the time following a treatment, as if I would wake up and discover that this had not actually been happening. Two years and several hundred treatments later, with a body of collected assessments recording striking changes, the correlational and phenomenological evidence is impossible to ignore. I know now that I am not dreaming.
I am on a sacred journey. I am a healer.
When I first began this work, I was simply playing the didjeridu: sound waves traveling down a tube. Then, as practitioners in modalities such as Reiki, Healing Touch, and Alexander Technique experience, I began to perceive a subtle flow of information coming back to me as I played on clients. I gradually became aware of the subtle bodies of each person, where and how much they were hurting, and when they were saturated with sound. Previous to this, I had heard of chakras, meridians, and chi, but did not understand them and certainly did not perceive them. I began to notice feelings of warmth and coolness when playing on people. At times it would feel as though someone were tapping on the end of my didj. After repeatedly asking clients if I had bumped them and hearing them deny it, I realized that I was sensing something on an energetic level. At other times I would feel resistance to the movement of my didj, a quality similar to magnets repelling each other.
[Ed] Do you believe there is something specific in the key of C# and the harmonics of that fundamental note which is important, either to all of us or specifically for you in your work?
[Ashley] I have not put much effort into discerning which specific pitches I could be using on people. The essence of my work is an intention/energy-based medium rather than a pitch-orientated method of treatment.
That being said, I recently visited a person that is apparently able to discern one's fundamental tone. I said nothing to him and after his reading he told me that I resonated around D. Now, my didjeridu sits not precisely at C# but rather in between C# & D. I wondered if this was the same pitch that he perceived? My second and only other didj turned out to have the same fundamental pitch as my first didjeridu, without embouchure adjustment. I paid no conscious attention to the specific fundamental pitches of these instruments, but rather waited until I found instruments that caught my ear. During one session with a regular client, I lipped up to the D and my client immediately announced that she liked the feeling of that sound better.
[Ed] You appear to have an astonishing vocal range and I'm wondering if you can help people like me who have a rather normal range to expand it without damaging or straining the voice?
[Ashley] I am not qualified to say as I am not a trained singer. As a trained musician, I know that it takes years of practice and an experienced voice instructor to help one develop an expanded vocal range.
Certainly, my music education has played a role in my skills as a singer. I studied jazz for 2 years in college before going on to complete degrees in Music and Music Therapy. I have spent a considerable amount of time singing in choirs and in my work as a music therapist. Saxophone is my primary voice and as such I have well defined concepts of tone colour and of the breathing process, both being essential to a sound vocal technique. As an interesting note, 3.5 octaves - my vocal range - is also the range of my saxophone.
[Ed] Music Therapy certainly seems like an exciting and rewarding calling, especially as advocated by your example. You have mentioned the collection of data on using the didjeridu as an adjunct to therapies. I wonder if you could talk a little about the information you have collected and any publication plans you have at the moment. I'm sure many people will want to obtain any papers or books you have on the subject as I'm asked all the time for such evidence.
[Ashley] Music Therapy is a beautiful vocation, immensely rewarding and richly challenging. I have plans to write on each of my areas of specialization: a music-psychotherapy method known as Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) and sound healing. Furthermore, I plan to submit case studies to the Canadian Association of Music Therapy (CAMT) for publication. I have included a few vignettes below.
A 55 year old woman reported constant severe pain (7.5/10) due to osteo-arthritis in her lower back (L3-L5), left wrist, and knees. Her wrist was inflamed and she experienced numbness in her fingers and toes. Immediately after her first treatment, she said, "I only have slight irritation, the pain is gone!" She also reported regaining some feeling in her fingers and toes immediately after her session. Her pre-treatment pain level of 7.5/10 decreased to a, "slight irritation" rated at 2/10 immediately after treatment. Two months after her second and last treatment to date, she said, "The pain is still gone, I am completely amazed! I have not been inflamed since I saw you. I used to have frequent nightmares and would toss and turn all night. They stopped abruptly after my treatment and the nightmares haven't come back."
A woman in her mid 20's was scheduled for her 3rd bone marrow biopsy. The first two had left her with a large bruise, aching stiffness, and moderate localized pain. I played for 20 minutes before the procedure and 30 minutes after. The next day: no bruise, no pain, minimal stiffness. All three biopsies were administered by the same doctor in the same bone of the body.
A woman in her late 20's was in a head on car collision and suffered from soft tissue damage. Two days after the accident, I played on her for 40 minutes, concentrating on her neck and left shoulder, which she described as painful and stiff, rating the pain at 4/10. The next day she reported that her neck and shoulder, "were fine", not stiff or hurting, 0/10.
Following are some of the unsolicited comments that clients have made after a treatment: "I feel lighter." "My cells feel buoyant." "My body feels free of tension and re-energized rather than just relaxed. It feels like I've just woken up from a long sleep." "It's amazing!" "It's a miracle!", and finally from a regular client: "It's like flowers after being watered, putting things right within you, cleaning out the tiredness, and putting in a refreshing energy. It's like a massage at the cellular level."
[Ed] Aside from the anecdotal data, have you done any physiological studies like say ECG, EEG, Blood Pressure, Oxygen Saturation, etc? Are you interested in doing that kind of research at some point?
[Ashley] I am in the midst of writing proposals for three different research projects. They include variables such as pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and perceived pain scales. I have worked with these indicators and believe that there is much potential for research in this area, as it is largely untapped. Although there is a body of research in the music therapy literature that refers to all of the indicators mentioned, I can find no evidence of music therapy research using the didjeridu. Moreover, the results seen here seem to be qualitatively different than other music therapy techniques.
In the reports of my clientele, there is significant phenomenological evidence which suggests that a physical mechanism (sound vibration) is affecting their bodies at a cellular level. Using the didjeridu to physically heal is new to the music therapy profession and as such I am pioneering uncharted territory. It is therefore my ethical and professional responsibility as an accredited member of the CAMT to pursue clinical research to pave the way for future investigations into this specialization. I am excited about didjeridu sound healing and feel that it will truly have a powerful impact on the field of music therapy.
While psychological effects (gate control theory, relaxation response, the placebo effect) certainly play a role in treatment, my intuition and experience tells me that there is much more at work. As Carl Jung said, "In such doubtful matters, where you have to work as a pioneer, you must be able to put some trust in your intuition and to follow your feeling even at the risk of going wrong." (On the Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia, Collected Works, Volume 3, paragraph 539.) The universality of reports from my clients suggest that with clinical research, potent discoveries are waiting to be unearthed.
I will leave you with one last story, a case that directed my interest into the application of the didjeridu for burn pain. This case convinced me once and for all that this work has tremendous potential. I often ask clients to write an account of their treatment experiences, and recently, I had occasion to write my own:
"Shortly after our friends arrived for a New Year's celebration I boiled water for a large pot of tea. Minutes later it was accidentally knocked to the floor and I watched in slow motion as the boiling tea poured over my feet. Seconds later, I had my socks off and my feet in the kitchen sink under cold running water. The pain was bright white. My wife consulted the BC Health Guide and I called the 24 hour nurse hotline. My right foot sustained first degree burns while several layers of skin on my left foot sloughed off in deep second degree burns.
"It was New Year's Eve and waiting times at emergency wards in the city were lengthy. Therefore the nurse cautiously conceded that I could wait until the next day to see a doctor. She felt that unless I went into shock, waiting 12 hours to see a doctor would not necessarily present a serious health risk. I agreed to go into the emergency ward immediately if signs of shock appeared.
"I elevated my feet and for distraction from the increasing pain I tried to play trivial pursuit with my friends. I tried everything I could think of to relax and lessen my pain: breathing, auto-hypnosis, progressive relaxation, prayer, imagery, Alexander Technique, magic glove, listening to music, and meditation. I even tried moving into the pain. It was the most intense sensory input I'd ever experienced. It was as if a massive white spot-light was being shone, stretching and tearing at my nerve pathways as it radiated up my legs. Without the natural ebb and flow of most sensations it felt like the pitch F fully screaming at me from the ends of my limbs.
"My pain worsened until it was in the severe 8/10 range. It stayed there for two hours at which point, exhausted from the ordeal, I succumbed to shaking uncontrollably. I lost control of my breathing and it became shallow and I found myself gasping for air. I began to slip into shock and realized that I needed to go to the emergency ward. One last thought came to me, the didjeridu…
"I played on my feet. It was absolutely incredible. I had listened to client after client tell me that their pain had diminished or even faded completely with treatment. I had watched faces light up in utter amazement. I could now fully appreciate what people had been telling me.
"As light banishes darkness, sound casts out pain. The pain simply disappeared as if I were pouring cool water onto a burning, gnawing flame. My breathing slowed and returned to normal and I relaxed into the floor. It was miraculous to know that I was at one moment writhing in pain, and in the next, absolutely pain free and relaxed. I continued to play on my feet for over an hour. It was a rather amusing picture, my wife and our friends playing games while I lay on the floor with my feet up in the air playing this ancient instrument to calm the pain in my feet.
"That night, I soaked my feet in cool water a few times to reduce the mild pain that would flare up. I played occasionally during the next day to cool any painful spots. It is now the morning of the 4th day, and I have experienced only mild discomfort since New Years Eve. I am most utterly and profoundly amazed."
This is my work.
Ashley Tait, BMus, BMT, MTA
Accredited Music Therapist
604-322-1089
Questions about this and other articles should be sent to Ed Drury