Photo by Diana Baldrica / Fresno Bee

Jose Haro, left, a cardiac rehab patient at St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, takes part in a therapeutic music lab session conducted by Myrna Bolger-Taul, right.

Photo by Diana Baldrica / Fresno Bee

Myrna Bolger-Taul leads the January session, which included cardiac patients Tony Wendels, 63, left, Haro, and others. The lab has five digital pianos on which even inexperienced players can find a tune.

If you can appreciate the carefree humming of a child at play or the upbeat whistling of a cheerful adult, you'll understand why Myrna Bolger-Taul is making music part of the healing process at St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno.

Most people sense intuitively that music is good for the soul, she said, but scientific research shows that making joyful sounds is good for the body as well.

Bolger-Taul, coordinator of humor and music at St. Agnes, has put these therapeutic benefits to work by starting a music lab that gives patients and hospital staff members a chance to relax by playing recreational music on computerized pianos.

Even if you can't carry a tune or play an instrument, she said, creating melodies can boost health by reducing the stress that causes extra wear and tear on your body.

"Patients need stimulation," Bolger-Taul said. "We encourage them to do things for themselves that make them feel good."

Music is one of those things. The lab contains five Yamaha Clavinova digital pianos that enable anyone — even people with no musical experience or limited physical skills — to play along with an interactive program.

The pianos can be programmed to reproduce 600 different instrument sounds and have keyboard lights that flash to show what notes to play. Even plunking out a simple melody with one finger, while orchestral accompaniment plays in the background, provides a soothing escape.

"Anyone can do it," Bolger-Taul said. "You just follow the lights, and it takes your stress away."

Jose Haro, 67, of Fresno, noticed immediate results when he visited the lab.

"I had a quadruple bypass, and I hurt all the time," he said, tapping the brace he wears around his chest. "I've been in rehab for one and a half months."

Haro, who plays the trombone, thought it would be fun to plunk piano keys with one finger. He never dreamed that such a simple act could help his body.

"Twenty minutes into the first session, I loosened my brace," he said. "I was searching for my pain, but it was gone. Now, when I come in to play music, I feel like I'm 39."

Tony Wendels, 63, of Fresno also is recovering from heart surgery and said sitting at the piano liberates him from worry.

"It takes your mind to places where you haven't been before," he said. "Your breathing starts to relax and you start to forget the pain."

The music lab was established through donations, which enabled St. Agnes to purchase three of the $10,000 pianos. The Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute in Meadville, Pa., donated a fourth piano and loaned a fifth to help get the program started. The pianos were delivered last summer; after facilitators were trained, the lab began seeing patients in October.

A recent innovation

Bolger-Taul, who has been playing the piano since she was 4 years old, worked in the St. Agnes Hospice program for seven years before becoming the hospital's humor and music coordinator 11 years ago. Although she has long known that patients enjoy listening to music, she didn't realize the therapeutic possibilities of having patients make their own music until she watched a Yamaha computerized piano demonstration a couple years ago.

"I've always played the piano to soothe myself," she said. "With the computerized pianos, I realized anyone under stress could find relief the same way."

Barry Bittman, president and chief executive officer of the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute, was the principal researcher in a study, published in the February 2005 issue of Medical Science Monitor, that probed the benefits of recreational music in stress reduction.

The study was done with the help of researchers from the Loma Linda School of Medicine and Applied Biosystems, which developed the technology to map all the genes in a set of human chromosomes.

Empirical evidence

The team subjected 32 adult volunteers to the stressful activity of working jigsaw puzzles with a reward for speed. After an hour, the volunteers were divided into three groups. One group continued to work puzzles, the second group was allowed to read newspapers and magazines, and the third received an hour of recreational music.

Blood samples were taken before and after each phase of the study to evaluate how each activity affected 45 genes that act like "switches" in the control of the body's biological responses to stress.

"What we found was that in the recreational music group, more than three times the number of gene switches were turned off compared to the other control group," Bittman said. Being able to reverse the biological switches associated with the body's response to stress could have a phenomenal effect on treating high blood pressure and other stress-related illnesses, he said.

Although there are some benefits from just listening to music, Bittman said active participation in making music is a catalyst for stress reduction.

In recreational music, there is no pressure to master an instrument or perform, he said. Instead, nurturing support, camaraderie and opportunities for creative expression draw people together to reduce stress.

Lori Waddell, a cardiac rehab nurse at St. Agnes, said the music lab has had a positive effect on patients.

Patients report good results

"A lot of them feel that their stress level is better," she said. "There are so many things they are working on: exercise, diet and lifestyle changes — they're all interconnected. Sometimes it's really tough but the music program helps encourage them."

In addition to the music, Bolger-Taul incorporates breathing exercises and other relaxation techniques into each session.

"We talk about stress and how to release it," she said, adding that she tailors the discussion to meet the needs of participants, whether they have cancer, are recovering from surgery or are trying to cope with debilitating illness or injuries.

Bolger-Taul smiled when asked about the results she has seen in the music lab.

"Sometimes people will be so engrossed in making music that they'll keep playing even after the background music stops," she said.

— Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.