On Trauma, Music, and Healing

What the Harp Helped Me Hear

Photo by Patti Black on Unsplash

Back when I was in my twenties, one of my closest friends, Ryan, died from ovarian cancer. It was a great privilege to accompany her through her chemo treatments and time in hospice, though her death has always struck me as cruel. The world was sturdier when her laughter was part of it.

Ryan and I met in our college glee club, which is another way of saying that our lives were shaped by the same music. Our glee club sang everything from Swedish love songs to barbershop melodies—rich, warm tunes that have stayed with me in the same way that Ryan’s memory has.

I’ve thought about Ryan and these songs a lot recently, especially since I began taking harp lessons about a year ago. Learning a new instrument was a counterintuitive thing to do in my forties, with a full-time job and three kids. But music has always helped give meaning and structure to my life, and the harp is an instrument I’ve wanted to try since I was a little girl. So, I rented one and found a teacher.

A few weeks into lessons, my teacher assigned a piece that Ryan and I had sung together: an old English love song called Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes (here’s a recording, if you’d like to listen). Suddenly, I could feel the cold night air on my walk to rehearsals. I could hear our conductor asking us to please—please!—be quiet so we could finish practicing on time. My mind flashed through concerts, after parties, long waits at luggage carousels on tours, late night conversations with Ryan and our friends, and the unspoken sentiment underneath it all: that we might remain young forever.

Trauma theorists have observed that music has a particular kind of power when it comes to healing. Susan Brison writes that, after she was assaulted and nearly murdered in France, she struggled to speak but was able to sing Gospel music. Social scientists observe that music helps people communicate traumatic events. Music therapists note that music benefits our mental health in many ways—including for those who have experienced trauma—because it can help us do everything from expressing difficult emotions to instilling calm.

One reason music may be effective is because it uses tone, pitch, and rhythm to communicate; it bypasses language and reaches us in ways words can’t. It also taps into different parts of the brain than speech does, which can be helpful in cases of trauma, where the area that communicates speech (Broca’s Area) is negatively impacted. Music and the body are also intimately linked. Our understanding of music—whether we’re listening to it or creating it—only makes sense because our bodies feel and process those sounds. As we know, the body really does keep the score when it comes to memories of adverse events, so it makes sense that music can help us hold, remember, and release those memories.

I wouldn’t describe my friend Ryan’s death as traumatic, though I would describe it as a tender grief. I still miss her, and I wish she got to stay longer than she did. So, it felt like a profound gift to glimpse our friendship again through music. Maybe that’s why I played that song on my harp over and over again, day after day, often after my children were asleep. I did it because it brought Ryan’s spirit a little closer to mine.

Playing the harp reminded me that music helps us so much during times of struggle—it helps us remember. It helps us grieve. It helps us heal. And it helps us stay connected—to the people we lost, to the selves we used to be, and to our yearnings for the future.

What’s a song that connects you to the past—to a part of yourself, a treasured time, or person who departed too soon? I’d love to hear your reflections, and I hope you’ll leave a message or join the chat.