Organization touts healing power of music

Barbara Reuer believes in the healing powers of music. For her, music is more than just background noise, more than just a jumble of notes. It is a tool that has the ability to energize as well as calm, and most importantly it brings people together.

A music therapist, Reuer is the founder of Resounding Joy, a Carmel Valley based non-profit organization that uses volunteers to bring music to people in need, from patients in hospitals to the homeless.

Her volunteers, called Joy Givers, have reached about 8,000 people in the little over two years of Resounding Joy’s existence.

Reuer said she finds it incredibly gratifying to see volunteers use music therapy techniques to get results and excitedly report back to her what they were able to accomplish.

“They glow,” said Reuer, a Carmel Valley resident since 1994. “It’s really rewarding to see that music works.”

Reuer studied music education in college in South Dakota. During her junior year, a professor made a presentation about music therapy and its usage with special education students.

Right away, she knew it was something she wanted to do as she had a brother with multiple sclerosis who died when she was still in school.

“That was my motivation,” Reuer said. “My dream was to work in special education settings.”

After receiving her doctorate, she moved to San Diego and started MusicWorx in California 1987. The agency works with hospitals, schools and other institutions to provide therapy through her team of board certified music therapists. Through her agency, the music therapy technique are brought to children with special needs, medical patients, hospice patients and groups who cater to people dealing with substance abuse, eating disorders, cancer and bereavement.

Resounding Joy was founded in 2005. While MusicWorx used board certified music therapists, Resounding Joy uses volunteers who are trained to employ music therapy techniques. Of course, there’s lots of singing but they also play instruments, write lyrics, envision imagery and move to the music.

Volunteers don’t have to be musicians—every volunteer goes through a training program and they find a situation that will best match their skills and abilities.
“Very few people are tone-deaf,” said Reuer of a common excuse of people who claim not to be able to sing.

Resounding Joy bring music to three main facilities: The Third Avenue Charitable Organization, Encinitas Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and a program called Sound Minds at Mark Twain High School. Resounding Joy also has a performing group called the Minstrels. Originally the group was formed to sing at events and fundraisers but now they travel to perform shows at hospitals, schools and sometimes for individuals who are recovering from illness or surgery.

At the Encinitas center, Joy Givers are working with older adults patients. In addition to singing, humming and listening to music, the patients use an instrument called a Qchord, which is like an electronic auto-harp. Joy Givers hit the chords and patients can strum the instrument.

At Mark Twain High School, a transitional school in San Diego, they work with the babies and toddlers of teen parents in a program called Sound Minds. The parents and children come to the nursery where Joy Givers lead them in activities that can help in the children’s development.

The Third Avenue outreach has been very successful, Reuer said. The downtown facility serves food to homeless people on Mondays and Fridays and twice a month, Joy Givers come to bring music to the some 150 people who are waiting to eat. A group of musicians plays music, takes requests and lets people participate in a drum circle.

“They say the days we’re there it goes more smoothly,” said Reuer. “They’re not as restless and it helps distract them.”

Joy Giver Doug Shattuck of Encinitas heard of the organization as he sang in church choir with Reuer at Solana Beach’s Calvary Lutheran Church. He now goes twice a month with Resounding Joy to the Encinitas nursing home location.

“We try to brighten their day, get them to move their limbs a little bit,” Shattuck said. He said sometimes he’s not sure if he’s getting through to people but then he’ll see someone engage and get excited about what they’re doing and it makes it all worthwhile.

“It’s rally a great group, a really positive group trying to help people,” Shattuck said.
Another Joy Gives, Jan Bluemer, joined the organization as the result of how music therapy techniques worked in her own personal life. Her mother was terminally ill and in the hospital and couldn’t really communicate with the family. Reuer, whom Bluemer knew from church, suggested she try singing to her mom.

Taking Reuer’s suggestion, Bluemer spoke to he using the tune of her mom’s favorite songs from the 1930’s. After two weeks, she could see her mom’s toes moving along to the beat under the blanket. When Bluemer tried of the same songs over and over again, she tried new tunes that she didn’t quite know and her mom gave her a pained look as if to tell her she wasn’t singing it right.

“It was just a wonderful time for closure, it was a real gift,” said Bluemer whose mother passed away about two weeks later.

After her own experiences, she was more than willing to join Resounding Joy, now volunteering six to eight hours a week at the Encinitas nursing home location.
She can’t quite put into words how gratifying the experience is.

“It’s like if you’ve ever sung a song or been in perfect harmony with somebody, it’s a certain feeling of wholeness,” said Bluemer. It’s like when you’re talking with a girlfriend and you can finish each other’s sentences. It’s total communication on a deeper level.”

She gives the example of an incident over Christmas when a woman who can’t even remember her own name, where she was born or where she is from broke out and sang three verses of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” completely from memory.
I was crying my eyes out,” Bluemer said.

Reuer hopes to next bring Resounding Joy volunteers to a YWCA domestic violence program as well as a program that caters to AIDS patients. Additionally, they hope to work with a group of people affected by the Witch Creek Fire in Rancho Bernardo.

A Joy Giver training session will begin in late February, early March. To learn about more about volunteering, visit resoundingjoyinc.org.