Inner Melodies: The Power of Musical Intervention | Adam Christoferson | TEDxNewHaven

Transcriber: Hằng Nguyễn Thị Thúy Reviewer: Walaa Mohammed Thank you all so much. I'm so glad you're here. What a great event! Yes, I do love music. I love music, as you can tell. And I'm going to invite you right now on my little journey, and we're going to write a song together. How does that sound? Yeah. So we can start there. Or we could start. Now I need a little. I need some lyrics. Give me a lyric. Somebody start me out. Allah. Oh, I love you too. Love you every day. Now give me something else. Hello world, I love it. Hello world. I love you. Truck driver. As a truck driver, I say hello. Love you. Thank you. All right. You got to love truck drivers. Okay. Thank you so much for taking part in that. There is a song in everyone. Everybody. And that's what I love doing. Exploring the song in everyone. I got a grant to run open mics at the soup kitchen. We can cut the guitar. I got a grant to run open mics at a soup kitchen in New Haven, and you wouldn't believe the talent that was there at the Sunrise Cafe. Fantastic talent. Just waiting for somebody to jam with. Waiting to create with somebody. That's where I met Destiny. You could see destiny there. She was a champion of so much of the work that people have done. In that area. That she was hanging out in, and she really had a special way of inspiring people to get into the microphone. The struggle was she had been through. You name it, every kind of trauma you could possibly imagine. And the only thing she had was a song. And this was one of the songs that we wrote together. I'm tired sometimes. But I got a free my mind. I’m looking forward now. Gotta have hope. Somehow. I don't want to run no more. I don't want to run no more. I don't want to run. I don't want to run. I don't want to run no more. And she sang that from the well of her experience. Unfortunately, we lost her during this Covid time and. Everything that's going on. And as you know, many people we've lost along the way from the opioid epidemic. During rehearsal time. While we were getting ready for our show, the landlord actually kicked us out because he didn't want these people there. And that was the inspiration that I needed to open up. Musical intervention studio downtown. Thank you. Thank you. With the help of Project Storefront. Because I had no money whatsoever. Like, I couldn't do this without the help of Project Storefront providing the space for six months free. I want you to take a moment to just close your eyes for a second. Imagine a Yale student walking down the street by somebody who's maybe asking for money. Kind of an awkward experience if you're not going to give, right? But if you are going to give, it’s great it could be a good exchange, right? But now I want you to place these same two people inside Musical intervention. The person asking for money is on the drums. And this Yale students playing guitar. These are the kind of experiences we have on a regular basis. This is what it looks like. I mean, it's 2300 square foot in downtown New Haven. We have a stage, a place where people can create together, a place where they're creating community together, and it's free of charge to walk in, grab a guitar off the wall and just jam. Share your story, share community together . It's the most fascinating thing. And really, what it was, is once the doors opened. The people that came through was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. Truthfully. Why did I want it? Because I needed a place for community, connection, purpose and music. I needed it in my soul since I could remember. I’ll tell you a little bit about my background. It wasn’t the easiest start. My mother has paranoid schizophrenia, auditory hallucinations. We lived in section eight housing. Tough place, lot of violence going on there and unfortunately I was placed in foster care. Luckily, I was reunited with my paternal grandmother, Bertha, who read me poetry, cooked me the best Swedish pancakes you could ever imagine. I mean, I could watch the butter just melt. Now, when she passed, all of me was placed on my father and he was struggling as a veteran of the Vietnam War, struggling with PTSD. And. Trying to keep himself together, and between my parents, I started to meet some of the most interesting people you could ever imagine. I mean, people were living at our house at times. Uh, geez, Louise, it was one story after another, you could say. But because of this chaos, I was placed in special education. I didn't have much structure, and I was labeled and cast it away and really treated, treated differently. But that this experience, they started to give me what I needed to empathize with a broad spectrum of people, if you could imagine. Right? So I’m raised around a lot of different types of people, and I'm doing life with them. This would all kind of get shifted a little bit when a limo would come by and pick us up and bring us to a Michael Bolton concert. Anybody know any Michael Bolton fans out there? We love Michael. Uh. So this is probably the main reason why I fell in love with music at his concerts is my uncle by the way, it’s my mother’s brother. Um, at these concerts, people were just going wild about it. But. At these concerts. I was a somebody. I was a somebody who could eat at the VIP passes, got backstage all the great food in the world. I mattered. I had some kind of importance there, and I got to be part of his reality for a little while, as the limo would. Shortly take me back to my reality. And the greatest thing that my father ever did, the greatest thing was he bought me this blue pearl drum set. And say, let there be drums, baby. Because down in those drum set in the basement. Those drums took me to places I never imagined. I mean, I would just be jamming for hours, and eventually I had some friends that would play music with me. Lots of music. I mean, just like. You can imagine, just like how much that meant to me in my chaotic world, to have some friends to jam with. That's unfortunately drugs swept in and took a lot of them away from me. And at that time my mentor came to me and he, Michael Goodwin, and he placed the guitar in my hand and he said, Adam, just put your fingers right here, strum the chord and start humming out a song, put lyrics to it. And I wrote, listen to. The birds chirp wildly on the grass. Into the clock, letting time go. Past one chord. One chord. I was like, what can you do with three chords? Right? So songwriting started to really put me into this structured place I really needed in order to overcome my obstacles. Songwriting started to do that for me, so I did. I overcame special education. I got my degree in recreation therapy from the university from Southern Connecticut State University. And I started working at the inpatient child psychiatric hospital. Who? I had the best seat in the house. I remember asking my supervisor, do you mind if I bring my microphone and my recording gear in to record some songs with the kids? And wouldn't you know it, I'm sitting there behind the microphone. These kids throw their headphones on and they start singing and hearing themselves and the sound condenser microphone. Their eyes glaze over and they find themselves in music, the safe place. For some of them, it's the only safe place they've ever known. And in 2011 I met Jeremiah Brown. We wrote these lyrics here. Give it time to find yourself. Be nice to each other and respect your health. Love each other in the lonely times. Because the world needs you. He's a fantastic person. I taught him how to write a song, and then all of a sudden he started writing songs with all the kids on the unit, and it was the most spectacular thing I could see. Years later, he reaches out to me as he's graduating. He says, Adam, I'm graduating. Can you come and see me off? I said, of course, I'd love to. So I went there and there he was, leading a band, right, playing and leading a band. And I said, this kid's really, really got it. We'll talk more on Jeremiah in a little bit. So the medical director at the psych unit really appreciated the work that was being done, and he started to present it at an international symposium and encouraged me to broaden the services outside of the unit. I began to contract with different agencies throughout Connecticut, just bringing my guitar in, bringing some recording gear and getting people engaged just like we did. Just like that. And while it was working everywhere I went. But the problem was, where do people go when they get discharged? Where? What do you do if all you have is free time? What do you do? How can you be part of something? So I started musical intervention to promote empathy. Let's reduce stigma, shall we? Let's look at each other as who we are. Not the guy asking for coins. But hey, do you play guitar? Do you sing? Do you. Do you write? Do you do art? What's your what's your story? Write. Transform lives. Part of the mission of being open to the public is this community conscience. We want to make sure that people are getting the services that they're needing. So I have plenty of experience with the local nonprofits that are here and the homeless shelters. If people are looking for shelter, they call 211. You wait, I don't know, 3 or 4 months. What do you do with that time? You have to have a space that's available and welcoming, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't you say? Yes, I would say so. Okay, so. And this is all happening in my world. One song at a time. We've done pop ups. We've done pop up studios in Greenwich Village, New York City. Right? So there's Google executives happening to walk in and jamming with people who are street buskers who are in recovery programs. Right. Who I mean, one of the coolest experiences I had was a beat poet. An original beat poet in Greenwich Village. He was there and he was rapping off some poetry while this girl who just got out of school, a kid and just playing a little piano, and he started rapping off this poetry. I said where do these collaborations ever happen? Right? We’ve even taken the show to Bonnaroo Music Festival. This is this is what it would look like. We had a place, a little tent in the middle of the festival. We had our instruments, a few interns and I got together and just facilitated all all weekend long. The music never stopped. People wanted to spend time jamming, especially jamming with people they’ve never met before, highlighting their story, highlighting their talent. I started to present some of this. At Yale's symposium, I met Frank Reilly from Scotland. We started this group called The Music Beyond All Borders. We want to scour the world looking for people who care about people and want to use music and art to bring us together. This Is Us in Belfast, Ireland, at the European Conference on Mental Health. Um, I got to bring Jeremiah. You remember Jeremiah? I got to bring Jeremiah there. I bring my friend Travis and Paul. And we got to write songs that people all over the world. This stuff works everywhere. Music. It works. You know it. It's universal. It works absolutely everywhere. Sometimes it just brings you in. It's a little bit of life. But what goes on with the mind and the body? Is there a science catching up to catching up to this stuff? We see that music does play a role in reducing depression. Plenty. Plenty of studies have shown that. We know that a lot of times people have gait disorders. Music can help them and it can help relieve pain. We've even had some Yale research to look at our space in downtown New Haven to see that. Why do people want to be in this place? Why do they want to make music together? They're finding that they like the idea that it's a non-clinical yet sober and and safe environment. People want to be there. It's not a sterile hospital. They're not going to be judged or looked at through their diagnosis, and they can develop their own identity. We've been talking about that, their own identity. I'm not a homeless person. I'm not a Yale student. I just want to rock. So with the partnership with Perch Program for Recovering Community Health and the Connecticut Mental Health Center, I met a fantastic scientist named Doctor Philip Corlett. He runs the Belief Lab, a neuroscience department that studies extensively psychosis and delusions. He was interested. He sat in in one of my groups and he was interested. We were actually funded by the National Institute of Health, the Kennedy Center, and the National Endowment of the Arts to study how songwriting and groups impact people with auditory hallucinations. Kind of cool, right? Yeah So we're getting scientific here. We’re finding out also that these groups now Covid happened, we weren't able to run as many groups as we'd like to. Um, but our preliminary data is showing. This can decrease the distress of psychosis. It changes the way people begin to talk about themselves at the end of a group. They don't say I as much, which has been proven to show distress. They say we. Why? Because we're a band. And now? I kind of knew this, right? I've been doing this for a little time. I see this in my own mother. The best experiences I've ever had are jamming with my mother. I talk to her and sometimes she's distracted. But as soon as we start playing together, she comes right back. Right back to me and people from all over. This was the beat poet I was talking about on the New Haven Green. Bonnaroo. This is when we got the chance to hold Musical Intervention Crew to meet George Clinton. This is our studio downtown. People just being themselves, collaborating, coming together. Can you imagine? Just imagine. This happening. Everywhere. We've lost some people along the way. But their legacies are preserved musically. We can share their story. We can share their song. What about your community? Is this happening in your community? Are people coming and going and not being engaged because people need to be engaged. People need to be engaged. They need to remember who they are. There's people on the green in the New Haven Green that are kind of passing the time, but just needing a moment to be engaged to reconnect with themself. Music does it. Art does it. Theater does it. Woodworking. There's so many things that can engage a person, but can we connect them to services to get them the help that they need? And can we provide the safe community? And this is what I want to do. I want to inspire the world, one song and one story at a time. I hope I've started with you. And I just believe that music. Can inspire the world. You remember Jeremiah. Why don't we take a moment and welcome my man, Jeremiah Brown? Musical intervention is a place where I can be mentally, myself, musically, myself, and emotionally myself. Being surrounded by the talents and gifts of the people at Music Intervention has helped me create a creative environment for others around me. I am proud to say that I am musical intervention. Is he's a father. Give him a round of applause. You can give. Him a round of applause. He’s a father. He’s a first responder. And he’s got one of the best voices you’ll ever hear. And we couldn't think of any possible better way than to end in song. So this is a song that we've been able to do all over the world. Keep the peace. Every boy and girl. Give it time to get around the world. Don’t stop believing in this view. Because the world needs you. World needs you. Brothers. You must give it. Give it time to find yourself. Be nice to each other. And respect your health. Love each other and the lonely times. Cause the world needs you. The world needs you. You won’t need you. The world needs you. No matter what happens, try to hold on tight. In the darkest of times. Try to see the love. Just see the light. Come on. Shine me the light. Let your light shines bright. Come on, let it show. Cause world need you. The world needs you. The world needs you. The world needs you. Because the world needs You. Thank you so much, everybody. Take a bow for the beginning.