"The Healing Power of Heavy Metal and Hallelujah:
Music4Life’s products and programs restore well being…"
by Tara Maras
Maturity Magazine
April 2005
When 59-year old Carolyn Weisbart feel into a deep depression following her father’s death last February, music – not medicine helped her heal.
The retired IRS revenue officer found solace with the help of Judith Pinkerton, founder and president of Music4Life. The Las Vegas-based company’s products and programs help individuals match their moods to music to achieve and maintain good health.
For Weisbart, who holds a music degree from Arkansas’ Hendrix College, Music4Life seemed like a worthwhile option.
“We respond to music emotionally, physiologically and behaviorally,” explains Pinkerton, a board-certified music therapist. “Once we know how we experience particular musical selections, we can use music to diminish anger, anxiety, grief and stress, and to restore energy and joy to our lives.”
The Music4Life Approach
It’s all about MEE.
The acronym, MEE, stands for Music Exercising Emotions. Pinkerton created the USE MEE health system after 13 years of research and development. It classifies music and moods into unsettled (U), soothed (S), and energized (E) categories and helps individuals select music for enhanced well-being.
Pinkerton says bottled-up emotions can cause mental, emotional, physical and spiritual challenges.
“Music can either release and balance these emotions, or keep you stuck in a vicious cycle of stress-filled anger, anxiety, depression or grief. The USE MEE model leads to an emotional cleansing,” she says.
Weisbart, who says she had previously just wanted to “stay in bed and pull up the covers,” says she knew a one-on-one session with Pinkerton was in order after experiencing a Music4Life presentation with a friend.
The private session with Pinkerton sparked Weisbart’s metamorphosis. During the consultation, Weisbart completed a questionnaire about her moods. It confirmed what others had suspected – she was deeply depressed.
While Pinkerton played various musical selections, Weisbart tried to articulate the deep grief she was feeling at the loss of her father.
“Judith asked me what feelings the music brought forward. She used my feedback to develop a customized tape for me,” said Weisbart.
The resulting tape – a MEE tape – in a 45-minute recording of musical selections hand-picked by Pinkerton to help Weisbart experience moods evoked by music to improve well-being.
“I applied the USE MEE model to determine the correct music in a sequence that would help Carolyn journey through and out of her grief,” says Pinkerton.
Weisbart’s personal MEE recording starts off with music that reminds her of funerals – what she calls “funeral dirges.” It moves into heavy metal selections, a genre she admittedly “hates.” Calming and peaceful music comes next, followed by triumphant concluding pieces.
“The funeral music got me deeply in touch with my emotions and the heavy metal provided such intensity for me,” says Weisbart. “The triumphant music, the Hallelujah chorus, was last,” she recalls. “The triumphant music was what I wanted to become, really jubilant in a majestic way.”
Weisbart first listened to the MEE recording in Pinkerton’s presence.
“I experienced grief and was very teary-eyed because it was so emotional and moving,” says Weisbart. “It was really good for me because I was trying to hide it – to repress me emotions.”
The customized recording worked. Weisbart was experiencing the cathartic release tghat Pinkerton had hoped to help her achieve. After listening to her MEE recording for two weeks, Weisbart returned to Pinkerton’s office and completed the questionnaire that had originally confirmed her grief state.
“It showed that I was hardly depressed at all,” says Weisbart. “I felt much better after those few weeks and continued to listen to my MEE tape weekly, gradually tapering off. I was able to do projects that I had been putting off – like my scrapbooking.”
Nearly a year later, Weisbart says she is I strong believer in the healing power of music. She has five scrapbooks to show for it.
To learn more about Music4Life, visit the website www.Music4Life.us or call 702-363-8166.
