How Music Therapy Creates Healing, Connection, and Hope – Interview with Lorie Parmalee
- Jul 1
- 8 min read
Lorie Parmalee, MS, MT-BC, LCAT, is a Music Therapist working in the Capital District of New York State, United States. Lorie ran into the transformative power of music as a child in both playing to cope in isolation and playing flute for her grandfather in the nursing home (hearing a shout down the hall from her grandfather's room, "Whoever is playing, keep playing! It's the calmest she's been all day!"). Lorie grew to want to bring that healing power to others with as many of the arts as possible, supporting both the Music Therapy community in helping found the State Association, as well as her own nonprofit "Life Music Lessons and Therapy Inc."
Lorie Parmalee, Music Therapist, Business Owner & Founding Member
What first showed you that music could be a tool for healing, not just performance?
I had several opportunities when I was a child to see this, but one of the ones that stands out the most was when I was around 10 years old, visiting my Grandfather while he was in a nursing home near Lansing, Michigan. I played flute for school, and had brought it to the nursing home to play for my Grandfather, who had been in the nursing home after suffering a stroke that left him paralyzed on the left side of his body and nonverbal. You could still hear his laugh, though, and though it was not much, I still wanted to share something with my Grandfather. I was playing my flute for him in his room for several minutes when I stopped briefly for a moment. From down the hall, a nurse or staff member shouted, “Whoever is playing that flute, don’t stop playing! This is the calmest she [another resident] has been all day!”
I was apparently unknowingly providing a calming effect to a resident I did not even know, up to several rooms down. As far as I could tell, my Grandfather enjoyed the music too.
What misconceptions about music therapy do you find yourself correcting most often?
The question my colleagues and I get asked all the time is “What is music therapy?” For that, we usually quote the American Music Therapy Association’s standard definition, which is also posted on their website.
In short, it includes a certified professional who uses music to work on individualized client goals and objectives. In layman’s terms, we use music adapted to each person’s needs to promote health.
The next biggest misconception I run into is that music therapists are just musicians. “It’s the music lady,” or “it’s music time,” is not inaccurate, but I have also been around coworkers and even supervisors who did not differentiate what we do from entertainment.
“Can you just come in and play some guitar?” “No, I do not need your session notes. Why are you bothering to teach them addition anyway?” It has certainly been a learning curve for me to realize just how much we as music therapists really need to advocate and educate our profession to other professionals.
How do you balance the clinical side of music therapy with the emotional and creative side of the work?
Both are essential for the work that we do. Without one or the other, we are either therapists only or musicians only. The core identity of a “music therapist” uses both, but which focus is more important is currently still a large debate in our field. The phrases used are “music as therapy” and “music in therapy”, the first of these focuses on music itself as the healing factor, whereas the second perspective focuses on therapy (the client-therapist relationship) as the healing factor while using music. The debate is ongoing.
In our training specifically, we are trained as clinicians, trained observers, followers of the scientific method, and to have a strong focus on evidence-based therapy. That is seen as the best way forward to give both legitimacy to our field and to show its effectiveness in comparison to more established professions like psychiatry or psychology. At the same time, evidence shows we are most effective when we use “client-preferred” music, which, alongside client-centered treatment, requires frequent creative thinking to utilize client-preferred songs in standard interventions or techniques. Honestly, the creativity to make interventions fun, personalized, and effective is my favorite part of the job.
Why do you think alternative therapies like music therapy are becoming more important in today’s culture?
I think people are growing more aware since communication technologies like social media and the internet have made stories of alternative healing modalities more accessible. At the same time, alternative therapies have been growing as professions themselves and are showing increased evidence of their effectiveness. For music therapy in the United States, this occurred largely after World War II, as it was shown to be effective in treating veterans coming home with PTSD. Music therapy is showing significant evidence-based research now, but Art therapy and the other creative arts are following right behind it. As the fields grow together, public awareness increases as well. However, I have not yet answered your question. Why are these therapies increasing in importance? The arts have held a strong importance to human cultures across the world for thousands of years. In my opinion, not only does it provide a return to our roots in an increasingly chaotic world, but at least in the context of the United States, it also provides a form of societal remembrance that, despite the pharmaceutical industry’s push for standardized drugs for all, other forms of health care exist and potentially can be just as effective.
What does music offer people emotionally that traditional wellness approaches sometimes miss?
Motivation. Exercise can be difficult, but add a song with a strong beat, and now you have a structure to support your movements as well as your emotional resilience by adding some joy to your ongoing effort. Also, emotional regulation through communication. In my training and experience, most aggressive behaviors occurred when communication (verbal, signing, etc.) failed. Maybe you are nonverbal, dealing with a developmental disability, but the heavy metal music the therapist just put on says the words for you and helps you get out the energy in a productive way, so play those drums! These are just a couple of the ways that “music speaks when words fail,” to quote Hans Christian Andersen, as many of my colleagues do. Pain regulation (if I can count it here through its emotional, subjective aspect) is another. Sometimes pain medications are unavailable to certain patients due to drug allergies or other drug interactions, and yet music has been shown to be just as effective in regulating pain (see burn victim research and music therapy). In short, music specifically can fill the gap of motivation, communication, emotional validation, and emotional coping and regulation that traditional approaches can fail to reach.
What are some of the most powerful changes you’ve witnessed through music therapy sessions?
I have been blessed to experience some amazing moments myself working in the field, far more than I can share briefly here, but I’ll try. First, as a therapist, I had a client with Lewy Body Dementia. She had been a music teacher herself and loved to sing. She became nonverbal, but during our sessions, she would sing along again as if nothing had changed. For a few brief moments, she would engage in casual conversation again. Those moments were miracles of returned cognitive capacity that could be shared with her caregiver and family, they had their mother and friend again, even if just for a brief amount of time. She showed me that what seems impossible through traditional treatment is possible with music. Secondly, I have a client who is legally blind and suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, especially in her hands. We use playing piano to help work on her mobility, range of motion, and to reduce stiffness and/or pain. She plays by ear, hearing what I play or what we listen to together from recordings. She has since played and written her own pieces, including an arrangement performed at her Temple service in her community.
How do you create a sense of meaningful human connection through music, especially in group settings?
To start, shared musical preferences and experiences help to build a sense of camaraderie and validation. Our first and last session song typically puts the client’s name as lyrics in a song, usually to build self-esteem and confidence, build rapport, increase social skills, etc. However, it also has the effect of saying “I see you, you are important!”
It is a source of unconditional acceptance that a client may not find anywhere else. Then there is improvisation (creating something on the spot) in either singing, instrument playing, or dance, where each client can add their own self-expression to the group and build off of each other in a place of acceptance and support. In some of those songs, you can palpably feel the emotions of the group blending with the music that can almost be described as spiritual, and we are directing that work to the best of our ability to promote healing. We can create tribute songs and remembrance for those who have been lost, provide acceptance where there was rejection, train focus in relaxation techniques instead of self-judgment and daily stress. We use music and connection to relate, discuss, and support these issues in therapy.
You often describe music as communication. What does that idea personally mean to you?
As referenced above, starting from promoting emotional regulation to social connection without even needing direct words to do so, music therapy can also directly treat issues with communication. This includes working with clients who are nonverbal, have a limited vocabulary, have issues with pronunciation, or those dealing with a loss of skills due to dementia, or those who may be on the autistic spectrum and need help understanding social cues (like body language). Specifically in African music, there exists a concept of “call and response,” which we utilize to help teach language skills, such as “talking” back and forth with music. Singing lyrics can help smooth out articulation or pronunciation and teach accurate mouth formations of speech. Song-writing interventions leave blanks with well-known lyrics that can help prompt single-word responses in order to complete a loved song. Lastly, as I showed with my own direct experience, singing lyrics with patients who have dementia can help form new neurological pathways for memory, both for everyday speech, and that can connect to long-term memory at the same time. These are just some of the ways music therapy can help!
If someone has never experienced music therapy before, what would you want them to understand after reading this interview?
To quote one of my close colleagues and President of the New York State Association of Music Therapy, Kim Best (and this also happens to be the name of her business), “Music Can Help!”
Creative and alternative health therapies are worth looking into, both for their potential to work alongside traditional medicine and for their ability to help in ways where traditional medicine fails. They help us connect back to our roots, our passions, our culture, and our traditional healing beliefs in a world that is increasingly materialistic and profit-motivated. This is the way back, and forward, to give the best out of life to the people that we serve. Check out a music therapist, an art therapist, a drama therapist, or an equestrian therapy program near you, and see if it can help alongside traditional medicine! I am not saying to discard modern medicine in any way, but work alongside your current care providers while exploring and being open-minded to the opportunities that the alternative health therapies can provide. Follow the research, give them a try, and see for yourself how they can improve our lives.
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