Music therapy hits right note with many Chinese

Wang (left) teaches an elderly woman to play percussion instruments at a housing community in Chengdu.[Photos by Yu Ping /China Daily]

After working in Sichuan Conservatory of Music, she offered free music therapy for three years to youngsters staying at Chengdu Center for the Protection of Minors, a facility under the city administration. Music therapy means more than just singing or playing music. It is multidisciplinary and involves music and psychology, with teachers and psychologists often using songs and music as topics for conversations with students or patients.

Wang Lujie met a teenager at the center who couldn't get along with his mother and left home. While discussing his favorite music, Wang Lujie discovered his favorite song was one in praise of mothers, although his own mother was "strict" with him. She told him that his mother must have undergone hardships while raising him. This made him see his mother in a different light and he returned home, assisted by center officials.

Wang Lujie and her colleagues have also noticed that a few autistic children could remember cellphone numbers of their respective mothers and their own birthdays by using songs.

The Yulin Donglu community in Chengdu is home to 1,100 people, of whom more than 100 are too old to live alone. "The old people did not mingle with others. Thanks to the music therapy once a week, many are able to socialize now," said Yang Jinhui, a community official.

She cited the example of Zeng Fanhui, an 80-year-old pensioner who lives alone because his son and three daughters are not in the city, and he fails to communicate with his neighbors. "He is happy due to exchanges with others during the therapy session," Yang said.

According to Gao Tian, a professor at Central Conservatory of Music, the field of music therapy opened up for research in the United States in the 1940s. It started to become relevant in China in 1997.

He said he hoped the government-backed therapy model in Chengdu is introduced in other parts of the country as well.