Music therapists use their talents to heal

I have the priceless opportunity to volunteer each week with Jenny Plume, new Music Therapist at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. She's a remarkable talent and kind soul. I just wanted to share a portion of this front page story that ran on Easter Sunday in the Tennessean... so thankful our community is beginning to recognize the healing power of music!

Sunday, 04/08/07
Music therapists use their talents to heal
Musicians find fulfillment by tapping healing power of their craft

By JOY BUCHANAN
Staff Writer

...Though most would happily perform professionally if they made it big, a part of them would still be drawn to music therapy. Therapy is about healing others with music. Performing is about healing themselves.
JENNY PLUME
Jenny Plume's pager buzzes on her hip while she pushes the tall black cart loaded with her therapeutic tools: a guitar, a djembe drum, toy instruments and her MacBook Pro laptop. Plume is the new — and only — music therapist for Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in its new program supported by the Julian T. Fouce Music Therapy Fund. She works with the Child Life department to help children understand their treatment and feel more in control of their experience at the hospital.
She knocks lightly on a door decorated with shiny, flat balloons, including a heart-shaped one picturing Winnie the Pooh hugging an armful of lavender flowers. This is Mya's room.
Mya Henderson of Bowling Green, Ky., is an 8-month-old leukemia patient. On that morning, her parents, Katrina and Evan, took a rare trip from their daughter's side to run errands. As soon as Plume walked through the door, Mya's eyes fixed on her. It's the music lady.
Plume pulled out an "ocean drum." Through the tight, plastic covering, Mya could see hundreds of tiny ball bearings swirling around the bottom of the fish- and seaweed-decorated drum, sounding much like waves crashing onto the shore.
"My Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea, my Bonnie lies over the ocean, so bring back my Bonnie to me," Plume sang while Mya ran her pudgy hands over the drum's cover and her nurse pressed a stethoscope to her stomach, then injected liquids into the tubes running into Mya's body. The baby gurgled and waved her arms to pound on the drum.
"I love your music. It makes the kids so happy," said the nurse, Theresa Tracy. Plume's pager buzzed again and she had to leave Mya, but not before singing the Good Bye song.
Plume came to Nashville in 1994 after traveling the country playing gigs. She wrote for Bluewater Music Group, where she met her husband and performed on writers' nights at different venues under her maiden name, Jenny Ornstein. She studied music therapy at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, then completed her internship and worked in Canada before returning to Nashville in September.
"It wasn't about me giving up on music," she said about the change. "It's been me, me, me for a long time, and I decided to do something for somebody else."
Her work with the hospital isn't just playing music for fussy patients. She creates plans for individual children to help them accomplish small goals, sometimes teaching them to play an instrument to manage pain or as an alternative to watching TV or playing video games.
Plume made a record but put it on hold after having her daughter, Ruby, two years ago. Now she performs at some local venues, mostly on writers' nights. "I need that balance. I don't think I'd feel fulfilled if I didn't have that outlet. I'd feel like I'd be gypping myself," she said. "I still love to play and write. I will always do it for the rest of my life, because it's part of me."
It's the connection with other people that she strives for in both places, but it's deeper with her therapy patients. "It's more emotional here," she said. "I think I feel better about myself. I've done something good. And something that will last longer than the effects of a good show."