Song Into Speech, Speech Into Song
Luis (I Like to Laugh, Laugh, Laugh and Concerts with Kids) was sitting in the waiting room ten minutes early last Wednesday, all hunched over.
“I’m sick.”
“You’re sick? Why?”
“Because . . . I ate too many burgers!”
“Do you want to get on the (massage) table?” I ask, as we walk into my room. “No.” He gestures toward the piano. “I want . . . I want . . . to SING!”
Luis often has hesitation in his speech; he can’t always get the words out. He doesn’t usually stutter; he just stops. His speech is like an engine that won’t turn over.
But he doesn’t have that problem when he sings.
Research shows that spoken language is more localized on the left side of the brain, while "music engages huge swathes of the brain - it's not just lighting up a spot in the auditory cortex," according to Dr. Aniruddh Patel from the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego. And Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, from the Harvard Medical School, has used brain imaging in a study on teaching stroke victims to speak through song. He has found that patients can regain their ability to speak by putting words to melodies, and tapping out rhythms with their hands!
Luis has has the too-many-burger blues. “Luis,” I sing to him, as I start a blues progression on the piano, “Luis, why are you sick?” (First line, I chord).
“Because I ate too many burgers,” Luis sings back. (Second line, IV-I).
“Oh Luis, why did you do that?” I wail. (Third line, V-IV-I)
New verse.
“I ate them because I was hungry,” Luis wails back (I chord).
“How many burgers did you eat?” (IV-I).
“I ate three burgers and I’m feeling sick!” V-IV-I.
Luis isn’t always singing in these responses. But there are no stops or stutters in his speech, as long as the blues progression is carrying him along.
Speech is improvisation. A conversation is a performance that we make up as we go along. Over the past year and a half, I’ve seen Luis’ normal speech become more and more fluid. I think the experience of singing his conversations with me has helped him. And Dr. Schlaug’s study begins to give us a correlate in research for what we’ve experienced in the studio.
Here’s how it works: the more we sing, the more we create and myelinate (stabilize) neural pathways. We develop a “singing center” on the right side of the brain that mirrors the “speech center” on the left. We are also creating neural pathways across the entire brain. These pathways of melody can be expanded to carry words - and the concepts Oand emotions they describe.
As we improvise speech along these pathways of melody and rhythm, these words and concepts become imported into the places that melody goes. And the more of these neuronal connections we have, the more fluid and fluent our speech becomes.
“Oh, Luis, what are you going to do?” (I-chord)
“Oh, Eve, I don’t know what I am going to do!” (IV-I).
“Sing with me! What are we going to do?” (V-IV-I).
In the next post, we’ll get into some easy how-to’s for turning speech into song, song into speech with children.
Linda Townsend Feb 04, 2012
Hi Eve,
We met at the last convention. Whew! A lot has happened since
then, including our daughter’s wedding. I’m sure your months have
been full, too.
I read your speech-song, song-speech blog with great interest. In
the movie “The King’s Speech”, the King of England during WWII
had to overcome a severe stuttering problem in order to lead the
country via his radio broadcasts. One of the approaches that helped him was to practice his speech by singing what he wanted to say. His coach had several other techniques, some of which would not be appropriate for children. Thanks for your blog. Linda