Peter Roberts’ life-changing move from small business to music therapy has as much to do with his own search for meaning as it has with his desire to offer healing to patients that medicine can’t match.
Peter, based in Geelong, has been working as a therapeutic musician for seven years since he, wife Jeanette and daughters Katherine and Ellise moved to the United States where he completed the two-and-a-half-year course that introduced him to the concept of ‘anointing people with sound’—a whole new world of holistic healing for those facing death, their loved ones, and others in pain and distress.
He is now based at Geelong’s St John of God Hospital where he uses harp and voice to meet the needs of patients ranging from those in palliative care to premature babies and their mothers, and those anxious before surgery.
Peter’s yearning for something deeper in life, combined with his love for music, led him to give up his prosperous furniture and interior decor business and start on a new course at mid-life.
‘For a long time through my life music had just been fun, but when I got to an older age, as an adult, I became more interested in the effect music was having on people and I got away from the performance aspect and more interested in music as meditation.’
Peter says the original concept of offering live sacred music for the dying was inspired by the death-bed rituals of 11th century Benedictine monks in Cluny, France. The contemporary expression of this tradition has clinical applications that support the emotional, physical and spiritual needs of patients.
Part of the course Peter completed at the Sisters of Providence-run St Patrick Hospital in Montana included learning the harp, something completely new to him. But Peter says his form of therapeutic music is not just about musical technique or about playing beautiful, soothing music. He says his main focus is an awareness of the needs of patients referred to him by the hospital pastoral care department and addressing those needs with music. Part of Peter’s challenge is also to introduce people to the relatively new concept of using music as therapy.
‘I came back [from the US] with this precious thing that I was trying to explain to people, and I wanted them to understand it. I’d seen it working so well and it felt like I was in a barren sort of a place back here because I had a lot of ground to cover.
‘What I am trying to do is not just offer entertainment or lovely background music or favourite tunes. I am actually trying to work with the quality of the sound to positively affect the patients’ well-being. And therefore the choice of music needs to relate to what’s happening in that moment.’
Peter uses an example of a patient who may be sad or in grief, or even someone who hasn’t yet expressed grief. After being referred by nursing or pastoral care staff, Peter would then visit the patient and enter into a relationship with them through the music, hopefully helping them to experience more fully the emotions that may be blocked.
‘So I would choose from the pieces that I play, or I would sing to help them find emotional release—like breaking the dam in a way. When that happens it usually is over and done with, and then I can change the quality of the music to gradually make it more uplifting’, he explains.
Peter plays a variety of music but says a lot of it is Gregorian Chant because of its prayerful, praising and sung nature, and also because it relates well to natural breathing patterns. If he is with someone experiencing breathing difficulty he can sing or play to their breathing patterns and help them change the rate so they can breathe more easily and fully.
‘Sometimes it’s appropriate to sing, but singing may be too intimate for some occasions. Then the sound of the harp may be the most appropriate choice.’
In the case of a person who is close to death or unconscious, Peter says it is a matter of watching the person’s face and trying to make an offering and see what happens. ‘You can see or the family can see whether it’s affecting them, and then I can change the music as necessary.’ He explains that’s why the music needs to be live rather than recorded so he can respond to the mood changes in the moment.
‘My intention is to use the music in a particular way to touch a person and to draw them into an experience of deep peacefulness. So I’m not just playing relaxing music. It’s like in prayer—it’s drawing them in to an attitude of prayer.
‘I don’t say those words to too many people because all of a sudden you get painted into a corner about what you’re doing. But it’s like drawing people into that gorgeous silence and that reverence and they experience something. They may have their own words for it, or no words that can express it. That’s what people often feel and that’s my intention.’
St John of God Hospital and Barwon Health in Geelong recently received a $20,000 grant from the Geelong Hospice organisation to employ Peter’s services as a community service for people in need of palliative care. The money will also be used to study the effects of his music on patients.
After a recent surge of interest in his work from newspapers, radio and television news programs, Peter feels the use of music as therapy is coming into its own. And he’s adamant the ‘live’ method in which he’s trained offers a transformative experience that recorded music cannot.
Peter says he finds his new career rewarding rather than demanding. He acknowledges the need to be open to the grief and suffering often involved in his work while at the same time being able to play and sing.
‘It’s not much good having me fall about. But I’ve cried and I’ve shed tears with people afterwards, or on my own. Because I need to be myself—to be real—I can’t cut myself off and just play music. That’s the nature of what I’m doing, it’s about trying to be really present to the person and the situation.’
‘It’s a really interesting thing because I love what I’m doing and I have something valuable to offer in very difficult circumstances. The music becomes a very intimate form of conversation and that is very rewarding—it’s a wonderful thing to be conversing on that level.’
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