Ep 490 – Somatic Sonatas with Doug Nelson

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0:00:36.6 Doug Nelson: I'm Doug Nelson and you're listening to the ABMP podcast, a podcast that speaks to the massage and bodywork community. And today I'd like to explore the parallels between the art and structure of music and the art and structure of, of a massage therapy session. You know, this came about the other day. I had a new client and when I came back in the room, she was just standing there with her mouth open and just kind of in surprise. And as I looked at her, what she said was, that wasn't just a massage, that wasn't just some form of therapy. It was, it was an experience. It was like a piece of art. And I can't imagine explaining this to anybody else because it was such a rich and deep experience. I feel like I typically do after a meditation session where sounds are louder, colors are brighter, I'm more attuned to my senses, that sort of thing. And was just such a lovely statement from her. And I thought about that a lot after she left about the art of it all. And in anything like that, there's a structure to everything. So if you listen to a piece of music that you feel very moved by in that same time, you can break that down and see its component parts and see the structure of it.

0:01:55.7 DN: Indeed, if you videotaped the work that I did, you would see that there are clear themes and patterns, rhythms, spaces, intensity, variations and all that could be chronicled. There's a structure to it all. And that's when I started thinking about the parallels between music and my own love and respect for the arts and massage, which, you know, in my mind I'm always paralleling everything with that, everything I come across. I clearly have spent most of my life in the clinic because that's what I think about. And whatever insights I have in other fields, I always draw back to that. So let's start maybe the first thing. In massage therapy, just like in music, first you have to have something to say, right? It's not just the notes on the page. You have to bring that to life. And you also have to have the skill set to make that happen. You know, in both cases, in anything like this, you have to have the fundamental skills to be able to, in essence, sing. As I've quoted many times. I love the Mary Poppins thing. If you want to learn to fly, you have to take off from something solid.

0:03:11.1 DN: And that solidity is all the work that we have done in our study of anatomy and functional anatomy and our palpation skills, soft skills, all of the things, all of the component parts that go into making a massage therapy session possible to be not just transactional, but transformational. I think that's incredibly important. And I think the arts teach us that. Whether it's the arts or athletics, I think you bring those same skills to the table, the discipline, the execution, and all for the purpose of doing what you love. And in our case, we get to do something that really does serve people in a tremendous way, oftentimes creating pain relief. So let's take some of these parallels, and let me just take a few of them. First volume. If I said, and I did actually hear the Chicago Symphony a while ago, if your first question was, was it really loud? I would think, what in the world? What kind of question is that? It's not about volume. There were times when I was watching the violin section and my seat was very. I think it was third or fourth row. So I'm closer than just about anybody in the auditorium.

0:04:32.5 DN: I could see the whole violin section playing. I could barely hear them. That's how soft they were. There were other times when the brass was playing. I thought I was going to be plastered to the back of my seat. So, you know, volume to music is like pressure to massage. It's not about the pressure itself. It's not about the volume itself. It's about the statement it's trying to make. And I always find this perplexing when people say, I like really heavy pressure. I like really light pressure. It's like saying, I only like music that's really loud. I only like music that's really soft. That just doesn't seem to make any sense to me. I think things should be loud when they need to be loud to make a statement, and things should be soft when they also need to make a statement.

0:05:25.2 DN: But in a different way. If my voice was a total monotone, I'm thinking it would be like a narcoleptic convention. I would have probably lost you by now, right? But great speakers know how to alter their voice volume to bring you in Sometimes if I'm trying to control a group that's a little overexcited in my seminar, I'll just start whispering and people will like, wait, he's trying to say something. It's a really interesting thing how volume can get our attention. And that's really what we're trying to do in a session, right? Is communicate with this nervous system, to have this conversation with the nervous system to get that nervous system's attention. And a consistent level of volume "pressure" probably doesn't do service to that. So that's one thing. Now the second thing is spacing and rhythm in music, for instance. Of course, spacing and rhythm is really, really important. It changes how we feel about the music that's being conveyed, obviously, right? And great singers know how to phrase things in different ways. If you're a flautist and you're playing your flute, you know when to do a catch breath to be able to do that.

0:06:47.9 DN: Long phrases, short phrases. The same is true in massage, right? That we are actually phrasing what we do. Some things are longer, more extended phrases, some things are shorter. All of this is to provide a rich sensory experience. And when you think about that just physiologically, just as two examples, we have Ruffini Endings, we have Pacinian corpuscles. They respond to different kinds of things. One group responds to really slow kind of extended input. One group responds to much more, quicker oscillatory kinds of input. If we have these a rich array of nervous system receptors, then we should respond to that with again a rich array of input to that nervous system. It only makes sense.

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0:08:17.5 DN: Phrasing again, you know, there's spacing and rhythm. Phrasing in some ways is a little bit different. In fact, if you don't mind, I'm going to pick up my cello and just play you one little line, one of which just kind of walking through the notes and the other one with a little different phrasing and see if you can hear the difference. So in music, just like in massage, just like in speech, oftentimes what is said what is put out there is one thing, but like in music, it's the space in between the notes that sometimes gives it more power. The same thing in speech, right? That little pause, that little hesitation draws people's attention in. It's the space that often creates the power. And with that, it's also about clarity. I love. There's a great story about Herbie Hancock feeling kind of having a little bit of a block, feeling like he was just doing the same thing over and over again and asked Miles Davis for some help. And Miles leaned over in that, you know, voice of his and said, leave out the butter notes. And Herbie Hancock's thinking, what the heck is a butter note? You know? Well, it turns out just that questioning about that, leaving out anything that was kind of non essential really inspired him to play in a totally different way and just was a game changer for him.

0:10:04.0 DN: So I think for all of us in massage, right? What are those butter notes? What are those things that. What if we didn't do that and dropped out? Anything that's extraneous and just focused on clarity of communication. And that clarity can be somatic. The other thing is. So this person that I'm referencing as the same thing, that person I just saw a little bit ago in music, there's this, it's called a ternary form in classical music, an ABA format. So A is the statement of theme, B is the development of the theme, and then a restatement of the theme is the A again. So it's ABA format. Well, the person that I just saw a little bit ago came in with a specific problem, as did this person I referenced earlier in this podcast. And so we started exactly with what they stated was their intent for the session. Once we state that, we do some work. And then the B section is the development section. So if there's a particular muscle or a particular symptom presentation in the development section, I'm thinking of all the associated muscles that are part of the system of that presentation.

0:11:28.3 DN: So not directly working with it, but indirectly all of the associated, the friends of that particular problem. Right. And then towards the end of the session, a restatement of theme, just to check in again, to retreat the thing that I came in with, to visit that again and see what kinds of changes. It's not the same thing. It's different in the second time. And in music that's often true. It's a restatement of theme, but with a slight different variation. Now that you've developed it, I do the Same thing in massage. The same thing happens in music. So I love that kind of structure to it all. In the end, really, what all of this is about is to deeply resonate with the nervous system of the person that is on the table. And in my work on cello, you know, playing in tune, I mean, I grew up playing the guitar. The guitar has frets which help you be in tune. Obviously, the cello, someone stole them all. So now you have this board that there's just. There are no frets. So playing in tune can be a challenge. But the way that you know you're in tune is that when you play a note, the other strings of the cello begin to vibrate in response to that, if you're in tune.

0:12:53.1 DN: And in fact, I'm going to pick up my cello again and I'm going to play maybe a note, maybe three notes, and just let you hear how that. What sounds like the string is just ringing. It's not the string I'm playing. It's the other strings of the cello that are ringing in response to that. Just listen. Isn't that cool? Now, when you think about it, this same thing happens when I'm on the table. In fact, when I was playing the cello the other night, just practicing, I thought, you know, I spend most of my life looking for resonance in the sense that in the treatment table, I'm looking to see from that person's body. I'm looking the language that they're, you know, speaking to me, the facial expressions, the response from their body, what they say, I'm looking to see. Did the work I do deeply resonate with that person's nervous system, with who they are as a person? And I think all of us have been on the table. When you felt that kind of deep resonance, that was just way beyond the stated input, but it just reverberated through your whole nervous system. I'm sure you've had that experience.

0:14:22.4 DN: And nothing less than that for me is the goal. And it is one of the most exhilarating, fulfilling moments to know that that has happened. And it's, again, why we do all the work. And I imagine for someone who's a much more accomplished musician than I, being on stage, looking out over the audience and seeing people genuinely moved by the work, the thing that you played, you made the composer's intent come to life. It wasn't just notes on a page. It was, again, transformative, not just transactional. What a deep and wonderful and robust experience. So that's what I wish for all of you. And I hope you found this somewhat interesting. Just the parallels. Any art form, any discipline, you could probably find the same sort of parallels. This is just one that I'm familiar with, and I hope it resonates with you as well. Thank you for listening.