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On this solemn 10th anniversary of our country's national day of remembrance I would like to share some of my feelings about the healing powers of music.
Shortly after September 11, 2001 I was invited to participate in an interdisciplinary program with the Michigan Opera Theater which had scheduled Verdi's penultimate Opera, Otello. As I listened to Verdi's music, certain scenes from the Opera and my own speechless reactions to the events of that horrific September morning increasingly became associated. I realized that music "spoke" to me in a way that, despite the tragedy in the Opera (adapted from Shakespeare's play) and the events of September 11, strangely provided a sense of inner comfort. This was not the comfort that one might experience when at peace within oneself, but a way of finding a place deep within myself on which I could find an anchor despite whatever else this unspeakable event ignited.
What is inherent in Verdi's music, and about music in general, that resonated in me when words felt futile and ineffective? Music consists of organized sounds and rhythms which I call sonic signifiers which have the capacity to evoke fantasies, memories, and bodily sensations. These emotional and visceral reactions have the potential to link psychic past with present as well as connect feelings with ideas. Music has the power to help us to organize and work through our feelings and thoughts.
Verdi's musical vocabulary in Otello "speaks" to unspeakable complex human narratives and emphasizes the dynamic loving and diabolical nature of the human mind. As listeners, we may experience any number of associations and conscious and unconscious reactions listening to the tragedy that is Otello, including fright and disbelief about how the ego can become derailed by primal urges, wishing we could say "not me". Music "works" because it has the capacity to bring us in touch with the vulnerabilities, strengths, and complexities of our own psyches. Music resonates uniquely with each listener's inner life. Through the aural pathway of music, new meanings and adaptive solutions can be discovered in old stories.
In contemplating my reactions to the juxtaposition of Otello and 9-11, I came to understand how viscerally I was brought in touch with a multitude of affects and memories based in my own developmental experiences involving loss that were reignited by the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City. Music was tied to my memories and affects. It was consoling to realize that music during my earliest years had provided comfort, a function it continued to offer on that ominous sunny morning.
9-11 leaves me grieving. Music helps me remember and feel reassured simultaneously. Music can do all these things at once. Words only can be spoken one at a time. Music can be a means of consolation following trauma. It provides a wordless entry into emotion and memory and also shines a light on the best qualities of human nature.
Julie Jaffee Nagel, Ph.D. is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School with a major in piano performance and a minor in stage fright. She also is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. Nagel publishes and presents on the topics of performance anxiety and music and emotion. Visit her website at julienagel.net.
