Keynote Speech, Adam Christoferson and Jeremiah Brown, Musical Intervention: The world needs you

we move on to our first keynote speech this uh guys there's two of them they are coming from USA Adam and Jeremiah some of you may remember them from our Belfast conference um and Adam is the founder of musical intervention in USA and then I I believe that you will start and then we don't know yet what is going to happen it's interesting uh Adam Jeremiah please [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] okay [Applause] thank you so much everybody and especially to the European conference on Mental Health again great to have everyone let's give them a round of applause for bringing us together again [Applause] oh wow what a journey well this was a collaboration from an international group that had really started with Frank Reilly from Scotland um he came to a presentation that I was doing saw what we were doing in New Haven and created this incredible network of individuals that use music and the power to create change and empathy so thank you Frank for now here I am how about that there is a song in everyone and I really believe that and I I hope to convince all of you that you'll believe it too in 2016 I opened up a space in New Haven Connecticut in the USA that's open to the public completely free of charge to walk in grab a guitar off the wall create community 2300 square foot in Downtown New Haven where people come in a drug and alcohol-free space create Community together they listen to records off the wall we have incredible open mics that just displays so much talent that lays dormant in the streets that lays dormant in psychiatric hospitals and I'm sure you've seen people along the way this came to be because well it's always been my dream but I was doing open mics at the soup kitchen in New Haven and I had found incredible Talent there just by providing these open mics the problem is most people don't have anything to do all day they maybe go to an appointment and then they go to the local green get high and maybe hopefully avoid getting into trouble but sometimes that happens too this girl here at the top is Destiny and she made a humongous impact in my life I remember when I used to run away from home like I had nothing to do during the day and music is a passion of mine that's what we all have in common up here our decision was already in place that I had to go to a program I just don't wanna this too much it helps me remember foreign [Music] it helps me remember that I'm free [Music] this is a song that we wrote together just as we opened up the doors to musical intervention and you know it gave people a place to be it's her song I'm tired sometimes but I gotta free my mind I'm looking forward now gotta have hope somehow I don't wanna run no more I don't wanna run no more I don't wanna ride I don't wanna ride I don't wanna run no more why in the world would I create this place why I was playing an open mic one day and somebody asked me why do you do all this why are you doing it's because I desperately need Community I need connection and I desperately need purpose uh you could say that I have some lived experience uh my mother paranoid schizophrenia we were very poor and we lived in state housing and it was very challenging um start to my life I was eventually put into foster care and well then reunited with my grandmother my Swedish grandmother the most beautiful woman she would make me Swedish pancakes and I'd watch the butter melt into the pancakes and it was a total change of life fortunately she passed away and that was that was very devastating my father a Vietnam veteran um he struggled with alcoholism and there were a lot of people around the house that had addiction and very interesting characters to say the very least and unfortunately I was put into a special education and maybe a little little Behavior problem I had some things going on that I was trying to work out and uh there was a lot of stigma put on me and it was very challenging as an only child to to find my way but there was an interesting twist to all of this um at this you know living with my mother uh there would be a limo and it would come by this ghetto and pick us up and bring us to this concert oh sorry I don't maybe I shouldn't Play the song [Music] we'll stop it early maybe everybody wants that song to go on that's my uncle that's my mother's brother uh so music had a huge impact on me as a child uh seeing your uncle out there with everything going on and you know there was a VIP status we had lanyards and we were backstage and I was a somebody I was just somebody who could eat somebody that was included somebody who was special right and uh at the end of that night of course the limbo would take us and drop us right back to the to the scenario that that I had so living with my grandma after she passed my father did the greatest thing he ever did for me which was he bought me a drum set and this drum set was blue sparkling pearls and it was in the basement and I played there as loud and as long as I wanted to until the cops would come and stop me of course and they did often and I really found my identity there in music I found my safe space I knew that when I was playing music I was okay I would I was in a good place and so I attracted some other musicians and we had a good time just jamming um again unfortunately drugs slipped in and started taking out my friends started taking me along with it and I knew that I needed to make a change I had to stop doing drugs I had to get serious and that's what I did I was dating a girl and she told me to go to college I didn't want to go to college I was done with the label special ed and but I did and again the greatest decision I got my degree in recreation therapy started working at a child psychiatric inpatient Hospital I was there for five and a half years writing and recording music with the kids running other groups but music was the thing it was there that I met Jeremiah Brown my fellow keynoter today one day we wrote this song and these are some of the lyrics and give it time to find yourself be nice to each other and respect your health love each other in the lonely times because the world needs you and and that song has now traveled the world and get your vocal cords warmed up because we will be singing it later so working at this psychiatric hospital was incredible and the medical director suggested that I Branch out and work with other agencies and work with other populations and that's what I did I started finding that there was a song in everybody and so I developed this mission to promote empathy transform lives and Inspire the world one song at a time working with veterans working with people with disabilities intellectual differently abled and finding that there's just so many rock stars hidden away in our psychiatric settings I needed a place to bring people and so we started doing these uh open mics at the musical intervention I started branching out doing pop-up Studios this one here in New York City Greenwich Village this one here at the Bonnaroo Music Festival it's a pretty large Festival we had a tent set up and some of the music people would just want to come and jam for hours a little string and then all of a sudden we come to Belfast the relationship with Frank has grown so much meeting both Marcus's in Finland and getting invited to Belfast just before kovid was just a dream come true and the fact that I got to bring my group Jeremiah and this is uh this is one of the songs that we wrote again when you join the music group we'll be able to create something no way baby love you love playing games [Music] oh God it's so good it's so beautiful those videos are on YouTube if you're if you're interested in watching oh my God I can't believe I'm here it's just it's so moving um speaking of research I was mentioned obviously very important um plenty of research has been done on music finding that a reduction in depression boosting immunity relieving pain from the body um and we even did our own research with Yale program for recovering Community Health they've been a great partner actually the presentation I was giving there that's where I met Frank um and people the research that we found participants in musical intervention intervention like the non-clinical setting I'd like to just be able to walk freely and not as somebody who has depression or somebody uh who is prescribed to come there they like to just come as a guitar player or as a listener and our retention rates are great people want to be and spend their time there and they do all week long pre-covet now we're getting back there again one really great part that I love is this identity you know they really do they find their own new identity you know again not clinically depressed not schizophrenic I play guitar and I rock the house every Thursday night what a great opportunity through the relationship with perch we got a research Grant from the National Institute of Health we were funded generously through them to study how the impacts of the songwriting group impact people with auditory hallucinations I'm going to invite Deanna to speak about some of the findings that we were able to get hi everyone my name is Deanna Greco and I'm a neuroscience graduate student working with Dr Phil corlett and Adam on the sing music study at Yale University as Adam is probably mentioned by now our sing music study is exploring the impact of making music in a small group on individuals experiencing distressing auditory hallucinations so far it seems like the participants are really enjoying being in the study they really like making music in a small group and indeed our preliminary data suggests that this musical intervention is having a positive impact on them for example a linguistic analysis of pre and post musical intervention interview data shows that participants are using the pronoun I less frequently after the musical intervention and you might ask why is this fine and compelling and the reason is that previous research has shown that the frequency of the use of the pronoun I is positively correlated with level of distress in other words the more frequently somebody uses the word I the higher level of distress they're experiencing so coming back to our data what we're seeing is that after only four music sessions the participants are using the word eyeless frequently and thus are less distressed after this musical intervention and it's wonderful findings such as these that make us especially excited to move into the second phase of our study where we're asking the question of what is it about this sing experience that is helpful to the participants so for example is it that they have ownership over the content or is it that they're performing the content or is it some kind of combination of the two so to examine this we have four different types of music groups in this phase of the study firstly we have the same music groups like before where participants make music in a small group with Adam in that case they have both ownership over the content they're creating the content and they also have that performative element because they have to get up and sing and record the music the second type of group we have is singing karaoke so in this case the participants don't have that ownership component but they do have the performative element the third type of group is listening to playlists curated by the participants themselves in which case the participants have ownership over the content but they're not getting up and performing it instead they're just sitting and listening together and lastly we have playlists that are curated by the group facilitator and in that case the participants don't have ownership over the content and they also aren't getting up and performing it so uh stay tuned to see what our future results are and Adam keep working your musical magic now the scientific part is over thank you [Applause] yeah uh just before leaving we got the great news that we will be extended uh we all of our findings are good enough to move us on to the next phase so we'll see what we find um this is a full circle obviously this is me and my mother uh some of the best memory uh best experiences I have are making music with my mother because her schizophrenia creates problems in in her conversations but making music together those are the those are the special times that we have that she can improv and start singing however she likes and those are just great and so to see that there is some now research that should show maybe um why why this is happening and it seems to be to me and it wasn't mentioned in this study the word I was decreased but the word we shot through the roof and I think it's about being together this is a photo of some folks that I have met along the way on this journey this is New York City this was an original beat poet he would come into this drop-in I mean we literally just opened it up and people started coming in right away and he would do his beat poetry over somebody from Broadway playing piano and just amazing stuff this is an event we often do events on the New Haven green and display our talent for people to see some festivals that we've been invited to and I get to bring my crew this is our open mic jeez I wish I could tell you about each individual and the faces behind them and and we do we have plenty of music that has covered this totally diverse just coming in As You Are all ages backgrounds I've even got this one video all the way on the left where we got a hundred people on on a garage and each person sang one line of Lean On Me and it's a really powerful thing if you want to check it out on YouTube just some of the Great Stuff the fellow in the middle singing that's my uncle Oren that's Michael's older brother who's been an advisor to me for many years is currently huh doing this work with so many amazing individuals um you have to prepare yourself for loss and uh this is a memoriam for some of those that we've lost [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] I love you baby [Music] in memoriam [Applause] the fellow in the middle uh is Michael Goodwin he is the one who put a guitar in my hand and taught me how to write a song but which is served me well you are a song a wished for a song go through the ear to the center where the sky is where wind where silent knowing put seeds and cover them blades will Sprout where you do your work one of the greatest fruits I have of all of my labor is coming up now Jeremiah Brown [Applause] hello everyone welcome that's amazing to be here um I'm Jeremiah Brown I'm a singer-songwriter from the US um what I do on a daily basis I'm a medic and I'm a private military contractor for the U.S government uh which we'll see further on and going on here people always ask me what I do and why and the reason is because I've been there growing up my mother was a successful nurse and a wonderful singer see here my mother also had her own flaws my mother suffered from substance addiction and that caused me as I was born to have respiratory issues her addiction was something that she hid from us which was never known through the family at least me being one of 12 and being the youngest my life from birth literally was changed I was born at one pound thrown a little since then but her mistakes uh her mistakes made me grow up without a mother and suffered from a disease that I had no control over or asked for when I was 10 I had all these feelings and overwhelmed thoughts in my head and just got overwhelmed and didn't know what to do with them at that time 10 year old me attempted suicide I thought maybe I would just disappear and these feelings would disappear but while I was in this at Yale New Haven psychiatric pediatric Ward this crazy guy was walking down the hallway with his ukulele and this frisky hair and was like just jolly and it was a different vibe from everyone else that was there that person was Adam by the way oh yeah um I was hospitalized for a number of things numerous times but while I was there at the psychiatric hospital I finally called Adam's attention while he was walking down the hallway with his ukulele and we started to have little groups where he would teach me guitar chords and how to format a song and it was different and I felt like these feelings that I was having I'm now able to express on paper in a different way wrote my first song called Help the world with Adam which was about the violence that I encountered in my community growing up I grew up in one of the worst counties in New Haven Connecticut where you know that also took away from my childhood growing up my first song about helped the world was really a structure of where I've where I came from and being in this place of mental health and being around other kids who are having similar things to me I said well this is helping me I wonder if it'll help someone else I was able to write a song Adam went on vacation he left us his guitar which she trusted all these kids with his favorite guitar which was crazy and I had these four chords the only four chords that I knew on guitar and two friends that I made there who I'm still friends with now who wrote a song called keep the faith which was amazing um as I extended my no I don't remember the chords huh as I extended my music knowledge I discovered that this music stuff was pretty cool and Powerful I had control over who I am again I had control of what I wanted to say without a doctor telling me I can't feel that way without my family judging me about how I felt about this way if I did it in song I felt safe saying it so during these many hospitalizations my mother overdose trying to escape for a moment well that moment became a lifetime and it's something that I'm still processing and healing with overdose is what tried to take away the moments of who she was now like I said my mother was a successful nurse no one would ever know this but again that moment became a lifetime musical intervention is what helped me heal and still heal to this day whether it was me spending months in the hospital because of my health or just because I'm having a tough day at work as I said I work as a paramedic so I see people daily overdose sometimes it just reminds me of that time when I was 10. but if I have someone who's having a mental emergency we can sit in the back of the ambulance and listen to Bon Jovi on the way to the hospital and just kind of jam out right so those are tips and skills that I've learned from being around musical intervention itself people say they see your smiling face but they never know the challenges that went through your blood and I believe everyone has a story and everyone has challenges but you have this Shield and that Shield is okay to break sometimes because you don't want to be ashamed of Who You Are here you see me at musical intervention again like I said I recently was deployed some of you might know Afghanistan had an evacuation we brought 20 000 refugees to America and we housed them all it was a rough and tough situation there in cabal and the soldiers that I was working with from the US military were overwhelmed stressed and having a lot of mental emergencies up next you will see the military Colonel her name is Noel she was the military director now her position doesn't allow her to be what they call soft-spoken she has to be a tough cookie all the time musical intervention in me brought broke that cookie and she crumbed it all over the floor um we did a worship service here as you can see [Music] [Music] awesome so that's where I am now my Futures everyone has dreams I'm currently a firefighter and a dad I have an amazing two-year-old son who is very creative verbal and bad sometimes we get to spend days at the firehouse and make music all in one most of the times on Thursday nights sometimes for open mics my son is two so it's all about learning we'll go down to musical intervention where the doors are always open and my son Lily will pick an instrument and play it and learn about it we did drum sessions he learned about the different skins on an African drum which surprisingly he was very intrigued in and then we did different tones so not only is musical intervention a safe haven but it's also a teaching place in a school and in home to many Thursday nights I specifically make my schedule so I can be there open mics because that is the one time that I can be who I am without a badge on without a bulletproof vest on without a uniform on and I can wear Crocs and not boots which is always the best thing that I can do so again my goal I'm currently pre-med to be an anesthesiologist I want to help others that deal with the same respiratory issues as me live comfortably and not have to struggle now that picture of me in the or I'm actually listening to Hannah Montana if you know who that is she's a pop Miley Cyrus rather her name is as I do simulations and these are just small things that I say music is a focused skill for me and music is literally my life my first performance ever was Live in Times Square New York with Adam singing the song keep the peace total total I wasn't expecting it at all for all those people to be there I was also able to travel to China in High School Musical intervention helped lead me up to that where I was able to study for a month in Shanghai theater Academy and gain skills that I'm still able to use this day so I want to say thank you we have a little surprise for you [Applause] well uh can you imagine now um maybe your neighborhood people in your neighborhood that might benefit from a community space that's welcoming and engaging safe and most importantly accountable because we want to make sure the people that come through our doors are getting the help that they need see um instead of case management it's artist management it's the desire to make sure that these people can show up on a regular basis perform and you need to be healthy to do that and if housing is an issue then we Network them to case managers that can get them the services that they need if it's addiction or substance use and they need to detox and we connect them to the necessary services that can get them the help that they need again also that they can come back and create in a healthy State of Mind leave and build a legacy for themselves and their families I'm astonished when I talked to Frank about the work that they are doing in Scotland and so motivated to bring everything I learned from this week back to the U.S to show that there are so many unique ways in treating people as people and getting them on the road to recovery and I just really so grateful to be here so thank you everyone now what better way to end this beautiful story [Music] keep the peace every boy and girl give it time to get around the world Don't Stop Believing this view cause the world needs you yeah the world needs you give it time to find yourself be nice to each other and respect your help love each other and the lonely turns cause the world needs you yeah [Music] no matter what happens try to hold on in the darkest of times [Music] peace [Music] every boy and girl keep the peace every boy and girl keep the peace [Music] the peace everybody keep the peace [Music] other words ready keep the peace every boy and girl giving time to get around the world Don't Stop Believing in this View cause the world [Music] so much foreign [Music] thank you and we're done early [Applause] it's not easy to be a host in this kind of even when the emotions are going like a Portuguese weather Maybe okay thank you very much sir I am Jeremiah and Adam we this was not the traditional keynote speech uh but uh would somebody like to make a comment or question or say something we have still time do we have some questions or comments okay just please wait for the mic thank you very much for the performance and uh only one question how do you deal with people who would like to sing but they believe that they're not able to in your sessions and where you meet people and do music are you talking about sign language or are you talking about like a bad voice [Laughter] [Music] traumatic experiences for school when they were punished as they tried to sing and they were forced to sing and so on all the things you know what I'm talking about yeah I can imagine yeah um so traditional education can be daunting especially if the instructor is very strict and expects uh Perfection uh when you walk through our doors the last thing we want is perfect actually Perfection doesn't often make it through the door we typically love the whatever it sounds like method and uh there's a few facilitators that are there to support the person so that whatever they're singing ideally the musicians can get behind and and make it sound good especially in production when we when we do audio recordings and people coming to perform there's often times is a pitch problem which often is um not enough exp experience right not enough experience creating music especially with others but when those situations happen our Engineers um work like crazy to use auto-tune and make it sound really good something that they could be super proud of and um yeah it's it's really great to see that even though they might not be there yet we still uh put their best foot forward and that becomes something they can be proud of if that answers uh so if you have a bad voice I don't care about that bring it like I just want to hear it okay this one can we get the microphone there just just wait for a minute are you gonna sing not unless everybody joins in no um I was particularly interested in Jeremiah in faith because he did what he showed a aspect of worship and I just wondered how Faith influences or that you're both doing thank you yeah this is Faith is great I remember an experience that I had where I really wanted God in my life and I said God show me the way and uh and he God did it was great it was a very [Music] um very specific visual um and kind of a calling um for me Jeremiah will talk about his spiritual experience but yeah yeah so faith for me is very important my life is based off of Faith um for me Faith is worshiping and I worship to whoever I decide to worship at the time sometimes myself but I do that through music and I show my faith dedication through that and obviously you know teaching that also to my kids Adam introduced me to finding my faith and exploring my songs that's kind of where I get it from so yeah hey this faith is cool and there's so many uh religions in the world that describe so many things I think if my ideal belief would be to that we are loved and that we are forgiven to to love and so that we can be free to love anybody that we love yeah give me a keyboard you'll see my face oh my gosh yeah we had an incredible night last night at a local open mic in Lisbon which is a beautiful beautiful city thank you so much for inviting us all here and the community that was there was was very very close to musical intervention very loving group of people creating music in a very small space and uh is a yeah it's beautiful she could have gave me a heads up um I had a question about how you work with your participants um to train or work with others so it's obviously you have a beautiful spark that just spreads but I guess it's it's a question of how you work with your participants and developing that spark so they like that and others and and how does that spread internationally or beyond music intervention in New Haven sure the spark exists in these people there are creative bodies they're inspiring individuals with often no Outlet by simply providing the space does quite a bit at giving them the power in themselves to be able to lead others and encourage others to be the next generation of inspiration [Music] um there's been times where we've had 30 volunteers and we're talking about uh little infrastructure I mean no infrastructure at first right um but people with lived experience tend to have a pretty strong ability to empathize with others that are also struggling there's some kind of relationship that happens and in those relationships utilizing something to focus on like music art is plenty drama there's all kinds of other ways to do it I do believe that um by simply providing the space and uh creating and and trying to facilitate safety um people just naturally want to uh put their best foot forward be inspirational and in those things now key elements to to make the thing work is somebody with the ability to create these things somebody with music for us it's music ability we were able to bring on two music facilitators they're there throughout the week to make sure that people are creating throughout the week and they both have lived experience but they're able to um they've done some of the work to show up on a regular basis and um yeah and Inspire keep the inspiration going if that that does any justice to your question okay great okay thank you for the comments and questions and once again Jeremiah Adam thank you very much [Applause]