Story by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Photo by Tiffany Han
Video by Jiaqi Ye
[vimeo id=”83721055″ width=”620″ height=”360″]
Six-year-old Jordan Locke eagerly looks up, touching his face as he hears the strumming of a guitar. He picks up some colorful bells from the floor and rings a red one. Two other boys run into the room. “Hey! I want to play too!” says Ray, flinging himself onto the floor next to Jordan. As the session begins, Angie Kopshy hands the guitar around to each of the four boys and lets them strum a chord. The boys sing along to the “Hello Song,” the typical intro to Kopshy’s music therapy.
Based in Portland, Oregon, Angie Kopshy is a neurologic music therapist and Vice President of the Oregon Association of Music Therapy. Music therapy is the use of music to treat physical, emotional, cognitive, and social problems associated with the brain. Therapy can be conducted through singing, playing, dancing to, or creating original music. The goal is to use music to make improvements and changes in other areas of the patient’s life.
“I would call myself a music facilitator – using music to fulfill a non-musical goal,” says Kopshy. These goals can include improvements in cognition and development, as well as social and emotional skills. Music therapists must be trained to address a variety of disorders, but most have distinct skill-sets used to address specific problems.  Kopshy focuses on patients with autism and dementia. Each patient has unique needs, so sessions vary.
The boys, all six years old, meet with Kopshy for 45 minutes every Saturday to sing songs that help them make connections between music, actions, and words in the songs. Kopshy lets each child choose an action and then incorporates it into a song. “You’ve gotta jump when the spirit says jump,” she sings, and all the children sing and jump together.
Kopshy works with some patients individually. Tymme Chamorro meets with Kopshy every Saturday for half an hour. The petite four-year-old doesn’t say much at first, quietly playing with stuffed animals on the floor, but as Kopshy starts singing the words from “Old MacDonald,” Tymme softly joins in. Her words aren’t the same as Kopshy’s, but she keeps the rhythm and tune perfectly.
Tymme’s grandmother, Liz Hamilton, has seen incredible changes in her granddaughter since she started music therapy. “She’s started talking unbelievably,” says Hamilton. “I really attribute the music to unlocking her language.” According to Kopshy, Tymme’s words are jumbled, but her vocabulary has grown and speech ability has improved. Hamilton can attest to how much music therapy has helped Tymme.  “My goal is to help her become the best little person she can be, and I think music really speaks to her.”
Kopshy became a music therapist after completing a master’s degree in piano studies and has been practicing music therapy for about five years. She hopes that music therapy will soon become more prominent in the next few years, especially with regards to children with autism and special needs. The therapy is effective because it accesses different parts of the brain. “When we’re talking, we’re using maybe two different parts of our brain,” says Kopshy. “In music, we’re using at least five.”
While all treatments are different, there are some parallels between certain disorders. Kopshy has noted similarities between patients with autism and those with traumatic brain injuries. She attempts to tailor the type of music used in treatment based on each patient’s personal music preference. For example, patients with dementia are often exposed to songs from their youth, which can trigger cognitive connections to their past.
Jordan’s mother, Melissa, feels that her son’s response to music therapy has been decidedly positive. He is very sensitive to noise, but he made tremendous progress in coming to the group sessions. “At first, he wouldn’t even want to come into this room. Now he can sit through a whole class.” Melissa adds that Kopshy’s incorporation of language into Jordan’s private lessons has really helped his speech.
The boys in the group session have varying severity of autism. The session is designed to engage all of them, and it does. In one song, Kopshy asks each boy what makes them happy. When she gets to Ray, he pauses, “Hmm. I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Well, let’s think about it,” his father prompts him. Ray decides that he loves dancing, and so the group sings, “Dancing makes me happy, so let’s all sing along.” When it comes time for Ray’s three-year-old brother Jay to tell the group his favorite thing, he doesn’t miss a beat, “Ice cream donuts!”
Kopshy says that at its core, music therapy capitalizes on the innate healing properties of sound. “Our brains are designed to respond to music, and we just take advantage of that,” she says. It’s not for everyone, but it can be particularly helpful if a patient has an affinity for music. “It’s motivating, and music is cool and fun for kids.” Music has universal appeal, and therapists like Kopshy are working to apply that versatility to help people overcome their struggles through engaging in music.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Three year old Jay drums along to the beat during the “Hello Song,” which helps the children get warmed up and ready for their session with music therapist Angie Kopshy.