Making music with people
Rosetta De Battista Interviewed by Gillian Bartolo
The
well-known accomplished pianist Rosetta
De Battista is the only qualified music therapist in Malta. Gillian
Bartolo met her and asked her about this part of her work.
1.
What is the purpose of music therapy?
I
see music therapy as helping people in three different ways. It provides a
physical motivation to act. For example a group of children with cerebral
palsy who are normally quite apathetic, might because of the music they
hear being played on a drum, eventually really go for that drum. Secondly,
it is interactive and this stimulates people with difficulties in relating
to break out of their shell. I'm thinking of autistic children especially,
or depressed, introverted, hyperactive children.
Thirdly,
it acts as an emotional catharsis. I've worked with people who have found
it really difficult to live with themselves and playing music provides
relief. The therapist supports that: you are never there to outshine your
client. Music therapy is very client-centred, and you are there to
encourage what is coming out of them. Music therapists use instruments
like the voice, xylophone, metallophone, piano, drums, chimes, gongs,
symbols, things that are easy to play mostly.
2.
What experience do you have so far as a music therapist?
I
worked for two and a half years in the UK after I graduated, for a company
that had 17 homes for people with severe multiple disabilities. I also
worked at a school for epilepsy and autism, and at a mainstream school
with children with learning disabilities.
In
1996 I came back to Malta and set up the department of music therapy at
the Eden Foundation, and trained people to work alongside me. We worked
with over a hundred children a week enhancing play: children with autism,
children with cerebral palsy, children with Downs, attention disorders,
individually and not, mother and baby groups.
I
remember one little girl who had speech delay. She was very, very
introverted, and apathetic. At first she would never open her mouth. She
would hit something small and I would respond and then slowly she started
coming out of herself more, making loud vocal sounds, shocking herself.
Gradually she started to explore and play instruments. When she first
came, she would only speak to her mother and her brother, very little to
her father and hardly anything to anyone else. After a couple of months
her mother told me she was telling everyone that there's this Miss Rosetta
who teaches her music on Friday, and that she wouldn’t stop talking.
Music therapy works very well with autistic children. It provides a relief
for the children who feel trapped in themselves to find a way they
can communicate through music and play.
3.
Can you remember any other occasions when music therapy helped a child
make progress?
One
child had Downs and autism and he was referred to me because he wouldn’t
participate in class. In the first few months he would come into the room
and just rock and rock. I would sit at the piano and improvise according
to the pulse of his rocking and then sometimes he would just look up,
seeing the connection. Then he'd test me and rock faster. After a few
months he started to vocalise and then would say things like " I'm
wild." He was seven at the time and had very low self esteem. I
responded musically by showing I was understanding the pain he felt, and
then there came a time when we reflected on things, and I would say
“sometimes we feel we're not capable of doing things”, but in a
non-threatening way. That child did become more confident. He changed from
a child who if I ever presented an instrument, would simply kick it, to a
child who by the end, when I left, was actually able to sit at one
instrument and play together with me without these angry outbursts.
Every
person has a different story and journey to travel in the actual process.
You don’t follow a text book with music therapy. I don’t walk in and
teach them this, that and the other. Instead, I study how they are using
the space around them and me and the instruments and I ask myself where
can I take this.
4.
You have recently become involved in an EU-sponsored project running drum
workshops for children in Valletta. Can you tell me something about it.
The project, called “Rhythms for Life”, was thought up by the Third World Group as part of its year-long “Ritmi” project inspired by the musical and cultural tradition of Africa, the Mediterranean and Latin America. The Group has been doing voluntary work with children and young people from Valletta since 1990 and “Rhythms for Life” is essentially a series of drum workshops for these children and adolescents.
Although
they were already known to the group, at first we weren’t sure whether
they would take to music workshops. We needn't have worried.
Renzo Spiteri, the percussionist, two volunteers and I went to
their homes with our djembe (West African
drum) and it was magical the way the children took to the drums. We let
them take the lead, encouraging and really listening to the ways they
played, and then played back, picking up certain innuendos in their sound,
tempo, rhythmic pattern. It was like saying 'that was so lovely. Do it
again.'
Unfortunately
the course is short: two courses for girls and boys of five sessions over
five weeks, followed by a street performance. We hope the work can
continue. They see it as a life opportunity. One girl said
enthusiastically at one session "who knows, I could become a music
teacher when I grow up." They work in small groups so they feel more
noticed and cared for. Their concentration is super. We have one hour
sessions, but they are so focused they could go on for hours. There's no
messing around, no bad behaviour. They want to achieve. I hope it can get
carried over because it would be a shame to stop.
5.
What about music education in schools?
There's
such a lot to be done. On an educational level, there are still many
places where the resources are few. Some schools have bought instruments,
but in many places there aren't any. My mission when I came to Malta was
to get people aware of art therapy, especially music therapy, to create a
service. Music therapy can be used in so many ways. It could be used for
outpatients at hospital, for psychiatric clients, terminal patients, at
Dar il-Kaptan, Ir-Razzett tal-Ħbiberija, special schools, terminal
patients. Mrs. de Marco recently spoke about a centre for music therapy
she came across in Heidleberg which really impressed her, and contacts
have been made. So I was pleased about that.
European-wise
there are top notch music therapists who are interested in the services
here. One of them is Tony Wigram, the former president of the European
Committee, a prolific writer on music therapy, and on the World Congress
of Music Therapists.
6.
How did music therapy start?
Music
therapy first started in the hospitals after the war, fifty years ago
because music was found to provide relief for patients in wards. At the
London Nordoff-Robbins centre, which started thirty years ago, mainly for
autistic children, a lot has been done and many studies have been carried
out on the therapeutic benefits of music.
7.
How is music therapy used to help psychiatric patients?
Techniques remain the same. You can work with all sorts of conditions. The musical medium is the tool. If you are working in psychiatry with a manic-depressive and he gets really really angry, you use the musical setting to create a trusting relationship. You can't bash that door, but you can bash a drum and vent your rage, and someone can support that feeling and hold it, carrying it forward. Or you might work with a depressed client who finds it difficult to talk. So you sit in silence with her, bringing in some sounds, and build on accepting what the person is living, starting from there.
In
psychotherapy the client speaks and the therapist responds; in music
therapy the two sounds can work in synchrony. Also it's less threatening
for people who find it difficult to put things into words. So sometimes it
is an alternative means of expression that's actually easier. It acts as a
trigger for speech. So first you play for half an hour and then you're
able to talk and reflect about that playing, who was taking the lead, is
it right to take the lead often, and how do you think it makes other
people feel, “because I felt challenged by it”.
8.
How did you come to music therapy?
Ever
since I was young I really wanted to dedicate a lot of time to music and
when I was eighteen I got accepted to the Royal College of Music where I
got my performing diploma and my teaching degree and
towards the end of finishing, I came across music therapy and so I
applied and followed the Roehampton Institute University of Surrey post
graduate course.
9.
Where did your interest in music therapy spring from?
I
had done a year of psychology in Malta, when I was offered a place at
college and as music was my first love, I accepted it. What keeps my music
therapy going, is my love for music and actually making music with people.
But when I was young I was always wondering why are people thinking in a
certain way, what they were thinking: I was very interested in the psyche.
I use the thing I love most with people to help them. It’s a way in, to
reach people. The same goes for my music. The older I grow the more I like
accompanying other musicians. I often accompany Gillian Zammit.
10.
You work as a musical educator at St. Martin's now. What does that
involve?
I
use similar instruments to
those I use for therapy. The aim is musical rather than therapy, to teach
the elements of music. Therapy does come into it too. There are some
children who are dyslexic or have some difficulties and if they have a
particular ease with rhythm say, its quite a pleasant surprise for them
that they're getting ten on ten for something.
11.
The group running the Ritmi project is bringing over the leading
Senegalese musician Moussé Ndiaye
in the second half of February to conduct musical workshops and give three
concerts with Renzo Spiteri on the first weekend of March. You played with
Moussé when he was here three years ago. What is your impression of him?
Mousse's
work with people of all ages is truly phenomenal, in the way that it
invigorates, empowers and unites any group of people and brings them
together into a beautiful musical form. Moussé communicates,
"lives" music and leads you to a place that really feels good
using the djembe as his instument.
He
has played with people of international fame such as Youssou Ndour,
Orchestra Baobab and Baaba Maal, but he has chosen to be an educator above
everything. I was impressed with his ability to communicate, even though
English is not his mother tongue.
Rosetta De Battista is a Royal College of Music graduate, has a Masters in music therapy and is a member of the European Committee of Music Therapy. She is a key player in the “Ritmi” project of the Third World Group.
This interview appeared in The Malta Independent on Sunday, on 27 January, 2002: http://www.independent.com.mt/daily/featureview.asp?id=759&feature=Interview
