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SOUND IN MIND AND BODY
The Improvisator's artistry serves those in need!

Keeping imagination alive in schools, helping to heal post traumatic stress, soothing the suffering of illness.
(Free of charge, with support from private sponsors and foundations.)

See links to MEDIA COVERAGE at bottom of page.

Through an unusual chain of chance circumstances, David Auerbach is now offering our impoverished schools, beleagered vets and ailing patients free music enjoyment programs designed to awaken creativity, dissolve stress and facilitate healing. This project is being underwritten by private individuals, businesses and foundations through tax-deductible contributions made to a nonprofit arts council, which is graciously overseeing the project as the artist's fiscal sponsor.

Photo by Arts Council Napa Valley/Kristine Cummins

When young people are bored in school, what sort of older people do they become?
When soldiers return from combat, how can they find a life of peace?
When people fall ill, can music help them cope and recover?

David Auerbach offers, free to all, moments of pure enjoyment, healing and solace.

Helping to preserve the precious, innate faculty of imagination in children...
Assisting traumatized minds to move out of the reverberations of stress...
Using the subtlety of sound to nourish the unwell and the injured.

 

To discuss supporting the project, or to request services, phone (707) 224-4222.

NOTE: David Auerbach gratefully acknowledges the project's original fiscal sponsor, the Arts Council of Napa Valley, which has had to reduce its activities due to staffing cuts.... thank you for having been there!

 

Since July 15, 2012, the nonprofit fiscal sponsor of this project, everywhere, is the Solano County Arts Council.

Mail contributions to:

Solano County Arts Council
P.O. Box 869
Vallejo, CA 94590

(Include "Sound in Mind and Body" on the memo line of your check.)

FOR CHILD CREATIVITY, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS, HEALTH & HEALING AUGMENTATION:
Tall Tale Conversations (group story exercises)
Sound Explorations (hands-on percussion)
Unusual Assembly Shows
Therapeutic Sound

PTS Drum
Healing assistance for post traumatic stress.

For combat vets and other people with lingering suffering due to stressful experiences, rhythmic sound that targets the low frequency range of hearing can have profoundly relaxing effects. Drum playing in a supportive group does this. A gentle and steady rhythm shared around a single, large, community drum provides a heartbeat of safety, and this may be augmented with individual solo drums and other instruments for participants to express their individual feelings. As people become accustomed to the exercise, vocal recitation and creative movement are gradually introduced, with an emphasis on freedom and spontaneity. One net result over time is that the repressed memories and emotions become more accessible for therapy, and the rigidity of defensive brain patterns and body tension lessens.

The pulse and breath rhythm is the innate connection to life.
Brain patterns become altered by prolonged internalized stress,
yet participatory rhythm immersion reactivates mental self-healing.

 

Well Tempered Tones
Salutory sounds for the soothing of illness.

Music's ability to reduce pain sensitivity and to speed recovery are finally being taken more seriously by modern science. It's about time. Different wavelengths of sound appear to have different effects on us. Ancient cultures have known about this for thousands of years! We all know that unpleasant sounds make us tense and pleasing ones quiet our thinking and relax our bodies. The right kinds of sounds accelerate healing when we are sick or injured, by raising spirits, lowering pain, improving rest and sleep. It takes no effort to get the benefits; just listening delivers them. That's because a happier and more relaxed brain does a better job of regulating the body's processes.

Unique among arts, music produces many deep, direct physical responses.
Music participation improves memory, balance, and coordination.
Low frequency tones reduce pain predictably and measurably.
Drumming boosts vitality more than exercise accounts for.
People who no longer speak can still manage to sing,
Then singing brings their lost speech back again.
Music's healing has no harmful side effects,
And we don't yet know all its benefits.

For further information about the role of music and sound in healing, the artist recommends the work and publications of these researchers, therapists and clinicians, among others: Concetta M. "Connie" Tomaino, DA, MT-BC (associate of Oliver Sacks, MD); John Burt, MCAT, MT-BC; Charles F. Butler, MD, PhD; Deforia Lane, PhD, MT-BC; Michael Thaut, PhD; Robert Lawrence Friedman, MA; Martha Burke, MS, MT-BC; Riina Raudsik, MD (Estonia); Tony Wigram, PhD (Denmark), Olav Skille (Norway); and the late Petri Lehikoinen (Finland). Their pioneering research confirms what thoughtful musicians have always known intuitively: that music has power to lessen and heal afflictions.

 

Mr. David's Musical Brain
Free music enjoyment for children.

See links to MEDIA COVERAGE at bottom of page.

These participatory adventures combine music with other arts to encourage imagination, cooperation, and individual expression. Music, the universal language, is simply the artist's way of communicating love to young people. Students of all ages, backgrounds and personal circumstances derive benefit and enjoyment. The man in the feathered hat is big on fun. The young learn and grow through fun; without it they cannot. This artist is experienced at establishing rapport with severely emotionally disturbed and otherwise disadvantaged children. After-school enrichment programs are another specialty, with energetic activities that not only are creative but also relieve boredom and release pent-up energy.

Schools may get involved at any level,
From a day's visit for a single performance,
To a series of elective art class group workshops,
To a residency that engages an entire school's imagination!

Photo by Arts Council Napa Valley/Kristine Cummins

David's residencies have been a rousing success at elementary schools with as many as a thousand students!

His "Tall Tale Conversations" story game transports students into the mind's playground. All that is required is a room with a couple of tables and space for a class to sit in a half circle. Several groups per day can each have a turn at the exercise, which lasts about an hour.

"Thank you for playing your instruments. I really liked the animal skin drum. Also, I liked the story. You were nice... Your instruments were cool. It was nice to meet you. I want to meet you again." - Salvador

"Your instruments were lovely. The sound felt magical. I felt like I was in a different world." - Amaya

The artist uses as many as three dozen world instruments to facilitate and enhance a fantasy story which the children themselves make up together. Each child invents a piece of the story and gets to be the musician's boss, picking the instrument he plays to illustrate the story with sound. Depending on age, students may also use acting, dancing, drawing and vocal or instrumental improvising to illustrate each other's story lines. Multi-day whole school residencies end with assembly shows featuring other instruments, bringing the total to about fifty unusual international sounds that even most adults have never experienced!

"I loved when you said we can boss you and choose our thing we wanted you to play. You are very nice and kind. Thank you for every thing! You're funny and respectful." - Eliana

"I loved your instruments. They were strange but very enjoying. My favorite was the water instrument. Oh, and I loved the steel drums. I have never seen such drums. That was the best assembly ever!" - Sucre

For older students (4th grade and up) the added element of improv acting has proven to be wildly popular, doubling the fun, as everyone gets to do both storytelling and acting. In this fast-moving, dynamic exercise, the results are frequently hilarious as class members challenge and top one another's creativity. Sometimes students collaborate to craft group ensemble scenes. All the while, The Improvisator provides a fluid musical mood, moving from instrument to instrument as he matches sounds to the mental gymnastics of the storytellers and the physicality of the actors.

"Thank you for allowing us to participate in the acting game. It was really fun. I liked how you never knew what was going to happen." - Ethan

"I had a blast acting out all of the animals and people. You are the best music teacher I ever had... That was one of the best times I've had at school." - Daren

An artist residency maximizes impact,
delivering value for project contributors,
with participation pro-rated at just $15 per child.

Even without outside grants, a school's own PTA can make it happen.

"On a personal note: I witnessed a special needs student in my class express awe and alertness as you brought out different instruments. Emotional expressions flickered across his face in a way that I have never witnessed. Another student, a cancer survivor, overcame shyness to provide ideas to the musical story that you helped the class create. Girls and boys, extroverted and introverted, differing backgrounds - all were validated, included, happy participants in your magical, musical classroom. Thank you, Dave. You reminded this educator of the never-ending need for music. I will honor the lessons that you taught us today! - Liz High, teacher

 

- - - - Teens love to go with their imaginations, too. - - - -

"Tall Tale Conversations" story games are also a natural fit for fine and performing arts classes. The Improvisator's students practice spontaneity within their chosen elective arts: using improv acting in drama classes, free form movement in dance classes, lightning drawing in fine arts classes, and instrumental or vocal improvisation in band and choir. This encourages being in the moment, doing art for its own sake, and loosening up the creative spirit in each young artist. Youth's sensitive life issues can also be comfortably, playfully explored in the process.

"Sound Explorations" are particularly well suited for teens. These workshops use instruments to investigate nonverbal communication and rhythm. A school's own band or percussion instruments may be employed, or the artist can bring his own extensive array of international drums and shakers. Drumming harmonizes mind and body, and melodic instruments and voices can also become exploratory. Every person may learn to shine as a valued part of the interwoven whole community, and to support the contributions of fellow players. Other expressive arts may be blended into the exercise along with the music, depending upon the group's learning pace.

"Today at school, the students couldn't stop talking about how great the workshop was. They loved the use of instruments to explore character and plot development and were amazed at David's skill as a musician and teacher. We've had many guest artists in our advanced class, and the students shared that David was "the best presenter/artist" to date." - Sharon Rogers, drama instructor

 

MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE IMPROVISATOR'S SCHOOL PROGRAMS:

Wine country newspaper front page interview about this project's launch:
(how it came to be, and the first residency at Donaldson Way School in American Canyon, Napa County)
Napa Valley Register story, November 9, 2010 Written by City Editor Kevin Courtney of the Napa Valley Register.
 

Television news feature on San Francisco's ABC network affiliate KGO (Channel 7):
(at Napa's Porter Family Vineyards and Shearer Elementary School)
ABC-7 television story December 8, 2010 Sensitively produced by veteran reporter Don Sanchez of ABC7.
 

Two in-depth reports on a 2-week residency combining the artist's "story game" with student improv acting:
(at Jean Callison Elementary School in Vacaville, Solano County)
Fairfield Daily Republic story October 16, 2011 Written by Amy Maginnis-Honey of the Fairfield Daily Republic.
Vacaville Reporter story October 15, 2011 Written by Richard Bammer of the Vacaville Reporter.

 

Photo by Arts Council Napa Valley/Kristine Cummins

Details for educators and "venture humanist" sponsors are available on request.

Get in touch, and together we'll make it happen!

The schools are waiting.

To discuss supporting the project, or to request services, phone (707) 224-4222.

NOTE: David Auerbach gratefully acknowledges the project's original fiscal sponsor, the Arts Council of Napa Valley, which has had to reduce its activities due to staffing cuts.... thank you for having been there!

 

Since July 15, 2012, the nonprofit fiscal sponsor of this project, everywhere, is the Solano County Arts Council.

Mail contributions to:

Solano County Arts Council
P.O. Box 869
Vallejo, CA 94590

(Include "Sound in Mind and Body" on the memo line of your check.)

 

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