The Awesome Music Project
Improving Our Mental Health Through The Power of Music
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In This Episode
If you are a listener of The Boiling Point, you know that music is a huge part of Greg’s life. You’ll also know that we are massive advocates of improving mental health. Last year we launched a partnership series, Shifting The Employee Experience, that saw Dave joined by Dr Bill to share his mental health expertise in the workplace. Today’s guest is bringing the two worlds of music and mental health together in a series of projects we couldn’t be more excited to learn about.
In his day job, he works with Deloitte Canada, but Terry Stuart co-founder of The Awesome Music Project opens our eyes to how music should help improve mental health. He and his co-founder Rob are not just putting that idea out there. They are selling a book and using other methods to raise funds to support research led by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to get the scientific data to prove what every music lover knows. Music can evoke emotions to help us through our mental health struggles. The Awesome Music Project has even started another piece of their efforts called AMP4LIFE that is bringing music therapists virtually into long-term care, schools, and other locations being so harshly affected by the pandemic’s mental stress.
We know we have music lovers in our audience, so let’s spread this message far and wide to help Terry and Rob with the radical way they are improving our minds’ soundtrack.
Episode Breakdown
First 10 Minutes
We kick off this episode talking about Greg’s love of music and the connection Dave felt when first meeting Terry Stuart and hearing about his Awesome Music Project, a charitable foundation in Canada focused on healing music to mental health. We hear about how Terry was started along the path of this project. Terry explains how his eyes were opened to why music isn’t seen to help with mental health issues.
10 Minutes – 20 Minutes
Terry explains the research that the project is currently being completed with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and funded by the book sales to help prove that music therapy’s anecdotal results have true impact. Terry explains the Live Lab at McMaster University and how they measure the impact. Greg explains his experiences when listening to music solo, versus on the radio or at a concert.
20 Minutes – 30 Minutes
Dave raises the difference between his and his wives tastes. Terry talks to how they find the differences between tones and songs make a difference to people and how it affects their moods. He explains a tech project called Vibe to help curate playlists for people based on what you need at the moment. The group talks about a future of Boiling Point Music podcast. Greg shares how he’s been hearing about psychedelic therapy research that helps people suicidal feelings and mental health.
30 Minutes – 40 Minutes
Terry explains the Stories, Songs and Silence concert series and how they made a COVID-19 pivot to create a program called AMP4LIFE where they are digitally enabling music therapists to deliver their services into long term care homes, schools, etc.
Terry Stuart
Chief Digital Officer, Government of Canada Account
Terry is Deloitte Canada’s Chief Innovation Officer, a core member of the firm’s Global Innovation Network and a Partner with the Canadian Financial services consulting practice. Terry applies his passion for innovation and the experience gained from more than 25 years in consulting to help clients solve business problems and create new offerings at Deloitte.
The Awesome Music Project
THE AWESOME MUSIC PROJECT’S SUPER, AWESOME GOAL:
TO BUILD A COMMUNITY THAT CAN ACCELERATE SOLUTIONS TO MENTAL HEALTH THROUGH MUSIC
To foster awareness about the issues in Mental Health
To drive research and tool development linking music and mental health
To raise the health and happiness of all Canadians (and beyond!)
Proceeds from The Awesome Music Project will fund strategic research initiatives involving music and mental health. The initial research project is a collaboration between the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Music and Health Research Collaboratory (MaHRC) of the University of Toronto.
In this project, researchers will study the effects of neurologic music therapy on brain systems using positron emission tomography (PET)-based brain imaging techniques.