The power of music to heal

I have a love of music and especially the harmonica. It's not that I'm a great player (I'm not), but I enjoy the creativity of playing and the joy of listening to others play.

So I take an interest in other players and teachers on the web and one of those is Adam Gussow. He sells teaching products on line and has a testimonial page for those who have used his products. This testimonial really caught my attention

Hello Adam,

My name is Yohan and I live in Quebec, Canada, in a small city calles Ste-Sophie not to far from Montreal. I am writing this e-mail to say thank you for all the time you are taking and all the videos you are making for Youtube. I have a little story for you if you have the time to read it because my harmonica maybe saved a man’s life.

I am a paramedic here in Quebec and have been for 4 year now. I love my job and love to help people the best I can. Once in a while I even save a life. A few months ago I was looking an instrument to play. I’m not rich so I thought the harp would be nice and not to expensive. Not only that I can prictice on the job when I’m not on a call. I bought a C harp and started to listen to your videos on Youtube. The minute I started I loved playing and now the harp is always on me whereever I go. After a few months of playing I can say that I am an ADVANCED BEGINNER to INTERMEDIATE player. Now here is the story. A few weeks ago I was on the job and it was a boring day. It was raining and we had no calls. Me and my partner are just sitting in the ambulance on the verge of falling asleep. Finally the dispatch calls us for a man wanting to end his life and we are called to help the police who are already there. We get to the man’s house and all we hear is yelling. The police and man are almost fighting. The man who is in his late 50's does not want to go to the hospital and all he wants to do is die. As the man sees me and my partner walk in he is even more pissed off. The man is not armed he is just sitting in his couch and he dose not want to leave his house but he said he want to commit suicide. (I don’t know how it works in the states but here in Canada it is illegal do commit suicide and I can’t leave the man there knowing what he will do when I leave.) After 10 minutes of yelling between the police and the man, I reach in my pocket and pull out my harp. I look at it, bring it to my mouth and start playing... I started with Oh Suzanna and then other song that I learned by ear. When I started playing everyone stopped yelling. My partner was looking at me with this big question mark on his face saying what the hell are you doing? After a minute or so the police and the man had big smiles on their faces. Then I stopped playing put the harp away and everyone was looking at me. The man looks up at me and said that he had not smiled like that in years. I then tell him that music always dose that to me too and if he wants to talk about it on our way to the hospital I would love too. I did not think i would work but the man got up took his jacket kissed his wife and told her he would be back later. Everyone had the same question on their mind including me, what in the world just happed. All this yelling just few minutes ago, a little harp, and now everything is calm and the man is coming without a fight. As I sat with the man in the back of the Ambulance the man told me he use to play in a small band years back and me playing brought back lots of memories. We talk about other things for we had 45 minutes ride to the closed hospital. I told him he was not alone and dieing was not the only way out. When we got to the hospital the man thanked me. It was probably the most sincere thank you I ever got in my life. I will never forget the way that man looked and smiled at me. Did i really save his life? I dont know. Did he get help? I dont know. The only thing I know is that he did not do it on that day.

Well that is pretty much the story. I am not much of a storyteller so I told it the best that I could. From what I learned from you helped another man. I want to thank you again and keep up the good work!

--Yohan, Quebec

I could discuss how the music was a trigger that took him into a more resourceful state or talk about the power of music to heal, but I think the story itself is eloquent enough.