and be tough music can help okay close
your eyes
for reals close your eyes imagine you’re
in a classroom and your teacher says get
out a blank piece of paper and a pencil
and you’re gonna do a 15-second exercise
but remember don’t think you ready draw
your soul okay you can open your eyes
this is a story that I loved from a book
I read an elementary school called walk
to moons in the story the kids look
blankly at the page freaking out
figuring out what is my soul look like
and then furiously scribble and when
they come back from recess they realize
the teacher has put all the drawings up
on the wall and the main character sees
there’s all different kinds of symbols
and images and then she sees one of the
drawings looks exactly like hers a
circle with a maple leaf inside there’s
so me
this totally fascinated me because I had
created countless imaginary worlds with
my sister growing up but this totally
took the cake the fact that inside each
of us is an invisible world this must be
where dreams and thoughts and feelings
who you are that can’t be explained by
biology or environment your
consciousness safe to say this is kind
of what started me on my journey for the
rest of my life to figure out what the
hell is going on inside so I got a
psychology degree and I actually worked
in psychology research labs at Berkeley
and Stanford but honestly I didn’t
realize until very recently that my
obsession with this inner world is vey
very related to music which is what I do
now
music is the original human tool to help
soothe our soul did you know music has
been in every single culture throughout
history every single one they found
early modern man they found a bone flute
that was carved in the same pentatonic
scale that we use today we’re talking
Ice Age when your main concern should
probably be don’t get eaten by a
saber-toothed tiger but they were
playing music and they say evolutionary
wise something that exists in all these
cultures and across all people something
that Universal must help humans survive
so what is it about music it helps us
survive there’s a lot of theories
because music does a lot of really cool
stuff for us like it enhances learning
it improves your memory it helps with
insomnia I could go on for a while
because music lights up all different
parts of your brain but I really want to
focus on one new line of study that says
from the beginning of human culture
music has developed separately from
language to help us deal with life the
guy who studied all this is named Leonid
parofsky
he says while language splits the world
into detailed distinct pieces
music unifies the world into a whole and
our psyche requires both so what do I
mean by helps us deal with life well
every day we go out and information from
the outside world comes in through our
perception and into our inner world and
sometimes it matches our ideas and our
values and our knowledge and sometimes
it doesn’t and when these two competing
conflicting concepts are happening they
kind of have like a rub an uncomfortable
rub because we like things to make sense
this is called cognitive dissonance let
me give you an example
too much science right so let’s say you
meet someone you love them you think
they’re your soulmate and then you’re
getting ready to propose and they leave
you this is uncomfortable not only
emotionally but because you have the
idea that they are your soulmate and
then the reality that they just left so
to deal with this uncomfortableness
people usually do one of two things you
can reject the new information like they
didn’t leave they’re going to come back
or you could suppress the old concept I
never thought they were my soulmate if
we could sit with this uncomfortable
feeling we could face it and we could
maybe make the tweak and adjust our
inner world to accommodate both maybe we
didn’t give ourselves enough time to
really know that person and then we can
evolve and next time we find someone we
love we can spend a little more time
checking off boxes before we buy a ring
so we’re just music fit right music
soothes that uncomfortable feeling so we
can focus on making better decisions so
we can adjust and evolve the example is
there’s a study where they play music
while kids are working on really
difficult math problems and as you all
know probably if you can imagine
yourselves back working on a math
problem it’s the worst place you can be
and the kids that are working on the
difficult math problem that have music
playing will spend more time on it and
that’s why they’ll end up with better
scores kids that don’t have music
playing get frustrated and move on
faster so music has always helped soothe
the uncomfortable feelings in me for
example when I was little and I was
afraid to go to the bathroom in the
middle of the night there was like a
real long dark hallway don’t judge you
all did this I know this
I would sing to myself because that way
I had my own music going and I could be
afraid but also get to the bathroom
in my song burning house that I wrote I
had a similar set of conflicting
concepts I believe that I’m a good
person I like to think that but looking
back on an old relationship of mine I
treated someone that I loved very poorly
I was a jerk
and facing that made me very ashamed and
embarrassed but in writing that song and
singing that song I got to acknowledge
and accept the fact that I can be a good
person now and I still can’t fix what I
did back then so when I sing these
vulnerable songs on stage in front of
people the coolest thing happens people
feel the urge to tell me their own
personal struggles so people will come
up to me every show lots of people and
tell me their marriage is on the rocks
they’re battling a terminal illness they
love someone with an addiction that
probably they’re not going to get out of
really difficult things to face and
their stories might not be exactly like
mine but I know they’re feeling the same
underlying complex emotion at first it
made me nervous because I felt like
maybe they were coming to me for answers
and I can definitely tell you I don’t
have the answers but I realized in times
when I didn’t know what to say I would
just give them a hug and in those hugs I
really got it they weren’t telling me
these stories for their benefit they
were telling me these stories for my
benefit those stories healed me and this
is what’s my favorite part about music
the sharing of me being vulnerable and
saying these stories and them giving
these stories back to me it makes us
realize we are not struggling alone we
are not struggling
alone let me say it one more time we are
not struggling alone we’re no longer
strangers we’re kindred spirits and I
like to think that a part of their soul
drying might look like a part of my soul
drawing this new connection motivated me
and continues to motivate me to keep
doing me and keep being me I really want
to share one of these stories with you
that someone sent to me I want to read
it word for word because it’s really
beautiful it reference to the song
called village that I wrote for my
friend who lost her brother I just
wanted to say a quick thank you for the
song village a post I have made on
Facebook a year ago popped up as a
memory today I’d lost my brother almost
six months ago to the day and this song
hit me hard
my son Collin then six years old
has autism and is nonverbal so if you
can imagine communication with him isn’t
easy
he saw me crying as I listen to the song
and we had this incredible moment of
connection
he was empathic to my emotion and he
seemed to completely understand my
brother was a BASE jumper and Collin
always identified him as flaw he found
videos of him fascinating in this moment
a year ago he climbed up on my lap and
embraced me in a hug when the song
finished he pulled back grabbed my cheek
so I was looking right at him and he
said dry fly then he put his head back
on my shoulder and continued to hug me
it was a moment with my son that I will
never forget she included a photo of her
son and her in this message she sent to
me that I want to show you guys so music
can help a nonverbal kid communicate
with his mom can help us soothe our
souls can help us evolve our inner
selves can make friends out of strangers
are you getting the most you can out of
music I really want to remind you that
music is not just the background at a
shopping mall it’s not just a week
and entertainment it’s a tool that our
species developed to help us heal
ourselves and soothe our souls music
carries the burden of our heartbreak it
allows us to process grief it reminds us
that good things are coming and it lets
us know that we are not struggling alone
so let music do its job life can be
tough music can help [Applause]