Music Therapy patients at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt have partnered with Nashville community artists, musicians, producers, engineers, and other professionals to create the Everybody Has a Story CD. Each song on the CD is the result of a clinical music therapy session involving the patient and music therapist, Jenny Plume. “One day I thought we are in Nashville, we have amazing artists here. Maybe we could get them to sing the songs and make a bigger production of it,” Plume said.
This project is a tasting of some of the works by patients over the past six years. Songs were crafted in a variety of ways. Some lyrics were crafted out of a real life experience and some during discussions about patient’s feelings. Music therapists then used the ideas and words provided by the patient to create a song. The music was written to align with the mood of the song and how the patient envisioned it to sound. Song topics range from serious to silly. For each recording on the CD, the patient and family members had the opportunity to experience the recording studio, meet the artist, and in some cases participate in the recording.
Gigi Paslay, who has been battling leukemia since the age of one, has songs featured on the CD. She says, “I like writing music. It helps me get out my emotions because it’s hard. I can’t always do things like normal kids would do so writing is my fallback.” All proceeds of the Everybody Has a Story CD will benefit the music therapy program at Vanderbilt. For more information on the project, visit Vanderbilt’s website.