Musically Minded
- Sep 11, 2025
- 4 min read
I was introduced to instrumental music early on in life at 7 years of age. The first instrument I chose was about the same height as mine, at the time -- the sitar, which I learned until my teenage years. I used to hold the sitar and stand with it almost like a companion when younger. By 5th grade they thought I was the best instrumentalist in school, which they hurriedly gave to me as a certificate, during a school assembly, written with two different colored pens by a teacher who didn't think very highly of me due to my average academics. Now, most musicians know, once you learn a major instrument to some extent, it becomes easier to learn a few others. Later, because of sitar, I was able to enjoy playing the lyre, dulcimer, and guitar as well. Because string instruments cannot be carried easily everywhere, my next favorite instrument became the harmonica, which is easier to carry anywhere, and can generate instant entertainment for people nearby and solace for you when alone.
Years later, in 2020, I took a graduate level course, CONF 695-008 on Trauma and Healing taught by Dr. Al Fuertes, in which one of the final submissions was titled 'Creative Dimension: Thinking Outside the Box Piece' to be presented in front of the class. Most people found it easier to make a play together or shared poems and stories. For me, composing a piece was music felt easier. I had never composed music for an audience before. However, I knew that this was a language I had learned even before I had completely learned to speak proper English. Therefore, when I had to bring complex ideas related to coping, personality, and trauma together, expressing my ideas using music felt intuitive. The outcome I came up with is one example of how components of music may be used to encourage the healing experience, even if it may have to do with various experiences you coped with as an adult.
The harmonica tune ‘Skipping in the Mud’ (https://vimeo.com/394684791 ) created by me on 2/26/2020 is intended to capture the multiple themes covered during the course. The tune may be interpreted in several ways. The process of trauma and healing has multiple layers, it spans over time, it evolves as people grow and find new situations, and eventually it shapes our identity and our communities. Intergenerational stories versus individual experience: In the context of intractable political or religious conflict, some stories of traumatic experience may be traced back to generations, as they are told repeatedly. And then there are individually shared stories of compassion, shared pain, and even unexpected bravery.
Different styles of coping: Problem-focused versus emotion-focused coping see us through during different phases at the aftermath of trauma (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Problem-focused coping entails perceiving distress as a difficult entangled knot of string, you unentangle one knot and move ahead, unentangle the next one and keep on moving
progressively. Emotion-focused coping involves managing the emotions experienced as part of the ongoing stress. There is an attempt to recognize the sadness, the pain, and minimize it using strategies such as seeking social support.
Personality and situation interactions matter in how we respond to trauma: Two soldiers back from war may be recover similarly. One may recall many stories of brotherhood and gain an appreciation for life. The other may mostly recall experiences of distress and the dark shadows of the experience. Having a genetic predisposition to particular emotions and
personality, can partly explain such differences. Some recover better than others. Having said that, some traumas are harder to recover from than others. A slightly positive personality as constant backdrop usually helps in recovery.
How we share stories of trauma: When stories of trauma or significant life-changing events are recalled, it is usually compared with a future life of normalcy or with a normal one that once existed. When I think of my own ways of experiencing sadness, I try to recall how it was more explicitly expressed by me when I used to cry as a child. When we grow up, a similar rhythm gets mirrored in how tell stories of trauma as adults. A narration of trauma, even in the absence of tears, aligns well with the gasps and tears found in the crying of childhood. It is step by step, with high and low notes, wrapped with regulation attempts.
The new normal: After trauma, there is a constant strive to reach normalcy. The day, the place, the moment when ‘everything will be alright’ similar to the last scene from the movie Life is Beautiful when the tank of help finally shows up. However, it doesn’t for everyone. Nevertheless, you may find a bike close by and make your own new normal.
(... and the tune may be interpreted in several other ways by individual listeners.)
In my own experience, there is no such thing as a normal life. There is life with more predictability and a life with less predictability; more choices and less choices; or more pain and less pain. This difference can sometimes be all the difference between lives. When trauma strikes people, worldviews may get damaged which impacts how we are able to
access stability, safety, and happiness. In the context of ongoing stress, believing in stability and predictability is often not useful. In fact, it may be retraumatizing. At best, a lot is gained when any anchors of stability and predictability are rooted in the self, in an instinctive understanding of immediate contexts, until stable contexts of support are found. Even though an ideal image of a normal life is expected as a backdrop, I believe most individuals do have what it takes to extend their own unique story of trauma from a spot of pain to coping to a better understood future life, if not necessarily a happy one.
Once I made the above composition, at least ten other tunes followed, seamlessly, sometimes played spontaneously as if waiting to be created. Because I am usually a happily dispositioned person, one tune that surprised me is included ahead to add some variation, played and made by me in one go on July 30th, 2021, with David Hilowitz's soundtrack Dark Science as the background score. A less known dark secret? I can't read music in English.
References
Lazarus, R. S. & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer.
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