From The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) June 18, 1949 

Music Therapy Pioneer
Tells of Its Benefits

By HAZEL KIRK

   The adage that “music has charms to sooth” is being taken literally by psychiatrists and musicians alike, and the modern adaption is music therapy.
   Mrs. Esther Goetz Gilliland, Chicago, who is the house guest of Miss Junia Sells, 1062 West Church Street, is the leading music therapist in the country and a pioneer in that field.
   Mrs. Gilliland also is director of the music department of Woodrow Wilson Junior College, director of the music therapy department of the Chicago Musical College and music therapy counselor of Sigma Alpha Iota, national music fraternity.
Pioneers Therapy
   Becoming interested in results being obtained in veterans hospital by using some music to rebuild the emotional upsets of the veterans, Mrs. Gilliland while in California made extensive research in the hospitals there.
   Returning to Chicago she continued the work and consulting with psychiatrists special programs were set up. The results were so successful that music therapy has taken its place side by side with deep therapy, vocational and recreational therapy.
   The advancement has been so fast that a new hospital being erected in Chicago will have every room equipped with music reception receptacles and head phones. “Many patients, used to music in their homes from childhood, miss music. Shutting them away from it in hospitals contributes to their unhappiness,” explained Mrs. Gilliland.
In Operative Cases
   Also music is being used in operative cases, where only a local anesthesia is given to distract the patient.
   According to Mrs. Gilliland, during experiments in large mental hospitals, music has been found to be of inestimable value in the bringing back of patients who go into coma, the personality receding even beyond the childhood stage. Crashes of music, or accentuated rhythm seems to catch reaction in the patient and start him back to normalcy.
   There are three phases of music therapy, the listening or passive stage using familiar popular and classical music in an effort to interest the patient; active music with a director explaining music or arousing music appreciation; and participation with the patients taking part in dancing, singing, and playing with emphasis in rhythm and melody.
Must Meet Mood
   “Music to be beneficial,” said Mrs. Gilliland, “must meet the mood. You cannot bring back a depressed person by starting him off with gay, hilarious music. You must start at his level and gradually bring it up to the gay mood. In reverse the excited patient starts at the level of crashing melody and gradually subsides.
   Mrs. Gilliland has found, too, that music therapy is most important in helping handicapped children. It first gives them the feeling of belongiing to a normal group, which is important, and then by careful selection of the proper instrument music is used to benefit the physical lacks. A cello will stretch the hand; the piano makes necessary finger exercises for a deformed hand, pleasing and interesting; a child with one arm can manage a trumpet by having an attachment to hold the instrument while it is played with the other hand. Many other instruments can be adapted to meet the child’s needs.
Resocializes Patients
   For mental cases music resocializes patients, it has been found. The mental person reitres within himself, shutting out friends and associates. Music, Mrs. Gilliland said, has proved the greatest factor in breaking down those barriers. It brings back memories, and soon the patients are joining in singing, or dancing. One famous psychiatrist has said music is the greatest factor in getting a patient off a chair where he sits and broods.
   Friday night, Miss Sells entertained Mrs. Gilliland, two other house guests, Mrs. Winifred Fulton Powell and Miss May Andrus, New York City, Mr. and Mrs. H. F. Moninger, Miss Hazel Kirk, and George Hermann, at dinner in Granville Inn.

-- transcription by Kate Maynard, 2010