Music is medicine.
That is what Robert Gupta talked to his audience about in March of 2010
on the TED stage. A violinist with the
L.A. Philharmonic, Gupta talks about his encounter with a violinist, Nathaniel
Anthony Ayers, who suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia, and how this changed
his mind on the power that music has over us.
In 2008, Robert Gupta met Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, at the
Walt Disney Concert Hall, after a concert he was involved in with the
Philharmonics. Ayers came back stage and
met Gupta and they had a great conversation about music and life and then they
both went on their way. Before I tell
you what happened next, let me tell you about the life of Nathaniel Anthony
Ayers.
Nathaniel Anthony Ayers was a student at Julliard but had to
drop out of school because he suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia. Thirty years later, living on the streets of
L.A., Steve Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times heard Ayers playing on the
streets with a violin that had only 2 strings, and from there a beautiful
relationship was made. Lopez wrote
columns about Ayers, which turned into a book, and then eventually a movie
featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx called The Soloist. When Gupta met Ayers, he knew all of this
about him, but he was not expecting what was going to happen next.
A couple of days later, Gupta got an email from Steve Lopez
saying that Ayers wanted a violin lesson with him. So they met for a lesson. As they got started, Gupta started to realize
that Ayers was getting very uncomfortable and out of sorts. This was happening because Ayers was a
schizophrenic who would not go receive treatments. Ayers refused treatments because of the bad
experiences he had with shock therapy, handcuffs, and things of that
nature. This frightened Gupta because he
thought he was going to lose him, so instead of throwing more information at
him, he started playing his violin.
Almost immediately this changed Ayers mood. He calmed down and became so intrigued with
what was happening that he started playing his violin as well. The music that Gupta played soothed Ayers
nerves and brought him back to reality.
This story that Gupta told was very powerful and it was told
very well. Gupta spoke about this
encounter with so much passion and belief that as a listener I could not help
but be moved. Hearing the backstory of
Nathaniel Anthony Ayers and realizing the severity of what he has gone through
is amazing to hear. I was not very
familiar with this story and Gupta told it very well.
As I stated before, music is medicine; it changes us. For Ayers it gave him sanity and musicians
understood him. I know I do not deal
with a severe mental illness, but I have always found a healing sense in music.
Whether I am mad, sad, or happy, there
is a song that I can turn to for comfort.
I was not familiar with Robert Gupta before; but after
hearing him play his own rendition from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, it reminded
me how beautiful and emotional classical music can be. In the end of his speech he said he would
always make music with Ayers because he will always remind him why he became a
musician. That is inspiring and reminds
me that inspiration might come from where we least expect it.
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