Music as Medicine

Michael Hughes 00:07
Hello and welcome to The Art of aging which is part of the abundant aging podcast series from United your chops. On this show we look at what it means to age in America in and other places around the world with powerful, positive and empowering conversations that can challenge, encourage and inspire everybody everywhere to age of abundance. I am so pleased to have Andy Tubman on the show today, who is one of the founders and leaders of sync fit and we’re gonna be talking about the concept of music as medicine today. Super exciting. Andy is bringing cognitive healthcare to the forefront and as the CO front Co Founder and Chief Clinical Officer for musical health technologies. Andy’s music as medicine solution sink that is using more than 500 long term care facilities, as well as rehabilitation and caregiver organizations in the United States. And this used to significantly improve the health and happiness of people suffering from dementia and mental health challenges in this role at navigating both the healthcare and music industries to successfully scale music as medicine for the first time in history. I’ll say that again. Dr. Smith at Temple University music therapy department and board certified music therapist Andy’s experience includes working with children, adults and seniors in a variety of settings, including inpatient care. He has a broad background in music therapy with expertise in scaling programs and therapeutic music. He travels and consults with medical systems internationally on implementing music as medicine. And as a frequent speaker on the intersection of music and health at conferences include the American Telemedicine Association leading age, you’re here, Senior Living 100, and the International Council on Aging. He’s also been featured in probably magazines you’d never heard of like Fast Company, and Forbes and the Los Angeles Business Journal in the US journal and USA Today. Oh, and Billboard magazine, too. So, Andy, so pleased that you made the time to join us. Welcome.

Andy Tubman 01:52
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Michael Hughes 01:54
So I want to open up the show with a question that I asked a lot of the guests. I mean, you know, we just obviously heard a lot about you. And you know, you’re a guy that could be doing a lot with your talents, and creative energy and all the rest. But you’re doing this, you’re doing a musical therapy program for people with dementia for people with physical limits, you’re doing this. What led you to this? What? How did this all get started for you?

Andy Tubman 02:18
Well, it all started back in 19. Well, so it isn’t.

Michael Hughes 02:23
I know it’s a big question, but it’s

Andy Tubman 02:25
a big one. Yeah, but this is as short as I can make it. I didn’t choose music therapy. I can do this as short as possible. The first day of college, my best friend from high school didn’t show up and ended up in a very bad car accident the night before. Went through a windshield, traumatic brain injury, the whole deal. And he was in a coma. Right. And this was, you know, this tragic High School Story was college, but tricycles he was in a coma. And I had heard even though I was basically, you know, a baseball player, but I had heard that people in comas could hear and process music. And so my friend and I had, you know, started playing badly bad Elvis together, and just goofing around, you know, like everybody does. And so I started to sneak into the ICU and play bad Elvis for my buddy who was in the coma. So fast forward through pneumonia three or four months, he gets discharged, still in a coma, but to a more stable room. And it was a big visiting night. And I had gotten better at guitar because I was playing so much. And I was playing Pink Floyd’s Wish you were here. And Shawn actually came out of the coma mouthing the words to wish you were here. And everybody in the room was just like, You’re

Michael Hughes 04:02
crazy. Wow. Yeah.

Andy Tubman 04:04
Seriously. And so the nurse is like, Hey, you should probably talk to our music therapist. And I’m like, what music therapy you know, like, and so I thought that it was at most rehab in Philadelphia, and they had a music therapist there. And it just so happened that in Philadelphia the temple had one of the best programs. So that was kind of just a very natural thing for me to do. I felt very comfortable working in music therapy in school. And then I had a, you know, inpatient like you said before, and a private practice for a number of years with folks with neurological challenges. And what I found in California was that access to a music therapist, paying for music therapists, is basically out of pocket. There’s some insurers you know, covering it, but it’s a massive, you know, massive climb for an individual in a private practice as a music therapist. And so it was just, it just was not scalable in any way. And my dad had this idea around word queuing because he was an opera singer. And at the

Michael Hughes 05:21
back to back this up a little bit, so here you are, yeah, you’d have this magical discovery of music and its impact on people in comas. And then you already had a, your dad was an opera singer. That’s kind of crazy.

Andy Tubman 05:34
Right? So he was a very creative guy, and an opera singer. And may have gotten famous except kids come along. Because he was, you know, he was starting to, you know, do some auditions in New York, and, you know, singing operas around Philadelphia, that the short of it was, is that you fast forward through college and through, you know, a number to 1015 years of private practice in a variety of settings. And I realized how there’s only 8000, you know, 7000 music therapists in the US, right, and then how many of those folks are actually in senior care with children, you know, with stroke, right. So like, there, it’s a very small number. And so my dad had this idea throughout his whole life in opera stage to use this word queuing that they use in the opera stage to feed the libretto when singers forget. And to do this, so he could learn songs in his car, right? He liked in the late 60s 70s, he wanted this opera prompter in his car, and he tried every kind of, you know, entrepreneurial thing never flew. But once the app economy got to a place that all you needed to do is build software. I called my sister who is tech, you know, in business. And I was like, Rachel, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I was like, Hey, I think we got to do dad’s idea. I just learned that it’s an evidence based speech therapy and music therapy practice. And I think it’s time to scale some therapeutic music. And so that’s where I got to.

Michael Hughes 07:24
Yeah. So I really want to dive into this concept of music as medicine because I think it makes sense. You know, and because we know inherently, you know, I love music myself, I’m a guy that always seems to have a song in his head. I know, you know, it’s just his energy that’s associated with at least three personally. But before we do that, can you explain the sing fit method to our listeners?

Andy Tubman 07:49
Yeah, so what we’ve done is the real core of it. The differentiator is the difference between a passive listening experience that everyone is very familiar with, and you probably are able to very effectively medicate yourself with music by listening, right? As a high functioning well, relatively No kidding. But as a high,

Michael Hughes 08:14
relatively, it’s very uneven. Yeah.

Andy Tubman 08:18
But as a very high functioning person, you’re able to say, you know, I want to go for a run, I’m gonna use this, I want to relax, I’m gonna play this I want to write, you’re able to differentiate. However, when you get into a healthcare setting, this passive experience actually becomes very complicated to administer. Right? If someone’s in pain, it’s like, ” Why are you doing this music? What’s the relationship of the song? So the passive experience becomes difficult in terms of yielding consistent therapeutic outcomes. So what we did was we took my dad’s idea of this word queuing, so there’s no reading, right? No reading, like karaoke scrolling, there’s no reading. It’s a word queue that speaks the words before you need to say. You listen, and repeat the words with a guide singer. So you’re actively making the music. And that engages the brain globally, language centers, timing centers, motor centers, though, the whole thing is engaged and rocking.

Michael Hughes 09:24
And so that kind of leads into the next question about just music as medicine. So how does music really impact the brain? What does it trigger? Like I said, very simple questions. Yeah,

Andy Tubman 09:40
I mean, that. I mean, not to parallel myself with a doctor, but that’s like asking a doctor, how does medicine work? Right? It’s not, it’s kind of that big. But it really is, you know, what I tried to look at is the specific case. Right? What are the conditions that you’re trying to affect? And how is it someone that had less left hand hemisphere damage of the brain with a stroke or as a legion, and you need to specifically work around the Broca’s area? And if so, maybe drumming is the right way, because that stimulates the Broca’s area, specifically rhythmic training, right? Is it that same stroke person, but they had limited damage in different parts of the brain. And language is a challenging form of words and motor planning, and you get them singing, right at to exercise this, you don’t engage the whole brain, but really exercise specific motor planning and different kinds of valve formations, you get them singing different kinds of songs, the B songs and things. So in general, like I think of music, as the ultimate organizer for human rights, it creates this grid in time. And you’re really able to help the human being really want to feel organized, and have their expectations fulfilled. And if you apply music the right way, in general, this can happen. And then once you understand that you can start diving into like I was saying before the stroke, the dementia, the different challenges, the preventative, right, all these different ideas, I hope, and that was the big question.

Michael Hughes 11:27
I love this, I love the angle you’re taking on the language part of it. I think that if a song is familiar to you, I think I’ve seen videos of you. And you know, you know, when the Saints Come Marching in, you know, you start with Oh, when the saints and then everybody else sort of naturally says, Oh, well, the saints. And I also think about movies. And you have the Glen Campbell documentary that came out. And the documentary of Tony Bennett, both very accomplished musical artists, both who unfortunately, were diagnosed with ALS. And both of them continued to form, just because of the brain’s ability to remember. So is music truly kind of an abstract language as part of the brain is really just protected?

Andy Tubman 12:15
I don’t know. I’m, no, I, I’m with you. I’m with you. So back to my theory on Tony Bennett. And the Glen Campbell idea is that, in general, and not specifically this, and this is not I’m saying researched, this is conceptual, that you have this, basically from a song or songs that we’ve grown up with, or have practiced your entire life like Tony Bennett and Glen Campbell, you create basically there’s neuro imprint, right. So that means though, to create that song to express that song, you’re again, engaging globally, language centers, motor centers, Planning Center, subcortical, topical short term long term, like the whole brain is rocking, expressing that saw. And so when those guys practice, and work their entire lives around, you know, lots of songs, but really, you know, to really be a songster, like, the neural connections and the neural networks around those songs are so strong, that in these scenarios, they stayed intact, even while the disease itself is shrinking the brain, creating holes in different parts of the brain, right is damaging the mass of the brain, and reducing functionality in a lot of different ways. But my theory would be that their neural network around the song process has gotten so strong, has strengthened so strong, right, so much that they can continue that and that just kind of clicks in for them.

Michael Hughes 13:58
Wow. And you know, the other question I wanted to ask you was more, you know, he’s we’re talking about people and their practice of music. And I think about, you know, lyrics and language and how people associate lyrics and language obviously, with their own upbringing, their own culture, their own experiences, placing, I mean, you know, the songs we listened to in our childhood, but then there’s something different around rhythm. And, you know, I’m fascinated with electronic music. I love electronic music that doesn’t really have lyrics and unless they’re on loop, repeat, I’m fascinated with the art of DJing. And the fact that you know, every song is in four four times so that you can pretty much mix in everything. It’s mathematical. And then from that, you know, you have these experiences with people who sort of like drumming circles. I’m just trying to think, you know, if I think about what our universal human values universal human experiences, such as gathering and celebrating around food, I also think that gathering around drumming has to be something that is Very first of all universal and second of all very foundational to the way that our brains operate. Do you do? Have you done it? Any? Do you have any thoughts? Or have you done any research into it? What does that rhythm do for us?

Andy Tubman 15:12
So I have a lot of thoughts. But you know, one, one idea that is universal, as you’re pointing out, is that the very first sound that we hear is the mother’s heartbeat. So, we are a group, right? Like, like, literally on a cellular level, we are part of that beat, and we are pulsating. Right? So that has conditioned us to, you know, really be acclimated to rhythm and drumming. And to have that be an organizer, like I said, and so an EDM, where there’s all these grooves and everything going on, and all this different music, and you know, everyone’s at a crazy festival, underneath it all is for the floor. Right? And that really helps to organize and ground, right. And so there’s a real relationship to a baby in the womb being grounded by the mother’s heartbeat. And even in a festival situation, this division of time gives us a sense of security. And grounding, I would say,

Michael Hughes 16:35
I love that. And I’ve never thought about it in that way. Now. And because when I think about that type of music, I think about not just four, but you know the multiples of four, because you can have probably a dozen different sound elements looping around on the same track. And then people can find different ways. People could be dancing to that same song and dancing to any one of those 12. Right. And that’s really intro, there’s sort of a foundational there, but then people tend to maybe acclimate to different parts of that, but yet, they’re all kind of sharing the same thing.

Andy Tubman 17:08
Yes, very much. So very much. So. Yeah.

Michael Hughes 17:11
So when you think about how this applies in a therapeutic, a therapeutic way? Yeah, you know, people can fit in and people can cue into lyrics, they can cue into rhythm. Yeah, I’ve seen just, you know, you know, knowing you and your organization and seeing you guys in action, I just think it’s wonderful. You, you go into these rooms of people that seem to be by all intents and purposes checked out. And then you start in with musical therapy, and people just come alive. And what’s that like for you?

Andy Tubman 17:44
I mean, it’s very interesting, because when I do one to one work, right, it’s a much more intense clinical music therapy work. And you know, it has gone on in my career and in my life, from working with infants with genetic diseases, to seniors with, you know, late stage dementia, right. And so like a whole variety of folks in between. And that is extremely obviously very rewarding. But when we started seeing fit, what was interesting is one, I realized that it’s really, you know, to be clinical music therapy, there has to be a music therapist on site and assessment done, clinical goals created. So we’ve created what we are, what we’re calling is therapeutic music. And not to be little therapeutic music. Because if you can get somebody to utilize music, as a yoga practice, as a daily routine, as a way to stimulate and energize like you’re saying and focusing on different things, you really have the advantage of scale. And the first time that we sold into a company of like 30 communities. We weren’t doing training online, we were I had to go to the communities and train the facilitators. It’s much more efficient now. But the next, you know, and I was like, oh, I should get back to my kids and do clinical work. And I’m like, why am I doing this? I’m not a tech person, what the hell am I doing? But the next week, we got all these calls. Because there’s 1000s and 1000s of people from me training for two days, you know, 35 facilitators. Now there’s 1000s and 1000s of people singing three to five times a week for their health and I’m like, okay, maybe there’s something here, maybe there’s something to this.

Michael Hughes 19:51
And that’s just that, that success by good feeling, which is absolutely wonderful. So, all you do for arranging this wonderful life for you and Rachel, where do you get to do this stuff? And I know I mean, that has been in business for nearly 10 years, or maybe over 10 years or what have you, this is your Oh, geez in space as far as I’m concerned, and I know that you have a spirit of continuous refinement and continuous improvement. So I got a, what do you do if I want to start any musical therapy program? So I guess maybe there’s a couple of different types of musical therapy programs? What are the essential elements that you have to bring in order for me to have the potential for success?

Andy Tubman 20:32
Yeah, so I think it’s really sitting down and really understanding what you’re looking to do. When you say, music therapy program. If you’re saying specifically in senior care,

Michael Hughes 20:46
I, you know, what, in your writing, I’ve been doing way too broad with you on this podcast. But I think let’s talk about people with, for me, I think where I’ve seen music therapy, probably the most successful in terms of wellness for the person and the family is most most particularized in cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s, things like that, where one assumes that someone is closed off from the world. And this is even in later stages, you know, demand dementia is closed off, they’re not in a stressful situation. And here’s an opportunity for an experience that just lifts everyone up. Yeah. And so that’s the if I were to pick up the number one use case that I have for programs like yours are for people with a cognitive Alzheimer’s, that sort of area. So maybe we can talk about that. I mean, what if you had to put together a therapy program musical therapy program for that type of an audience? What are the essential elements?

Andy Tubman 21:43
So essential elements for a group? It sounds like we’re talking about a group and people singing together, which is obviously a powerful thing, because it is known, researched, that when you sing, you release the hormone, the neurochemical oxytocin, which helps bonding, right? So this is something that we’ve been using for years and you feel connected to everybody. So this is one element when you’re singing together in a group or with somebody else, this oxytocin is released. And oxytocin is not easy to release. There’s a lot of it, there’s a lot of challenges, you might have to eat chocolate or pet an animal to release oxytocin. So there’s an or have a baby, right? There’s not. It’s not easy to get that going. So singing does

Michael Hughes 22:33
oxytocin is different from serotonin, it is different.

Andy Tubman 22:37
Yes, serotonin is more like a mood elevator. But oxytocin is known as this chemical that is like, when a baby when a woman has a baby in utero, or it’s just been born or born. Oxytocin is flowing in this creating this feeling of my baby, right? My connection to my love for my baby, right? This is oxytocin really at work here. Yeah, whereas serotonin and dopamine are real, there’s many actual functions of that, but in general, they are affecting mood quite a bit. Right. So

Michael Hughes 23:19
you’re going to have a festival again, and everyone’s dancing round, we’re all dancing the same thing and you get this feeling of unification. And, you know, you’re part of this group and all that. That’s oxytocin.

Andy Tubman 23:29
Yeah, you know, I have to know it. I’d have to research to see if but movement, if that releases oxytocin, I wouldn’t believe so. I believe so. But I know that singing does, but I’m not sure if the research on gist movement, really. Okay, God, I

Michael Hughes 23:47
I guess I’m sorry to throw you off track. So we’re talking about seeing oxytocin. So in a group situation, we’re talking about this first . First of all, unify a group.

Andy Tubman 23:55
Yes. And so. So, you know, one is to create a program and music therapy program, to get that oxytocin flowing to get the dopamine and serotonin flowing and really elevate people’s mood and get them organized. So I like to approach that in a big way. You know, I would say that, unfortunately, there’s not a ton of funding for a clinical music therapist, typically. Sometimes people hire music therapists to be entertainers. And I don’t love that because I’m a snob. So I think you can know, when you really have people who are scared to get in the shower, or really fragile, right in their emotional state with dementia, or are agitated. You have that music therapist as a consultant and then bringing them in on the very fragile scenarios to really utilize music in a deep way, hopefully. And then they can also console on how to create a music program that’s going to be really effective. Like, Michael, I walked in, I walked into the lobby of a community once. And, you know, everybody knows that they should be playing music right all the time, which is not necessarily the truth. But everyone thinks, and you go into the hotel lobby, you go into any lobby, there’s music. Yeah. So they’re playing Elvis. But the speakers in the ceiling are distorted. And I’m just like, well, if you’re, you’re

Michael Hughes 25:40
always just, but you can sort of figure out what’s playing. I get it. Yeah. Right. Like, so

Andy Tubman 25:45
if you want to agitate someone with dementia. That’s the way to go. Right?

Michael Hughes 25:52
I never thought about that before. But yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Andy Tubman 25:55
So I’m just saying like, there’s an awareness, hopefully, that a music therapist brings to the table on is that if, you know, are we setting up small groups of eight to 12 people for doing a deeper therapeutic process? Is this going to be an entertainment that is great , like, you know, 40 people, 50 people in a room and having, you know, really fun exercise movements? It’s awesome. But I’m just saying, back to your question, how do you set up a program, you set it up by really thinking about what are your outcomes that you’re looking for? And then you back it in that way. And I would say, suggest having a music therapist to consult with, even if you can’t fund them for a, you know, full time job kind of thing.

Michael Hughes 26:47
And, you know, that leads to another thought. I had Andy, which is just the human element of all of this, because you know, we’re in a world now with, I don’t know, if you’ve ever heard of artificial intelligence before AI. And, you know, I think that we’re, you know, we’re very interested in the United Church homes on the boundary between, you know, where the AI stops and the human starts, we think that there’s a lot of opportunity with AI to sort of standardized tasks that aren’t value added to do maybe even regular voice check ins and things like that. But can I do music therapy?

Andy Tubman 27:20
Should I? So it’s a hard question. I think that AI or machine learning can assist, assist in the deep, maybe assist in the deeper clinical aspects of music therapy. Right? Like, really gathering research for the therapists really gathering, really analyzing, maybe the, how the music therapy is affecting someone in terms of biometrics and outcomes. In terms of what just to bring it back to like a sink fit technology solution. I think there’s more applications for AI, right? Because you’re not necessarily working with the most fragile patients, which I would suggest not to do. Right, I would say, keep that very clinical side. But in terms of getting people singing, drumming and exercise and these kinds of things, and managing folks at home, helping to manage behaviors and cognitive decline and preventative things that AI will, can and will and is being utilized to gather baseline information to feed the solute, the digital solutions. And then with those digital solutions while someone’s engaging in a singing process, monitoring those different biometrics, AI could monitor the outcomes and really start looking at a graph, right? So if you had a spirometer, I’m just in theory, right? If you had a spirometer on somebody that said, What’s the problem? I think it’s the thing that does the whole is that

Michael Hughes 29:13
the breathing is 120? Over 80?

Andy Tubman 29:17
Sorry, that’s the breathing one. Not a spirometer Accelera accelerometer, I think accelerometer, I think that’s what is so beautiful. Why? Sure, yeah. For movement. Right. And I’m not saying that this is the way but just as an example, if someone with dementia had a watch with a very sensitive movement sensor on the watch, what you would find probably is that in the late afternoon, they have agitation, this typical sundowners if they have that predictable, and you would start seeing that movement happening in reflection of in the walk right in the accelerometer. And so, what could then happen is if you’re utilizing an AI, the AI would understand this would prescribe or push specific activities. And then over time, you could see the graph could print out reports to see how it affected agitation over time. Right. Right. And so it’s basically utilizing hopefully in an ethical way, how to improve, you know, different kinds of wellness and health outcomes.

Michael Hughes 30:29
Any other technologies out there that you’re excited by? Well,

Andy Tubman 30:32
yeah, I mean, it’s kind of what we’re talking about, like, we have a company that we’re starting a partnership with, called knee care. Do I care? And they have, they’re out of the UK, we launched in the UK a month or so ago. Oh, terrific. Yeah. congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we’re starting to get some pilots going on now. And what’s interesting about my care Meeker is that they have worked for like eight years, it’s not just like, hey, here’s this new software platform. But they’ve worked a long time to really integrate sensors, and a Siri like voice called Monica, to really integrate in the home, or in a given room, a lot of this behavioral movement, and biometric information and voice analysis for mood and different things. And so we’re starting to work with them a bit, to really look at how to create musical solutions, once the assessments have figured out that this would be an appropriate, you know, music solution for an individual.

Michael Hughes 31:47
Do you think that there’s going to be a world where you know, you’re gonna go to your doctor, and he’s gonna say to you, because I know, like in Canada, doctors prescribe national first passes. You think there’s a world where you go to the doctor and said, You know what, man, you need more Zeppelin in your life, or you really need to know what you need more Enya in your life, or you need more, I don’t know, nation of language in your life, I want to be more to show the kids out there that a modern, great band, by the way, do you think that’s a conceivable reality for us?

Andy Tubman 32:20
Well, I’m used to that, you know, 100% man, like, that’s why we went to the UK because the NHS invited us a couple years ago, because they heard about us, they invited us to go to an accelerator there. And it’s specifically because of two things. One, they have social prescribing. So they, the doctors, are able to say I don’t know if you need more Enya in your life, but they are able to prescribe preventive and social programming work for their patients there and have the NHS pay for it. And the other thing is, they’ve been using singing and music for years and years, and doing a ton of research over there. So we don’t have to convince them. They’re like, does it help my patient? And we’re like, Yes, this is how it does it and they’re like, Great, let’s do some pilots and get it rockin. So that conceivably has a very real future and it’s hopefully going to be even more real very shortly in the UK.

Michael Hughes 33:21
Well, we’re going to have you back on when you when that program is more developed. Because I You’re right, and the UK does have some very innovative programs going on in the National Health System. And they are also, you know, on the subject of things like social isolation, they’re the first one to sort of put somebody into cabinet they call it the Minister for loneliness. And this is my joke. This is not the name of the new Morrissey album. It’s an actual minister in the UK cabinet. Exactly, exactly. Somewhere. So yeah, the, you know, we could talk for, you know, on a bunch of different subjects. I know that your time is limited. Thank you for the time that you’re giving us. But we do always ask our guests three questions about aging and their personal experience of aging. And couldn’t make an ask those questions of you. Yeah, of course. All right. But before we do that, where can we find you? Where can people find out more information with cinta so

Andy Tubman 34:11
simply sink fit.com That’s easy. And you know, you can reach me at info at St. fit.com. Sing fit, and we’re on Instagram and Facebook and on all the socials and I can send you, you know, those specific links as well. Yep. Yeah, that’s pretty much the deal, St. fit.com. And can’t really miss me.

Michael Hughes 34:41
All right, and when we put this video up, we’ll be including those links, as we promote it. So Okay, three questions about aging. Here’s question number one, karate. When you think about how you’ve aged, what do you think has changed about you, or grown with you that you really like? Think about yourself.

Andy Tubman 35:01
Okay. Yeah, well, hopefully, for everybody, but this is definitely, I’m a slow learner. And so what I have realized, and the advantage of aging, the main advantage for me of aging, is that it enables you to see patterns. And so, you know, when I’m 17, or 22, right, as things start moving, you don’t know what these patterns are, right. And so I think, as I age, I can see my own patterns, see patterns in the world, and I can integrate them in a calmer, less traumatic way. And possibly even in a positive way, because I know, that’s going up, and it’s gonna go down, and that it’s gonna go up again. So there’s no fighting this, and this is how it is. And so it’s aging, I think, really enables you to see how things occur over time, and enables you to be good with it, and how to utilize that knowledge. Yet,

Michael Hughes 36:17
I think somebody explained to me once the difference between chance and luck, and you know, chances, just, you know, once you start seeing the patterns, then you kind of get lucky, you know, you can start predicting and making more interesting choices for yourself. Well, as the second question is, What has surprised you the most about you, as you’ve aged?

Andy Tubman 36:38
It is a hard question, because it’s deep, but it also could be fun. And I guess that the, you know, there’s gray, a lot of gray going on, right? And here I like, but when I sleep, you know, I eat clean and vitamins, and you know, sometimes I’ll go out, but like, I’m pretty clean in general, in terms of behaviors, and I don’t know if that’s a part of it, but I really do perceive myself as like 19 or 20. Yeah, and so I, I’m not good when I see people, like I don’t know how old they are. Like, typically, I’ll have a, you know, a lot of energy and just, you know, rockin ‘through things. And when I interact with people, kind of goofy and over the top, like, you know, because like, like, at the office, everyone’s just like, oh, there’s this guy again, right? Because, you know, I know you’re supposed to be a manager, and you’re supposed to be calm, and you’re supposed to let people know, this is how we do this. And let’s make you the best you are. And I’m just like, No, dude, just do it. Like, there’s both right. And so I feel like, I can’t cry, like, get over the 19 year old thing. Yeah, that’s

Michael Hughes 37:54
among the things I like about you. Andy is just this the energy that you bring to these experiences. And I think that’s what really sticks with people. And in a really good way, by the way, so

Andy Tubman 38:02
that question number three,

Michael Hughes 38:06
is there has there ever been someone that you’ve met, or someone that’s been in your life that has set a good example for you in aging, you know, someone that says, Oh, when I want, when I grow up, I want to be like that guy or someone that I’ll leave it there and what comes to your mind, I mean,

Andy Tubman 38:22
immediately, this might be a little cheesy, but my professor from college, my advisor, who I was very lucky to be assigned to Dr. Cheryl dealio. And she still, I mean, I’m not going to state her age, because she’d kill me. But she’s retired. And she’s still literally going all over the world, setting up music therapy programs, speaking to, you know, the heads of state in Italy, to integrate music in clinical ways into their health care systems. You know, finishing a program, a new music therapy program in Japan and getting them certified and up and licensed, you know, so there’s like, she’s just an, but when you talk to her, she’s as sweet and as humble and fun. And, like, you would never know that she is a badass and is like the researcher and she just finished literally, like a couple years ago, she finished the ethics of music therapy, and I think she’s just putting out another book of life. You know, end of life care for music therapy, like the textbooks that will be used in every program around the world. And you know, she’s a heavyweight So, and she swims all the time and she laughs and she’s awesome. So I would definitely hope that I can, you know, age like that.

Michael Hughes 39:57
Terrific. And maybe with your influence, we can get her A guest on the show because she’s such an absolute and absolutely terrific.

Andy Tubman 40:03
Oh, she has a wealth of knowledge and in many ways. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Hughes 40:06
And so are you, Andy, I mean, and I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to be on the show today. Thank you for being a great guest. And most of all, I want to thank our listeners. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Art of aging, which is part of the abundant agent podcast series, reunited church homes and we want to hear from you what role music plays in your life? Have you had any personal experiences of music with your loved ones? Maybe somebody with a cognitive diagnosis, you’ve seen them just come alive with music? Do you have other ideas for the show? What do you think please tell us at abundantagingpodcast.com

Andy Tubman 40:42
May I just thank you and say like, I appreciate your, you know, deep dive into you know how to utilize music in the world and your respect for the idea itself. So I appreciate you having me on and taking a deep dive with me. Alright.

Michael Hughes 41:00
Andy, thank you so much for that and just remind folks, if you want to learn more about what Andy and Rachel are doing at Singh fit, please singfit.com. We have our Ruth Frost Parker center. That’s UnitedChurchHomes.org/parker-center. That is our thought leadership arm. We are working to end ageism. We have our annual symposium in October. So please check that out. And we hope to have you join us again on another episode of The Art of Aging or the Abundant Aging podcast series. Thanks for listening. See you next time.