One of my favorite pieces of solo piano music on music2work2 is Emma - along with its accompanying piece, the music was written to help a friend get through chemo.

Download audio file (emma2.5.mp3)

Emma chose to visualize her cancer as a blowfish – it gave her something tangible to direct her energy at and guess what – it worked. Emma not only came out the other end and continued driving her boats across the planet, she ended up writing a book about her experience. I think Em puts it best with the following:

"Now I know I am a no-body and not famous, I am not important and haven’t “done” anything special, no feat of amazing endurance like climbing Everest in my slippers but that is hopefully just the point I think. I am an ordinary Jo with an ordinary story that is not unusual – after all there are 44,000 of us each year diagnosed with breast cancer. There is plenty of information advising us how we will feel throughout the experience, the notorious chemotherapy looms large with each leaflet, but there is little to tell us how to handle this disease – how to get out of bed and how to look yourself in the mirror and deal with the daily nightmare.

I think you all know about the book and it’s aim – I hope my story will be inspirational and motivational to women and men who are also battling this horrific disease but I also hope the account is useful to the family and friends who are also affected in a profound way. I hope you can help me get my story and my message out there.

If my book helps to get one person off their sofa and fighting then I will have succeeded!

Thank you all

Em

www.emmapontin.com

Posted via email from Andrew McCluskey

Second Piano piece written for a friend fighting Cancer

An old friend was dealing with cancer so I wrote her some music. After sending it to her, I asked for her numbers and then produced this piece. When I’m writing for or about someone, I often ask them for a couple of numbers, I use these to denote the meter and beats per minute of the piece – I like the randomness of the process and the idea that the recipient is determining the musical outcome.

Emma survived and continues to Skipper her yacht around the globe – she’s an amazing lady. Having had the pieces for a while Emma and her husband Richard sent me the feedback below.

“The first piece makes me remember the moment all this shit began, the horrific nightmare and all its tricks.

Rich and I were talking and for us the piece takes us on a little journey from the beginning right up to the post-mastectomy stage. I feel aggression, hatred and fear at the outset and then the music lifts which for us denotes the next step – the positive move forward after the removal of the cancer – the brighter side of this nightmare beginning to shine through if you like, the positive rather than the negative.

The second piece of music takes on the treatment – tentative at the outset taking on the unknown – I can see myself treading carefully through mess, gently with each step, nervously moving forward – sometimes feeling delicate from treatment, sometimes charging forward with stubbornness – positive and almost light hearted, but each step with determination, all the time pushing, pushing to beat this.

This cancer is strange – whilst I have a cast of thousands around me each one supporting, helping in their own different way – I feel like a boxer – ultimately it is me that stands alone in the ring to deal with this, me that has to step forward and take the hit.

I write this as I listen to Emma’s Numbers – I can just see you sitting there, eyes closed, composing, thinking, feeling the music. We were having dinner whilst listening to my iPod last night, we had friends over, and they asked what we were listening to – the second piece – they loved it. Just thought you’d like to know that.”

I did – thank you Em!

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Now playing: music2work2 – Emma’s Numbers
via music2work2

Piano track written for a friend who was fighting cancer at the time .

For Emma who fought the Blowfish and won.

This piano track was written to give Emma something to listen to while dealing with the chemo crap. After a while I did a second piece for her based on her "numbers" – although I gotta say – this is my favorite. Emma is a remarkable women; her battle with cancer was picked up by BBC Radio Solent and run as part of their 100 Lives project. This article tells Emma’s story better than I can – check it out.

She is another of my favorite people and her brother’s not bad either!

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Now playing: music2work2 – Emma
via music2work2

About 14 years ago, after my mother died from cancer, I needed the help of a grief counselor to get through the grief process and be able to move on with my life. This led to me spending the next four years doing volunteer work in the Grief Center at the local Hospice. I basically did whatever needed to be done – filing, copying, etc., but also ended up helping with weekend Grief Camp for individuals and families who had experienced a loss, and leading grief groups.

Last week I was asked by the grief counselor with whom I had done my own grief work – he is now head of the Counseling Dept at a local college – to speak to one of his classes. As part of this course, he wanted them to hear from people who had experienced loss, about their own particular struggle and path to healing. I was one of several people who told “my story” to these students.

Another part of this class focused on the benefit of music and grief. The students were asked to bring in a song or piece of music that they had found helpful in times of loss and grief – music that brought peace, comfort, hope, etc. I, of course, told them about music2work2. When I lost my beloved dog, Cassie, shortly before Christmas 2006, Andrew had composed a piece of music in memory of her. It made me feel cared about that he would give me such an awesome gift, and it helped me to remember the joy she had given me, the times of her playing and running about – - it replaced the painful final picture I was left with of her lifeless body lying in her bed, with happier memories of the wonderful 15 years she had been a loving and loyal companion.

Following the class, one of the students gave me a cd of piano music that he had recorded. The songs are a variety of classical pieces, movie themes, and instrumental versions of music made famous by pop artists. The title of the cd is “Music For Reflection & Healing” by Rickey D. Johnson. Mr. Johnson is a talented pianist and I very much appreciated his gift of the cd.

Not just for the fact that it confirms the basic belief upon which music2work2 is built – - that music is helpful – in almost all aspects of life, I am very glad that the benefits of music are being recognized more and more. Music has certainly been an important part of my life; different songs or pieces of music elicit memories of events or people in my life as far back as I can remember, and evoke a variety of feelings and emotions. For me, it is one of life’s essential elements.