A Creative Voice and Network for Artists with Challenges
an interesting article
Fight Against Youth Cancer Enters the Recording Studio
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Madison Keel, 7, who is holding a CD of her song about her dog, Suki,
was treated on Wednesday for acute lymphoblastic leukemia at Texas
Children's Cancer Center in Houston.
Enlarge This Image
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Madison Keel in the recording studio.
She was struggling to write a song.
In short order, Madison came up with a worthy subject - her dog, Suki
- and standing at a microphone unfazed by a flock of musical
accompanists and onlookers, sang:
"I love Suki more than the world,/She's my little Chihuahua girl."
To the list of weapons in fighting cancer add an unconventional one:
the recording studio.
Since last year, the children's cancer center of Baylor College of
Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, one of the nation's largest
pediatric care facilities here in the Texas Medical Center, the
world's largest medical complex with a staff of nearly 74,000, has
expanded its arts-in-medicine therapies to include songwriting and
recording.
The inspiration of a Houston pianist and composer, Anita Kruse, who
raised $10,000 to equip a music studio at the hospital, the project
has recorded more than 85 children's songs to date.
The songs are played on the audio tracks of Continental Airlines.
Compact discs of the oeuvre, from ballads to rap, have been sent
around the world, and out of it - on the space shuttle.
"The arts have therapeutic value," said Dr. David G. Poplack, director
of the cancer center, who said that getting young patients to vocalize
proved particularly helpful in their recovery.
"Just treatment is not enough," Dr. Poplack said. "We want to have a
psychosocial impact so that the children are not only cured, but
healed as well." He said breakthroughs over the last 50 years had
raised the survival rate of children with cancer to 75 percent from 10
percent.
Alexandra La Force Harkins, 11, is one big fan of the hospital's music
program, called Purple Songs Can Fly, a nod to Ms. Kruse's signature
color. Just a year old when doctors here discovered a tumor on her
liver and removed 75 percent of the organ, Alex went through cycles of
chemotherapy that seem to have left her cancer-free. But her parents
have been bringing her back every year from their home in The
Woodlands north of Houston for tests.
"On my ninth anniversary," which was last year, Alex said, "a lady
walked up to me and said, 'Do you want to write a song?' I said,
'Cool.'"
She had never written a song, she said - except for the time she was
furious at her parents for sending her to her room and composed a
ditty called, "Nobody Wants Me."
But in the recording studio, with Ms. Kruse's help, she wrote a song
called, "I Can." With little prompting, Alex reprised a few bars a
cappella:
"I can howl at the moon,/I can soar in the wind,/I can, I can."
Last year, she said, as the family flew to Italy on vacation, they
donned headsets and were amazed to catch the song playing. Now Alex
has taken up the guitar but still wants to be either an artist or a
veterinarian.
Ms. Kruse said she confined her role to guiding the creative process.
"We try as hard as we can to have it come from the child," she said.
For Madison, who came with her mother, Sara Keel, and stepfather,
Allen Tallina, from Sour Lake, near Beaumont, for a monthly chemo
treatment, Ms. Kruse and Marcia Chamberlain of a program called
Writers in the Schools began by coaxing the girl to tell things about
her dog, Suki.
"What does she do?" prompted Ms. Chamberlain.
Madison was mum. "Bark," she finally said.
"What does she do to cats?" Ms. Chamberlain persisted.
"Chases them," said Madison.
Ms. Kruse prodded, "What is something she does that is funny to you?"
"She runs in circles," said Madison. Soon she opened up, and Ms. Kruse
scribbled away.
In the studio, Ms. Kruse refined the lyric, added a chorus, and used a
Mac to program a beat and instrumentalize as she picked out a melody
on the keyboard. She even had a sound effect - a barking dog.
"Can you count us, Anita?" said Sandy Stewart, another songwriter who
volunteers.
"Here we go," Ms. Kruse said. "One. Two. Three."
And Madison, reading her own words, was singing, almost inaudibly at
first, then louder:
When I wake up in the morning
Suki's there to lick my face.
When I go to bed at night
Suki's there to kiss my toes.
She runs faster than a four-wheeler,
Quicker than a bunny.
And when she runs in circles
It's really funny.
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Madison Keel, 7, who is holding a CD of her song about her dog, Suki,
was treated on Wednesday for acute lymphoblastic leukemia at Texas
Children's Cancer Center in Houston.
Enlarge This Image
Michael Stravato for The New York Times
Madison Keel in the recording studio.
She was struggling to write a song.
In short order, Madison came up with a worthy subject - her dog, Suki
- and standing at a microphone unfazed by a flock of musical
accompanists and onlookers, sang:
"I love Suki more than the world,/She's my little Chihuahua girl."
To the list of weapons in fighting cancer add an unconventional one:
the recording studio.
Since last year, the children's cancer center of Baylor College of
Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital, one of the nation's largest
pediatric care facilities here in the Texas Medical Center, the
world's largest medical complex with a staff of nearly 74,000, has
expanded its arts-in-medicine therapies to include songwriting and
recording.
The inspiration of a Houston pianist and composer, Anita Kruse, who
raised $10,000 to equip a music studio at the hospital, the project
has recorded more than 85 children's songs to date.
The songs are played on the audio tracks of Continental Airlines.
Compact discs of the oeuvre, from ballads to rap, have been sent
around the world, and out of it - on the space shuttle.
"The arts have therapeutic value," said Dr. David G. Poplack, director
of the cancer center, who said that getting young patients to vocalize
proved particularly helpful in their recovery.
"Just treatment is not enough," Dr. Poplack said. "We want to have a
psychosocial impact so that the children are not only cured, but
healed as well." He said breakthroughs over the last 50 years had
raised the survival rate of children with cancer to 75 percent from 10
percent.
Alexandra La Force Harkins, 11, is one big fan of the hospital's music
program, called Purple Songs Can Fly, a nod to Ms. Kruse's signature
color. Just a year old when doctors here discovered a tumor on her
liver and removed 75 percent of the organ, Alex went through cycles of
chemotherapy that seem to have left her cancer-free. But her parents
have been bringing her back every year from their home in The
Woodlands north of Houston for tests.
"On my ninth anniversary," which was last year, Alex said, "a lady
walked up to me and said, 'Do you want to write a song?' I said,
'Cool.'"
She had never written a song, she said - except for the time she was
furious at her parents for sending her to her room and composed a
ditty called, "Nobody Wants Me."
But in the recording studio, with Ms. Kruse's help, she wrote a song
called, "I Can." With little prompting, Alex reprised a few bars a
cappella:
"I can howl at the moon,/I can soar in the wind,/I can, I can."
Last year, she said, as the family flew to Italy on vacation, they
donned headsets and were amazed to catch the song playing. Now Alex
has taken up the guitar but still wants to be either an artist or a
veterinarian.
Ms. Kruse said she confined her role to guiding the creative process.
"We try as hard as we can to have it come from the child," she said.
For Madison, who came with her mother, Sara Keel, and stepfather,
Allen Tallina, from Sour Lake, near Beaumont, for a monthly chemo
treatment, Ms. Kruse and Marcia Chamberlain of a program called
Writers in the Schools began by coaxing the girl to tell things about
her dog, Suki.
"What does she do?" prompted Ms. Chamberlain.
Madison was mum. "Bark," she finally said.
"What does she do to cats?" Ms. Chamberlain persisted.
"Chases them," said Madison.
Ms. Kruse prodded, "What is something she does that is funny to you?"
"She runs in circles," said Madison. Soon she opened up, and Ms. Kruse
scribbled away.
In the studio, Ms. Kruse refined the lyric, added a chorus, and used a
Mac to program a beat and instrumentalize as she picked out a melody
on the keyboard. She even had a sound effect - a barking dog.
"Can you count us, Anita?" said Sandy Stewart, another songwriter who
volunteers.
"Here we go," Ms. Kruse said. "One. Two. Three."
And Madison, reading her own words, was singing, almost inaudibly at
first, then louder:
When I wake up in the morning
Suki's there to lick my face.
When I go to bed at night
Suki's there to kiss my toes.
She runs faster than a four-wheeler,
Quicker than a bunny.
And when she runs in circles
It's really funny.
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