Always Ageless w Valerie v July 28 Guest Yael Swerdlow

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Did you know that music is one of the last
memories to fade Even with dementia. A favorite song can
bring back a moment, a smile, a name. Music lights
up the brain when almost everything else goes dark. And
today we're talking about how it heals. And here's what

(00:45):
might surprise you. It's not just for dementia patients. Music
can help all of us age better, live calmer, and
feel more connected. Hi everyone, I'm Valerie van deisover and
welcome to always As, where we explore the beauty of
aging boldly, living fully, and staying curious. Today's episode is

(01:08):
something special. We're diving into the power of music not
just to entertain, but to heal and to soothe minds,
calm anxiety, and reconnect with people with who reconnect people
with who they are. And my guest, she's doing something remarkable.

(01:28):
Yale Swerdlow is the founder and CEO of Maestro Games SPC.
Her community blends music, neuroscience, and gaming to bring relief, resilience,
and joy to those who need it the most. So
gaming that's going to be really interesting. Whether you're a caregiver,

(01:50):
a professional, or simply someone who loves music. This episode
is going to open your heart and your mind. So
if you're driving, roll up your windows, turn on the volume.
If you're at home, grab a glass of tea and
let's get started.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yale, welcome to all aageless.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Thank you very very much. It's lovely to be here.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
You are so welcome.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I met you last week at an age Tech event
in San Clementy, and I knew the first time I
saw you that I wanted to hear more about your
story and have you as a guest on our show.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
So let's begin with your story.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I know you have so much to tell, and I
want to just tell a little bit about your bio.
You're the visionary CEO and the founder of Meestro Games,
which is a public benefit company that brings together neuroscience,
music and interactive gaming, which I'm so excited to hear
more about to promote healing, reduce stress. We all need

(02:44):
to reduce stress. I certainly do, and support mental wellness.
I could probably use a little bit of that as well,
particularly in older adults. That applies to me and those
living with traumr demitia.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I hope not.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
But your background as a photojournalist have been so fascinating.
You covered conflict and trauma around the world, so I
want to hear more about that, combined with your personal
experiences with PTSD and caregiving, led you to this mission
driven work, and certainly it is. You are also the
co founder of the Women's Empowerment Foundation, which I'd love

(03:20):
to hear about. You're a speaker, a thought leader definitely,
and a creative technology for social good. We're so excited
to have you with us, and I do want to
begin with your story. Okay, I've worked in some of
the most intense and emotionally charged environments as a trauma journalist,
So first of all, tell us what is a trauma journalist.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Well, I wouldn't exactly call it that, but actually it's
actually a propos.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
To be that. I guess.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
The first third of my adult life I was a
photojournalist based here in LA for United Press International, which
was a wire service that existed back then the Associated
Press and the La Times, and so I you know,
started out when there was still film and when there

(04:13):
was no such thing as photoshop, and there was no
such thing as the Internet and no such thing as Instagram,
and it was literally just you know, documenting man's in
humanity to man or the best things that people do
for each other. My skill set is not necessarily photographing tragedy,

(04:34):
but photographing compassion and photographing empathy. It's something that I
believe very very strongly that I think it was Susan
Sontag that said that photography is literally darkness eliminated by
little points of light. And I've always just taken that
to heart. Is what the mission is, to literally be

(04:55):
able to show, you know, the humanity of people. So
that's why I was obsessed with becoming a photojournalist.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
And you did that right out of college.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
No sort of.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
I did a little bit of interning for the local
NBC affiliate here back in like the eight early eighties,
and then I just literally got a beeper if you
remember those.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
That was before any iPhones or anything.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
I had a beeper, I do and I would, you know,
I knew nothing.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
I was self taught.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
I had not you know, taken any classes or anything
like that. But I had, I guess, a level of
kutzba or a belief in that I should be doing this,
and I had some talent, and so I went and I,
you know, would call on the Wire Service Bureau chiefs
and I would show them what you know, at this
point when I think was probably pretty humiliating looking portfolio,

(05:49):
and I would. But they needed bodies to cover you know,
dry by shootings and fire fires and Hollywood premiers and
some portrait work.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
And you know, because they were wire services, they.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Had clients all over the world, which meant that if
there was an assignment to photograph a cat show, you
would you would you know, from from Norway.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
You would go ahead and you would be assigned to
go do that.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
So there was lots of Basically it was like grad school,
and it was.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
Amazing and I loved every minute of it.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
And then I went over to you know, in nineteen
eighty nine, I went over to the La Times and
I shot there until nineteen ninety four. So it was learning,
you know, a lot more because shooting for a newspaper
is much different than shooting for a wire And again it.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Was amazing, and I shot you know, the Ronnie King.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Uprising here, I saw the nineteen ninety four earthquake, Northwich quake.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
I shot the.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Fires to bang A, you know, Malibu, you know, along
with just every day whatever assignments came up, so you
don't ever think about a trauma photographer when you're out
covering like a double head on fatal on the one
oh one.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
But it is.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
And I worked alongside all of the first responders.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
So I worked.

Speaker 4 (07:12):
Alongside the paramedics, the firefighters, the law enforcement, I worked
alongside the military.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
I worked alongside all these guys, and you know.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
And PTSD and to a greater extent, moral injury is
a pre requisite of the job because you have to
stand by and not intervene. Even though you want to
put your cameras down and help, you can't and you're
not supposed to do anyway. I mean, I think that
that's a gray area. But you know, you're there to document,

(07:43):
to witness history, and you're not supposed to be getting
in the way of it. But that's a whole other
conversation over in my teaming.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think absolutely yes, and I would love to have that.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
So you've worked, we know, in some of the most
intense and emotionally charged environments as a trauma journalist. So
what first inspired you to shift toward healing with music?

Speaker 4 (08:05):
I was, well, I've spoiled. I've been going to the
LA field since I was five. I was raised by
a really, really brilliant dad. Obviously my mom as well,
but Dad, he was the proctologist to the stars. He
had his law degree, He wrote poetry to my mother
every day. But he was also a real train wreck.

(08:28):
He suffered horrifically mentally, emotionally, and psychologically and spiritually, and
especially physically because he had been thrown from a horse
early on in their marriage and broken his back and ribs,
and he was increasingly and just horrific chronic pain. And
he couldn't take payments because he had kidney disease, so,

(08:50):
you know, but music was his saving grace. I mean,
he literally loved loved classical music, especially Bach, like Bach
was his god. Literally, I mean in every sense of
the word.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
And I heard you say that, yes.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
Yeah, but you know, he was something, and later on,
you know, he was on the foot. I mean, he
would always say that he was the most worthless piece
of protoplasm on the planet. He would say a lot
of things that were so disparaging about himself that we
really didn't realize then how much on the suicide spectrum
he actually was.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
Until after he passed away.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
We were going through with my mom's boxes of poetry
and we found, you know, suicide letters for that he
had written, and you know, we're just thank god he
never did it, but it just shows how much he
was suffering.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
And at the end of the day, when he was
in dialysis for eight years.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
He lived, listened to his CDs and and you know,
see my mother's face every day. And he put up
with a level of as he put a torture that
he never wanted to do. And when it came time
for him him to pass away like that, he had
pneumonia again, and the dialysis center called me and they said,
you know, we're we can't do anything.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
This is torture. You need to let him go. And
so I brought him.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Home and I had hospice there, and you know, and
they loaded him up on adavan and morphine and everything.
And he was going through these horrific death throws, like horrible,
horrible kicking and screaming and moaning and crying, and my
mom was falling apart, my sister was falling apart, and
I'm the person in charge, and I didn't know what
to do, you know, I'm like, I didn't have no solution.

(10:34):
And then out of desperation or you can call it
divine inspiration. I grabbed my iPhone and I put on
the Bach Partia number three, and literally, in less than
a nanosecond, he went from horrific death rows to one
hundred percent peaceful and you know, like we had been
holding his hands down and then suddenly he's moving his
hands like he's, you know, conducting the orchestra, and I'm like,

(10:55):
what I mean. It wasn't so much about AHAs it
was a confirmation because I've used music as well, but
this was really, you know something, and I went wow,
and we kept the move with music going, and hours
later that's how he pounced away, you know. And now
there's that was in twenty twelve. There's there's so much
proof now of the impact of music, and especially on

(11:19):
Bach's certain concertos and things like that are able to.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Lift depression.

Speaker 4 (11:25):
There's evidence now that the Beethoven's the first movement of
Beethoven's fifth has an effect on cancer cells.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
I mean, there's all of this.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
Incredible research that's being done right now by.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Folks all over the world.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
And the incredible soprano Renee Fleming, who is absolutely the.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Coolest human I ever met in my entire life.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
Is a great advocate obviously for music as medicine and
music is healing. But also you know, she has a headset,
she's We've had, you know, quite a few conversations about
what we're doing with maestro, and you know, she spearheaded
the creation of something called the Sound Health Network. And
the Sound Health Network is located well headquartered anyway, at

(12:13):
the UC San Francisco, and it was a partnership among RENEE,
the Kennedy Center, the NIH, and the NEA, and it.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Literally is a research repository.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
There's also a big emphasis of what's called social prescribing,
and that came out of the Sound Health Networks is
something called the Neural Arts Blueprint, and the Neural Arts
Blueprint or neuro Arts was all about how daily interaction
with the arts in some way is essential for a

(12:45):
person's longevity, full stop. And there's a book that is
about the research of this, an incredible book that's one
of our bibles, called Your Brain on Art by Susan
Maximum and Ivy Ross, and that's at a Pops and
other Johns Hopkins and other research universities about just how

(13:06):
powerful interaction with the arts is for not only our
spiritual and mental well being, but actually our you know,
cognitive challenges like you mentioned dementia and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's,
and like with Parkinson's, it's amazing because if you can't talk,
you can sing, and if you can't walk, you can dance.
And you know, there's so much groundbreaking research about that,

(13:31):
and also on Alzheimer's and dementia and on autism, and
you know, just all of these these things that are
as we age, you know, coming into into play that
we have to deal with that so and especially loneliness.
You know, the social prescribing is literally about not just

(13:52):
for the age community, age community, but you know, literally take.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Two poems and call me in the morning.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
You know, read read to read poetry, go to a museum,
go to a concert, listen to music. All of those
things have such a massive impact on our overall wellbeing
it but especially our nervous system, you know, so.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Huge.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yes, as I mentioned before, we started my mom's one
hundred and five. So I go there after work every
day and after my I leave the office or my appointments,
and she's listening to you know, gospel music, which is
her background, and she has tons of old CDs and
records and things, and she listens to those just as

(14:41):
loud as she can get them. And certainly, you know,
we we certainly know the impact of music, you know, certainly,
certainly we have so we know that, you know, we're
shaped by our experiences and how we process them. So
for you, was there then a person a moment that
made you say this is the work I need to

(15:03):
be doing.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah? Absolutely, so I am again spoiled. I mean going
to the LA field since I was five, and my
my family, the whole Swerdlow clan, uncles and aunts and cousins,
we all as well as my parents, we all supported
the Young Musicians Foundation for decades. And the thing that

(15:26):
I found so offensive was that back then a radio
station had to change from classical to pop to be
able to survive, like KFAC here did that, and you
know it was for decades before FM was prevalent. It
was the only classical radio station in LA And now

(15:48):
you know, KUSC obviously is amazing, but they now saw
their funding cut, so it's depending.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
On us contributions.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
And then orchestras. I think La phil is the only
orchestra that's in the in the black. But orchestras across
the country are are either having to shut down or
they're in the red. And what what I find most
offensive and I get angry about, is that the music
education in schools, especially you know, K through well K

(16:20):
through twelve basically, but you know, and especially in the
inner cities, the schools that needed the most, the populations
that needed the most are the first ones to get cut,
and frankly, it just makes me mad. So with Maestro,
it wasn't so much about wellness in the beginning.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
It was about how do we get music education in schools.

Speaker 4 (16:41):
And then when I sat down to write about I
wrote down a document, you know, one of those three
in the morning things about the what what I wanted
the pillar the pillars of the company to be, and
it was obviously entertainment, but also healthcare and education and diplomacy,
because music is the great bridge as well to populations

(17:03):
that may not understand each other or may not want
to understand each other, but if you can bring them
together to experience music, that has a healing effect. And
so when I wrote down this document of what I
wanted it to be, then it was like, Okay, this
is the way that we want to form a company
and with healthcare, you know, looking around and.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Seeing humanity and pain, right, and this is pre COVID.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
But I look, you know, and seeing the statistics for
mental health and suicide.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
And all of the things.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
And at the same time, nobody I'm looking around that
people are not engaging in the arts. And during COVID,
for example, I was on all of these mental health
calls and you know, all these organizations, and none of
them mention the arts. They talked maybe about your sour
doors starter, and that's all good, but no one said
you really that engaging with the arts is our way

(17:56):
to sanity, our way to healing, our way to happiness,
our way to joy.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
And we're so distracted we don't.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
Pay attention to things either, which means that we don't see,
we don't notice beauty. And I'm guilty of that as well.
So the purpose of Maestro, the playing the Last Maestro,
which is the name of the game, it is about beauty,
joy and awe, childlike wonder. That is the entire purpose

(18:24):
of of what we were creating is to enable people
to notice beauty when they've had a bad day.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
I want to be.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Able to prime your your subconscious or whatever you want
to call it. That if you had the worst day possible,
but you still notice the gorgeous of pattern light on
the building when you're driving home, that's a success to me.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Because we don't do.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
That now, No, no, no, And I do have to
give a plug for I know, the Pacific Symphony, for example,
has great education programs in the schools, and I work
with a group called Backhouse Dance, and Backhouse Dance does
dance programs in the schools, But there just isn't enough
funding in the schools, which is really really a shame.

(19:10):
Makes me angry that of all the things that we
waste money on in the school system, and I won't
get on that for another martini another day, we should
give a little bit of sacrifice for the benefit of
the children who need to have some.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, some part.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
And there's so much evidence that if you want kids
to be able to have, you know, excellent executive function,
if you want them to be able to be resilient,
if you want them to be able to be open
to learning new things all and confident in all of
those things, you don't necessarily have to teach them to code.
You need to teach them an instrument, right, and you

(19:48):
need to teach them about music.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, it doesn't matter what kind of music.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
And next some of us learned on the beatles, right,
and some of us went to Philharmonic, or some of
us went to orchestras, and some of us learned to
play the flute.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
In all of them entry school absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
But nevertheless we had some some introduction in music, and
I wanted you know, and.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Music is you know, music is the language of the soul.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
And so there's there's there's no substitute for that.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
There's no substitute for being able to be touched.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
In that way that you that you can then feel
the emotions that you're trying to not feel. For example,
in trauma, if you're you know, a first responder, and
you you have trauma, you have PTSD, you have moral injury.
If you can let go of the emotions that you're
trying to stuff down and allow your childlike wonder and

(20:40):
your awe and everything to come back.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
Up, you will be able to heal quicker.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Essentially, Yes, as well as will your patient.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
I'm my own story of a sister who's an extremely
bright pianist and she can hear something once and play it,
arrange it. However, she's so so talented, and I never was,
so I always felt that I missed out on that.
But I've always said that if anything ever happened to me,
if I was in the hospital and you think I

(21:13):
can't hear, you, please just ask Susan to play for me. Yeah,
because I will. I'll know that it's her respont. Oh,
don't think I can't hear, because if you just have
her play for me, that's all I ever want is
for Susan to play for me. Anyway, That's my story.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
There's an amazing letter that Helen Keller wrote about being
able to quote listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony really and
the effect that it had on her. And the letter
is I think there's a recording of.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
It somewhere with Julian Anderson, the actress, reading it, and I.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
Just saw it again the other day, and the letter
talks about how Helena Keller, you know, she's blind, and
she was deaf, and she was new she put her
hand on the radio to be able to feel the
pulsations of the performance, and she was able to feel
the exuberance and the joy and all of the things

(22:13):
that are a part of that, you know, incredible piece. Yes,
and if and if that doesn't you know, make you
sit up and go wait a minute, you know wow?

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Then you know right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
And I've seen people like on America's Got Talent or
The Voice, where they they think they can't hear, but
yet they can still sing because they know they feel
the beat in their feet. Yes, as well as well.
So let's talk about music memory and brain science studies
show that music activities more parts of the brain than

(22:50):
any other activity, especially areas tied to memory and emotion.
So what do you think Why do you think music
remains so powerful even in the dimension cognitive decline.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
And I've seen me.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Let me just say, I've been in since the living
communities and I see someone I'll see a piano and
they'll tell me that they've got a patient there or
resident who can sit down and play. And they maybe
they're suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, but they can sit
down and play the piano.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
I think we've all seen, like there's an amazing YouTube
clip of a ballerina who is, you know, a shrunken
of herself in a wheelchair and she's probably in her
nineties with Alzheimer's a noncommunicative and they played Swan Lake
for her and she suddenly remembers the at least the
r movements right of what she does. Music is the

(23:46):
last thing to go when you have a cognitive decline,
and there are a lot of there's a lot of
issues that shows, you know that it could be related
to that's the first thing you hear in the womb,
right is you know, like the drum beat of your

(24:07):
mother's heartbeat, you're going to.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Hear, you know, the cadence of her voice. You hear music.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
It's not about sticking you know, Mozart on although that's
lovely on your belloty, you know, but there's music is
the first thing. And there's also obviously evolutionary development, Like
people were communicating through song, they were communicating through drumming,

(24:35):
they were communicating through the rudimentary instruments that they built.
So music has always been a communication tool that has
transcended our evolution, right has gone through everything.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
So there's that.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
I think for the the healing part of it, it's
because we don't have any barriers.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
If somebody wants me to move to dance.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
If I'm shy, intimidated, or if i was humiliated.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Whatever, that's going to take a little bit more of
a cognitive effort for me to respond.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
Same thing with singing, same thing with painting or drawing
or photography or whatever. But with music, it's an autonomic response.
And so you know, music lights up all the parts
of your brain. Classical especially lights of all the parts.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Of your brain. But you also are.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Almost involuntarily responding like the people that get goosebumps too.
It's not you cognitively thinking, oh I love this, I'm
going to get goosebumps. Now the goosebumps happen, you know.
So I think that that's a big part of it.
In terms of the sacred I mean, you mentioned your
mom listening to gospel. You know, there's there's so much

(25:52):
about how in Judaism and in Christianity and Islam, all
the religions, it's all about the chanting, it's all about
the songs, it's all about the way things are done.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, it is, that's true.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
You know. You think about about Judaism, you know, and
the music, the traditional music.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
You know that that's been through the ages, the ages.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
And how what that means and how it brings people
together for all of us, certainly certainly.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
I'm Jewish, and so I want to you know. So
the purpose of Maesro Games, by the way, he said,
a social purpose corporation.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
The micro purpose of the company is to turn my
dad's darkness into light.

Speaker 4 (26:33):
But the macro reason for the company is what's called tikunulum,
which is the Jewish main Jewish teaching, and it literally
translates to repair the world. And that is the purpose
of this company. It is one hundred percent cunulum.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
And you know that we.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Are making music the forefront of mental, emotional, psychological, spiritual
healing for folks that are challenged by just you know,
anxiety and trauma and depression and stress and all of that.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
That and that's very powerful. It's impressive and it's powerful.
And bless you for doing that because I understand the
value of it to the world. I'll save my personal stories.
But so one review, we've found zone to stay in
the subject. We have so much to talk about for you.

(27:30):
One review found that up to seventy five percent of
dementia patients experience reduced anxiety and agitation through personalized music therapy.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
What kind of emotional shifts have you observed through your work,
especially in older adults?

Speaker 3 (27:49):
Well, I can. I can speak to you an experience.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Well that wasn't an older adult, but I want to,
but I think it's a very powerful example. So I'm
part of an organization a few years ago called Mindful MD,
and there was a retreat that we had in June
of twenty twenty two, you know, when COVID had calmed
down a little bit and people were vaccinated and stuff.

(28:12):
And the retreat was with a bunch of leaders in healthcare,
so folk from Stanford, folks from you know, urgent care.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Folks from all over. And I was on two panels and.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
The panel that I want a reference is on talking
about the importance of beauty and healing. And in my remarks,
I said, look, you know, I fully expected someone's going
to tear the headset off. They're going to virtual reality
headset off with last minster on it that they're going
to throw it against the wall and they're going to say,
you know, screw you.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
What makes you think this stupid little toy is going
to make me feel better? I've been pulling bodies for
two years, you know, screw you.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
And there was one woman in the audience, a really
really incredible and incredible woman, and she was working I'd
leave urgent Care in Brooklyn during the pandemic and so
you can and she also does refugee medicine and you
can only imagine like.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
What she was her.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
And you know, and her colleagues, frankly were worried about
her because she really was in a dark place. And
when I said that, she raised her hand and she said, yeah,
that'll be me. And I'm like, okay, bring it on,
you know. And so she when the panel was over,
she came up to me and she said, so, can
I break your headset?

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Now?

Speaker 3 (29:25):
I'm like sure. So she puts on the VIA headset and.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
She plays the first experience we built, which is using
puergant morning mood. She's a gorgeous piece of classical music, yes,
with a sunrise over a mountain range, with butterflies and
eagles flying and.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
All sorts of really cool stuff.

Speaker 4 (29:43):
Absolutely, and the entire experience is three minutes and forty seconds.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's a quick experience.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
And when she played the whole thing, and when she
was done, she took off the headset, and she looked
at me and she can't speak, couldn't speak, and.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
She burst into tears.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
And when she finally calmed down, she said to me,
you know, I never would believe that anything would enable
me to unlock the should I've stuffed down. That is
what playing The Last Maestro does. It, you know, weset
your autonomic nervous system, but it also enables you to
release because you're in a beautiful environment and you're feeling
that childlike wonder and awe and you're in a beautiful place.

(30:22):
It enables you to release some of the sadness, some
of the grief, some of the things that you're trying
to stuff down by in a very gentle way. It's
not like it jars you into doing something. You know,
gamification is touches the same part of the brain as
emotion and memory. So that's why that's why gamified experiences

(30:45):
are so powerful because it's hitting emotion and memory. And
you know, so Maestro is technically neuroesthetic. The Maestro games
that the Last Maestro, which is what we created, is
technically neuroesthetic technology.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
It is the inner section of behavioral health, neuroscience and arts.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
Okay, and it's a new field that has come out
of Hopkins, out of neuro arts. It's a subfield, if
you will, but it's a growing field because people are
realizing that you can't medicate your way or talk therapy
your way out of so many things that are alien society.
You need to be able to go deeper and go
where there isn't going to be that level of resistance,

(31:26):
you know, like one of the firefighters that I went
to the Beverly Hills firehouse a while ago and had
them demo, you know, and you can make jokes about
Beverly Hills, but it's a firehouse the same way that
other firehouses are dealing with all sorts of horrific things.
And the firefighters played and they talked about their moral injury,

(31:49):
they talked about their PTSD, except for one guy refused
to do it. And the battalion chief took me aside
later and said he's the one that needed it the most,
because the guy was so afraid to feed and so
afraid to release anything that he just couldn't get his
brain around the idea that something would would would like

(32:10):
release that valve, right, And that's the thing you need
to have a release valve that doesn't cause judgments. So
with playing the Last Maestro, it's in a break room.
You don't have to talk to anybody. You don't have to,
you know, deal with anything. You just literally put the
headset on, you play, and you're good in terms of

(32:31):
not having to interact with anyone if you don't want to.
It's it's by the NIH. It's classified as the music intervention.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
It's not therapy. It's a music intervention.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
So let's tell our viewers and our listeners what is
Maestro Games?

Speaker 2 (32:47):
What is this thing? What does it look like? Okay,
how does it work?

Speaker 1 (32:52):
And what's the experience like for someone using it for
the first time? But try to describe it to our
viewers and our listeners because run radio some people will
watch this later video, but what are what are they
going to see?

Speaker 3 (33:02):
So okay, so my stro Games is created.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
We created an experience called the Last Maestro, and the
Last Maestro's narrative is that beauty and joy and childlike
wonder all disappearing from the world, and so Bach comes
to you and hands you his conducting baton, and only
through playing correct with exuberantly, you are bringing beauty and

(33:31):
joy back and saving humanity. So what that's the narrative.
What happens in the virtual reality headset is you put
the headset on, there's a welcoming screen that tells you
what to do, and you pick up a conducting baton
and instead of the orchestra, you're conducting an experience. So,

(33:52):
for example, with Pyrrogant Morning Mood, it's a sunrise. It's
an animation of a sunrise over a stunning mountain range
with lake and flowers blooming and eagles flying and also
butterflies that are there that you find and make them
fly around.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
So I p here. Good Morning Moon is a very
very well known piece of beautiful, beautiful, uplifting music.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
And what we did was we timed the emotional crescendo
of the music and the beginning to coincide with the sunrise.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
So you literally feel like you're.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
Making the sunrise and you have a flood of dopamine
and serotonin and.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Just joy that surges through you.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
And as the sun goes across the horizon line, there's
a smoke guide trail that comes off of the conducting
baton and it changes color from red to yellow to green.
The goal is to keep it in green because then
you're in time with the music. And obviously we cheat
a little bit, but as you're moving and conducting, it's
like you're so you're focusing, and you're being pulled out

(34:54):
of fight or flight because you're focusing on the skytrail.
While that's happening, they're blue shimmering things in the dist
Those are butterflies, and if you look at them, they'll
fly towards you. The goal is to find all six
and make them fly around. You can make them dive
bomb the flowers if you want to, or you can
just make them fly around. And there's sparkling things, and
you can make the flowers bloom by flicking the conducting

(35:14):
baton at your feet. And then the sun goes across
the horizon line across the mountain range, and then the
moon comes up in your back of the star map,
and it's a real star map, so you can pick
out your constellations if you know them. And then there's
three minutes and forty seconds.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
That's it all right.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
So you have a virtual headset, which which right virtual
reality headset.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
So for some of us, for lack of.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
A better and better technical term, it's like a set
of goggles.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
It's so, yeah, there's.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
Either the Meta three or the Vive Focus three, but
it is full. It is a full headset, all.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Right, So is there one piece? So you turn it on,
you put it on your head. I want to describe
it to our view listeners and our viewers. So you
put it over your head. There's a strap across the
back which is prectly right, and then you you turn
it on correct and then do you pick the music.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
That you want?

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Are there?

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Is there more than one or is there only one?

Speaker 3 (36:10):
That's good morning mood?

Speaker 4 (36:12):
There's the box Cello Suitet Prelude, which is an interesting,
interesting and wonderful story.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
There's a.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
Fantastic professional cellist here in La named Cecilia San and she's,
you know, the principal cellist for the La Master.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Corral and for the Launder Timpany.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
And she's John Williams's you know, cellist whenever he records anything.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
And I met her kind of randomly at a concert.
We were sitting next to each.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
Other, and I reached out to her on Facebook and said, hey,
do you have a recording of the box cello Sweet Prelude?

Speaker 3 (36:46):
And she said no, Why? And I told her. She said, oh,
I'll just go and record it for you and give
it to you.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
And this was during the beginning of the pandemic, during
the beginning of COVID, and so she literally quarantined for
a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
She had a friend who has a home studio.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
He quarantine team for a couple of weeks and they
tested and then she went into his studio.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
And recorded it for us.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
What's funny about this performance and amazing about this performance
is that the Bachchello Sweet Prelude, the like the public
generally knows Rastapovitch's version, which is a mint and eighty nine,
or they know Yoyoma's version, which is two minutes and
twenty odd seconds. Well, neurologically, for what we need to happen,

(37:31):
it has to be over three minutes. And so when
I told her that, she's like, great, because can I
want to do my own version anyway?

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Can I do that? And I said yes, absolutely, So
she did.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
And she also believed very strongly and knew so much
about the trauma that healthcare providers were going through because
of COVID, and she said, I want to like honor
everybody's sacrifice here. Can I please do this the way
I want to.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
Do it, and I said absolutely, of course.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
So she it's a really emotional performance of it, which
is just stunning. And we paired it with sitting under
a tree in a country cottage backyard where you're just
sitting under this and it animated. So you're sitting underneath
this tree and you've got a beautiful pond with a
statue and water lilies and birds flying around and the butterflies.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
And wind shimes, and you're just hanging out.

Speaker 4 (38:24):
Underneath this tree while this beautiful bach piece is being played.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
And you do the same thing. You're conducting.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
The guide trail is changing color of smoke, and you're
capturing the butterflies and making them fly around. And you
can make the butterflies clang the wind chimes, you can
make the butterflies fly in the arms of the statue.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
You can do all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
So let's say that I were to say to you, Okay, well, yeah,
about my mom's one hundred and five. She has no
tech skills and her fingers have arthritis, and so she
can't really do things.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
So how could my mom use this?

Speaker 4 (38:57):
It's very easy. Literally, you put the head set on.
You can hang out and do nothing, or you can
pick up the controller, which is an easy grip.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
You can pick up the controller and you don't have
to move around.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
As exuberantly as some people do. I mean, some people
go like this and some people go like this. It's
completely up to them what they want to do. One
of the things that we made sure of was that
we did not create what's called structured play. And the
reason we didn't do structured play is because the two
hallmarks of healing from PTSD and moral injury are creativity
and play, and I didn't.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Want to give people a task of what to do.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
We're lightly gamifying this where we have another ten experiences
that will be creating a different world, so undersea, outer space,
going from an urban environment to a rural environment.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
So we're building world. And we have a.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
Partnership with Universal Music Group, which I'm thrilled about because
they're the largest music group in the world, and that
gives me access to, you know, hundreds of thousands of
pieces of music that I that I can then license
to be able to use in the last Maestro. So
I think Universal told me at our meeting that they
have already earmarked twenty two thousand pieces of music for

(40:15):
health and wellness, so I can start there. I already
gave them my wish list in terms of the pieces
of music that I want to start licensing. And you know,
our dev team is already designing the experiences that we'll
be pairing with the music.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
So that's my question, is that does your and I
think I'm going to say this is the right way.
Can you expand your software? Can you expand this so
it's not just one or two pieces of Yah?

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah, I mean that is what we're focusing on right now.
We're building again. We're the first ten that will give
us twelve and the goal is to add actually twelve
experiences per quarter, so it'll be like an iTunes library basically.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
And so is this a subscription or a membership? How
does it work?

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Subscription?

Speaker 4 (41:04):
So that and one of the things that I decided
to do, and you know, thankfully, my team is in agreement.
I don't want to put a price tag on the healing,
and so what we decided to do instead was we
were doing.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
A flat software subscription race per year.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
And because we're selling into first responder communities like hospitals,
fire stations, you know, police stations, schools.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
So it's a B to B if you will model right.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
And so what we decided to do is this thirty
eight hundred dollars a year software license.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
And so we're not charging per use, We're not charging
per experience, and we're not charging per person. So if
you have for example, caregiving and you know sis A
Living suffered a massive retention crisis and a lot of
trauma and a lot of turnover, if you want to
put a couple of Maestro headsets in the brain room,
I could have twenty people.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
You can have twenty people play it.

Speaker 4 (42:04):
You can have them play it five times a week,
you can have them play every single experience we have.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
The price is going to stay the same.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
You can have one for the community, for the the
the physical communities, the assistant living center, you have one
for their and other people can lose it.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
But we're basically, you know, recommending one headset per ten
people that will be using it. So you know, for
like the firefighters across the street have one that was
donated by one of the neighbors and they said, you know,
I don't want to what if I run out of
my minutes.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
I'm like, there's no limits of the minutes you can play.
You play, play it.

Speaker 4 (42:46):
As much as you want, as many people as you want,
as many experiences you want.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
I mean, I do not want to have somebody say, God,
I really needed it, but I used.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Up my minutes this month, so I can't use it,
and so the contrary to the mission of the company.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
So the firefighters themselves use it.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
Yeah, the firefighters use it. We've got headsets in a
few hospitals. Were partnered with Dell Technologies, and we're also
partnered with a td Cinics, which is a software company,
the global software company. So with Dell, for example, they
can go through the Dell catalog and they can also
get the headsets through Dell and the software or Dell

(43:25):
they can go through TD Cynics to get the software.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
From TD Cynics, they can come to us.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
We just deployed at the Coroner's office here in LA
for their trauma for the medical examiners who obviously see
a lot of really nasty things, so they have you know,
traumas and burnout. And I got the best compliment ever,
I think, when I was at a La County Mental

(43:51):
health suicide prevention event where I was presenting and one
of the folks from the Coroner's office came up to
me after the thing we were done and she said, hey,
can I play? And so she played the Last Maestro
and she sent me an email the next day saying
that is the best night sleep I've.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Had in years.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
So you know, that led to contract with the Coroner's
office where she where she works.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Gosh, that's yeah, you're right, that's pretty pretty flattering, you know,
kind of look.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
I mean, you know, again, humanity is and pain.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
There's got to be holistic ways to help, and the
caregiving community specifically, I mean, the we're having conversations with
folks that are working in in you know, with autistic
patients and the burnout and the turnover is one hundred
percent every two years for caregiving and autism and obviously

(44:51):
the family, so you know.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
And everything is a community.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
And to that end, one of the things that we're
also doing is we're partnering with the local symphony orchestras.
So we're partner with the Open Symphony for example. And
the reason is because we want the owners of these
assistant living or hospitals or whatever to be able to
reward their employees by tickets to the symphony. And you know,

(45:18):
we want to engage the stakeholders because we want to
bring back the arts and community.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
That's part of the mission of the company. And in
order to be.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
Able to do that, you've got to be able to
get butts and seats. You've got to be able to
get folks to go to the symphony orchestra.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Absolutely, and that is definitely a challenge.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
It is especially after COVID.

Speaker 4 (45:39):
And so if we can get, for example, people to
just like play the last Mister on their break remove
a law firm, right because lawyers and construction workers have
very very high mental health challenges and higher suicide rates
than what would be people would think. If we can
get them to play the last Master around their breakroom,
then their employee reward them by sending them to the symphony.

(46:02):
And also talking to the cafes that need, you know,
people to come back that are in that environment.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
We definitely need to talk about how we can make
this a tool benefit to people like that. Maybe there's
some way we can do that for some of the
groups that we work with.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
I would love that. I would absolutely love that.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
So We've read that music can tap into long term
memory even when language and short term memory fade. Have
you seen moments when music brought someone back, even briefly.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
We've been able to.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
See really interesting responses. Again, not age, but we were
part of neurological fair here in LA at the convention
Center where it was a bunch of folks literally for
the Association of Neurology, and there was one woman who

(46:58):
came up to us and said, I my daughter to
play this because she had she was apparently been a
really really artistic.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Teen and had.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Unfortunately taken a dare while away at school and drank
a massive dose of dose of LSD and essentially fried
her brain, and so she was never going to be
able to be by yourself again.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
She was not quite an invalid, but not able to function.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
And so the mother brought her over and she came
alive when she was playing the Last Maestro, and you know,
the mother was in tears because the mother was like,
I haven't seen her smile, I haven't seen her be
able to move on her own, and you know, so
there was an amazing thing there.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
And we also were at the National Veteran Wheelchair Games
in Orlando.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
So we had for a couple of years ago, and
so we had about one hundred vets go through in
various stages of challenges, some spinal cord injuries, some amputation,
some als, just a variety of different different challenges and

(48:13):
they were able to like give us incredible feedback. We
were in tears for the entire time because they were saying,
this is the first time I fell down in my
I was out of my chair. This is the most
calm I have felt since, you know, before enlisting, you know,
And there were quite a few older veterans.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
There are a lot of Vietnam veterans there, and.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
What was interesting was there was even a few from
the Korean War that were there as well.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
And that's been a few years ago.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Huh yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
So, you know, in terms of us getting you know,
putting ourselves in the in in assisted living facilities, that
is that is where we're you know, moving towards now.
Because we were very obsessive about making sure that what
I claim I can back up.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I'm not going to say something that I don't know
is true.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
So we did our first case study with the nurses
at Children's Hospital in Orange County and the case study
started right before the pandemic and went into the pandemic,
and so we gave them nine headsets loaded with our
demo of the Last Maestro, and over the course of.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
The couple of months of the case study and the
seventy one cohort, they played the Last Maestro on average
three times during that and we had a significant impact
on their secondary PTSD in their burnout and that got
us a peer review.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
In the Journal of Nursing Administration Research. Issue.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Again, this is about not making claims I can't back up.
I want to make sure that we have the research,
and thankfully there's so much research now by Dan Levitton
and others on the impact of music and medicine, especially
on dementia and age related issues.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
We just have a few minutes left. This has been fascinating.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
We'll show it the headset piece on the video so
our audience can see what that would look like.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
If they had one.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
So tell us, so, what excites you the most about
the future of music based therapy? Umm, not therapy, intervention,
intervention in your case, right, what.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Excites me the most?

Speaker 4 (50:21):
I think this is the beginning, because I think that
the research is expanding so quickly that they're finding the
impact of music, like, for example, for traumatic brain injury.
There's an incredible woman researcher out of Northwestern, doctor Nina Krauss,
and she's gone on records saying that music is the

(50:41):
gold standard.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
For healing from traumatic brain injury.

Speaker 4 (50:44):
So I think that there is so much yet to
be learned and researched. But I also think that I
read a quick stat the other day that most folks
are more open to utilizing the arts to heal than
they are to take drugs.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
And I'm you know, and for me, the music to
my ears.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
I think that that is really really an important distinction
now that people are embracing more holistic methods of dealing
with their depression, of dealing with their anxiety, of dealing
with the things that are troubling them, and they're more
open as opposed to just wanting to take a drug
or do something to make it go away.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
And I think, and what I'm also hopeful about is.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
That the more gentle ways of creating empathy and the
more gentle ways of self compassion are so much a
part of the arts, are so much a part of
music that I think that you know, embracing that part
of our aging process is going to be absolutely absolutely
critical being able to find the tools that enable us

(51:55):
to feel compassionate for ourselves and our parents and everybody
as we age. And I think the empathy part of
this is a really important piece of that, very very much.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
So tell us where can people find this? Where could
they buy one?

Speaker 4 (52:12):
They would buy the headset or that you can go
through Dell, or you can buy them a best buy
and then the software licenses is either from Dell, TDCNX
or US.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
And then when they buy one, then does it come
with upgrades as you add more pieces?

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Yes, we would send out an email and you would
know you don't have to be hooked up online to play.
But anytime that there's going to be a software upgrade
or new pieces released or whatever, we would let you
know in an email and you would be able to
go online and download that.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
So yes, okay, and we'll put your email address right
on here.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
Sales at mystrogames dot com okay, or I gave you
guys my email, but sales at maestrogames dot com is
probably the best way to do that.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Great, great, Well, we would like them to do that.
This has certainly been a powerful reminder that healing doesn't
always come from medicine.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
It can come from melody.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Oh lovely, from rhythm.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
For reconnecting with who.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
We are through the music we've always known, Yale, Thank
you for your vision, Thank you for sharing your father's story,
and for your dedication and making aging more joyful and
more connected.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Thank you, but we invite them, yes, thank you.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
You can learn more about Yale's work at Meisterrogames dot com,
and of course be sure to follow us at always
Age Thing. We will have a replay of this video
also posted. And we are to you, our audience and
our viewers. We are your resource. If you're a senior
or an aging adult, or you're the adult child of
an aging parent, we are here for you. So whether

(53:43):
it's downsizing, it's decluttering, it's something to make your life
more enjoyable, like meister Games, something to help with the
healing process, or to just get you through the new stage.
We are your resource. I'm going through the same journeys
that you are, so I share your concerns, send your questions,
your concerns to us.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
We have over thirty five.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
Different categories of resources all across the United States to
serve you, our viewers and our listeners, and you can
also find us on YouTube. Until next time, We'll see
you next Monday. Always ageless with Valerie V. Stay curious,
stay kind, and remember age is just a number. But joy,

(54:22):
that's timeless. Thank you, thank you,