Musicorps
A rehabilitative music program for injured combat veterans
It is difficult to imagine the life of a severely injured soldier. Many have had their lives blown up in every sense of the word. Musicorps is an innovative program that improves quality of life and aids healing during long and difficult periods of recovery.
Based on a model of contemporary music production, injured servicemen participating in Musicorps collaborate with visiting musicians, work on individualized projects, and use a specially-assembled computer-based music workstation. Working in any musical style they prefer, participants are able to write, record, and produce original material.
Musicorps provides numerous benefits for servicemembers facing the enormous challenges of severe injury and lengthy hospitalizations, helping them remain productive, achieve goals, transcend disability, and do something they love, even as they recover from multiple serious injuries. One described a “ripple effect” improving every aspect of his recovery.
Musicorps may also aid healing, particularly from TBI (traumatic brain injury). Concussive blasts from IEDs and other explosions cause TBI, and it has been called the signature injury of the Iraq war. Learning, creating, and performing music involves so many aspects of brain function that it is believed to recruit uninjured parts of the brain to compensate for parts that have been injured, and to help those parts that are injured recover. Among others, Musicorps is advised by Dr. Allen Brown, Director of Brain Research and Rehabilitation at the Mayo Clinic.
Musicorps began when RIME founder Arthur Bloom was invited to visit a soldier recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The soldier, a musician who had been injured by an IED, expressed his pain, frustration, and as the seed of an idea took root, enthusiasm for a music program.
Bloom and RIME committed to developing a program that would benefit not only this particular soldier, but any who wished to participate, at any level, under any circumstance. Indeed, the program has successfully accommodated a broad variety of participants working in styles ranging from hardcore and metal to classical and rap.
“It’s a vital tool for people in recovery. It’s being able to continue on. To keep moving and doing things. It’s a major thing and I’m very grateful that such a program exists.”
- SGT Jonathan A. Wimsatt
