Singer-songwriter uses gift of music to address personal suffering
Vancouver singer-songwriter Joel Kroeker has released three albums, filmed music videos, toured throughout Canada, shared the stage with Bruce Cockburn, been nominated for songwriting awards and collaborated with Randy Bachman.
But it was a trip to Cambodia and Laos with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in 2008 that had the biggest impact on the direction his music is currently taking.
Kroeker was invited by the service organization to visit water relief projects in the Southeast Asian countries, collaborate with musicians there, write songs about the issues affecting those cultures and perform those songs at fundraising concerts in Canada afterward.
"That was a real eye-opener for me," Kroeker says of the trip. "I started thinking that that was a more interesting way of being a musician than just travelling and trying to promote [my] own work."
Kroeker realized music doesn't just need to be about the person making it, but that it can be used to address the suffering of the world.
Some time after the trip, he earned a Master's degree in Music Therapy from Wilfrid Laurier University.
This past July, Kroeker - a registered clinical counsellor - opened his own counselling and music therapy office.
"Music therapy is another step in that same direction of trying to connect my own personal music processes with trying to interact with other people, and connect with other people, in a way that I find that's healing for all of us," Kroeker says.
In music therapy, therapists use music to improve the health, well-being and quality of life of patients.
"On it's most basic level, I would say [music therapy is] musical processes that are addressing psychotherapeutic needs," he says. "I would say that even includes spiritual needs, physical needs, cognitive needs and social needs."
Kroeker points out that it's a relatively new, very diverse field, and so defining what he does can be difficult. His clients range in age from four to 103, and they deal with a variety of challenges from autism, to schizophrenia, to dementia, to substance abuse.
"The way you work is quite different with each different person," he says. "You get into the session with a brand new person and you have to be able to deal with whatever comes up. You have to be able to create some sort of musical process together that's going to be healing and helpful and therapeutic."
Kroeker says that one of the stories people often talk about in the music therapy world is found in 1 Samuel, where David plays his harp to calm Saul's torment.
"Three thousand years ago, this was already being done, and probably thousands of years before that too," Kroeker says. "[It shows how] music seems to have a unique affect on human beings."
It's been four-and-a-half years since Kroeker released his last album, Closer to the Flame. In today's culture, that's an eternity - certainly enough time for music fans to forget about you.
But after 10 years of touring across North America, playing hundreds of shows a year, Kroeker finds the change in direction refreshing.
Trying to address people's suffering through music in the entertainment industry is difficult.
"I've always felt uncomfortable with that, but I've never been able to articulate it until I started doing this work that I'm doing now as a music therapist," he says. "Now I realize [addressing people's suffering] is possible. Some of my clients are quite severely developmentally disabled. Some people have very minimal body movement [but] we're making music together.
"We're improvising, we're creating music and songs together, and it's a very instantaneous, very connected social experience that we're having that I think is healing on an instant level."
He adds that there are many obstacles and barriers that can prevent a musician from connecting with people on that level within the entertainment industry. He's not sure it's even possible.
He's interested in trying, though. Kroeker is currently working on songs for a new album, and while it's too soon to tell when he will release it, he's looking forward to applying what he's learned through music therapy to upcoming concerts.
"I am now actually trying to get back into performing from that perspective," he says. 'I haven't figured that out yet, but I'm working on it."
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