S2 Bonus - Linda McIntyre on Music, Healing, and Community

00:00 • Introduction to Linda McIntyre and her journey

00:28 • Leading the Parkinson's choir: a musical celebration

02:18 • Exploring the depths of musical creativity with Parkinson's

04:22 • The unique experience of music: textures, colors, and 3D sound

10:09 • The art of composing: from blank canvas to musical patchwork

16:00 • Navigating creativity and Parkinson's: strategies and challenges

25:59 • Unlocking creativity: strategies and self-talk

27:13 • The trance of deep work: navigating physical and mental states

29:00 • A symphony on the road: composing while driving

33:10 • The interplay of Parkinson's and music: a personal journey

37:30 • Harnessing the power of music: transformative effects on Parkinson's

39:45 • The art of building focus: from minutes to mastery

43:29 • Fearless mastery: finding strength in community

45:27 • The healing harmony of New Voice Choir

49:21 • A call to connect: the impact of music and community

52:25 • Final thoughts and invitations for collaboration

Leo

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

Leo

I am honored to be here with a friend of mine, Linda McIntyre. Did I say your name right?

Linda

Yes.

Leo

I think it's an easy one. Okay, easier than Leo Babauta. But Linda is someone who I've known for a little while, and we've done some work together in, I think, at first in the Fearless Training program a few years ago, and then you came into Fearless Mastery. It's been a huge honor to have you in our programs because I think you're doing such amazing work.

The first thing that I learned about you, in terms of the work that you're doing in the world, is that you were leading, I think you're still leading, the Parkinson's Choir where you are in Australia. Am I getting that right?

Linda

Yes.

Leo

Okay. And you're still leading that, is that right?

Linda

The New Voice Choir in Brisbane.

Leo

New Voice Choir. And that's basically all people with Parkinson's, is that right?

Linda

No, it's people with Parkinson's and their supporters. And our byline is actually celebrating people with Parkinson's and their supporters. So, yeah, the majority of us have Parkinson's. I have Parkinson's. Possibly the only qualified, experienced choral director in the world with Parkinson's running a Parkinson's choir. Possibly.

I'd love to know of any others, but sure. But we have people in there who are partners. We have a couple of professional caregivers who bring their clients along and actually sit in the background and dance, dance along with us. Yeah, we have people. I have a dear friend in there who's a retired physio rehab physio who was very interested in choral singing. And when she retired from her job, she joined us. Yeah.

Leo

Amazing. And I'm going to ask you more questions about this, but that's the first exposure that I had, and we're going to share links to New Voices so that people can check it out.

Linda

No, New Voice.

Leo

Yeah. Okay. Okay, my bad. Thanks for correcting me. But so, we'll share links to where to see more on New Voice. But the video that I saw, the first one I saw, I was just blown away, and it was really moving and just incredible to see such great things coming out of what you're doing. So, we'll talk more about that, but that isn't all of who you are. You're also an experienced, amazing composer, and you're doing some work now that I'll ask you, maybe you can explain a little bit about the work you're doing with the studies that you're doing.

Linda

Sure. I'm doing a PhD at the University of Queensland in the School of Music. And it's ostensibly as a new music composer and writing on the narrative of lived trauma. But I added to that. Wasn't enough. So, I added to that with what we think is a world-first study. It's a case study of myself, supposedly watching Parkinson's destroy my musical soul over a period of years and documenting it because no one's done that before, as far as we can see, and why would they?

The musical soul being the deepest level of my mathematical creativity. That case study is turning up things it wasn't expected to turn up because when I go into long periods of this deep composing, it's flinging back onto the Parkinson's and fixing physical symptoms. And you know, you could understand maybe it would fix some cognitive symptoms or some psychological symptoms, but it fixes physical symptoms that I'm not using at the time. It's quite fascinating.

Leo

Okay, so hopefully, anyone listening or watching can understand why I invited you here to talk about creativity and love, and you are embodying that kind of work. And you even sent me a message, I think it was yesterday, about composing that I want to dig into because it was fascinating.

And so, there's a lot here to dig into. And there's another aspect of you as a composer that you shared with me about how you experience music that I thought would be really fascinating to dig into as well. Can you just give us a brief glimpse into what I'm talking about?

Linda

I'm not quite sure. Do you mean the 3D aspect?

Leo

Yes. I know that it probably exists very rarely in the world, but you're the only one I've ever met like this. So, tell us a little bit.

Linda

I have a rather extraordinary oral gift, that's a fact. And so, yeah, a lot of people wouldn't experience this, even very fine composers. So, when I create, the best way I can say is that I'm inside the music. Now, you get people who experience music in color, for example. It's uncommon, but it does happen. So, I do that a little bit. I experience it more in texture. Everything has texture. I can touch it.

And when I'm inside a piece, like now, because I just happened to be right at the start of a new piece, which is not even the start of a section, it's a whole piece. And we're not talking about a piece that I'd knock over in a week. This is a piece I'll work on for months, and it's something big. I work patchwork. I like to work patchwork when I feel really good about composing. There's a chunk here and a chunk there and a chunk there and a chunk there, and someone else might be able to see how they relate, but I can see how they're going to pull together over time.

And it's just an instinctive thing. I don't deliberately do this. And now I'm almost going into this space now. I can see it. There are bits of this piece there. You can see the little bit there? There are bits of it all over the joint. And then when I get to the point, because I spend a lot of time with it just working in my head, and then when I start actually getting it down, and that's a bit of a problem. You can go too far with it in your head and not start.

But then if you go and start getting it down too early, I feel that sells the music short. I need to have time to make more of this. And then I can pull these bits down and write that one's got to go here. And hang on, I need that bit there. And I'm going to pop that in here. And I patchwork all the way through the whole thing, and then it, and the more at one I feel with the music I'm writing, the more that happens. If it doesn't happen much, then I'm writing at a much lighter level.

I could be writing for my choir. I could be doing a big arrangement in five-part harmony that I know is really well written. Vocal music, big orchestral backing tracks that are just done digitally. That's, there's a lot of knowledge and craft as well as art that goes into that. But I don't have to do this patchwork thing and go down into the depths of my creativity to do that. I can just do that because I know how to and I'm good at it. But that's a completely separate issue to this, what I call the big composing.

Leo

Amazing to hear about this. Thanks for sharing a bit about that. I'm curious. I want to just ask a couple of questions about this. Have you always experienced music like this, even when you were young, or do you remember when you first either experienced it this way or realized that it was different than others?

Linda

No, because I took it. I can remember when I was about 16 or something talking to someone. I didn't get brought up in a classical music family. So, I wasn't surrounded by that sort of academia in music, if you like, like a lot of people are who grow up into this. And I remember talking to someone about just the perfect pitch. And I could do blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I was telling this guy who went on to be an orchestral cellist who was at my school with me. And he said, "Have you got perfect pitch?" And I said, "What's that?" And he said, "Oh, la." I said, "I can also boom." And he said, "Can you, huh?" And I said, "Can't you?" And he said, "No." And I said, "I thought everyone could do this who was into music." I just did. I didn't know it was different. No one told me it was different.

Leo

Wow. And, but I think, the 3D aspect of it. Did you always experience music that way?

Linda

I think so. It was just part of me. So it's just,

Leo

Even when you listen to the radio or a CD or something like that. Is that how you experience music?

Linda

I'm not sure, but when I was nine months old, and back in those days, you used to get put out in a bassinet in the yard to sun yourself. And there was always a story that my mum, who wasn't a musician, used to say that she had me out under the old willow tree at home and she told my dad to go out and check on me. And he came back white as a sheet.

She was doing the washing, I remember she always said, and he came back white as a sheet and she thought something terrible had happened. And my dad used to play the radio in the house. And way back then, "Under the Bridges of Paris" was a hit song. And apparently, he came back and said, "She's humming 'Under the Bridges of Paris'”, when I was nine years old.

Leo

Oh my gosh.

Linda

So that's when they triggered that thinking that maybe something needs to be done about this when I'm a bit older. But yeah, I think these wacky and weird symptoms, if you like, of this music gift, I think they've been going on forever, probably.

Leo

Amazing. So, I would love to look at that 3D aspect, but also just how you start composing because since you're at the beginning of a composition right now, before we move into Parkinson's and how it affected your musical gift and abilities over time. So, I'd like to look at that, but let's start with composing.

I'm really curious because there's going to be other people here who are creators, whether it's music or visual arts, and we start out facing a blank canvas or a blank page. And I would really love to know what that process is like for you when you get started with a composition. And I know you've just started recently, so we've caught you at a really good time.

Linda

You have. And it's unusual too, because normally when I compose a piece, I like writing programmatically. That means telling a story. It doesn't necessarily mean that the story starts here, does that, and finishes here. It might be my interpretation of something I've experienced and just putting that into music, right?

But when I start something, I've already just, I know what I'm going to write. I have an idea about it. And the thinking for the design of the piece and what I'm trying to say and the dots, if you like, that start to form in my head, it all comes in at once.

But this piece, because I decided to do, I was in the middle of this symphony and I've been getting a bit stale with a few things going on in life. And I thought, I'm just going to set that aside and do something to freshen up. This new piece has come about first, and it's a string quintet. And here I am, I've decided I'm going to do a string quintet, but I don't know what I'm going to write about. Now that's unusual for me. I don't normally do that.

And then an idea was given to me by another composer, which I just think is so exciting. So I didn't have any dots forming. Because if I was going to write about this thing that I had to make somehow match this narrative of lived trauma, which is part of the PhD, what part of my life can I dredge up and write about for this that I'm not already going to dredge up and write about in the symphony and the opera that's coming after it? I had to think of something else.

So he came up with this idea that I've been going through right now with a Parkinson's symptom. And then where do I start now? Because it's not all forming for me already because I didn't come up with the idea, I see. And so I normally would create the idea, the whole thing.

And so, what shall I do? Shall I write about what that symptom does to me, how it makes me feel, and how I'm dealing with it? Shall I write about the symptom itself as if I am the symptom? Yeah, what am I going to do?

And I've ended up deciding it might be a bit of all these things combined, and I've also decided, don't worry about that. Let's just find a starting point. That's very important. I could spend a month of Sundays worrying about that. To be the perfectionist that I am. And it's going to hold me up. So I'm just going to start somewhere.

And so that's when the patchworks started to form. But something that's really important with anyone starting out with a piece or whatever I think is get yourself in conversation with someone that fires you up. Someone like this. He's a principal advisor of mine at UQ, who is a renowned composer and double bassist. And he was the one that actually came up with this idea. We get on Zooms, for an hour or so. And we can start out with a very boring conversation about something to do with an administrative matter, or writing literary reviews or something that has to be done. And we can start out like that.

And the next thing, we're onto the guts of something to do with composing. We might talk about another person, and then we fire onto our own stuff. And then he's talking about his, and I'm talking about mine. And we bounce back and forth. And he sends me through the roof with excitement. And I get off those calls. The other day I got off that call, and I couldn't wipe the silly grin off my face for an hour. Because that's what he does. That's so good.

So I would highly recommend people find someone who is interested in that same sort of creativity and just have a conversation and see where it takes them. Because Rob doesn't need me to fire him up as a composer. He does perfectly adequately without me, but I just about be sure that I fire him up too. Because the conversations just flow, and then I get off that call, and I can't wait to get into it. And then the ideas start popping.

Leo

Like on the call or afterward, or both?

Linda

For which?

Leo

For the ideas. Are they popping like on the call with him or is it like after the call?

Linda

If we were specifically talking about a piece I was in the middle of, and I said, "Hey Rob, tell me about this. What do you reckon about this?" Or, "Can you get your double bass and just show me something?" That would be a different matter. But yeah, it's afterwards when I'm in my own head, in my own space, and there it is.

Leo

And do you find it important, I love this by the way, this is amazing. So, do you find it important after a call like that, when you've got all these ideas popping, to sit down and start composing and like clear everything away? Is it important to capture that magic?

Linda

That's a really interesting point because of the Parkinson's. Okay. So, the Parkinson's has, it's got its nasty little bits into all of me, all of my thinking.

This is the part, this is why I'm doing this case study because the cognitive side of Parkinson's terrifies me way more than having a tremor or anything. We all have our different symptoms. There are dozens upon dozens of symptoms.

The fact you can't see me with big tremors or whatever. I have had tremors, but then you up the drugs and they quash the symptoms a bit, you know. So, we have so many symptoms and people say you don't look like you've got Parkinson's, but they don't know what's going on inside.

And so, this cognitive issue, it's got into everything. It's got into my thinking, my psychology, my, the psychology can trigger mental health issues at times, and then I deal with them and I move on, but it can't get its nasty little claws into this gift.

And this just amazes me that it's... I see silly pictures in my head for everything. And I see... I don't know why, but it's a cylinder with concrete and steel reinforcing mesh around it. And inside is this gift with this particular part of my memory. I forget everything else, right?

But this particular part of my memory, and somehow Parkinson's hasn't yet—I'm not saying it won't—it hasn't got through that steel reinforcing mesh and that concrete. And so, if I, that's why I'm saying all these things, I make all this patchwork. This can go on for weeks before I start writing.

But in a big piece, I'm talking about, only in a big, great big piece as long as it's continuing to go or I know I need to start getting it down. But I don't lose those bits. They just get bigger and bigger. Oh, and three-dimensional. See, that's the thing. This three-dimensional sound on every side and I'm inside it. When it happens, when it's happening, it feels amazing, and it feels so exciting.

Leo

How would you describe it? Like you said, it feels amazing. Is it like riding a roller coaster or like falling in love or seeing a sunset?

Linda

All of the above? No, I've never ridden a roller coaster. I have no intention of ever doing so. It's just, it's all-encompassing, but in a completely positive way. And. The thing is, do I fight it sometimes because it's all over the joint or do I just lose myself in it?

And I think what's pretty obvious, which way is the best way to go, but it's difficult to describe because it's just me. I'd love to have someone put an fMRI, a functional MRI on me while this is going on. I would love to see what's going on in my head. Especially when I've got partners.

Leo

I would love to see that too. Yeah. I think that could be a great virtual reality experience. Let's get inside Linda's head.

Linda

We could make money out of this.

Leo

So, you mentioned getting lost in it. And I love that phrase of just really losing yourself in the work that you're doing.

Linda

Yes, but there's a problem.

Leo

Okay, go ahead.

Linda

Because you have to routine, make routines and things for your week, right? If you're going to hit your goals and that sort of thing. And never more so when you have Parkinson's because it wallops your executive thinking. You might think you're the best list maker in the world. I am, but I'm the queen of lists.

But when it comes to actually making them happen, getting from that point to that point, Parkinson's affects that really badly, and it will continue to do so if you don't lock yourself into schedules and routines, which is so important, moving day to day in Parkinson's, ultra important. If you do that, you lose these big open-ended sessions where you can get lost.

So, that's why I do the old trick that so many people do with planning of cramming things into days, that days for all those sorts of things. And I have to do this with the PhD more and more. I need to set aside days for writing, as in literature reviews and stuff like that. And I need that stuff.

And also the case study, getting that down. And I need to set aside just clear a couple of days a week, even just two days a week that are cleared. And I can do, I can just start composing. And if I want to keep going for nine hours, I can. If I want to go for two hours, if that's all I can do.

Leo

So the whole day is clear. Is that what I'm hearing? Leave your calendar.

Linda

Yeah. And that means putting boundaries in place, and boundaries are hard enough to put in place for yourself. Cause I have a tendency to write a million to-do lists, and they're all important. Just, they've got to be ticked off. But the other thing is creating boundaries for other people.

Leo

And what do you do to create those boundaries?

Linda

For the other people? If they're friends and they respect what you're doing, it's usually not such an issue. Because even though they might need a reminder now and then, they get it.

Leo

You just tell them like, "Tuesday is my day for creating and don't bother me on Tuesday." Or something like that.

Linda

In a nicer way, yeah. And. Yeah. But they absolutely understand it. In fact, they'd encourage it. Because they're that sort of people. The others don't get it so much. And I live out in the bush. I can put a padlock around the gate. That is something that I do. Padlock the gate so people don't just decide they can wander in here without letting me know.

Leo

I love that.

Linda

And, it's, yeah, turn the phone off. Turn the phone to do not disturb and then don't look at it. Don't look. And I don't allow things like emails, which are nonstop all day, stupid emails. We have so much more problem with mail since we went on to digital mail as opposed to a letterbox at the end of your driveway. People understood, before that, you'd only get your mail once a day, right?

Leo

They don't expect you to reply right away.

Linda

But since I've been at UQ, I get that a bit better because academics never reply straight away, and they set it aside to one time a day. And I think this is what I need to do. So yeah, putting boundaries in place for everybody else. I constantly struggle with that.

Leo

I appreciate you talking about this because, as you said, Parkinson's makes it extra challenging. Take what we normally face and multiply it by a thousand or something like that. But there are still things that all of us have to face, right? Those kinds of interruptions and scheduling and blocking off this uninterrupted time and setting boundaries. So if it's working for you, someone with these extra challenges, then I think that's instructive for the rest of us as well.

Linda

I have a philosophy that anything that's good for Parkinson's is good for everybody. I might need it more in certain areas. I might need something more. It might be a more pressing need, but pretty much right across the board, if it's good for Parkinson's, it's good for everyone.

Leo

Yeah. And that's so interesting because I actually believe that is true, not only of neurodegenerative diseases but also people who are neuroatypical, people with autism spectrum disorder or ADHD, bipolar, they are facing extra challenges, but they're actually the same challenges, the rest of us just multiplied by a lot more. And so whatever applies to them that helps, helps us as well. Just people who are not faced with the same degree of challenge, but with similar challenges.

Linda

Yes, totally.

Leo

Ok, so, block off your day, set boundaries, and just give yourself this open space to lose yourself. And is it, besides not checking your phone and all of that kind of stuff, is there anything else that helps you to actually lose yourself in it?

Linda

No, just the knowledge that I can, that is enormous. If I know I have to stop at a certain time because I have an appointment online or because someone's some business needs to get in touch with me or a tradie needs to come in to fix something. Knowing that quite often means I can't dive into that deepest area. Because there is an enormous level of freedom involved if I know I can just get right down there, get down and dirty, and go into a virtually a trance-like state.

Leo

Is it hard to come out of the trance-like state? Once you're in it and you've, you're creating and then you're like, okay, it's time to go do something else. Is it hard for you to leave it? Are you afraid you might lose something?

Linda

No. If I'm having a really good long day, I would, the last, the very last job I would do is I would get a pencil or a piece of paper, or I type it in if I'm putting notes into the computer at that point. Cause I usually work by hand with a pencil and manuscript. And I will jot down, "Don't forget, this is where you're up to. You've got to come straight back to this." And that's the, just. That's nitty-gritty stuff. But it just really, that's just my, that's your admin side, if you like, of writing the piece.

Leo

No, that's really good.

Linda

And I'd certainly do that for writing words, like literature reviews and such. But in music, I do the same thing. Just a few jotted words in, and I know exactly what I want to come back to, to start with, because there might be a problem there. And I want to fix it. I talk to myself quite a bit if I have a problem. It's just, I've always done this when I'm writing. "Don't do that. Oh, no, that's stupid. Oh, no, it's not. You might need to sleep on that. Let's move on to something else."

These are just little conversations with myself. But generally speaking, when I'm deep into it, I don't move. I barely move apart from moving a pencil on a piece of paper. I have noticed my eyes move constantly when I'm in that trance-like state because I can feel it. And I don't know what that's about. If there are any neuroscientists out there who know, I'd love to know because everything else is as still as could be.

But in terms of coming out of it, when I'm really into it, my last house had a big set of internal stairs to get up to the kitchen from the study. And I noticed when I was really deeply into it, I could actually leave the study, walk up the stairs into the kitchen, go and get some water or whatever I needed to do, and then come back down the stairs and go straight back to work without leaving that state.

Leo

You're still like in the trance. You're still lost in it.

Linda

And yet I'm perfectly, obviously being careful walking on stairs with Parkinson's. I am absolutely fine to do that and do what I have to do, but I don't leave that state. So, that's it. Other than that, if I want a long day, I start very early, of course, and then just keep going as I see fit. And if I do have a nice long day, I do try to call it quits at about five thirty. Because if I don't, it keeps me so fired up I can't wind down for sleep, and I'll just keep working all night.

Leo

And sleep is important.

Linda

I'll just keep working all night for you. I need to stop.

Leo

There's a lot I want to keep asking you about here. But I also want to get to some of the things on your Parkinson's journey as it relates to composing and music. I want to talk a little bit about the choir as well and about Fearless Mastery. So, I'm going to ask you one last question about composing before we move on to these other topics.

You mentioned, what was it, in your voice note to me, it was, I think, something about driving and composing at the same time, and there was this image that I have in my head. So, I'd love for you to share a little bit more about the experience or two that you've had recently.

Linda

That was pretty amazing. So, it's only a couple of days ago. We had a choir day and I have to drive to Brisbane, which is quite a drive from where I'm living now. Concentrating on the traffic, I was, I really genuinely was, there are people who will hear this and say, "No, you weren't," but I was, and I had the classical radio station on. It happened to be playing Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, the orchestral version, which is just glorious. So, if anyone hasn't listened to it, do listen to it.

Leo

I haven't.

Linda

It's glorious. And it was on the radio. And because of this aural gift, when I listen to music, notes, I see score. I see the music. And, but I was doing that and driving along because I'm right at the start of this piece of music where I'm so excited, I think the patchworks are forming. I suddenly realized I was also inside the main piece of patchwork that's there and working on it at the same time, while I was driving along.

Leo

You're composing.

Linda

Yes. At the same time, and I was definitely concentrating.

Leo

I'm just, I'm trying to visualize, are they in the same space and like interfering with each other or blending together—your composition and this other piece you're listening to? Or how does that work?

Linda

No, and there's a lot of strings in the Vaughan Williams piece, and this is a string quintet, but I wasn't even thinking about strings. I'm just looking at notes and things like that, and rhythms and textures and shapes, which is what I look at all the time in these blobs. And I was right inside one of those blobs of music.

But at the same time, I'm concentrating on, there is no commonality, this glorious soaring Vaughan Williams piece and this quite jagged music that I'm creating for these particular blobs. There's no commonality whatsoever. So I wasn't being influenced by it. These blobs aren't going to end up sounding like Vaughan Williams, I can assure you of that. And afterwards, when I realized what I was doing, I thought, this is freaky. This is amazing. I have been called a freak on many occasions, don't worry.

Leo

I believe you.

Linda

But, this one leading composer in Australia once referred to what I have as "that affliction." So, I was so offended, but as I've got older, I think it's funny. I just think it's funny now. But yeah, you couldn't do it. So, I was really blown away that I was doing this. And then afterwards I thought, could I have done this before? I must have. Can I do it again? I don't know if I want to when I'm driving.

It was really freaky and it's got something to do with, I'm just surmising, but I'm pretty sure, it's got something to do with the fact that I'm right at the start of that piece of music and I'm so excited by it and so deeply into these bits that I could. So obviously, I wasn't in a trance-like state because I couldn't drive, but I was still right inside the craft of that blob.

Leo

And that's composing for you. When you're saying you're inside the craft of that blob, you're actually composing in a sense, right?

Linda

Yeah, because I couldn't paint my way out of a paper bag, but I wish I could, because these blobs, they're not static. And they're not even music going from left to right. They're shapes and colors and textures, and they move. Each blob moves three-dimensionally. And so, what I have to do then is take this incredible moving blob and transcribe that into music, which is not necessarily an easy thing because some of my blobs are very complex.

Leo

So fascinating. I could spend forever on this, but like I said, there are a few other topics that I want to touch on. So, I'm curious if you could just... It doesn't have to be a really in-depth share, but just briefly share a little bit about your journey with how Parkinson's has been affecting your musical abilities and everything like that. And then, as you've alluded to, how it went the other way, where your music is actually affecting the Parkinson's. Could you summarize that for us? I know you're writing a whole PhD on this, but the short version.

Linda

It is obviously affecting me physically. As a player, it has, very practically speaking. Because when I, before I knew I had Parkinson's, I used to fall a lot and do some real damage to myself. And at one point, some scarring that formed inside here meant that it had to be cut. And so, I can't lift this finger like I should be able to. And so it's affected my piano playing. But then, I've adapted to how to get around that.

So, that's very practical. Like many people with Parkinson's, when you walk to your instrument and start playing, a lot of the symptoms will go. That's very common. People with big tremors and things like that, when I stand up in front of a choir and conduct, because there's a lot of heavy thinking, because you're... and sing from this part to this part, you're conducting at the same time. That's a massive cognitive workload and you're on your feet, which engages several billion more brain neurons, I believe, because you're up on your feet. It's like the Parkinson's just... gone.

Leo

Really? Oh, wow.

Linda

Yeah, it's magical. It's like someone's just increased your drug level or something, and it's just... bang.

Leo

Is that just for you, or is that for everybody who does this kind of thing?

Linda

I don't know. Oh, you mean who conduct? I don't know. There aren't many of us who do.

Leo

I actually thought you meant anyone who's engaging with music at all, like playing an instrument or conducting.

Linda

Conducting a choir and conducting, there's a special type of cognitive workload. And you're on your feet, and I tend to start dancing around on my feet, even at a time when, back when my balance was so bad a few years ago, I could have just fallen over. So, that's... yeah. Music, there are so many studies being done on how music helps with Parkinson's symptoms, but we're talking about particularly psychological symptoms.

And having the community that we have formed in choir, that's massive. It lifts people up who are doing the music. But what it does for me is like therapy, as it is for them too, because I'm working specifically on their voices. People lose their voices with Parkinson's. So I'm working on their pitch and their dynamics and all this and their timing, and it makes a big difference. But it gives me a therapeutic dose in a whole different way when I'm out front.

Leo

Wow. Maybe someday there'll be a prescription for anyone who has Parkinson's to be actually conducting a choir because it's so therapeutic.

Linda

I actually do teach that sometimes in therapy. I teach people to do basic conducting because it engages that extra, and I've forced my choir to read score. Even if they've never read a note of music in their lives, they can learn to follow the shapes, and there are dynamics in there, the loudness and the softness. And there is a line of lyrics under the notes. It's complicated because I'm targeting the cognition.

Leo

Wow. Amazing. And so, it sounds like part of... okay. Yes, go ahead.

Linda

The funny thing is, they keep coming back.

Leo

You're challenging them in these ways. Alright. So, it sounds like part of your research is not only documenting what your journey has been, how you've been affected by Parkinson's and how your musical journey has been affected by Parkinson's, but also this very thing of how Parkinson's is affected by this kind of therapy, as you called it.

Linda

No, not really. I can't fit that into my PhD as well. But a lot of people have already done a lot of documentation, not so much about a conductor, but people who partake in musical activity and creativity. But my thing, that's weird and wacky, is that I discovered when I went into really long hours of that trance-like state. And I did that because I was going to miss a major deadline for a piece years ago. I thought I'd just be able to compose at my normal pace. I found that Parkinson's has slowed me right down, in the amount of composing I can do in certain amounts of time. And I was horrified.

So, I just kept pushing because I'm pretty pig-headed when I want to be. And in the end, I was working 15, 18-hour days straight and staying in trance almost the whole time, but it took me weeks to build that up. And I saw these magical things happen. I saw my balance go from pretty woeful to pretty perfect. I saw my stepping increase, my length of step. I saw my arm swinging increase. All these basic physical things that Parkinson's does nasty things to you, they just vanished. And yet I was sitting on my ass the whole time, barely moving for all that time. No physical exercise whatsoever. That's just intriguing. Just intriguing.

Leo

It really is fascinating. I love that you're doing your PhD on this. This is probably something that no one's ever done any research on. I can't imagine that anyone else is working on this. So, it's interesting, fascinating, and it sounds like important work.

Linda

Yeah. One neuroscientist who heard about this way back said, "That's really interesting. It could open up a whole new area of Parkinson's research."

Leo

Wow, and like you said, if it helps with Parkinson's, the rest of us probably could benefit from it as well.

Linda

We're not all going to jump in and be composers, writing orchestral music and stuff, but it's not about that. It's about what part of the brain, what's it doing to the brain, that this sort of work, what could someone else do to create the same effects?

Leo

Okay. Here's my question. You, in passing, mentioned it took a while to build that up, which, you spent weeks in this trance-like state because you had this deadline, 15, 18 hours a day, but it, you said, it took a while to build that up. Tell me about that process, because I think there's a lot of us who would like to build that up.

Linda

When I started, I thought I could just drop straight into that. Yeah, two minutes, Leo, is all I could manage in that space for. And the peripheral composing, which is all part of it too, was slightly, not as deep as that, about half an hour around it. I was horrified. I was absolutely horrified at what Parkinson's had done to me.

And that's when I thought, "Am I just off?" Tried it again the next day, two minutes, same thing. I was so devastated I thought, "Can I not compose anymore?" Because I'd had a bit of a hiatus from it. "Do I have to give up all my dreams? Going back to this PhD, can I not do this?"

And so I thought, "You're not going to get me that easily. I'm going to have a crack at this." And so I did it just for a few more days. That's it. This really devastating thing. And then there was another minute. And another half hour of the peripheral stuff.

And I thought, "So, I'm going to try this again. Just another day." I tried it again. And I got another minute, then there was an extra five minutes, then there was an extra half hour, and I thought, "I've got you now, Parkinson's."

And that's when my heels dug in. And you've never seen Linda when she's got her heels dug in—don't get in my way. It doesn't matter how bad. I know that, generally speaking, this is for me. I just, that deadline, it was either admit failure, "I can't compose anymore," or have a damn good crack at it because I don't want to go down that line.

And then little by little, each, once I saw this first twinkle, each day or each two days, it just stretched that little tiny weeny bit. And it went from those miniature pieces. And I hit about three weeks and it went "vroomf," and I ended up with about four or five hours of trance and a couple of hours of the roundabout state.

And I thought, "Right, now we're cooking." But I was so far behind the eight ball by then, I just pushed it and pushed it. And then it just stretched and stretched, and then the physical stuff started changing when I had just been sitting on my ass, moving a pencil. And I thought, "Whoa, what's going on here?"

Leo

That is fascinating. Again, I could spend forever on this with you, but I think that right there is just a huge gift to us, just to hear what that process was like. And I want to say, first of all, one thing that's really interesting to me is that there was pressure on there, deadline pressure, but that pressure can crush some people, and others take that pressure and they do what you did, which is dig their heels in and they use it to create something really powerful. And that's what you did. And I just want to acknowledge you for that.

The other thing I want to mention is what you're talking about, from two minutes a day to breaking the dam really, is what you did, and it started just flowing. That's what I call transformation. And you are modeling that, what that looks like. And so I just really want to acknowledge you for that.

And I want to say that's the game that we're playing in Fearless Mastery, which is, for anyone who's listening, that's our small group program where there's maybe 15 to 20 people in there. We all work to create some kind of transformation like Linda has. I'd love to hear, just touch on Fearless Mastery for you. And why did you come into Fearless Mastery? And what do you think you've gotten out of it?

Linda

I think I came back to it now because, in this round, because stuff's getting too hard with the Parkinson's, the executive thing, all that stuff. It's a degenerative illness, right? And I can't stop that. I can slow it down. And I can't do this alone. And the thing about Fearless Mastery is there is a community, and it's a very small community, and that's beautiful. And there's nothing wrong with bigger ones, but it's a very small community. We're all completely different.

Of course, we've all got our things that we want to work on, but we lift each other up. We did breakout rooms yesterday in the mastery, and I went in with three other people I've never worked with before. And it was just fascinating because we bounced off each other in a mastery way, and hearing their struggles, what they're working with lifted me because they just help. And there's something about it. We are in that mindset altogether, and we feed off each other at a very special level, I think.

Leo

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. That's the kind of magic that happens in there that it's hard for me to transmit to others and let them know this is the kind of thing that happens. So you talking about your experience is really helpful. So thanks for sharing that. I would love to touch on the New Voice Choir, the choir that you lead.

Linda

New Voice Choir.

Leo

New Voice Choir. Okay. I'm going to get it right eventually. You've got to keep training me. So New Voice Choir. And so you are the leader of it, the conductor of it. And how long have you been doing it? And I would love for you to also just explain the gift that it is for you and for the people who are a part of it.

Linda

I'm not a leader. That's not what we call it. I'm the musical director and the president too. But we've got a full, very hard-working management committee of volunteers.

But I'm the musical director on top of that. And they can't sack me. I started that choir with someone else who, at that time, her husband has Parkinson's—they're both in our choir. And she was running a support group for Parkinson's Queensland.

So, she had this idea about starting a choir for the community, and I had this idea, but I thought, "Oh, it's too hard." Because there's so much admin, and I've worked with so many choirs in my teaching business. I couldn't do all that admin, but I was prepared to work for free for the first time in my life as a musical director because this was my way of giving back to the Parkinson's community. And I've never taken a cent from them in that respect.

We started around late 2015. We were the first one of its kind in Queensland. We've never stopped, even during the pandemic. We were one of the first choirs to go on Zoom, which was quite a thing because everyone's got different bandwidths, right? So, you've got to turn them off when they're singing back at you. So, I spent six months not knowing if the choir was ever singing in tune, which is quite something.

And so, one day when I drive home from a rehearsal—because I do a full-on two-hour rehearsal—when I drive home, I tend to think about the rehearsal all the way home. "Did that person not look very well? Should I pick up the phone? Gee, they're going well," blah, blah, blah. And I just go through the whole rehearsal. "What did... Oh, I shouldn't have done that. I should have done that," that sort of stuff.

And one day I was driving home, the choir had been running for a few years, and I knew by then that I used to manage to lift people at a rehearsal. I didn't really know why, but I figured I did. It was just what I did as a teacher, because I've been teaching for all my adult life.

And that particular day, it suddenly occurred to me, just bang, that I'd actually fallen head over heels in love with all the choir members. Really, fallen in love. And it was the most beautiful sensation because we have a community, we form such a community.

Leo

That's so great. That's just the love that you just expressed is just such a touching thing. I'm moved, and I could feel it. This choir is an expression of your love and theirs, I'm sure as well, but just you pouring your love into this, falling in love with each and every one of them, and working without pay, and just pouring yourself into that is just an incredible expression of love. So, I just really want to acknowledge you for that.

Linda

I've also had quite a few months away from them last year because I wasn't well. And I was trying to move house and build and whatnot. And I went back to them because we work in calendar years, Southern hemisphere. We start choirs, we start off at the end of January when school goes back after our summer break. And so, I've been back with them since we—it's almost the end of term one—and it's just been magic to be back. Just magical.

Leo

I imagine that this has been a gift for everybody who's involved, not just you. Can you tell me a little bit about what people have been getting out of it, who are a part of it, or even just get to experience it as an audience member? Tell me just a little bit about that.

Linda

When we used to do a lot of gigs because I always run performance choirs, even though it's a Parkinson's, sort of more therapy type choir. So, we do multi-part things and whatnot. We haven't done a gig since before the pandemic shut because, you've got to appreciate, we've got a lot of very vulnerable people in that choir.

We have people from their forties to their nineties, and there's nothing going to spread COVID more than singing at them and them singing at me. We shut down pretty quick when we had to. And we are about to do our first gig just after I come back from London, actually, a couple of weeks later. First time in years.

Now, audience members, you mentioned, people come up to me afterwards. We did a gig once. I remember, I had a lineup of people in a queue waiting to talk to me after I did this gig. Just to tell me how inspired they were because they were all there because they had people in their family with Parkinson's or friends. And just to tell me how inspired they were. I love that. It touches me so deeply that I can do that. And we have audience members occasionally who cry, not because we're so bad, but they could.

Leo

Could be a little bit of both.

Linda

But the people in the choir, they're all different. So, newbies come in, and at first, they're all about the singing. "Oh, is this going to help my husband who's here too, with his Parkinson's?" But as time goes on, they become part of our community, and you see a whole different part of their attitude to the choir, if you like; it changes. You just watch these shifts. Because I'm at the front, I get to see it. Yeah, it's really interesting. The smiles change. It's all different.

Leo

I feel so blessed just to hear you talking about it, because what you're creating there, what everyone's creating together, is magic. People feeling like they have a place where they belong, a community where they're not in this alone, which can be so challenging for them and family members.

Linda

I hasten to say, there are other things, various community therapies that have been started up. Some of them after ours; we were one of the first big therapies for Brisbane. But yeah, so there are other things that people attend. But there is something very special about—and it's been, as I said, studied so much—singing, actually singing in a group.

Leo

I've got to say, like I said, I've seen videos of it in action, and it is magical, even watching it on video, not being there in person. So, I'm going to share links. And is there anything that you want to share about, if anyone wants to get involved or know more about you or just anything you want to share before we close?

Linda

In terms of the choir, we're a registered charity. That's a point. And we do have a website which we can link to, and the video is on that website. And other than that, no, but if anyone is interested in this on the neurological side, I would welcome, absolutely welcome that neuroscience side. So interesting. Yeah. I'd love people to be in touch.

Leo

So, if anyone wants to get in touch with Linda, you can email me, and I can pass it on to them. Is that, or to Linda, is that okay, Linda?

Linda

Absolutely. And when you put this up online, you can put the choir's website up with it.

Leo

Okay, there's contact there as well. So, if you are a neuroscientist and you want to like, share something, or you're interested in something, or just anyone who wants to just share anything with Linda about this podcast and what she's doing, email me [email protected]. I also just love hearing from people. But yeah, I can pass on anything to Linda. And I want to close here. I know we've gone over our allotted time. So, I thank you, Linda, for spending some more time because this is fascinating. And I just want to say thank you.

Linda

It's my honor.

Leo

This has been just such a beautiful conversation.

Linda

So it wasn't so scary after all.

Leo

Okay, I'm going to say goodbye to you, Linda.

Linda

Thanks, Leo.

Leo

Thank you, everybody, for watching and listening.

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at [email protected].

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.