Music therapist spreads joy in Washington

Since before she could form a sentence, The Joy of Music Owner Elisabeth Peiffer has been enthusiastic about music.

By Kindergarten, she was taking drum lessons, eventually moving to piano, then trumpet. By middle school, she was traveling to the University of Iowa for music lessons, where she added more instruments to her repertoire over the years, until eventually going to college for music therapy.

“My parents called me their sing and dance kiddo, because I guess I was singing before I could speak,” she said. “As a child, something about the way it made me feel, it was something that was almost cathartic. Your body actually felt when the chords shifted, when the mode shifted, when the chorus modulated. I didn’t have the language to describe it as a child, but when those things change, you can feel it, in your body, it just draws you in.”

In 2005, with her four-year degree in-hand, Peiffer launched her business as a music therapist in Washington, where she said she had neighbors who needed the service provided out of her home.

By 2018, The Joy of Music had moved into its current location downtown, where Peiffer and a team of employees offer not only music therapy, but musical lessons, a modest selection of music supplies, and occasional event programming.

The treatment has a wide range of applications. Peiffer said music accessed different parts of patients’ brains than they’d typically use to access language, motor control, emotional regulation and other things. And while there are specialized therapeutic practices for things like speech, anxiety, physical coordination and any other part of the brain, music therapy provides an alternative method of treatment when others may not work.

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“I had an older adult that, he had a stroke, and his wife requested I come in to meet with him because (he) hadn’t been able to talk in five months,” Peiffer said. “Music and speech are in opposite sides of the brain. And he can’t access the Broca’s area, that part of the brain where speech happens, that’s what’s been damaged.

“So I sing a song … and he’s never heard this song before, but he’s able to sing it back to me, because it’s repetitive, the expectation is there, you know what’s coming, it’s predictable. Those are part of the innate traits of music. And he’s able to sing ‘hello’ to me, even though he’s not able to say hello when I came in come in and shake his hand.”

Thanks to the wide variety of applications, Peiffer’s business has clients across age groups. But she said practitioners were cautious not to encroach on practices best performed by specialists in other therapeutic fields.

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“I am not trained in those areas at all. I spend time learning from them, but … that’s why I sometimes co-treat with them,” she said. “We have to stay in our own lane. It would be unethical and ineffective … I can’t treat somebody as a Speech-Language Pathologist would, even if I can have speech goals.”

The Joy of Music’s model is unusual, among therapists, because its services are rarely covered by insurance. That’s led Peiffer to market more toward organizations and groups that can pay for members to receive care, like nursing homes and nonprofits, although some clients pay privately for music therapy.

While she found music therapy an approachable and intuitive field, she said she struggled, at times, with the ins and outs of running her own business.

More recently, Peiffer’s been working toward a master’s degree in business administration from Louisiana State University, taking online courses.

“What’s harder is switching between a business mindset, making business decisions, when I have a therapeutic heart. That’s why I’m in school for my MBA,” she said. “I’m not a business thinker … it sounds very rainbows and sunshine, but I just want to reach the people who do not have support.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com