Fernando Siles, MD, stands next to his dining room set, surrounded by eclectic artwork from his native Peru. He takes the quena, the traditional flute of the Andes, and demonstrates how not to play it. “It’s difficult to play,” says the 60-year-old psychiatrist from Plano, Texas. “You don’t have a mouthpiece. So in order to elicit sound, you have to block the tip with the chin and then blow here. So at the beginning, I’d go ... ”

He purposely blows dead air into the flute.

“I’d change the angle and the position ... and nothing. Until one of the other quena players told me what you have to do is, you have to smile when you’re playing. When you smile, this happens,” he says.

Suddenly his elegant home is filled with the tranquil sounds of the flute. Even his two dogs relax as he plays. Siles’ patients find his music extremely therapeutic, too. In fact, the specialist in child psychology regularly uses his debut CD, 2007’s “Peruvian Soul”, as a tool to help traumatized patients, including victims of domestic abuse or those being treated for multiple-personality disorder.

He recorded the disc, which combines new-age melodic elements with world-beat percussive rhythms, between treating patients at Glen Oaks Hospital, where he’s a staff psychiatrist, and at a family counseling practice, both in Greenville, Texas. African conga drums, synthesizers, keyboards, and bass mingle with Siles’ array of flutes to create a mystic, evocative, and ultimately energizing ambience.

To further enhance the musical experience, the disc comes with liner notes that offer suggestions on what to envision when listening to each track. On “El Camino,” for example, listeners are advised to picture themselves “walking toward the sunset down a lone country road lined with trees alongside a fence row.”

Sally Brookins, a patient of Siles’, swears by “Peruvian Soul”. “That CD saved my life. It really did,” she says. Brookins has been in sessions with Siles for 12 years, and she still sees him every three months.

“I was depressed,” she says. “My dad was in a nursing home – I didn’t want my dad in that situation. And I heard that CD one time and I kept on playing it, and every time I listened to it, I would go to different places. I know it sounds weird. But it would take me to different places. It would ease my mind. I had like a 200-pound weight on my brain, and when I listened to that music, it was what no medication could do. I still listen to it today.”

Siles has used traditional Peruvian flutes, such as the quenacho, for almost 15 years to help soothe and heal patients.

Music therapy now has scientific proof, says Suzanne Oliver, MT-BC, NMT, a neurologic music therapist at the Phoenix-based Neurologic Music Therapy Services of Arizona.

“The whole basis of neurologic music therapy looks at how music is processed in the brain and how rhythm is processed in the brain,” says Oliver. “Music is processed at a subcortical level, which means you don’t have to think about music to have music affect the brain. The research shows that, and it shows that rhythm is processed all over the brain, which is why music can be so impactive and healing to people.

According to Oliver, “Rhythm is the strongest component of music. You do have the tone of a flute. But the rhythm overpowers all of that. By the application of rhythm, the individual can better process information. The more organized we are and the clearer we are thinking, the more we can process our emotions.”

Siles discovered his healing salve by happenstance. As a kid growing up in Peru, he found himself attracted to music but only dabbled in a few instruments, some piano and a “little flute here and there.” He moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area 23 years ago.

In the early ’90s, still very much a novice musician, he joined Expresiones, a Peruvian music group that disbanded a few years later. But by 1995, Siles, now a seasoned quena player, was struggling with a multiple-personality patient with satanic cult abuse.

“She started to bring personalities that she says were from the ‘dark side’,” he says. “I was new to working with patients with satanic cult abuse. But I was in confidence with a specialist who would guide me, and she says that a lot of those patients had personalities from the dark side because of the mental programming of the cult. Satanic personalities were very unreachable. So I thought ... just play the quena.”

He played a tune called “Into the Light,” which will be on his second CD, to be released later this year.

“That personality was won over very quickly,” Siles says. “I continued to work with that patient, who at that point had 39 personalities. I started composing songs for each personality. Not all of the 39 of them, but I’d say about six or seven of the core personalities.”

Armed with a medical bag full of songs, he sought out the help of record producer and fellow musician Kyle Shaffer, who co-wrote many cuts on Peruvian Soul. Shaffer also played several instruments on the disc, as well as producing it.

Peruvian Soul now stands as Siles’ creative outlet and an effective therapeutic tool.

Rebecca Crossley, director of expressive therapy at Glen Oaks Hospital, regularly uses the CD during her activity therapy sessions. “Sometimes I do some guided imagery,” says Crossley. “And his CD is very awesome, and the patients like it. While some people might not normally be open to relaxation music, it has a Peruvian, Latin feel. There’s a rhythmic feel to it. I like to use things that they like. The children like it; the adults like it.”

Siles believes his work has just begun. While he probably won’t tour, even locally, as most musicians do, he has some ideas on how to reach more people with his quena. “One of the things I’ve been talking about with [Shaffer] is having organized groups of people who will want to come to experience the music with visual imageries, which I’m already doing at the hospital,” he says.

Siles says, “I believe 40 percent of people have strong visualization skills. I believe the music will allow me to continue to develop the technique … maybe with larger groups or seminars or workshops where I will be assisting large groups of people to make important changes in their lives, like remove blocks, improve your motivation ... relieving a lot of stress, be more positive about your life. Every time I do a group I learn a little bit more.”


Source: Mario Tarradell/The Dallas Morning News