Walter, Founder at HealthTunes™

The Healing Power of Music with Walter, Founder at HealthTunes™

: [00:00:01] Welcome to the Outcomes Rocket podcast where we inspire collaborative thinking improved outcomes and business success with today’s most successful and inspiring healthcare leaders and influencers. And now your host, Saul Marquez

Saul Marquez: [00:00:19] Outcomes rocket listeners, welcome back once again to the outcomes rocket podcast, where we chat with today’s most successful and inspiring healthcare leaders. I really want to thank you for tuning in again and I welcome you to visit outcomesrocket.health/reviews where you could write review today’s show on Apple podcast. We love hearing from our our listeners and we’re really excited to hear what you think of our outstanding guest today. His name is Walter. Now folks it’s kind of like Madonna. Madonna doesn’t need a last name. Walter doesn’t need a last time you’ve got to know who this guy is. He’s done some pretty amazing things. Walter is the Founder & CCO at MusikVergnuegen and he is also the founder of healthtunes an exciting company that’s creating music to help people recover faster and heal better. And his his extensive experience in music is almost three decades of production. And what I want to do is just open up the microphone to Walter to just fill in the introduction anything that I may have missed. Walter welcome to the podcast.

Walter: [00:01:25] Thank you. Thank you for having me. Rocket introduction. Love it

Saul Marquez: [00:01:28] Thank you. I appreciate that you’re a rocket person.

Walter: [00:01:32] Thank you so much. Just don’t ask him to sing. Other than that it’s all fine. I might dance during the podcast Friday to be with you today on this wonderful first of December 2017. Yeah it’s probably snowing already in Austria. It doesn’t snow here in California. I’ll send you some Sunbeams and I appreciate it.

Saul Marquez: [00:01:56] Yeah. You know Chicago was definitely a snowy city. Haven’t gotten any snow yet but I will appreciate the Sunbeams.

Walter: [00:02:03] Perfect on the way.

Saul Marquez: [00:02:06] Thank you. I already feel I’m already feel them.

Walter: [00:02:08] Good good and I know you feel the music as well so yeah thanks for having me on the podcast. What kind of a tell you. I grew up with music and music in the city of music. Born in Vienna. It’s a fantastic place. It had one obstacle when I grew up. It was still a bit closed and since at least every big name composer of history died in Austria like Beethoven was German. But he died in Vienna wi with this strong history our teachers would always tell us that our interest is just fantastic. But we the young ones we suck. It’s just like you can never hold up to those master’s shoes to fill. It wasn’t really big shoes to fill. And whatever we tried it was never never reaching those goals and never reaching the expectations of what the teachers and professors. So what we learned is that suffering is a part of writing music. And if you look at all those pictures of Beethoven and alone Broms whenever you see them in the pictures that they don’t look that happy I think that music music that makes us happy has. And we’ll talk about it and we’ll get so many qualities beyond just listening when we hear music it moves us. It’s like emotion and emotion emotion as the word emotion in that it makes us more of our soul and mind and everything is moved with it. The film industry is tapping into that. That’s why we still have film music and is a huge part of the success of a movie. If you listen to music out music and they’ve done a ton of movies over the last 30 years it is less than half the impact. Imagine psycho like that show a scene without those shrieking violence. If you turn the sound down it’s not scary. It’s just another day it’s another day and the kids always don’t have those funny bouncy beats too. That just doesn’t translate. So yeah it’s important world and so growing up in Vienna and studying there was exciting but I’m so glad that the United States opened the arms post graduate you USC Los Angeles and really got lucky to be able to work here and to become citizens. So I’m very proud to be in this fantastic place.

Saul Marquez: [00:04:48] That’s awesome. Motter and pre-heat you’re walking us through bringing it back down to the basics of music and the high expectations that your teachers had for you. Really I think maybe raised the bar for you and the amazing things you’ve been able to do thus far and so I think maybe it got you somewhere even though it was tough while you were there.

Walter: [00:05:10] Yeah it’s a great time. Big goals might have changed it initially goal when I picked up music was I was quite shy in class and the guys who played music and was singing they had always the best girlfriends. And so I thought I need to pick up the guitar pun intended. And I did. My goal was that girls would look at me and fell in love with the guitar. And suddenly practiced my 10 hours a day and everything else was forgotten. And that brought me into the conservatory and the university and finally did the United States. And here I founded the company of music for Nugan and the company got really lucky. Creating the intel mnemonic and melodies which are top of the list world wide for LG and sends an incredible and so on and on working on Minority Report that Spielberg movie with Winburn there. And it’s an exciting life to write music. And now I’m at a point in my life where I thought on a even more with music and learned through my personal story how music can help in the healing process.

Saul Marquez: [00:06:28] So tell us a little bit about that. What got you to make that transition into health care.

Walter: [00:06:33] My son Luca see pictures.

Saul Marquez: [00:06:36] Yes of handsome young man.

Walter: [00:06:38] He is 11 now when he was 5. He got diagnosed with leg pretest and leg pretest. Is this very strange and painful syndrome. And doctors know the name of that syndrome but nobody really knows what to do with it. It basically shows the theme of those kids falls apart to basically walking without the head of the hip bones and it disintegrates extremely painful and grows back up to six year process to grow back. It sometimes doesn’t grow back nicely round them so it will be a lifetime challenge for that person. So the doctor said OK we might do surgery we don’t know what happens with surgery. That said just having been bad for the next two years still it heals. Some would say have braces on. And my wife is this wonderful strong person mother and Marisol are the strongest. Right. She suggested let’s just do something different than what they suggested and we went into osteopathy acupuncture a very regimented diet. A year later Luca our son was back at the hospital they were really wondering just thought they switched the report and then figured out this is the same boy. And they could see it in the x rays that it was healed and that there was something before that opened up this dialogue with them and it was a really beautiful dialogue. And the hospitals are so open about this. How did you do this. Now we started talking and that was basically the initiation the Big Bang of health tunes for myself and the healing touch license of my wife and we are really immersed into this field because of that really personal story.

Saul Marquez: [00:08:30] Thank you for sharing that. I know it’s a pretty vulnerable moment for your son and for the family. And I’m really glad to hear that you guys came out on the other side with some some insightful ways to approach a problem that really has no real solutions and so are really exciting to hear that. Walter and so now that you went through all of this you kind of went through the depths of this difficulty I can imagine. I mean I have a 9 month old son you know to find something like that out. It’s really you know you pull from your strength and now that you’ve gotten to this point what do you think some of the outcomes improvement that could be created from it. What is that. And have you seen any of it in effect already.

Walter: [00:09:14] Oh it’s just a tremendous beautiful and touching effect health tunes this company I created has and purposefully made it a nonprofit and free of charge and really want to give back to the community got lucky and my business life and one of my companies was purchased by BMG. And that really allowed a lot of knowledge and the time and funds to create this from the ground up. And because I’ve been through this experience also to be respectful to the perspective patients and also being scientific which I miss in many of the other applications out there that we bring music medicine we call it music medicines. If music is furnished to help the healing health and healing and well-being that is music medicine and it’s prescribed like any other medicine with a dosage take it twice a day. Now if minutes over seven weeks of so it basically is like a pharmaceutical drug and it increases the efficacy of pharmaceuticals. And so pharma isn’t really liking what we’re doing and the best moment was UCLA Medical endorsed us and they put us on the website so this is just an incredible dream come true and not even half the year of running health tunes. We are on one of the best university clinics out there.

Saul Marquez: [00:10:46] That’s awesome. More congratulations. Thank you for that. You don’t just get put on a website for no reason. And so you guys are definitely making the impact that needs to happen. And what I love about it Walter is you know people it’s big in medicine now you know like what are we doing with virtual reality your augmented reality. And a big part of those services is awesome music. Right. And what effect that music plays on the brain and in the healing process can you give the listeners an example of how the technology is already being used or maybe even how you plan for it to be used.

Walter: [00:11:22] Oh love to share both currently. One sector of health tunes is to help premies. So NICU and that’s Los Angeles as well as an Ahlstrom a couple of hospitals. The music is matching the elevated heart rate of a baby. Let’s see the harder it is 180 and that can share some videos with you when you see it is magic. And we play music at that and rate and slow it down with a specific algorithm and you see one and a half minutes later that baby at 155 or close the resting heart rate and amazing next to the baby. You see the mom in tears for joy that finally the baby is feeling better and anxiety is alleviated and the stress is coming down and you can see and feel the baby breathing normally again. And that’s just music and one and a half two minutes.

Saul Marquez: [00:12:21] That is amazing. That is amazing. And these kids are so vulnerable that you just make that connection through music. And the physiological effect. So is there work being done like a clinical evaluation of this.

Walter: [00:12:36] Yes yes we do have those and we are in the middle of a process of putting a patent out how to amazing make this really available to anybody worldwide. You could already tap into this playlist. We have healthtunes.org that our hospitals use it and they really see how powerful that is. And it’s the good side effect of that is that the nurses and moms love that music as well. Yeah that’s right. That’s a nice side effect.

Saul Marquez: [00:13:08] I love that. And then you said you’re also going to touch on the plans for the future.

Walter: [00:13:12] You know the plant in that sense a plan for the future is to develop specific wearables which then of course have to be FDA approved. And that’s quite a lengthy process. Any listener suggestions here please contact us. I know you know the best people out there the best people are listening to your podcast. So yeah we have these ideas how to make it even easier in hospitals but also for at home use is like gift that primi finally gets to that family and back home. Those moms and fathers they want to see the baby in safety in safe hands and that technology can definitely assist to that.

Saul Marquez: [00:13:56] I love it. Yeah just spanning the care continuum from the hospital all the way to the home.

Walter: [00:14:01] Yep.

Saul Marquez: [00:14:02] So there’s the youth and then you know what comes to mind Walter is that is that movie where they went to the elderly homes and they brought music to the elderly and the amazing transformation that happened with these people. How about any segment of the population. Any any work being done there.

Walter: [00:14:19] Yes a lot of insight was a fantastic note to all of us how music can help in that cycle than it could S.A.G. could feel it and realize it. And that was a really great door opener for the whole world. Oliver Sacks talked about it and wrote about how music can help in dimension Alzheimer’s and so we took that knowledge and find that even further we do have it’s based on data of birth of the patients and that is also an almost stage one and two we can at least halt the development of Alzheimer’s and we can and shouldn’t over promise. But what we have seen with patients is just overpowering. It’s just not only the joy those patients have when they listen to music but how they interact with the music and then the city of our brain is just incredible and we are learning more and more about this. Brains are never done. They constantly change. When I grow up people scientists would still say that we only use a third of our brain and then once you’re 20 years old it doesn’t grow anymore and that’s it and it falls apart. But we know now at every second in our lives that the brain is changing and there’s a static part and as a fluid part to it that plasticity is just incredible. However it’s called shlock wrote great papers on stroke patients how he could help them to talk again after speech impediments. And he’s teaching them how to sing and so his patients would start singing for a while. Then three four weeks later they start talking. It causes the plasticity of the brain. Again it’s it seems like magic but we tend to live with the science behind it.

Saul Marquez: [00:16:13] Yeah that’s really exciting. And all these assumptions that are I think a lot of people including myself still have you know you only use X percent of your brain and after this point it stops developing or growing. And so I think it’s time to you know I guess the message to the listeners is it’s time to re-evaluate what you believe about the brain and maybe we can use this episode with Walter as an opportunity to do a Google search or to dive in a little bit deeper on what you believe about the brain because maybe it’s not right maybe it’s not real and maybe it’s going to hold you back from healing faster or helping your loved one heal fast. Right Walter.

Walter: [00:16:52] Totalally totallly agree. And I want to ask every listener think about it. Do you think are you your thoughts your brain is your personality or emotions or is it more. Where is your personality. Who are you. Who am I. And the brain is definitely a big part of it. But it’s probably much more. And when you think about your life it was probably different the year ago and you’re consistently changing in adopting. And that’s just the beauty of it.

Saul Marquez: [00:17:23] I really is. I totally agree with you Walter and you’ve left us with a lot to think about and as we all approach our responsibilities in this health care sphere it’s very important that we approach our own health and our own development in a very thoughtful way and so think about that listeners friend just got to think about this question What would you say Walter a time you know you’ve been through three decades of just great development and success. What would you say a time that maybe you had a setback. That you learned a lot from.

Walter: [00:17:55] You know every setback was actually the birth of a new idea. And we talked about what it’s like seeing my son crawling on the floor in pain not being able to walk. That is a setback. I think even if the listener is not a parent you can imagine how painful that is for Luca, my son but also for us parents and for the whole family and it just totally turned around. It became a new entity and a modality to help other people. So I would invite love to invite all the listeners that any setback has something positive as well. And we can go through tons of tons of this but I would like to invite all of you. Just think about the last big setback you had and then see what happened. It might take a couple of months maybe a year or two. But there is some positives.

Saul Marquez: [00:18:53] Yeah totally totally agree and you know it takes me back to the beginning of the podcast Walter before I had any guests on it. Nobody wanted to be on it. You know I was just like the crickets man there was crickets. I’m just like man. I mean do I suck. There’s this thing is said would have no legs. Like I really hit a wall. And it’s not as distracting or serious as what happened to your son but I hit a wall man and I just found a way to work through it and it became just a new way of developing systems for the business. So yeah I mean I agree with you completely. And so let’s see the other side of this wall or so. So that’s the setback how about one of your most proud moments to date.

Walter: [00:19:38] Proud moments in terms of business family. Where which sector would you like to.

Saul Marquez: [00:19:43] Really. You know I’m thinking like healthcare but one that rises to the top it doesn’t have to be health care. Why don’t you go with your proudest moment and then let’s apply it to health care somehow

Walter: [00:19:53] One of my last proud moment was when I got the video from the Nichijou in Austria and seeing this baby in absolute stress and anxiety. And you could tell that the doctor next to the baby that really more than sympathy and compassion it’s like a little fear I’m standing there and the music starts and something shifted right there and seeing that mom she’s like you can tell she’s crying of joy. And when the baby starts moving differently and even all the monitors would show what is happening. Those are moments which are as beautiful as when I was 5 6 years old and the magician comes in and does something you just don’t understand. But you’re mesmerized. You know the magic of that mold is so powerful. And you know I don’t want to miss those moments. It’s just that many out there. It’s just incredible.

Saul Marquez: [00:20:58] And thanks for sharing that. It’s that feeling that you get when you don’t understand that but yet it’s just so beautiful in here it’s like in our awe.

Walter: [00:21:06] And then I love to say music is here. Music is what words can’t tell. There is something where no words can tell us that and it can describe everything so beautifully but also subjectively because the music touches you differently than your wife may be or or any other person in your family and your own tastes. And there’s so much context in there if let’s say you are married. And I’m sure when you’re her the wedding march at your wedding it brought everybody to tears. Your parents and in-laws and whoever they is and it’s such a beautiful moment you hear that melody but then maybe you are late to a meeting with a boss of yours and you in an elevator and the music plays that same melody that wedding march in that elevator and you think oh God stopped that music and it’s the same notes. And again it’s about context. So it is the music has so many layers to it and how you listen to it and the beauty is when somebody is diagnosed of whatever illness that they become or open to music and receptive and so they become a better antenna to soak it in and let those cool it is heal the body and the mind.

Saul Marquez: [00:22:36] That’s so deep. Man appreciate your insight here. And there’s no doubt in my mind that given this a lot of thought Walter and then it’s because of that you’ve been able to create this creating platform to impact the world in a really positive way. We met at Health Care 2.0 and I could tell right away like you’re just so engaged you’re all in and very lucky to have just met you out there.

Saul Marquez: [00:23:01] What would you say Walter is an exciting project within health tunes that you’re working on today.

Walter: [00:23:07] We are planning a bone marrow transplant study and that is also in hospital in Austria at the AK H. It’s the largest middle European Hospital and they have six rooms for that modality. That bone marrow transplants. So basically if the patient gets so much medication that that this person is almost dead and will get bone marrow and hopefully grows back to normal. So those people are a couple of seconds away of being dead. And it takes no weeks to bring them back to normal. And they are laying there and you only you can help them with masks on. And it’s super hygiene hygiene in there. It’s barely any machines in there because they’re so afraid that this is an infection going on now. So those whore patients definitely have since Zorich deprivation. And with that wording now you know the healing doesn’t take place as good as well as you if you would be at home with having a flu and they can listen to music it can watch a video you sip your tea your family comes in and you feel better right away. But those moments and those patients are in isolation. So music can transcend that isolation and can bring memories back as a mention like that embedding memory. You can think about the wedding if they had one and they listen to the music and all that comes back in their mind. They have since Zorich memory that it’s like olfactory and sounds and touch and whatnot and that really helps the healing. On top of it we give them music which helps a faster healing through a brainwave entrainment and so on and so on. So we know it will be a 30 to 40 percent faster turn around faster healing which is of course beautiful for the patient which is great for the family. To get the last ones back but also for the insurance companies because they will 30 40 percent less so hospitals and hospitals have more turnaround in Datsuns. There’s no lose it’s only winners and that with that modality. So we’re looking forward to do that. We are open to work either with Amazon or Google and that’s because we definitely need voice control and they both have very good systems. So we’ll see who will be part of that study and it will start April 2018.

Saul Marquez: [00:25:47] Super exciting Walter. Always something going on with you. I love that and that’s a very worthwhile project with these patients that are really terminal and suffering going for those that need it most. Love that.

Walter: [00:26:01] Thank you

Saul Marquez: [00:26:01] And Walter getting to the end here. This is a fun lightning round so we’re going to build a course on what leaders should do in health care it’s the one on one or the ABC of Walter. And so it’s a syllabus for questions. Lightning round style followed by a book that you recommend to the listeners you ready.

Walter: [00:26:18] OK.

Saul Marquez: [00:26:20] All right. Let’s do it. So what’s the best way to improve healthcare outcomes.

Walter: [00:26:25] To stay positive and still help the patients to think and feel positive. Were they able to heal yourself. Sorry.

Saul Marquez: [00:26:33] No that’s fine. What’s the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid.

Walter: [00:26:37] To intensify with the illness and the disease to think you are the cancer or you are the depression.

Saul Marquez: [00:26:44] Love that. How do you stay relevant as an organization. Despite constant change.

Walter: [00:26:49] I embrace change a thing that’s one of the best things there are. Change keeps us alive.

Saul Marquez: [00:26:56] And finally Walter was one area of focus that should drive everything else in the organization.

Walter: [00:27:02] To stay in the loving and compassion and not make things a business and keep it and with the modality which reaches the hearts and the health of the people.

Saul Marquez: [00:27:15] Love it. Walter what book would you recommend to the listeners.

Walter: [00:27:19] When Breath Becomes Air. It’s this book about a doctor summing up his life and I don’t really give it all away. It’s a fantastic book for anybody in this field and the doctor and I see doctors because they have to work so hard, close to burnout and other and burned out and exhausted. Read that book and make decisions based on that.

Saul Marquez: [00:27:45] Great recommendation. I’ll definitely have to pick that up and listeners pick it up as well. Don’t worry about writing it down. Just go to outcomesrocket.health/walter right there you’re going to find all the show notes as well as links to Walter’s companies and this book. Walter, before we conclude I would love for you to just share a closing thought and then the best place where the listeners could get a hold of you.

Walter: [00:28:08] Thank you so much. I can’t believe that we have to stop already. And that is fine. It’s great fun. That’s the key word. Have fun enjoy. We know that humans if they have more joy in your phone they’re less likely to get ill and sick. And even if they do get through it quicker. And music is part of the fun. Music can help you into that fun and even when you really sad listen there’s something really. For some reason it balances this out and it brings it up again. And that’s the thing. It’s one of those things where it brings you up.

Saul Marquez: [00:28:48] That’s really interesting. I love that idea because it’s almost counterintuitive right because you think hey maybe I should listen to something upbeat but then it’s only that maybe that empathy. Right. That’s creative.

Walter: [00:29:01] Yeah. It is sympathy and empathy and being of the same intensity as you are when you’re really down and somebody comes in with this Polca that is annoying. It does not help you.

Saul Marquez: [00:29:15] Get that folka out of here.

Walter: [00:29:17] Yeah. Shoot the polka player.

Saul Marquez: [00:29:20] Hilarious. Love it. Walter what a great message to the listeners and what would you say the best place for them to reach out to you or follow you is.

Walter: [00:29:29] Just log into healthtunesorg. You’ll find all the information including phone numbers. Love to hear from you. Test it out and tell me how it’s helping. I can’t wait to hear and see.

Saul Marquez: [00:29:40] Hey thanks Walter, and listeners take them up on that. He is all in on this mission and so reach out. Check him out and all the things that he and his team are doing over there. Again Walter just want to say thank you on behalf of myself and all the listeners and looking forward to staying in touch.

Walter: [00:29:57] Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking with you. Thanks for the interview.

: [00:30:04] Thanks for listening to the Outcomes Rocket podcast. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.outcomesrocket.health for the show notes, resources, inspiration and so much more.