Making Music With Your Body, With Keith Terry | Happiness Break

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How to Do This Practice:

Find a Comfortable Space: Choose a place where you feel comfortable moving and making noise. You can do this practice standing or seated, whatever feels best for you.
Start with a Basic Clap: Clap your hands together lightly, palm to palm. Keep the pressure soft so it doesn’t hurt. Try a few claps, following a steady rhythm.
Add Chest Percussion: After each clap, tap your sternum lightly with your right hand, then with your left hand. Repeat this rhythm several times.
Incorporate Leg Taps: Extend the pattern by adding taps on your thighs.
Repeat the Full Pattern: Put it all together in a continuous loop— clap, chest (right, left), legs (right, left). Maintain the rhythm and repeat without pauses.
Focus on the sensation of movement and sound as a mindful practice.

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.

Today’s Happiness Break host:

KEITH TERRY is a percussionist and body musician who uses a variety of surfaces to create interesting rhythms.

Learn more about Keith Terry: https://tinyurl.com/5av66v5f
Watch Keith Terry in action: https://tinyurl.com/299vuw4a

Related Happiness Break episodes:

A Humming Technique to Calm Your Nerves: https://tinyurl.com/mr42rzad
The Healing Power of Your Own Touch: https://tinyurl.com/y4ze59h8
How to Relax Your Body Through a Standing Meditation: https://tinyurl.com/2fv4c9h8

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

Why Dancing Is The Best Medicine: https://tinyurl.com/y66hxxy9
The Science of Humming: https://tinyurl.com/4esyy6nd
How Music Can Bridge Cultures: https://tinyurl.com/5ar3c8yy

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/275tna6h

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Dr. Keltner. Welcome to Happiness Break, where we take a short break in the day to try a practice
0:08.0	shown to help us find a sense of calm and connection with ourselves and each other.
0:13.0	Today we're going to do something kind of different.
0:15.0	We're going to create rhythms using nothing but our bodies in a kind of musical meditation.
0:24.6	Body percussion practices have been shown to help reduce stress and anxiety,
0:27.4	boost self-esteem, and help us focus.
0:30.5	And when we move our bodies in sync with other people,
0:34.1	this helps us feel more compassion, behave more altruistically,
0:36.3	thanks to higher levels of oxytocin.
0:42.9	Leading us today is Keith Terry, a world-renowned composer and percussionist who uses his own body as his instrument.
0:45.2	We're going to follow along as Keith guides us through a practice he created called body
0:50.8	music, starting with just some basic claps and moving right along into some rhythms
0:56.2	using the chest. So find somewhere where you feel comfortable, where you can move around a little,
1:02.1	and where it's okay for you to get into your body and make some noise. Here's Keith.
1:10.4	Hi, I'm Keith Terry.
1:11.6	I'm a musician.
1:12.6	I'm a rhythm dancer and I'm an educator.
1:16.6	And in the 1970s, as a result of working with a lot of tap dancers,
1:21.6	I had the thought that I could stand up and I could play all the rhythms I was playing on my drums on my body.
1:28.3	They were really inspiring to me and I became a body musician.
1:35.3	Body music is fun and useful in artistic ways in music and dance, choreography,
1:41.3	but it also has therapeutic values I've discovered over the years.
	...

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