Music and Mental Health: Tone of Mind
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Music and Mental Health: Tone of Mind | WONCA
Music and Mental Health: Tone of Mind
A simple question helped start the Music and Mental Health Project: how do we care for one another when words are not enough?
The project emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic through the WONCA Working Party on Mental Health, when colleagues across the world sought practical ways to ease the emotional strain felt by patients, families and health workers. For Dr Alfredo de Oliveira Neto in Brazil, the answer was close to home. A musician as well as a family doctor, he had spent more than a decade playing with Harmonia Enlouquece (Harmony Gets Crazy), a band that brings together mental health service users and health professionals in Rio de Janeiro.
“This project began with a simple question: how can we care for one another when words are not enough?” Alfredo said. “Music gave us a way to stay connected.”
In its early phase, the group mapped more than 30 music and mental health initiatives in 14 countries, and organised online gatherings that culminated in an original collaborative song, also called Tone of Mind. A global cover of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” followed, created remotely by colleagues and friends during lockdown.
The project’s second phase turned toward storytelling. Filmmaker Tristan Pemberton joined to direct a documentary capturing four different experiences in Brazil, South Africa, India and Australia, each showing how music can support care, connection and wellbeing in daily life. “The film is built on trust,” Pemberton reflected during the launch. “People shared what matters to them, and they filmed their own stories. That honesty comes through on screen.”
During the online premiere, WONCA President Dr Viviana Martinez-Bianchi described the film as a reminder that the strongest forms of care are often rooted in human connection. “Some of the most powerful innovations in healthcare are not technical,” she said. “They are human, rooted in listening, connection and art.”
The documentary and the full launch event are now available on YouTube, offering viewers a quiet but powerful reminder that health care is not only clinical. It is also cultural, relational and deeply human.
Watch the film
Watch the online launch event
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