Miguel de Cervantes once claimed that, "He who sings scares away his woes." In Deforia Lane's line of work, though, music does more than just provide emotional solace.

As a therapist, Deforia Lane combines scientific methodology with the spirit-stirring power of music. Photo/Billy Delfs

Once an aspiring opera singer, Lane, CCM '70, now performs on a very different kind of stage. As the director of the music therapy program at the University Hospital of Cleveland Ireland Cancer Center and Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, she uses the power of song to ease the mind, train the body, soothe the soul and, above all, provide hope to those who need it most.

Like many CCM alums, Lane's story begins with a music-filled home. In her convocation address to the CCM class of 2007, she explained, "My love for music began in the small living room of my home in Dayton, where I heard the resonant singing voice of my father and was mesmerized by the exquisite piano playing of my mother." Nevertheless, Lane never really considered a career in music as a child.

Instead, her early aspirations were toward nursing and a life in medicine. At the urging of her high school voice teacher, though, Lane auditioned at CCM and was offered a scholarship to attend. "CCM provided fellowship, encouragement and gave me wings to fly," she explains. "It ushered the skinny-legged girl of color into the splendid world of opera." Despite her natural propensity for opera, though, Lane eventually found herself drawn down a far more unconventional path.

The exact moment when Lane settled on a career in music therapy is uncertain, though her first glimpse of the healing power of music came at a very young age. "I remember being in church as a child," she says, "seeing the arthritic women who struggled to walk down the aisle. When they would sit, it would be painful to watch. But when the gospel choir would begin to sing, it was like someone had filled their limbs with new bones!

Deforia Lane was the featured speaker at CCM's 2007 Convocation ceremony. Photo/Philip Groshong

"For a moment, their hands and arms would wave and their feet would move without restriction, as if set free from something." When she first discovered the science of music therapy, a light bulb turned on. "I always knew it was there," she explains, "but it was wonderful to find a discipline that would teach me the nuances of this."

Music therapy can be defined as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship. As with music itself, music therapy is a multifaceted discipline with many different applications. A credentialed professional, Lane suggests that, "music therapy is many different things and it can reach us in many different areas. When I'm in an intensive care unit, I use music to train the heart rate or blood pressure -- to get beyond the conscious part of a person." According to Lane, music can also be used to help structure how someone moves. "We can tailor the music so that it helps a patient motor plan. You would be surprised to watch how differently a Parkinson's patient can walk -- the music affects their brain and motor planning in such a way that it's almost magical."

While Lane's work is firmly rooted in science, she acknowledges that there are certain miraculous aspects to her work. "I would be less than honest if I told you that I know what it is in music that moves the heart and the soul," she confesses. "If I knew that, it would no longer be music. It's more than notes and rhythm and harmony. When it's infused with spirit, it's untouchable and unexplainable."

Lane recounts one particularly amazing experience that captures the bittersweet nature of her work: "There was a little 20-year-old mother brought here brain dead with a six-month-old baby in her womb. The nurses wanted me to provide music for the baby until the doctor could deliver the baby via C-section. I was very scared to see someone brain-dead, but she looked like 'Sleeping Beauty.' I walked in and placed my hands right on the mother's belly and I began to sing. Life inside of death."

For Deforia Lane, music has become a form of medicine. Photo/Billy Delfs

As she sang, Lane began to feel the unborn child dancing under her fingers. "My heart felt like it was going up my throat," she admits, "just to see life responding to something as singular as that." As the nurses monitored mother and child, they noticed that the baby's heartbeat began to speed up as Lane sang faster. "You could watch this ballet right through the mother's womb. That was a day to behold."

Right before the doctors planned on delivering the young woman's child, her parents and caregivers gathered in her hospital room, knowing full well that the birth of the baby would be the end of the mother. "I asked, 'Would you mind if I played the baby's favorite song?' All of us focused our eyes on her abdomen and when I sang 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands,' the sheet moved and we all smiled and cried. When Samantha was born, I heard her sing. There were no tears there."

When Lane was diagnosed with breast cancer, she suddenly found herself on the receiving end of the power of music therapy. When she felt overwhelmed by the disease, music helped her set herself apart. "Music was a constant reminder that I was more than the disease," she explains, "I was also a musician, a singer, a pianist, a teacher, a mentor. It gave me life beyond breast cancer. My hope was that my doctors saw more than stage 2, type 2 carcinoma."

When Lane had trouble sleeping, music helped her to focus her attention on something other than worry and anticipation. It also gave her a voice in a time of need. "People will sometimes listen to a song much more easily than they will listen to someone talk. I composed a song and people would listen to that and hear far more than I could say."

A woman of numerous successes, including being the first music therapist to receive grant money to study music's therapeutic effects on cancer patients, Lane's life has taken its fair share of unexpected turns. "I struggled with the 'What ifs?' for years," she admits. Having long ago traded opera halls for hospital wards, Lane has come to welcome these unforeseen twists. In her convocation address, she said, "Life will be filled with unexpected scores of music?surprise symphonies, if you will. Be willing to be shaped and molded by your successes and your faux pas?they are equally important!"

While her life has taken many unexpected twists, there is no doubt that Lane is exactly where she is meant to be. Her life is still filled with music and she still brings joy to audiences on a daily basis.

"I still use my performing skills in the hospital room, my stage is just different, that's all."

Reprinted from CCM's Spring 2008 Communique Magazine. Read more from the issue.

 Watch the MSNBC video about Deforia Lane.