Retirement homes and mental health centers are finding that music therapy can pierce the silence that engulfs many patients.

Eugene Clevinger sat in a wheelchair, his weathered face as impassive and blank as the boredom that marks the lives of many elderly retirement home residents.

But when the music started, his fingers began to twitch. Then his blue eyes warmed in recognition of a familiar ballad.

Before an hour passed, the 93-year-old former teacher was belting out “America the Beautiful” in a squeaky voice and calling for extra hugs from a female guitarist.

Call it aural medicine.

The music therapy supplied every week at the Villa Valencia retirement home in Laguna Hills might not be in the medical mainstream. But with music therapists pouring out of more than 60 colleges throughout the country, the concept is firmly established in retirement homes, mental health centers, halfway houses and many other places that treat the body and soul.

“We aren’t going to cure any illness, but music therapy is a wonderful way to help healing and growth,” said Kay Roskam, director of the music therapy program at Chapman University in Orange.

“And because our research base [on how music affects the brain] has really exploded in recent years, music therapy is steadily achieving legitimacy in the medical community.”

The uses of the therapy are many, its proponents say. It calms patients with Alzheimer’s disease, helps cancer patients handle their pain and provides a tool of communication for stroke victims.

In some cases, stroke patients might not be able to talk--but they can sing, because musical functions are controlled in a different section of the brain from speech.

“If a patient needs to go to the bathroom or is feeling bad, they can sing out things like ‘I have pain,’ ” even though they can’t otherwise talk, said Karen Skipper, a music therapist for 15 years who works with Villa Valencia residents. “It’s absolutely amazing.”

Skipper said she has seen people whose limbs have been stilled by Parkinson’s disease start to tap their feet involuntarily to the rhythm of a catchy tune.

“If they look down, they actually stop moving,” Skipper said. “Rhythm is really a very strong motivator.”

Music touches a variety of chords in people, sparking chemical responses that stimulate memories and emotions, Roskam said.

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“The reason music is giving us these feelings literally has to do with chemical reactions in the brain,” she said.

At Villa Valencia, many of the residents attending music therapy sessions suffer from senile dementia and other age-related afflictions. Most sit in wheelchairs arranged in a loose circle as Skipper walks around showing a sheet of paper bearing the outline of a state.

“OK, who knows what state this is?” she asks, a 12-string guitar hanging from a strap around her neck.

Silence. Then one silver-haired woman wrapped in a lavender knit blanket calls out “Texas.”

“That’s right. Anyone here been to Texas?” As she asks, Skipper’s left hand wraps around the guitar neck to play the first notes of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

“A lot of people who gave correct responses are people who are extremely disoriented,” Skipper said after the therapy session. “We exercise their memories.”

“This also does a lot for their self-esteem,” she said. “The elderly experience so many losses--their home, their independence--they often have no place to go and nobody to talk to. [Music therapy] makes them feel like they are real people again.”

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Dr. Branko Radisavljevic, an attending psychiatrist for the Los Alamitos Medical Center, said he has seen dramatic improvements in some of his patients after music therapy.

“I remember one elderly lady who used to be a pianist,” he said. “After her husband got sick, she became terribly disoriented. We had a hard time getting anywhere with her.

“Once she got access to a keyboard, she got into it and that was the turnaround. Once you introduce music, it often stirs up an emotional response. I personally feel that music therapy should be utilized, particularly as an addition to other therapies.”

Most of the colleges with music therapy programs offer four-year degrees that include standard music theory and practice as well as specialized training in music therapy. Graduates also must be certified by the National Assn. of Music Therapy, based in Silver Spring, Md.

“I see music therapy as an extension of both performing and teaching,” said Roskam, who noted that beginning pay for music therapists starts at about $30,000 per year. “It’s a way to use music in a more challenging way . . . and it’s new enough that we are creating new paths.”

Music is being explored for many uses by researchers.

Roskam will soon be working with theoretical physicist Gordon Shaw, a UC Irvine professor, who has been studying how music might help average children improve their powers of reasoning.

Shaw and Roskam will look into how musical therapy can affect developmentally disabled children.

“I think we’re just beginning to understand how we think, reason and create,” Shaw said, “and I think music is a window into understanding these brain functions.”