The article “Sweet Melodies: Combining the Talents and Knowledge of Music Therapy and Elite Musicianship” caught my attention because it touches on certain aspects of what it is like to perform in a hospital setting that I have had the opportunity of experiencing. As a music therapy student at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, I have had the pleasure of providing live music on the classical guitar at a local hospital during the summer months for the past two years as a volunteer music performer. During that time, I have had the opportunity of performing in the hallways, nurses’ stations, and waiting rooms of different areas of the hospital that specialize in various disciplines of care and treatment. Although the article focuses on the experiences and observations of providing and receiving music in a Neonatal Unit (NNU) at a hospital in Australia, I still found that some of the observations and experiences were evident in some of my performance situations at the hospital in Louisville.
During and after my performances at the hospital, I have often received a great deal of positive feedback from the nurses, caretakers, doctors, patients, and family members on the music I have provided. The overall experience of sharing my gift to re-create a performance of a piece of music has been very gratifying, but it has been even more heartwarming knowing that I am making the hospital staff’s hard day of work a little less stressful. In the article, it was mentioned that a nurse, in response to the music that was provided in the NNU, stated, “I’m not a classical music fan, but I love the way it floats through the Unit. You don’t have to think about it, it’s just there. The other music - recorded music - doesn’t do that.” When I read that statement, it brought me back to a day during the summer when I performed at a nurses’ station while a severe thunderstorm was rumbling outside. One of the doctors came up to me and told me that the music I performed made the hospital environment much calmer in the wake of a terrible thunderstorm and that it eased some people’s state of panic. In fact, the nurses and hospital staff have been so appreciative of having me in any area of their unit to provide music for them that they will, sometimes, either, stand, lean against the wall, or slowly walk by just to listen and soak in the music. This same observation, also, has been pointed out in the article where it was stated, “The staff were keen to listen – they would locate themselves close to the door of the room in which they were working to hear the music more easily, they would pause in the hallway, leaning against the wall, standing with their eyes closed.” Yet, the same observation is even true of patients and their family members, as well.
In the article, regarding family members’ responses to live music that was provided, a mother said about her baby, “I wanted to change his nappy, but he’s fallen asleep listening to the symphony!” Then, a father said about his toddler, “You’ve tamed the wild beast!” These quotes reminded me of family members who would occasionally stand or lean against the wall to listen to me play or carry-on a brief conversation with me. Although family members enjoyed listening to me, I, sometimes, received patients who would come out of their rooms to listen to me, as well. I remember one patient who came out of his room walking around the hallway with his IV pole who excitedly exclaimed to me, “It sounds almost like a harp in here.” While he was around listening, we talked briefly and I remember that my guitar sounded great that day because I was up near a huge glass window, which helped carry the sound of my guitar and fill up the hallway of the hospital. That memory of my encounter with that patient was an example of a patient’s positive reaction to the live music that I provided because it lifted up his spirits. In a way, it was similar to the way live music caught the curiosity and calmed the baby of the mother and the toddler of the father that I mentioned because the music entirely influenced their mood in a positive manner. By considering these observations and others I shared earlier, I feel that bringing musicians into hospitals to provide live music can give hospitals with music therapy departments and the profession more visibility.
I feel that when music therapy departments in hospitals bring in musicians to provide live music that they can possibly gradually gain more recognition and visibility among patients and their family members. Patients who may not be referred for music therapy or receive any of the services can possibly discover more about music therapy and the existence of a department by finding out how musicians are being brought into the hospital to provide live music. By possibly discovering more about a music therapy department and the services that it provides, patients can possibly gain an interest in requesting for music listening materials that a music therapy department may provide. Exposure to live music could possibly even allow family members to discover more about the existence of a music therapy department and the services it provides and motivate them to share with friends and people they know, as well. Yet, by bringing in musicians to provide live music as a way to possibly gain more visibility for a music therapy department, the music therapy profession can possibly end up gaining even more credibility among nurses, doctors, and caretakers, too.
Enhancing more credibility of music therapy could possibly be done by earning even more of a hospital staff and personnel’s respect for music therapy if the effects of live music provided by quality musicians from a music therapy department has a beneficial effect of reducing stress and calming down an environment. However, the hospital staff could also gain even more respect for the music therapy profession if they are realizing the similar benefits it is having on them as it is having on the patients and family members, as well. Hospital personnel might end up taking note of the hard work music therapists are doing in bringing in quality musicians and how they are locating these musicians in areas of the hospital where they are most needed. Whenever I have performed at the hospital, the music therapy director who oversees the program of bringing in volunteer music performers has made sure to send me to play in certain units based on the types of patients who would most likely benefit from having a musician provide live music on classical guitar. I feel that this is been done to show the nurses, caretakers, and doctors the positive effects that the music I am providing is having on the patients, as well as, on the hospital staff and family members. I, also, feel that this belief is being portrayed in the article because I feel that some of the nurses seemed to have gained a certain level of respect for the effect live music had in calming down the babies in the unit, as well as, in the way it improved a mother’s ability to breast feed, easily. Although I strongly recommend having live music provided by musicians in a hospital setting, I still think more projects like the Sweet Melodies project as described in the article should be carried out in order to figure out the best ways for live music to be implemented in a hospital setting.
I feel that the idea of carrying out a project and study called the Sweet Melodies project was an excellent idea because its main premise was to come up with a guide or a set of guidelines on the best ways musicians could employ their elite musicianship in a hospital setting. I think it is important that musicians have a set of guidelines on how to apply their musicianship in an environment such as a hospital because, based on my experience of performing in a hospital setting for the first time, I was not sure what to expect. I was not sure how people were going to respond to the music or repertoire I played and my playing style. Those feelings I had the first time around are similar to how some of the orchestral musicians in the article felt. A flautist stated, “It is much more confronting than playing in the orchestra where you don’t have real contact with your audience.” Then, a clarinet player stated, “I didn’t know what to really expect, but musically it’s a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.” Based on my initial feelings of performing in a hospital setting in conjunction with the feelings of the musicians in the article, I feel that some musicians probably hesitate at the idea of performing in a hospital setting because they possibly have a sense of uneasiness about it. For some musicians, this feeling of uneasiness could just be the fact that they play an instrument that would not be conducive for a hospital environment. However, as I realized the positive feedback I received from the family members and hospital staff the first time I played, it turned out not to be that bad of an experience. Sometimes, when you perform you will be surprised at the positive feedback you will get from patients, family members, and hospital personnel when you least realize it. For example, one time I was sent to the oncology unit of the hospital to provide music and there were so many friends and family members in the hallway that I was not only worried about being distracted, but I was worried about how the music I provided would affect them. When I played I started to get even more worried about what kind of effect the music I played in the hallway of the unit would have on the environment because one person who had been standing outside in the hallway came out of a patient’s room crying out loud as if she had received bad news. When I left after I had finished playing, the whole event made me worried and concerned about the individual and the family members out in the hallway. As a week passed by since that event, I received news from one of the music therapists who works at the hospital that the family members actually enjoyed having the music, but most, importantly, the patient who was about to pass away wanted me to come back and play some more. When I received that news I was relieved. I think what I learned from that day is that no matter what your concerns are about performing in a hospital setting you are at least going to touch someone and make a difference in that person’s life because we have been given a gift to share and give back.