Calming and interactive music – 29/1/2013

Walking through the wards this morning, we came on to one ward and Nick had gone ahead to observe the atmosphere on the ward. Whilst he was making his assessment Sarah and I began playing the song “I can see clearly now the rain has gone”. We began the song instrumentally and in a calming manner, and then we wandered into a bay area. Once in the bay I introduced the vocal line to the song.
As we played the song a young toddler from a different area of the ward expressed an interest in the music. Nick handed the toddler an egg shaker, as we played through a variety of songs and pieces of music, she continued to play along. After a while she became interested in my guitar and so I sat next to her in the ward space. I then invited her to strum the guitar, which she accepted and then proceed to say the words ‘music’. To acknowledge this verbal expression I sang the word ‘music’ back to her. As she strummed the guitar I alternated between the chords C major and G major. She strummed the chords in various ways and I used my voice to mimic the strumming pattern she performed. Sarah and Nick proceed onto the next bay, I felt compelled to follow and the toddler also came with us to the next bay. Here we continued our musical interaction, briefly moving from the guitar to the xylophone and then back to the guitar. We finished this interaction with a funky version of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ in C Major.
What I realised from this musical interaction was that it was not important for me to follow Sarah and Nick into the next bay, and It could have affected my musical interaction with the toddler. However, I was fortunate enough that this did not happen and it actually gave the toddler the opportunity to investigate the other instruments available to her. This time it actually worked well but it is something that I will be aware of in future musical interactions.
After waving the toddler goodbye I looked around the environment and observed the space to be calm and relaxed. Later when we left this space Nick informed Sarah and me that when he had inspected the ward at the beginning of the session the ward was actually very busy and stressful. I could not help wonder if the music may have been responsible for this change in atmosphere. In ‘Music and the young mind’ Harris (2009) writes that “Music can have a calming effect on us although we may not be very conscious of it” (19). Reflecting on my experience and this statement I cannot help but feel that this was the case on this occasion.