Nick

It’s always a great pleasure to make music with Harry. Here’s one of the many benefits we see from music-making with hospitalised patients, from the parent’s perspective…
Harry’s Blog

We are busily engaged as usual this week with music-making taking place at Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and Kings Mill hospitals along with the ‘Taking the Lead’ project currently taking place in Staveley working with students from Springwell Community College. Great to make so many lives richer through music making.

Some great links to research papers by Constanza Preti et al at this link here.
http://imerc.academia.edu/CostanzaPreti

‘Costanza Preti, PhD, is a Research Associate at the International Music Education Research Centre (iMerc), Institute of Education, University of London. Her primary research is in music and health and includes a major study examining the impact of live music programmes in paediatric hospitals. Costanza has been awarded a Wingate scholarship and her research has been funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). She has worked on a number of funded projects including: The evaluation of the ‘Progetto Musica in Emilia-Romagna’, funded by the MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education); Evaluation of the Sing Up National Singing Programme (DfES); Research evaluation of Soundabout a charity specialized in musical provisions for special needs children; Evaluation of Voices Foundation Primer (DfES). She has been editorial assistant and reviews editor for Psychology of Music (Sage)’

OPUS Musicians Richard Kensington (Bodhran, Ukelele, Voice), Nick Cutts (Bassoon, Guitar, Voice) and Sarah Matthews (Fiddle, Viola, Voice) at Derbyshire Children’s Hospital – March 2013

Also new profiles and images of all OPUS musicians on our musicians pages (see links above)

Walking onto one of the wards today myself, Richard, Sarah and Roxy observed the space and it was suggested by Sarah and Richard that we spread out around the ward which was in a horse shoe shape with private rooms on the side. This meant that as we dispersed around the room we had to listen out for what each other were playing and respond sensitively to each other as our aim was for us all to be engaged in interactions. On first entering the space we played Sunshine in my heart, an uplifting song. On my left hand side there was a young boy, his father and his sister. The father was hugging the young boy and swaying to the music. Richard handed the young boy and the farther a shaker, which they took with enthusiasm. However, the young girl was reluctant and did not take the shaker. Despite this she sat with her brother and father whilst we played the song. When the song ended the father and young boy requested more. So I conversed with Sarah who was with Roxy on the other side of the room and she signalled to Richard who had gone into one of the side rooms. We then began playing another song Zamina. The father and his son started playing instantly and I could see that the young girl was interested in having a shaker of her own so I went and got one for her out of the box. After the first time round playing Zamina I could hear the father singing the harmony to the songs melody and he had placed his mouth near the ear of his son and was singing this harmony softly. Half way through Zamina the mother had returned to the young boy’s bed side, at first she sat down and picked up a magazine and seemed uninterested. Then all of a sudden she started dancing and so I handed her a shaker, and by the end of the song the whole family were playing and dancing. During their musical interaction the family shared a precious moment where they were group hugging and were swaying in unison to the song. We then played yellow bird and the dancing and singing continued. Jane Edwards (2011) writes how using music is valuable for parent and infant bonding and in this musical interaction I was able to witness the family bonding with each other.

I am thoroughly enjoying doing my placement with OPUS and I have had some fantastic musical interactions with the children, their families and the staff at both Nottingham and Leicester hospital. I have also learnt a lot from taking moments to stand back and watch the OPUS musicians Nick, Richard and Sarah in their musical interactions. On one particular afternoon I also experienced the lesson of ‘‘Have No Expectations’. This is something Nick had mentioned in the musician training course that I attended in October of last year. During my afternoon at the hospital I found that we mainly played and then vacated the space as most people seemed to enjoy listening but not wanting to take up the offer of playing a percussion instrument or singing along.
After a morning of rewarding Social interactions it did seem to move more slowly for me. However, as the OPUS musicians reminded me, in the hospital space we are there first and foremost as musicians and if that is what required at that time that is what we do. This was a good lesson to revisit because being a musician and playing repertoire is just as important as the more social interactions. Ronald Borcazon (2004) Writes how “listening to music can be considered interactive if it is purposeful in nature” (9).I would consider all the music used in the hospital purposeful in nature as its aim is to first and foremost to create a positive atmosphere. My lesson from this afternoon was that I do not need to have a full on social musical interaction to have a positive effect on the space and that allowing people to just listen to the music is a very important part of OPUS has to offer.

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.

I had a great experience at the very start of the day; we had entered the ward space already playing. As the ward was very quite I was playing at a very low volume, we had gathered round the bed of a young boy who was very much interested in the music and he knew Sarah and Richard well. I had also met this young boy two weeks before and he remembered my face. When we started playing the song I was the furthest away from the young boy. I think this made it difficult for him to hear what I was playing and so he requested for me to come and stand by his bedside. I experienced this invite as enthusiasm for the music and this enthusiasm became even more evident when we played the song Zamina. He was eager to have this song replayed; as there were other patients on the ward it was important to play other songs in between Zamina. Initially, Sarah, Richard and I sang Zamina at a well projected volume, eventually the young boy began to join in. However, by the fourth time of playing the song the young boy’s singing was a lot louder, I had lowered the volume of my singing voice and eventually the young boy was singing on his own. I found it moving to see him passionate about singing this song. He also wanted to invite the nursing staff and other people who were on the ward at the time to join in and sing along. However, some were too self conscious to join in and the nursing staffs were very busy. However this did not stop him enjoying the moment, building a musical relationship with myself and the other musicians, as well as increasing his confidence in his own vocal expression.