Whistle while you work!

Last Friday was my first visit to Kings Mill Hospital in Sutton in Ashfield. While being guided round the wards for the first time by a member of the play team, Nick and I were invited to play for a young girl who was profoundly disabled and who had very restricted means communication. We played a song for her and her parents seemed very pleased to have us there. After we had played, they mentioned that the girl responded very well to whistling. This was only the second time that Nick and I had worked as a duo and we had discussed a variety of different ways of doing this without Sarah playing the lead melody. Whistling had not been on the list but we took up the gauntlet and set to whistling a version of ‘Maid and the Palmer’. The girl responded with a show of great pleasure, the parents were pleased and I was reminded of the importance of maintaining a versatile and light hearted approach to music making in hospital!