A typical night of serenading a hospital floor is like flipping through a picture book of life -- LIFE with its warmth and coldness, sweetness and bitterness; life with its infinite facets, manifested in each face, each spoken and unspoken word, each gesture, each breath.
There is nothing like sickness that reveals the hard reality of life, the absolute, naked truth. It strikes everything in its path with a vengeance--promises, relationships--stripping away layers and layers of niceties until the core is shown in its true state: ugly and repulsive, or beautiful and fragrant.
I once met a woman in the corridor of an oncology unit, fatigue written all over her sleep-deprived face. My guide John, a regular volunteer in the hospital, asked her how her mother was doing. "She's okay," the woman said, then let out a long sigh. "You know, she's really not that bad. With some real rest and without my dad aggravating her, she really can recover quite nicely."
I met another couple this week, also in an oncology unit, though in a different hospital. The husband invited me to go in and play for his wife, but after she makes a stop in the bathroom. My guide and I waited in the hallway, chatting about his vacation to Italy. From the corner of my eyes, I saw the wife making her way laboriously towards the bathroom, her husband standing by her, one arm around her waist, and the other wheeling the IV pole.
The trip took awhile. When they came back, I had made up my mind to play one of my favorites, "All I Ask Of You" from "Phantom of the Opera." A few seconds into the song, the wife suddenly turned to her husband and started crying softly. The husband gently smoothed the wrinkles on the bed sheet and held her hand. "That was our wedding song," she told us through tears and sniffles. "Eighteen years ago," he said.
Love me--that's all I ask of you...so the song goes. I guess they never thought, of all things, that it would be sickness that comes to prove how strong those vows are.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Bach Partita in E
Little Brian was not a shy child, having more energy than my guide's and mine combined. "Ooh, a violin, a violin!" He jumped up and down by the door, his hands stretching out with the intention of not only touching the instrument, but also grabbing it.
"You are not going to play today," the guide Charlotte, a music therapist in the hospital, said. "We are all going to sit down to listen." Brian did not protest. His widely-opened eyes showed that he was already mesmerized by the instrument he has never seen before.
"Let's see...what do you want to listen?" Charlotte asked. "Something fast or something slow?" "Fast!" the little guy responded excitedly, his eyes still glued to the violin. "Okay...something loud or something soft?" "LOUD!!"
I groaned a little inside. Somewhat exhausted from a full work day, I was not prepared to play something "fast" and "loud", especially in a hospital setting. The ambiance simply did not help inspire what was necessary. But there was no time for excuses--the active little boy giggled and squirmed around on his mother's lap, his hands clasped together in expectation. "How about something fast and loud, then something slow?" My little music patron demanded.
I began playing the first movement of Bach's partita in E major. The continual stream of sixteenth notes delighted my young audience tremendously. "Okay, now something slow!" he cried. I put on the brake and the tempo dropped by half. His mouth dropped open as he turned around to look at his mother. She was as excited as he was. "Slow enough for ya? Ready to pick it up?" Charlotte asked him. "Okay, fast!" I stepped on the accelerator and the arms are back on speed.
We laughed so much during our brief five-minute visit. I only played about 20 measures, not even finishing on the tonic (the "home" chord on a scale). At some point I thought about what a professional classical musician would think if he or she heard my performance. I also wondered what Bach would say if he were there (I could already see his expression as I remembered from his portrait hanging in my childhood home: meticulous and stern). But none of that mattered in that gloomy hospital room. Little Brian saw the violin for the first time in his life, and he was incredibly proud of his "conducting." Most importantly, he laughed. So I guess if I did not do what a professional musician was supposed to do, I at least did what I set out to do in the first place when I decided to volunteer with Musicians On Call: to bring the healing power of music to patients, in one form or the other.
"You are not going to play today," the guide Charlotte, a music therapist in the hospital, said. "We are all going to sit down to listen." Brian did not protest. His widely-opened eyes showed that he was already mesmerized by the instrument he has never seen before.
"Let's see...what do you want to listen?" Charlotte asked. "Something fast or something slow?" "Fast!" the little guy responded excitedly, his eyes still glued to the violin. "Okay...something loud or something soft?" "LOUD!!"
I groaned a little inside. Somewhat exhausted from a full work day, I was not prepared to play something "fast" and "loud", especially in a hospital setting. The ambiance simply did not help inspire what was necessary. But there was no time for excuses--the active little boy giggled and squirmed around on his mother's lap, his hands clasped together in expectation. "How about something fast and loud, then something slow?" My little music patron demanded.
I began playing the first movement of Bach's partita in E major. The continual stream of sixteenth notes delighted my young audience tremendously. "Okay, now something slow!" he cried. I put on the brake and the tempo dropped by half. His mouth dropped open as he turned around to look at his mother. She was as excited as he was. "Slow enough for ya? Ready to pick it up?" Charlotte asked him. "Okay, fast!" I stepped on the accelerator and the arms are back on speed.
We laughed so much during our brief five-minute visit. I only played about 20 measures, not even finishing on the tonic (the "home" chord on a scale). At some point I thought about what a professional classical musician would think if he or she heard my performance. I also wondered what Bach would say if he were there (I could already see his expression as I remembered from his portrait hanging in my childhood home: meticulous and stern). But none of that mattered in that gloomy hospital room. Little Brian saw the violin for the first time in his life, and he was incredibly proud of his "conducting." Most importantly, he laughed. So I guess if I did not do what a professional musician was supposed to do, I at least did what I set out to do in the first place when I decided to volunteer with Musicians On Call: to bring the healing power of music to patients, in one form or the other.
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