Songs at the Bedside
Training and equipping volunteer musicians to play quiet, requested music at the bedsides of hospice patients and their families, one room at a time.
A nurse at our local hospice told us the thing families ask for most in the final days is not more medicine. It is quiet music: the hymn a grandmother sang in the kitchen, the old country song from a first dance, a cello playing anything at all. Songs at the Bedside recruits musicians of every level, trains them alongside hospice staff in how to be present in a dying person's room, and schedules them for weekly rounds at two hospice houses and for home visits on request. We keep a shared songbook of the most-requested pieces in several keys, and we buy small, quiet instruments that travel well: a travel harp, a nylon-string guitar, a set of hand chimes. You do not need to be a professional. You need to be able to play softly, listen, and stop when it is time to stop.
Travel harp, nylon-string guitar, and hand chimes: $1,900 Two eight-hour bedside training workshops led by a certified music thanatologist: $1,000 Printed songbooks and binders for 30 volunteers: $350 Background checks and volunteer badges: $250
After a one-day training, musicians commit to a two-hour bedside round every week or every other week, in the afternoon or early evening. Non-musicians are needed too, to coordinate scheduling and to sit with families during visits.
- For every patient who will hear these songs, and for the families at their side
- For gentleness and steadiness for our musicians
- For the hospice nurses and aides who do this work every day
- That the right songs come to mind in the moment
Hands still needed
Hours are the organizer's estimates. A shift may run a little longer or shorter than listed.