Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Games can happen in the moment….unplanned and wonderfully interactive. At Parkview Nursing Center many were milling around waiting for supper. I dug out a container of “things” that could be used for rhythm sounds. One was an old Ball jar of all kinds of marbles. Shaking it made a wonderful sound to go with the songs we were coming up with. It wasn’t long before Ben started taking the marbles out to see what they would sound like if you dropped them in a metal pan. Before long, the washtub that we were using for a drum ended up in the middle of the floor and the marbles were divided up and we were seeing how many could hit the tub with the marbles. If you got a hit, everyone knew it because of the wonderful sound it made. One person said, “This is just like when we were kids…having fun with whatever you could find”

Mary Lou circles the building up and down all day long using her walker.
“Come and sit down,” I said, as I pulled up a chair at one of the dining room tables.
I knew she liked rhythm. I also knew that she played the piano for years and is constantly drumming her fingers in some kind of rhythm.
I placed a drum in front of her and gave her both drumsticks. I played a rhythm on the table and she played one back. We experimented with the natural rhythm of words, using songs and rhymes from childhood like “Pease Porridge Hot”. We tapped the rhythms without the words. As we drummed, more and more songs were popping into our heads.
“Listen to THIS one!” I said with gusto.
“What about THIS one!” Mary Lou would say.
We started drawing a crowd. I handed a tamborine to one of them and a shaker to another and before long, we had a rhythm band. It was made up of those who normally would not participate in organized activities. We sang. We talked. We laughed, and we listened to the overall effect of many instruments.

I want to make it possible for more nursing care centers to have Dancing Hands. There is a lack of money in activity budgets, so Dancing Hands Elderly Set is going on sale for 50% off through to the end of the year.

Marge was drawn into the room where we had a bossa nova CD playing. She was dramatically moving to the music. I placed Dancing Hands taps in front of her as she sat down. She could not get her fingers to grasp them, so I held the handles down and she very naturally started tapping the bouncing discs on the table. It sounded like a typewriter and it even looked like she was typing. She not only liked the sound, but seemed to like the feel of her fingers making the rhythm.

Artist Jan picked up some crackling leaves on her way into the Alzheimer’s unit and put them in a baggie along with some extra air.
We passed them around, crunching on them with our hands and stepping on them with our feet. This led to using it as a shaker to shake to the rhythm of Fall poetry that we dreamed up.

The leaves were flying all around
Red, and yellow, orange and brown
Stepping on them making sounds
Crunching sounds all over the ground