Soothing powers of sound

Musician helps people's souls and bodies

By DAVE NORDSTRAND
The Salinas Californian

RICHARD GREEN/THE SALINAS CALIFORNIAN

As a freelance harpist, Lynda Jardine plays for weddings, birthdays and other venues where the iced champagne freely flows.

At other times, she sets up her harp in the somber confines of hospices, hospitals and care homes.

"In those places, my music is never about a performance," Jardine said. "It's always about service to the patient."

Jardine, 63, is a certified music practitioner trained to use music to help people who are sick or dying, people who may be in a passive role during a session.

Thursday, for example, she went to Pacific Coast Care Center, 720 E. Romie Lane in Salinas. Sent by Heartland Hospice in Monterey, she played for an Alzheimer's patient in his 70s.

Dressed in a gym suit and sitting in his wheelchair, the patient idled silently, his eyes closed. His memories seemed marooned, his thoughts trapped in tangled disarray.

"I played songs he'd be familiar with, like 'Red River Valley' and 'Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley,'" Jardine said. Toward the end of their 45-minute session, the man's features began to soften.

"Like he was truly listening, but you never know," Jardine said. "The aim is to enliven the mind and to help provide a healing environment."

At age 5, prompted by a grandmother who was a concert pianist, Jardine began to study the harp. Her career in music was off and on until her 1982 divorce, after which it took on serious tones to include a refresher class at Monterey Peninsula College.

"I sat down and played a Bach piece that I knew from my childhood, and suddenly I felt like a woman in the desert who was dying of thirst and who finds water," she said.

Her music is soothing

The power of music to beneficially affect young and old suffering from ailments and pain is amply proven by scientific data as well as personal testimony, Jardine said.

"Music can help communication between the family and a patient near death, while also providing a comforting presence," the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine wrote in an article on the subject.

Music, Jardine said, can also reduce blood pressure, relieve anxiety, boost the immune system and regulate heartbeat and respiration, among many things.

Everyone, from preemies to surgery patients to people in their last minutes of life, can benefit, she said.

Angelo Manzano directs activities at Pacific Coast Care Center. He's noticed the effect music has on clients.

"So soothing," Manzano said. "Especially for people in hospice. It calms them.

"Then there are sing-alongs and the nostalgia they produce. It helps a lot."

Purposeful change

In preparing to play for patients, Jardine took the year-long Music for Healing and Transition Program in Sacramento. She calls it, "a study in health care and in learning to apply music to the various conditions of patients."

Then followed a six-month internship at the Pacific Grove Convalescent Hospital in which she began to put theory into practice.

Every situation is different, she said of the patients she plays for.

In one case, a woman was anxious about going into eye surgery. Jardine's harp music helped relax her, and the doctor said the patient's blood pressure was down.

In another, a patient in a rest home was being kept awake by nearby construction. Jardine played soothing music for her. Within minutes, the woman had drifted into sleep.

For a client near death, the music should be arrhythmic and unfamiliar, Jardine said.

"Their organs are shutting down, and nothing is in harmony," she said. "The music should facilitate that.

"If I were to play a familiar tune, that might bring their minds back when their body is trying to let go."

Jardine's work as a certified music practitioner has an impact on her, too. She calls the work "fascinating."

"When I'm with a dying person, I'm present at one of the two most profound times of their lives," she said. "It's difficult, of course, for the family, too, but music can stabilize the situation. It can add grace to a sad and painful time."

Contact Dave Nordstrand at dnordstrand@thecalifornian.com.

Copyright The Salinas Californian.