This Local Music Academy Brings Soothing Soundscapes to Seniors

Photograph courtesy of List Academy of Music.

Llifelong musician and teacher with a penchant for healing others, Heidi List Murphy of Newport rediscovered a set of bell chimes in her attic in 2011. 

The List Academy of Music founder, who taught youth and adults for twenty years, had used the chimes in her senior music program but lost track of them. Delighted to find them again, the child music specialist used them with an elderly couple who had a history of performing in Newport restaurants. When she played the chime, the mute Alzheimer’s patient immediately began singing. 

When a local nursing home later called to ask if she would revive their bell program, Murphy knew it was a sign that she should continue connecting people with music.

Firing up her former nonprofit, Murphy now conducts her Cognitive Health Interactive Musical Ensemble (CHIME) program for people living with or without Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, dementia, PTSD, brain injury and other disorders at nursing homes around the state, as well as the Rhode Island Veteran’s Home in Bristol. 

The improvement in their behavioral, cognitive, emotional and physical functioning, along with their social connection, mood and energy, is tangible, she says.

“When you hear these bells, your body just goes into relaxation mode. Its sound vibrations resonate beautifully with the chemistry of the human body,” she says. “And the great thing about CHIME is that it’s a one-time performance — there are no rehearsals. They just play.”

The solid, rectangular bells are more like a tuning fork than a traditional bell, and are an integral component in this rehabilitation, Murphy explains, because they’re easy for seniors to hold and vibrate. 

With about a dozen seniors gathered in a seated semicircle, Murphy acts as a conductor with her own bell and makes eye contact with each person individually. This is their cue, and one by one, they ring their bells, imitating Murphy’s arm gesture to perform a familiar song, note by acoustic note. Murphy likens it to playing a human piano and instructs them to ring their chime only when they see the whites of her eyes.

“As we age, we lose a lot of functioning, but with the memory and the mind, the music just brings that memory back,” she says. “A lot of people that we work with are in memory-care units, and my job is to make them happy and give them a quality life.” listacademyofmusic.org

Ways to Help

The CHIME program is always looking for volunteers and musical instrument donations of drums, egg shakers and other equipment. The program is raising funds to expand its program to add more elder care facilities and veterans’ homes to its roster, train more facilitators and buy more chimes. To make a donation, visit listacademyofmusic.org.