Therapy by Alice 
English National Opera using singing to help Covid patients.
Posted on February 25, 2021 Leave a Comment
Check out this video clip for Covid recovery.
Opera Singers help people recovering from Covid.
Posted on February 24, 2021 Leave a Comment
www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/arts/music/opera-singers-covid-19-treatment-eno-breathe.html
A six-week program developed by the English National Opera and a London hospital offers customized vocal lessons to aid coronavirus recovery. By Andrew Dickson Feb. 16, 2021 LONDON — On a recent afternoon, the singing coach Suzi Zumpe was running through a warm-up with a student. First, she straightened her spine and broadened her chest, and embarked on a series of breath exercises, expelling short, sharp bursts of air. Then she brought her voice into action, producing a resonant hum that started high in a near-squeal, before sinking low and cycling up again. Finally, she stuck her tongue out, as if in disgust: a workout for the facial muscles. The student, Wayne Cameron, repeated everything point by point. “Good, Wayne, good,” Zumpe said approvingly. “But I think you can give me even more tongue in that last bit.” Though the class was being conducted via Zoom, it resembled those Zumpe usually leads at the Royal Academy of Music, or Garsington Opera, where she trains young singers. But Cameron, 56, isn’t a singer; he manages warehouse logistics for an office supplies company. The session had been prescribed by doctors as part of his recovery plan after a pummeling experience with Covid-19 last March.
Called E.N.O breathe it is a collaboration with a London hospital, the six-week program offers patients customized vocal lessons: clinically proven recovery exercises, but reworked by professional singing tutors and delivered online. While few cultural organizations have escaped the fallout of the pandemic, opera companies been hit especially hard. In Britain, many have been unable to perform in front of live audiences for almost a year. While some theaters and concert venues managed to reopen last fall for socially distanced shows between lockdowns, many opera producers have simply gone dark. But the English National Opera, one of Britain’s two leading companies, has been trying to redirect its energies. Early on, its education team ramped up its activities, and the wardrobe department made protective equipment for hospitals during an initial nationwide shortage. Last September, the company offered a “drive-in opera experience,” featuring an abridged performance of Puccini’s “La Bohème” broadcast over large screens in a London park. That same month, it started trialing the medical program.
In a video interview, Jenny Mollica, who runs the English National Opera’s outreach work, explained that the idea had developed last summer, when “long Covid” cases started emerging: people who have recovered from the acute phase of the disease, but still suffer effects including chest pain, fatigue, brain fog and breathlessness. “Opera is rooted in breath,” Mollica said. “That’s our expertise. I thought, ‘Maybe E.N.O. has something to offer.’” Tentatively, she contacted Dr. Sarah Elkin, a respiratory specialist at one of the country’s biggest public hospital networks, Imperial College N.H.S. Trust. It turned out that Elkin and her team had been racking their brains, too, about how to treat these patients long-term.
noting how few treatments for Covid exist, and how poorly understood the illness’s aftereffects still were. “Once you’ve gone through the possibilities with drug treatments, you feel you don’t have a lot to give people.” Elkin used to sing jazz herself; she felt that vocal training might help. “Why not?” she said. Twelve patients were initially recruited. After a one-on-one consultation with a vocal specialist to discuss their experience of Covid-19, they took part in weekly group sessions, conducted online. Zumpe started with basics such as posture and breath control before guiding participants through short bursts of humming and singing, trying them out in the class and encouraging them to practice at home. The aim was to encourage them to make the most of their lung capacity, which the illness had damaged, in some cases, but also to teach them to breathe calmly and handle anxiety — an issue for many people working through long Covid. When Cameron was asked if he wanted to join, he was bemused, he said: “I thought, ‘Am I going to be the next Pavarotti?’” But Covid-19 had left him feeling battered, he said; after he was discharged from hospital, he’d had to make several visits to the emergency room, and was prescribed months of follow-up treatment for blood clots and respiratory issues. “Everything I did, I was struggling for air,” he said. He added that even a few simple breathing exercises had quickly made a huge difference. “The program really does help,” he said. “Physically, mentally, in terms of anxiety.” Almost as important, he added, was being able to share a virtual space and swap stories with other sufferers. “I felt connected,” he said.
Alongside the weekly classes he and the other participants were given access to online resources including downloadable sheet music, refresher videos — f ilmed on the English National Opera’s main stage — and calming Spotify playlists.
For the singing element, the tutors had the idea of using lullabies drawn from cultures around the world — partly because they are easy to master, said Ms. Zumpe, partly because they’re soothing. “We want to build an emotional connection through the music, make it enjoyable,” she said. “It’s not just physical.” And how was Cameron’s singing now? He laughed. “I’m more in tune,” he said. The program had helped him reach high notes when singing along in the car, he added. “Having learned the technique, you can manage much better,” he said.
Elkin said that other participants had reported positive effects and she had commissioned a randomized trial to deepen clinical understanding — not least because it would help convince colleagues doubtful about complementary therapies and so-called “social prescribing.” “Some people think it’s a bit touchy-feely,” she said. “They want evidence.” Nonetheless, the program is being expanded to post-Covid clinics elsewhere in England, supported by charitable donations and free to anyone referred by a doctor. The aim is to take in up to 1,000 people in the next phase, the opera company said in a statement. It wasn’t just patients and clinicians that had benefited, Mollica said: E.N.O. Breathe had also given musicians and producers at the company something to focus on during a bleak time. “Everyone’s found it really motivating,” she said. “It’s fantastic to realize that this skill set we have is useful.” Though Cameron wasn’t back to full health, he said, he had recently had a snowball fight with his daughter, a level of exertion that would have been unthinkable a few months earlier. “I’ve got far more confidence than I did,” he said. “That dark feeling has disappeared.” He added that the program had also done something immensely valuable: taught him how to breathe. “Until Covid, I took breathing for granted,” he said. “So it’s a blessing, in a way.”
Brighten a Day
Posted on January 26, 2021 Leave a Comment
This is such an exciting story. It embodies what I would like to do for people with music therapy and makes me think I need to go the not for profit route. I don’t know where to start but an idea is forming.
911 actor with disabilities
Posted on January 23, 2021 Leave a Comment
Michael and I have been watching 911 and I’m so excited that they are showing an actor with a disability playing a child with disabilities.
New Services Available
Posted on January 12, 2021 Leave a Comment
I will be unveiling a new subscription service for Seniors and others who are homebound in 2021. I’m currently available to see seniors and hospice over zoom and doxy.me. If you have a loved one who needs music services and companionship during this isolation period please contact me at 817-456-3048 or alice@adagiomassage.net. There will be a sliding scale of fees for those in need financially.
Jose Feliciano celebrates 50 years of ‘Feliz Navidad’
Posted on December 22, 2020 Leave a Comment
For a half century of “Feliz Navidad,” Jose Feliciano has been wishing the world “A Merry Christmas.” This year, as situations are for so many, it’s a bit different.
“Christmas time is always crazy for everyone,” his wife, Susan Feliciano, said. “Traditionally you add a Christmas carol that people love to hear and love to share with Jose, and he’s usually out there working. It’s very, very busy.
“This year,” she continued, “He’s home, but even though he misses the people out there, he’s been able to work on this lovely project and celebrate 50 years of ‘Feliz Navidad.’ He wouldn’t have been able to do any of this if he had been out there.”
The golden anniversary is taking place across all media.
The song has been reimagined, and performed by 39 musicians from nine countries. The ‘Feliz Navidad 50th Anniversary FN50’ is available on Amazon Music.
Amazon is allowing customers to ask “Alexa, tell me about the song ‘Feliz Navidad’,” or “Alexa, what is José Feliciano’s favorite holiday memory?” and hear a recorded response from Feliciano himself.
New hardcover editions of the illustrated children’s book “José Feliciano’s Feliz Navidad 50th Anniversary” are available in English and Spanish. An animated video by the same title is available exclusively on Prime Video.
The video and book follow the journey of three children — Marie from Paris, Xavier from New York and Camila from Puerto Rico. In anticipation of Christmas Day, the children follow the music of superhero José Feliciano singing Feliz Navidad to people from all over the world gathering to hear the true meaning of Christmas. The video made its debut at the Nashville Film Festival alongside the new documentary “José Feliciano: Behind This Guitar,” which was awarded Best Hispanic Film at the festival.
Feliciano is also marking the anniversary on television. A Dec. 7 appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon was recorded at Factory Underground Studio in Norwalk. He was featured on “CBS Sunday Morning” Dec. 13. There’s a Christmas project with Fox, Susan said, and a streaming concert that will go global Dec. 20.
Produced by Rick Jarrard, the song was recorded in October 1970 and released a month later, but did not hit the Billboard Hot 100 until 1998. It hit the Top 100 again in 2017, and again in 2019, and has been named one of the top 25 most played and recorded Christmas songs by ASCAP.
“When Rick suggested to me to write a song for Christmas, I didn’t know if I could write a song that could meet up with ‘White Christmas,’” or similar songs, Feliciano said. “Those songs, when you hear them as a little kid, you say to yourself, ‘How can I compete with songs like that?’ I’ve always been a competitor. I’ve always been an achiever. I’ve always wanted to succeed.”
But when “Feliz Navidad” was finished, Feliciano was not convinvced.
“Rick thought it was going to be a big hit,” Feliciano said. “I wasn’t so sure. But the minute I heard everything arranged — the music with the arrangement, the strings, the brass … I was really excited.”
The lyrics alternate between English and Spanish, “because I didn’t want the stations to find some reason not to play the record.”
It’s resonated with listeners on a personal level. Susan recalls a father and daughter from New Zealand who would race to contact the other the first time each Christmas season they heard “Feliz Navidad.” Then the artist was looped in.
“It’s being part of somebody’s life,” Susan said. “If you can make somebody smile, if you can take someone outside of what they’re dealing with — and we’re all dealing with stuff — this is a blessing.”
Being home this year has also allowed Felicano to play music with his sons, Jonnie on drums and Mikie on bass, including for the Jimmy Fallon segment.
Daughter Melissa Feliciano Erickson is manager of museum services at The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk.
“It’s a privilege for me to play with my children,” Feliciano said.
“A lot of good things have happened because of ‘Feliz Navidad,’” he said. “The main thing I’m happy about is all the joy it brings to people every Christmas, and all the charities that have been helped by my song.”
Written By John Kovach
Paul McCartney on the breakup of the Beatles
Posted on December 22, 2020 Leave a Comment
Paul McCartney in Rolling Stone Magazine on CBS Sunday Morning Sunday 12/20/20
Paul McCartney discussed his new album, the Lennon/McCartney partnership, the Beatles’ breakup and his Covid-19 “rockdown” during an interview with CBS Sunday Morning.
As correspondent Seth Doane noted at the onset of the conversation, while people in quarantine were learning how to bake bread, McCartney was recording McCartney III.
“The other thing people have been doing has been cleaning out their closets. So that’s a bit what [McCartney III] was,” McCartney said. “I just started cleaning out my cupboards. Like, ‘What about that song last year that I started but never got to finish. ‘Let’s have a look at that, let’s finish this.”
McCartney — who performs all the instruments on his latest LP, like the namesake McCartney albums before it — said of working on a completely solo album, “It’s not like working with the band, because I know what I want to hear, and I don’t even have to tell anyone,” McCartney said. “I just said, ‘Let’s do some drums.’ I’ll sit on the drums and I’ll think, ‘OK, I wanted doo doo doo…’ So, it’s all in my head.”
McCartney added, “One of the songs on the new album, it’s called ‘Kiss of Venus,’ and I wrote it one summer’s day and I got the beginning of it… I thought, ‘I’ll record it, I’ll finish it someday.’ But then I said to myself, ‘No! What have you got? You haven’t got anything on. Sit here and finish that bloody song.’”
The singer was also reluctant to record with anyone else, other than a few engineers at his home studio, due to the ongoing pandemic. “I don’t want to give [Covid-19] to anyone, and I don’t want to get it,” McCartney said. “When people sort of say, ‘Wearing masks is infringing on my civil liberties,’ I say, ‘No. That is stupid.’”
McCartney also talked at length about his songwriting partnership with John Lennon and, over 50 years after the Beatles breakup, whether the band would have ever reunited.
“[Lennon] was showing no signs of slowing up. You know, he was still making great music,” McCartney said of Lennon at the time of his 1980 murder. “The question is: Would we have ever got back together again? I don’t know. We don’t know.”
When asked what he does when he’s driving in a car and a Beatles song comes on the radio, McCartney responded, “Turn it up. Turn it up and sing along with it. It always brings me back to the session.”
Overcoming Obstacles
Posted on December 18, 2020 Leave a Comment
I try to be upbeat and write about my business in terms of what is half full and not half empty but today was one of those days. One client canceled at the beginning I’d the day but after I left home. I took it in stride and did some Christmas shopping so no harm no foul.
At the end of the day I waited an hour to see my last client since I had to wait till she got out of school. They were expecting me as I had been there for massage on Tuesday and several times reminded them I’d be there Thursday for music therapy. so after waiting that hour I went inside and the attendant says to foster mom, where do you want client to do her music. Without batting an eye foster mom looks at me and says oh we don’t want music therapy anymore, I called and someone should have told you. I was speechless. I had just talked to them two days before and it appears that they are discontinuing music because they don’t want us to do music in her room and now that there is more than one foster kid there isn’t a private place to so music and mom doesn’t want to hear us.
Of course, I could speculate all day about what is happening and there is no way to know. I know that a once friendly environment become hostile over the last few months. I have ideas about why this has happened but again, I have no real idea. I feel like it’s tied to the general unrest and division in our world. Though I have made a real effort to never speak of politics or religion I think assumptions have been made about my leanings and this has caused hard feelings. I also know that my expectation of how a therapeutic environment should be managed have not been met. I am pretty sure today was my last visit to this household.
These situations are difficult for me. I always want closure and a positive resolution and I don’t see that happening here. I could hang in until I’m tools not to come back but I feel like maybe it’s better to make my own exit. I have become so nervous about going over there that I am looking for. Ways to avoid it and that’s never a good sign. communication has broken down too the point where I never get a confirmation if they will even be there when I arrive and I hate waiting that hour to find out they aren’t available.
I realize that I need to have a written policy to give clients when I take them on so that we all know what is expected. I’ll be working on that over the next month.
I am also working on my plans to expand my telehealth business with a subscription based service. My main focus will be hime kind adults, not necessarily elderly, but they could be. I also want to continue serving the hospice community in this time of isolation. All the plans help me feel better about the failures. I know that I make plenty of mistakes and I find myself wishing we could all learn to talk to each other.
Therapy by Alice 