JOANNE Spies

Here’s a link to CATA’s story about the Art Cart - ‘It Fills Me With a Joy I Can’t Explain’

Since 2000 I’ve brought music and artwork to six Berkshire healthcare settings through the Community Access to the Arts Art Cart Program. Visiting people one-on-one in their rooms with my rolling Art Cart, I bring a picture for the wall and an original or old time favorite song. I also work with two memory care groups.

I usually bring my guitar, six string ukelele, RAV Vast drum, or tank drum, which is a recycled propane tank that plays meditative, healing sounds. We have written poems and songs together, and through Story Corps one year I recorded people's stories. I have also worked with HospiceCare in the Berkshires.

One of my favorite instruments is the RAV VAST drum, meditative and resonant. I bring it room to room to play, sometimes creating songs. Residents also can strike each note with a mallet. No one wants to give the drum back!

One resident, who was 103 years-old and deaf, had such a look of joy and surprise when she felt the vibrations from each note as she struck them. All those around her had big smiles too…”Theresa is making music!” they exclaimed.

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https://ravvast.com/partners/handpan360/ Performed by Peter Levitov "The Rav is a truly exceptional instrument in the family of metal tuned percussion. Due to special patented technology there's up to 6 harmonics tuned on each tongue. On a central note of drum there's 7 harmonics tuned. It's possible to separate those harmonics and extend the range of the instrument to full 2 octaves of the scale. Imagine 8 bells tuned to the scale and on each of them all the partials are tuned as well! That's how we would describe the sound of this instrument.

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Due to the pandemic, in April 2020 I began bringing the Art Cart online.

Thank you to Mary Knysh of Rhythmic Connections for inviting me to be a part of this fantastic series .. Music4wellness - Music Alive that featured presenters from around the world bringing music and movement to health care facilities.

This is a great resource page for music and movement activities. My session was presented on July 18th and you can scroll down and find it on the right hand side or here:

I was invited back on November 4th. Here’s some of the music that was featured:

David Darling ‘With Kindness’ on youtube from his ‘Gratitude’ CD

'Las Calles de Medellin' on youtube - Putomayo

The Learning Station - Boom Chicka Boom - Action Songs for kids

…a big shout out to Mike Deaton and Irene Feher for tech support.

In my presentation we moved to a part of the Celtic blessing ‘Deep Peace’ as a call and response with hand movements. I first heard this beautiful blessing in a yoga dance led by Jurian Hughes. Here is her beautiful rendering of "Deep Peace", a Dance Prayer, music performed by Simon de Voil.

Sharing CATA gem prompt - ‘Breathe and Hum’ with accompanying hand movement. CATA is the acronym for Community Access to the Arts, a non-profit organization in the Berkshires of western MA that celebrates the arts in all of us.

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music played for hand duets and dances

Prelude No. 1 - Gershwin from ‘Water and Firemusic’

Joseph Wytko Saxophone Quartet

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Free downloads and links to my music:

A steady groove and an irresistible invitation to focus on different parts of our bodies and celebrate! Hu = breath.

Hu Ray! -> Hu Ray - gratitude dance

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Listen - r e a l l y listen - to different styles of music and encourage movement and embodiment of different rhythms as you hear each instrument.

Song for Air Piano /Jazz: Scratching in the Gravel - Marian McPartland Trio offers a story to imagine as well as piano, bass and drums to embody. An audience applauds as you are on stage at a fabulous nightclub.

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Here is a link to a poem by N. Scott Momaday that invites movement and embodiment of the elements, and is an opportunity to honor other indigenous poems and stories.

'The delight song of tsoai-talee' by N. Scott Momaday

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The Art Cart Performs

Directed by: JoAnne Spies

Singer, songwriter and Art Cart troubadour, JoAnne Spies transforms the words and stories of Berkshire Healthcare nursing home residents into song and performance.

This performance at Shakespeare & Company begins in the dark, so there’s a 5 second delay.

Video created for Community Access to the Arts with residents from six Berkshire Healthcare settings, Youth Alive, Little Sprouts at Williamstown Commons and others.

Fred and I celebrate his 104th birthday.

At Kimball Farms in Lenox, MA and WIlliamstown Commons I work in the memory care unit. 

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   Each line in this poem is from residents at Mount Greylock Extended Care

Poem for Spring

This weather’s not for me

I’ll take the spring and the music

The warmth, flowers bursting out, their beauty

I like the change,

The grass growing,

Seeing the notch on the thermometer go up

So much I like it’s hard to say

I love the mud, the spring peepers, 

The smell of the air, 

Green coming into the trees,

I saw a pure red cardinal

And a bunny with a fluffy tail

I like everything about spring

It’s when baseball season starts

Green grass

The birds coming back

The pussy willows

The spring flowers, daffodils. Their bright colors

The cicadas are coming back after 17 years

When the ground gets to 42 degrees they start talkin’.

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Music Meets Medicine Conference

August 5th and 6th -   Bridgeport, CT

"Story Songs: Using Poetry and Song to Build Community"

Here are notes from my presentation. Thank you to Lynn Miller, Lynn Saltiel and Music for People colleagues for a rewarding conference.

SHARE YOUR PASSION

 How might your interests/ art form meet the needs of the group?

SET UP YOUR CIRCLE

Greet and 'interview' each person in the circle if the size of the circle permits

Share names / simple gestures for each person suggested by their hand movements or story

Begin with an icebreaker / group movement song

'HAND IN HAND' PROGRAM

 VISUAL IMAGES

  Look at paintings of hands: what objects might they hold? what work have they done? 

           what emotions do they convey?

   Rich stories can be told from residents' tracings of their own hands.

  WARM-UPS AND GROUP ACTIVITIES

  Lead group in warm-up with 'air piano playing' to your favorite piano tune

   Invite participants to move their hands in different shapes (circles, spirals, etc) to a lively song,

   then contrast movement of shapes with a slow song/ textures/ dynamics.

   Appoint a conductor to lead the group. 'Freeze' movement when conductor stops music.

    Take turns with other conductors moving fast/slow., etc.      

    Play a melodic song and invite hands to follow melody up and down.

     Invite participants to tell a story using their hands with a beginning, middle and end in one minute.  

     No words needed, use different styles of music.

     Duets: one tells a story with their hands, while the other interprets the story.

     Switch places with the listener creating rhythm for the story told by other's hands.

      CREATE A GROUP SONG

       Choose a style of song:  blues,  country or  a song you know and love well

        Ask folks in your group a question that interests them:  

        what work did they do with their hands?

         Where are they from?

Gathering these words into a song makes for a satisfying and celebratory ending to a session.

        The words you gather fit rhythmically into the verses of your song.

       Get input from the group and work together to get your song sounding the way you like.

      CLOSING  SONG

         "Peace Like A River,"  "Amen" or any personal favorite that people can join in to sing