A Piano in the Lobby: Can Live Music Make a Difference in the Lives of Hospital Patients & Families?

The Problem

For many months visitors of C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital looked on as the lovely baby grand piano in the lobby remained silent. Some remembered a time when there was live music and missed it dearly. Music therapist, Jesse Morgan, is a talented and practiced pianist that has been playing for 40 years! He was aware that visitors of the hospital, be them patients, families of patients, or staff experience serious stressors. People are born, people die, and people have many experiences in between in hospitals every day and there are many strong emotions associated with these experiences. Children especially have expressed anxiety in anticipation of hospital visits. The lobby of the hospital is a common space that most members of the community pass through on a regular basis. Jesse sought to discover if live music in this lobby would make a difference in the experience of hospital visitors.

The Experiment

Jesse started researching stressors experienced by people in hospitals and the effects music in lobbies had on them. He built off the initial research of former Mott Music Therapy Fellow Sophie Heitkamp, MT-BC, and, with the help of Sophie’s Place Manager Meredith Irvine, he came up with a survey of five questions. He started by interviewing people in the hospital lobby when there was no live music being played. He interviewed 33 people in the lobby and all 33 reported that they would have a better experience in the hospital, had there been live music. It was time to put that to the test and add music!

Eastern Michigan University music therapy student Kathleen Cicero volunteered to engage people in Mott’s lobby to take the survey while the sound of the baby grand piano filled the lobby with songs by Debussy, Beethoven, Disney, Broadway, Rock, Pop and Country, R&B, and Soul. Jesse spent hours playing the baby grand in the lobby and made sure to incorporate many genres, including songs kids would appreciate. Over time he interviewed 108 hospital-goers about their experience with the music. Of 108 people, 106 reported that live music in the lobby made them feel more welcome in the hospital and improved their experience. That is nearly 99% of people in the hospital lobby!

Some notable things these people said about their thoughts on the live music are as follows:

“[The music is] a ray of love through sad and hard times [and it] makes you feel better.”

“This is also incredibly important for staff. These last 10 minutes have completely changed my day. I just finished a stressful clinic and needed a couple minutes of peace and beauty. Thank you!”

“Music calms my child coming in before appointments. It makes him less apprehensive.”

“Life has brought me to this lobby many times. It is my second time hearing the piano being played. It has helped both times.”

“A few months ago as I exited the Mott elevator into the lobby, I heard the piano for the first time in 2 yrs. I cried. Unexpected, as a load I had not acknowledged lifted. Thank you to the musician. More music, more often please.”

Someone even wrote: “I wasn’t here when the piano was playing but it is painfully cold and dull in the silence.”

The Conclusion

One of the reasons this study was such a success is that, as a board certified music therapist, Jesse has training on what kinds of music to use and how to pay attention to the lobby atmosphere and transition between moods therapeutically. If other musicians were to be hired or accepted as volunteers in the lobby they could also be trained by the music therapists to know what kind of music would help the most. Jesse uses his years of experience working in public schools, public libraries, homeless shelters, churches and as primary caregiver to his children, to develop meaningful relationships, however short, with those who engage in the music with him, either by listening or sometimes even playing along. Music is the transformative agent in music therapy, and therapy happens within the professional relationship between therapist and the patient.

When I interviewed Jesse about why he chose to conduct this research he told me that he “wanted to improve the daily life of folks in the hospital…One place that everyone has to go through is the lobby…and so the lobby seemed like a good place to start.” He told me about how music creates a safe space for people to feel their feelings in a way that is much-needed in the lobby of a hospital. He continued: “Music connects with people on a human level and helps them feel like they aren’t just whatever their diagnosis is.”

Since finding these results, Jesse has been playing the piano in the lobby from 12-1PM (the time window that the lobby is busiest) almost daily. On any given weekday, during that time, you will find environmental services workers, administrators, nurses, techs, as well as patients (those able to leave their rooms) and their caregivers, all relaxing during their lunches. Listeners request songs and share stories that the music reminds them of. Adventurous tales, sad stories, funny ones…the music touches us, helps us feel our emotions and, above all, it reminds us we are human, and we are all connected. Music is the thread that stitches us together and helps us feel together through the tragedies and triumphs of our lives, and everything in between.

Overall, this was a great success and we can definitely conclude that something small like music playing in a hospital lobby can make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.