'These experiences speak to our human need for delight, comfort, inspiration, joy and consolation.' Photo: Denise Jans / Unsplash.
‘In the fullness of the Spirit there is room for all forms of creativity.’
David Saunders on the power of music
For nearly thirty years I have had the privilege of making music with people in day centres, mental health hostels, hospitals, residential homes and prisons. I have been witness to the power of music to overcome disability, like the Parkinson’s sufferer putting a tambourine on his shaking leg and saying: ‘Look, it’s playing itself!’ Or the chronic stammerer who sang every word of a popular song. One day, as I began playing ‘Around the world in eighty days’, a man with dementia got to his feet, went over to a woman in the group, and did a perfect waltz. He did not know his own name but his wife, now in tears, told me what a wonderful dancer he had once been.
