Institute for Music and Health

We are specialists in  Music Outreach Programs, where trained volunteers and seniors make music together in venues like nursing homes and retirement communities.  Anyone can take part.  You don’t need to be musically experienced, a “good singer,” or be able to read music, yet the benefits for those involved are profound.

The Outreach Model

A Music Outreach is not like a formal performance. The focus is on interaction. We encourage everyone to join in, and use songs such as “You Are My Sunshine,” which are familiar to residents and easy to sing.

The basic idea is for our volunteers to use their music-making to encourage the music-making of the residents. Everyone makes music together with an altruistic purpose, with the emphasis being on that purpose, not on the music itself.  This approach, developed by John Diamond M.D.,  the world’s leading authority on using music for health, uses the power of making music altruistically to enhance lives – the pro-social use of music.  It stems from the belief that Health in the broadest sense is rooted in using our innate altruism to benefit the lives of others.

We:

• run Music Outreach Programs at health-care venues such as hospitals, retirement communities, nursing homes, and have done so in dozens of venues in NY and CT.  Read more»
• train volunteers to participate in outreach, including school children, people with disabilities, seniors, and families. Read more»
• train the staff of  hospitals, nursing homes, schools to run their own outreach programs. Read more»

We have trained volunteers from and provided service trained volunteers from a wide variety of institutions, including schools, health-care facilities, and universities in the US. For a complete list, click here.

Here is a clip from an outreach. This is our Sing Out! Reach Out! program, where children and adults with disabilities interact musically with seniors.