Gifts at Work: The Healing Power of Music
Dawna Hammers will be screening her documentary, “Music is Medicine,” this month. The project was funded through a grant from the Arts Foundation.
While musician Dawna Hammers can belt out the lyrics to any of Joni Mitchell’s songs, it’s more simple melodies that move her audiences these days.
From George Gershwin’s “Summertime” to Chuck Berry’s “Go, Johnny Go!” to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” her performances at local nursing homes, councils on aging, and in homes where she serves as a caregiver always elicit similar responses – hands clapping, feet tapping, arms moving, and singing along to the lyrics.
What makes these moments so miraculous?
All are suffering from some form of memory loss.
“Music touches all parts of the brain. Sound and hearing are the last thing to leave when people lose their memory,” Hammers said. “It’s such a great way to reach people. I don’t think people realize how important music is for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia.”
Over the past several months, Hammers has been on a crusade to show the power that music wields with this segment of the population.
Thanks to a grant from the Arts Foundation, she recently finished a documentary, “Music is Medicine,” that highlights how music is touching people who are living with memory-related diseases in profound ways. Starting this month, her goal is to show it in as many venues as possible.
Hammers, who grew up in Weymouth, has long understood the impact music can have in moving audiences. I’ve been a musician all my life,” she said, crediting her father, Johnny, who played Dixieland jazz and in big bands, for introducing her to the artform as a child.
Those early lessons stayed with Dawna, who later went to Berklee College of Music for a year before she started playing music throughout New England and eventually settled in Falmouth.
Fans of local music will recognize Hammers who has performed at Falmouth’s annual Jazz Stroll, Arts Alive festival, the Quahog Republic Leeside Pub, and Woods Hole Community Hall. She’s also captured the magic of Joni Mitchell, performing tribute shows to the legendary singer-songwriter at the Cotuit Center for the Arts and Cultural Center of Cape Cod.
These days, Hammers is most proud of her performances for seniors on the Cape where she plays a range of songs, from Native American flute music — “it is very calming and reminds people to breathe,” she said — to upbeat songs like Chuck Berry’s classic “which gets them rocking and rolling.”
She’ll pass out maracas and bells which encourages participation and movement and elicits the most basic of feelings — joy.
“Just to see the reactions and how this benefits them firsthand, especially working with people one-on-one in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, it is so profound how this helps them,” Hammers said.
She recalled one of her patients who used to play classical piano. In her later years, she struggled with the most basic of tasks. Hammers would help her walk to the piano and together they would play. “It would bring such smiles to her face,” Hammers said. “Music was such a friend to her.”
And so it has been with Hammers as well. When asked what music has given her, she pauses, before answering: “Just joy and healing.”
Music Is Medicine Upcoming Screenings
Tuesday, June 9 at 4:30 PM at Highfield Hall in Falmouth
Tuesday, June 16 at 1 PM at Falmouth Public Library
Monday, June 22 at 3 PM at Woods Hole Library
Tuesday, June 23 at 1 PM at Alzheimer’s Family Support Center at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis
Friday, June 26 at 10:30 AM at Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis ($15 admission fee)