DYING
TO LISTEN
ertoire of 500 original songs written in a dozen languages. Most are
no more than two minutes long,
and have been perfected at annual
camps that members organize in
Northern California. The most recent one in April at a retreat center
in Sonoma County drew 140 women. The titles of songs sung during
those five days invoke wonder, ease
and tenderness: “Welcome Home,”
“May Peace be with You,” “What
Light Do You Shine in the World.”
“There is no audition process
to join. All I ask is that you feel
the shiver when you hear about
our work,” says Munger. “A mother’s heartbeat is the first sound
that each of us hears. It feels to
me that women’s bodies are the
guardians of life entering this
world and it feels right that we
will be guardians of the gate out.”
Experienced soloists are often
not the best fit because “projection
of voice is not the goal, softness
and comfort are,” says Munger.
She, Synakowski and other choir
leaders encourage those who like
to sing but lack professional experience to join. It’s easier to teach
them to mix their voices into the
group’s, sing softly and focus on
the dying instead of themselves.
HUFFINGTON
05.19.13
THE THRESHOLD CHOIRS’ ultimate purpose may not be a creative one, but one that’s psychosocial. One of the hardest parts of
dying, say those who have been
at bedsides or been close to death
themselves, is not pain but fear
of the unfamiliar — of a stopping point — even for those who
believe in an afterlife. Feelings of
guilt and regret, too, can stress
the body and mind.
While bedside singers may be
unique in American culture, it’s
not unprecedented. In some Hindu
and Buddhist practices, hymns are
sung near those who are dying,
while mantras are chanted into the
ear at the moment of death. In the
Middle Ages, French Benedictine
monks became famous for establishing infirmaries across Europe
for the terminally ill, where they
used Gregorian chants to soothe
the dying. In more advanced hospitals and hospices around the
nation, music therapists are employed to use instruments, such as
harps, to calm the ill.
And an emerging academic and
medical field, music thanatology,
is studying the effects frequency
and tone have on a dying person,
from changes in heart rate, temperature and respiration to better sleep and reduction in stress.
Studies that have scanned brain
waves near the time of death have