Music in the Supermarket, and other tales...

I played again at a Shaw's Supermarket grand opening, this time in North Conway. You might not think so, but it's a great place to observe people and interact with them. It's much more interesting than playing in a restaurant or bar. There, people expect to be 'entertained.' In a grocery store, the surprise of live music almost always improves their mood, and as one woman said, "This makes shopping, especially spending money, so much less stressful!"

Shaw's may (unwittingly? ... I wonder....) have discovered a new shopping sensation, and I mean that in the most literal sense. Come with me for a day of solo clarinet in the vegetable/fruit and deli section.

Did you know more women than men feel completely comfortable complimenting or speaking with the musician (dressed in black sparkles in front of the mic, by the peirogis)? Within minutes of the first few tunes a woman was by my side saying how thrilled she was to hear live clarinet. She said she'd played for many years, but had to give it up. It was apparent she'd had something seriously wrong with her throat (cancer perhaps?) and she could barely speak, but she didn't have any trouble communicating her delight with this unexpected encounter with another clarinetist.

The wonderful thing about this kind of place for this kind of music is that it does at least three things:
~ Like other places where healing music is especially appropriate, it filters into the conscious part of our brains in an unobtrusive way. There you are, searching through the vegetable section, and into your awareness comes some melody that makes you feel as if you're in the open markets in Tuscany... And the music isn't 'canned,' (fresh foods should be accompanied by live music, don't you think?) it's tangible! The instrument itself is beautiful, and the sounds are bell-like, woody, or whispering.
~ Music helps us to really be. We're not meant to be multi-tasking, or over-burdened, or isolated. We are meant to be compassionate, peaceful, creative, and connected. There's passion and emotion in music without words. There's hope, and energy and rest in music, without words.
~ Finding unexpected music in the most unlikely place is helpful for the soul and the imagination. It's true.. music (and nature, and animals, to name just a few) help us get outside of our tunnel-vision. Music will carry you, strengthen you, soften you and speak to you.

From my point of view, music's greatest gift is to break down the isolation and reconnect us to each other.
A friend of mine yesterday said that to be isolated means to stop existing. He knows what he's talking about. At 26 years old, twelve years ago, he had an AVM. That's like a stroke but different. He was lucky he didn't die, but he has had to learn to walk, talk, write, and everything else all over again. He lives in housing for the disabled. He's treated often as if he's drunk.

We do this, as a society, to the elderly and ill all the time. They're isolated in rooms, in nursing homes, that are built in isolated areas. Anything we don't want to confront, we isolate.
But the other day, a visitor to a nursing home commented, "That's something I've never seen before in a nursing home!" when he saw the musician with a clarinet (me) walking down the hallway with the greyhound (Brother B.) Guess what?? There was both hope and excitement in his voice...

Ninety year old "E" experienced something similar today. He worked his entire life as a lumberjack. While I played, Brother B laid his head across the toe of "E"s shoe. He asked me how I got Brother B. I told him I met Brother at a greyhound shelter, and brought him home with me. "E" wiped tears away from his eyes. I asked him who he was remembering. He told me about "Teddy" a golden retriever he'd had.
Twenty minutes earlier, "E" had been sitting alone in his room, head down, with the tv on.
Now, the music, the memories and Brother B told him he wasn't alone.
"Come back again" he said. "We will" we said.
I heard that at Shaw's and the nursing home....