I am not one of those people who walks around all day with an iPod streaming my favorite music direct to my brain via ear-buds, but I do listen to music while driving. Not just on the very occasional long trip up the coast, but daily when doing local errands, and when stopped at a traffic light at a major intersection, or near a freeway off ramp, I often wonder if music would make the homeless people I see there looking for a handout feel better too. “The Soloist” comes to mind (book by Steve Lopez, movie starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr) but Nathaniel Ayers was cello prodigy training at Juilliard in New York when schizophrenia took hold. And there are lots of homeless playing music on the streets and hoping for tips in return.
Still…
I imagine myself driving around handing out free iPods filled with wonderful music of all types – classical and jazz, hip-hop and opera. I can picture scores of homeless toe-tapping their way through our streets, heads bobbing, eyes smiling. But then I have visions of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and realize that medicating with music doesn’t solve any of real problems.
Still…
Food for the soul is nourishing, and the homeless seem to agree. In New York, violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins been performing in shelters for five years — she calls her program Music Kitchen. Recently, at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church shelter, one of her listeners told a New York Times reporter “I look at music as something to get my mind focused off of the other things I’m going through,†and another explained “I’m not stable right now. To hear them play, it motivates me to do what I have to do in the future.†(“For the Homeless, Music That Fills a Void” The New York Times, December 19, 2009)
I spent a little time this morning looking online for any other stories about music and homelessness. I found several reports of concerts to raise money for groups that help the homeless, and some wonderful programs for children like Rock For Kids, a chicago-area non-profit that brigs music classes to homeless and underprivileged youth, but I was looking for stories that explored the beneficial impact that music can have on people. I’ll leave it to you to imagine the look on my face when I read a blog post about a city commissioner in Florida who thinks that “piping opera or classical music into the Five Points area might disperse some of the homeless.” I had a few of my own choice prescriptions for him. Meanwhile, I continue my quest, so if you’ve heard of any pertinent stories, please let me know.