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Song a Day Keeping Doctors at Bay in Midwest Choirs 

by Frankie (Amy) Felegy

Two light-skinned people smile and hold open black binders.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Giving Voice
"We have that ability to use music and that powerful rhythm to help synchronize the brain and open up the brain's ability to use more parts of their brain and more efficiently also," says Stephanie Johnson, founder of Music Speaks.

From clef to coda, singers are reclaiming their voices—and so much more—while managing dementia, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.

Scene: It’s December 2023. Reggie Holmes, 72, faces the audience at a choir concert. She’s been singing since she was a baby, but things have changed. 

“I turned around to apologize to the guy behind me. I said, ‘I just want to sing, but it will sound really bad,’” Holmes says. 

“My voice was lovely, but Parkinson’s stole that from me.” 

In the past couple of years, she’s somewhat reclaimed that voice—in large part thanks to Parkinsong Choir in rural Washburn, Wisconsin. Last year, it sprouted from a network of choral groups across the Midwest (and world) for folks with dementia and their caretakers. 

Eyleen Braaten is the executive director of that parent network: Giving Voice, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In it, she sings with her dad, who has dementia. 

“[It] is an opportunity to have a human-centered approach to creating programs that really bring wellbeing to people that are often told that they don’t have too much to give,” Braaten says of Giving Voice, which offers free toolkits for communities looking to start their own choirs. 

A crowd of people wearing white shirts and purple scarves clap, raise their hands, and hold books.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Giving Voice
Giving Voice’s toolkit on how to start a choir like this has been downloaded over 200 times. Giving Voice choirs support anywhere from 25 to 100 singers each.

Getting your song on is proven to boost memory and overall health, especially in cases of dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Polls show music (even just listening) is especially remedial with older adults. Music is social. Active. Even scientific. 

It’s something Stephanie Johnson knows well. In 2009, the board-certified music therapist founded Music Speaks and has worked with clients struggling with communication, memory, learning, early development, mental health … the list goes on. 

“If the brain is not operating in a way that it used to, due to a physical traumatic injury or a stroke or Parkinson’s or dementia, we can incorporate music and help pull the information from a healthy part of that brain back into processing, whether it be speech or motor or cognition,” Johnson says. She’s helped nonverbal clients sing, even when speech remains difficult. 

Three light-skinned people sit around a drum with mallets.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Music Speaks
Stephanie Johnson, left, works with older adults in a drumming circle through Music Speaks.

Think of the alphabet, she says: Would you have been able to memorize those 26 letters, in order, without that kindergarten-famous alphabet song? 

Johnson’s team of music therapists works across the Midwest and beyond, adjusting song tempo and dynamics to meet client needs. But folks without this care access, a local choir, or even a diagnosis can still reap musical benefits.  

Anyone can queue up a beat (may we suggest our Essential Midwest playlist?) and let the brainwaves work their magic. 

“Most often, the western world thinks of music as a song or a genre or an artist,” Johnson says. But what about music as healing? As identity, recovery?  

A group of people smile and raise their arms in a room together.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Giving Voice
“We get a lot of people that come to us and they say, ‘I’m not a singer,'” says Eyleen Braaten with Giving Voice. “And it’s funny how that changes so quickly because your voice is a universal instrument, and everybody’s a singer.”
People smile and hold black binders while wearing white shirts and purple scarves against a dark background.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Giving Voice
Dementia-friendly songs should stay within a certain range of notes and tempos, Eyleen Braaten says, and they should be simple with no repeats (or codas for the musicians out there).
A light-skinned person wearing a white shirt and purple scarf smiles and looks at another person while holding a binder with sheet music inside.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Giving Voice
“I think [this is a] movement of embracing music as a vehicle for joint empowerment, for marginalized populations, whatever they may be. For us, it’s choral singing and it’s people living with dementia and their care partners,” says Eyleen Braaten, Giving Voice CEO.

Singing, especially with Parkinsong Choir, is a source of joy, friendship, and belonging for Holmes: “My voice is not what it used to be . . . It’s still kind of harsh and I have a vibrato you wouldn’t believe,” she says, laughing. 

“But I can sing. And it’s beautiful.” 

Midwest Giving Voice choirs: