Connections that matter

For 20 years, David Falcone, Ph.D., has helped create moments of peace and relaxation for local hospital patients as a volunteer guitar player with Musicians on Call.

(Photo credit: Eric Sucar, University of Pennsylvania) Falcone estimates that roughly 75% of the rooms he visits each night want some music, but even if only one person wants to hear him play, the night has still been worthwhile, he said. He benefits as much from performing as the patients do from listening.

For more information about Musicians on Call, or to volunteer as a guide or musician, visit the MOC website.

A lifelong guitar player, David Falcone, Ph.D., understands the power of music. For over 20 years, he's been sharing that with patients at hospitals in Philadelphia and the surrounding areas as a volunteer with Musicians on Call (MOC).

"The real focus here is the music, not me, it's the music," Falcone, a professor emeritus in La Salle University's Psychology Department, said. "The program has found a way to bring music to the hospitals, and I happen to be one of the lucky folks that is a carrier of the music. And all of this is about the patients. It's about taking care in a way that music can."

Founded in New York City in 1999 by two music industry professionals who had lost loved ones after long hospital stays, Musicians on Call is an organization that takes volunteers acting as guides and musicians to healthcare facilities to play music at the bedside for patients and their visitors. During each volunteer shift, one guide and one musician will be paired together, going from room to room playing for the people who are interested. When MOC was looking for a second city to operate in, they partnered with the University of Pennsylvania's WXPN radio station to start connecting musicians with the program. While he doesn't remember the exact details about how, Falcone, who was volunteering at the radio station at the same time, got involved.

"Why would I have gotten involved? It seemed like a valuable program, it seemed like a program I could get involved in," he said. "And I'm a musician, so it seemed like a nice way to do my music."

Over the past 20 years, Falcone has visited hospitals including the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital two to three times a month to play instrumentals for those who want to hear some music.

"I've played over 550 nights to over 9,000 people," Falcone said. He was also honored as one of the longest serving volunteers at MOC's 20^th anniversary celebration in 2019.

MOC, which is now present in over 20 states, also has streaming and virtual programs, the latter of which Falcone participates in when there's a need.

Having spent so many evenings playing for the program, Falcone has had the chance to see first-hand how impactful these bedside concerts can be for patients.

It's different from typical volunteering, he said, which often aims at directly solving a problem. Food banks exist to help feed people, for example. At Musicians on Call, however, the volunteers are walking alongside the patients as they face their problem, rather than trying to solve it, Falcone said.

"When you arrive, a patient who's undergoing cancer treatment or whatever the particulars are, they have that problem when you arrive and they have the problem when you leave. So, I think the purpose is primarily to provide a moment," he said. "To provide a moment of relaxation, a moment to just lose the fact that they're in the hospital, let the music take them to a place for a couple of minutes."

He's there to serve the patients and their visitors, he said, and play them what they need to hear. He always asks whether they want something lively or something mellow to best meet that moment as sometimes his audience is celebrating or sometimes his audience is recovering from a procedure.

A big part of the time he spends with them is picking up on the energy and atmosphere in the room, watching for reactions and making sure he's feeding into that. Sometimes people tap their feet, or close their eyes, or they record him to share what's happening with loved ones who aren't there. Occasionally, they sing along as he plays his instrumentals, making up their own lyrics to fit the music.

"It doesn't happen often, but it has happened. One time, a patient sang along in Chinese," he said. "I have no idea what he was singing, but all I know is he was singing along with what I was playing and he was having a good time."

Falcone estimates that roughly 75% of the rooms he visits each night want some music, but even if only one person wants to hear him play, the night has still been worthwhile, he said. He benefits as much from performing as the patients do from listening.

"We're all in it together," he said. "So, that moment for them, if it's happening for them, it's happening for me."

A professor for over 40 years, those moments are similar to teaching the perfect class.

"Every once in a while, you have a class that's so daggone nailed it that you take a picture of the blackboard. You know today you taught a concept like analysis of variance in a way that somehow felt like you were prepared the same way, you addressed it the same way, but the students were there, you were there, there was this connection," he said. "And that connection meant everything, because you knew you accomplished what it was you were attempting to do."

Each time he plays for a patient, it's the same feeling. And it makes each bedside concert so much more than just a song on his guitar.

"The thing that's bigger than, 'I played a song and they liked it and that feels good,' is that you were part of some moment that was a connection between people that really mattered," Falcone said. "Remember, you're playing in the hospital, whoever you're playing to, the courage that they show in even inviting you in and allowing something like this to happen, it goes in every direction."

-Naomi Thomas