Parkinson’s doesn’t stop the Trembling Troubadours

vocal volume and articulation,” Elverd says. “The way the music is used can be both actively and passively with the clients. It just depends on what their needs are.

“What makes music therapy music therapy is it’s an individualized relationship between the client, the therapist and the music.”

She says the supportive setting of the Trembling Troubadours creates group cohesion and a sense of belonging. The Troubadours meet every Friday at the Life Care Center of Hixson, beginning each session with social engagement before working on breath support, vocal volume and articulation.

Each Friday session includes breathing techniques in which participants are simply working on breathing in, breathing out, engaging their abdominal muscles and diaphragm to help with that breath control, she says.

“I then integrate it in with vocal warmups where I’m challenging them with different sounds, different speeds or tempo of which we’re singing,” Elverd says, “then we have a standard repertoire that we rehearse and then ideally perform.

“For Trembling Troubadours and anyone receiving music therapy, there is no preconceived notion that they need to know how to sing or read music, play an instrument, or even know how.

Elverd was recently awarded a Tennessee Arts Commission Arts Build Communities (ABC) grant for her work with the Trembling Troubadours. As part of the final report, she was asked to share the project’s impact.

“I thought, ‘Their words are better than my words,’ so I asked them if any of them wanted to volunteer to send me a couple of sentences about the impact of Trembling Troubadours on them,” Elverd recalls.

Six volunteered to write about the group’s impact, including John Rudat.

“I like the social, supportive aspect. Conversations among members are commonly about things unrelated to our affliction, but we do share our experiences regarding the disease and various treatments we are having. Singing about silly love songs makes me smile, but singing our national anthem on July 24, 2022, before the Lookouts game, simply makes me proud,” wrote Rudat, who has been singing in choruses for 50Rudat and the Trembling Troubadours use their singing as a way to offset the symptoms of Parkinson’s.

“My speech and volume are affected, which is common to those with Parkinson’s, but not when I am singing. The breathing exercises remind us that we must breathe from the diaphragm and not the throat.”