Striking A Notable Difference In Healthcare Since 2002

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Questions on Instructional Harp

Great! Give us a call.  We would then be able to give you all the details and set up your first lesson which would take place either in our office in Bensalem, PA  at one of the other locations where we hold classes or online.  We can supply you with all of the materials and a rental harp if needed, in order to begin.  After your first lesson you would take all of the materials and rental harp home with you, then schedule your next lesson.  Some of our students come weekly; some every two weeks.  If you’re new to the harp, we recommend that you take at least the first several lessons weekly so your teacher can help with any technical or other issues, should they arise.

We teach at our offices in Bensalem, at three of our New Jersey host hospitals—RWJ Hamilton (Saturdays at their Fitness & Wellness Center in Mercerville), RWJ Rahway (Tuesdays) , the Valley Hospital in Ridgewood (Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays), and online.  Best would be to call our office at 215-752-7599 to register and schedule.

Yes, we have a series of instructional DVD’s called, “Pachelbel Boot Camp,” focusing on harp technique.

Questions on the Certification and Therapeutic Musician Intensive programs

Three good reasons to take the Therapeutic Musician’s Training Program vs. the Certification program;

  1. If you wish to deepen your knowledge base;
  2. If you wish to take a comprehensive healthcare musician training program completely online;
  3.  If you wish to play the harp or another instrument in healthcare.

Yes, if you play the harp, there are a few additional items that need to be completed in that switch to the certification program; among them: taking Module III in person, playing a closely mentored internship (130 Hours), completing a practicum project, and a final exam.  If you play an instrument other than the harp, we would approve you for certification on a case-by-case basis.

Yes, we offer two different payment options for both programs.  For both the Certification and the Therapeutic Musician Intensive programs, the first option is to pay for the whole program upfront.  We offer a 5% discount off the cost of the classroom modules and materials if a student pays for the entire program 30 days before the start of Module I.  The materials for the program and the online ethics course is not included in this discount but in order to receive the discount you must pay for the materials at the same time that you are paying for the classroom modules.  The online Ethics course is through our local community college, and so we cannot offer any discount since registration and payment are made directly to the College. 

The second payment option is to pay as you go through the course.  For the Certification program, you will need to pay both for Modules I and V (internship module) and the materials fee for Module I at least 15 days prior to the start of Module I.  Then you could pay for each subsequent module and materials at least 15 business days prior to the start of that module. 

For the Therapeutic Musician Intensive program, we require payment for each module and the module materials fee to be paid at least 15 business days prior to the start of each module. 

Our certification program is designed to be a two year course of study.  Our Therapeutic Musician Intensive Program is designed to be a one year program.   The modules in both programs are best taken with the same group of people; that is, you would take Modules I, II, III and IV with the class you started with.  Certification students will begin their internships after taking Module III but will have a year to complete their hours.  If you must extend taking the program, one option is to take Modules I and II with one class and then modules III and IV with the next class. Modules must be taken in sequential order.

You have the option to attend Module III in person or online for the Therapeutic Musician Intensive program, but not for our Certification program.  For our Certification program, you are required to take Module III in person.  We charge nothing extra for a Therapeutic Musician Intensive student to take Module III in person, which we highly recommend.

“Taking a module in real time” means that you will connect online with the other online classmates while the class is live and in progress.  The online platform we use is Zoom.  It allows us to be able to connect multiple students taking the course online and also to participate with students who are physically in the classroom while the class is being taught.  We do not record any of the classroom modules, so just like a student who would attend the class for the 7+ hours, you would be on your computer for the entire duration of each class, excluding breaks. Zoom is an excellent, user friendly program.  If you need assistance, we will help you set up a trial run with zoom just to make sure that they are able to have everything set up before the start of the modules.  If you choose to join us online, we will send the materials out to you before the class starts.    

No, all of the classroom modules must be taken live, in real-time with all the students in the class.

You may elect to play all or a portion of your internship at one of the hospitals that host our programs or at a pre-approved facility close to your home.  The advantages of working some portion of your internship at one of our host hospitals are several fold: 1) you would be playing in a harp therapist friendly environment; 2) you could have hands-on mentoring from Edie and/or one of our master harp therapists; 3) you would have the advantage of being able to shadow and be shadowed by one of our professionals.  If you do not live in the area of any of our host hospitals, you may still elect to do a portion of your internship at one of them by choosing to graduate at our Certified Harp Therapist or Certified Therapeutic Musician, Internship Intensive level.  This level involves your playing at one of our host hospitals, 20 hours a week for two consecutive weeks, best done toward the end of your studies, as it offers you the experience of how it is to work at a hospital.

a. The reading lists for both the certification program and the intensive musician training program are identical.

b. and c. You will receive our reading list upon your registration for the program. We require 10 books to be read and reflected upon. There is no minimum number of words for these reflections—most important to us is what you got from the reading and most especially, how it relates to the work of a therapeutic musician. There is also a written practicum project required for our certification course. You will have a separate meeting with Edie once you have completed ½ of your internship hours.  Between the two of you, you will choose a topic of interest to you to write about that falls into one of the following broad categories: The Journey; The Work; The Music.  When you take Module 1, you will receive the requirements for the entire program, along with the proper forms to use for all of your submissions.  There will be no last-minute surprises.

 

Yes, both programs are open to students around the world.  We offer participants to take the course live and in person or online in real time. For the certification program, 3 of the 4 classroom modules may be taken in person or online; however, the 3rd module must be taken in person.  For the Therapeutic Musician Intensive program, all four modules may be taken online.  All of the modules are held in our Great room in Edie’s home in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, about a mile from our office location.

Note to international students: before you register though, keep in mind the time difference and/or travel.  Most of our classroom module days run from about 9:30 am to 5 pm Eastern Time.

We will send you materials prior to the start of each module.   There will be no additional shipping cost to ship the items for each module if you live in the continental United States.  For international students, the cost of the shipping will be paid by the student and will need to be paid prior to the start of each module. Depending on the cost for international postage, it might be less expensive to ship all modules materials to you at one time.  If that is the case we will have separate labeled boxes for each module.  We ask that you do not open any of the materials until being advised to do so.

Well, you will learn how to play by ear and improvise.  Once you master it yourself, whether you go on to teach others to do this would be up to you.  If this is your goal, it would probably be better to take our Teacher Training program.

You will need to record yourself playing 10 tunes simply.

Both our harp therapy certification and our Therapeutic Musician Intensive programs focus on preparing students to play the harp in healthcare.  As you travel through the modules, you will come to understand our model—we are a hospital-based program and as such, we 1) play for patients, visitors and staff; 2) teach staff and the community how to play the small therapy harp for their own healing and enjoyment;  3) train and certify harpists to play in healthcare; and 4) partner with our hospitals in formal research on the effectiveness of harp therapy.  You will also learn healthcare protocols and our philosophy of always behaving like the invited guest—even at the hospitals where we’ve worked over 15 years.  At our 17th annual graduation this past August, the president and CEO of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton stood before a packed auditorium of nearly 100 people and talked about how Bedside Harp makes a difference in his hospital—that for them, treating the body is, of course, a priority; however, for them, treating the spirit is just as important.  We are both humbled by and grateful for the support and acceptance we receive from healthcare professionals who truly understand the value of our offerings.

We have students who come to our certification program who are new to the harp as well as those who are concert harpists. We cater to all of our students’ needs and help them to achieve their goals, whatever they might be. We welcome harpists of all levels to join our Therapeutic Musician Training program and our Harp Therapy Certification programs but we do have a few minor requirements such as submitting a recording of you playing 10 songs simply and having a short conversation with Edie prior to registering. If you have a chance please give our office a call at 215-752-7599.

We prepare and urge you to get paid to do this work of the heart.  That said, there will always be instances where we will offer our music pro bono.  In our view, that should be the exception however, not the rule.

You need to complete our application for either our certification or Therapeutic Musician program and send in a recording of you playing 10 tunes simply.  Once we receive these materials, we would arrange to contact you for a telephone interview.  After you are accepted, you would determine which payment plan you wish to avail yourself of and then register for the class.

Because we keep our classes small (usually no more than 8 in any class), it is wise to register early (at least 3 months prior to the start of Module I) to assure your place.

Questions on other topics

In the Ethics course:

a. we use the 2nd edition of The Ethics of Touch.

b. you will have certain tasks to complete each week. Most of the time you can respond to the questions, scenarios, and topics at your own convenience within that week. We schedule 4 or 5 optional live sessions—usually on Sunday evenings from 8-9pm Eastern Time.  For these sessions we connect online in real time via zoom.  Although these live sessions are optional, they are highly recommended.

c. There are 2 time sensitive assignments for which you will have plenty of time to prepare.

d. Yes there is work with the online Ethics course. You will likely spend approximately 36 hours over the course of the 12 weeks responding to online exercises and participating in live chats.

All of our programs are best experienced in person; however, when that’s challenging or impossible, we try to make them available to those unable to do that.  So yes, the Teacher Certification program is available to take online in real time.

Yes, we welcome all therapeutic musicians to our 100% online “Conversations on Ethics for Therapeutic Musicians” course through Bucks County Community College in Newtown, PA.  The course number is WSMCE 4020. C20 and is offered through the College’s Continuing Education Department.  The best way to register would be to call Elena Lydon, Assistant Director, ConEd at 215-968-8411.

Edie teaches a number of courses.  You’ll need to check with your program head to see if the one you wish to take will be acceptable.  Here are the courses that may qualify:

  1. a 13 week, 36 hour online course, “Conversations on Ethics for Therapeutic Musicians,” through Bucks County Community College that will run 9/19 through 12/19. The cost for that $325.00. You can register for the first two offerings through our office; if you’re interested in the ethics course, let us know and we’ll tell you how to register for that directly through the College.
  2. “Music Theory for the Harp” 10 hours Thursdays 3-5pm : 9/19, 9/26,10/10, 10/17, 10/31 $405.00
  3. “Mindful Eating” 8 hours Mondays 7-8pm 11/4, 11/11, 11/18, 11/25, 12/2, 12/9, 12/16. 12/23 $199.00
  4. You may also wish to check our website to read about our new Therapeutic Musician Intensive, a 167 hour course of study where you can take one or more of the modules for credit.