What is the Music Cure?

Everyone knows that music can change a mood, and usually for the better! When I play my harp for patients at Stanford Hospital, often I am told that the music made a big difference to their day – lifting them out of the moment into a better space. And this doesn’t only work for people who are suffering physical pain – how many times have you been in a sad or bad mood, and then heard a song or a tune that made you smile and forget what you were upset about?

One patient I will never forget told me when I saw her after her surgery that when I had played for her just before her operation, she still heard the song as she was going under anesthesia, and it relaxed her and made her feel that everything would be fine. No, the music didn’t cure her – she needed the surgery, of course! The music can’t cure the body, but it can cure the emotional state and the anxiety level. It can lower (or raise) blood pressure, heart rate, respiration -- all physical things that can aid in the healing process and positively affect how you feel. 

Even before I began playing in the hospital setting, and as far back as my teen years, I had felt that music was important in my own attitude adjustments and made sure to have music to listen to and to play that made me feel better, more positive, more relaxed – all the things that would help me function and not sink into sadness. I wrote a song about it in 1998 called “Watch Your Blues Fade Away.” This was before I started playing harp, so it was composed on guitar.

I recently started playing at Open Mics in my area, and I usually bring the harp, but this song needs guitar, so I showed up with my guitar and joked, “You probably don’t recognize me without a harp in front of me…”  Here is my recent Open Mic performance of Watch Your Blues Fade Away:

https://youtu.be/xVvmA4haCIc

You can listen to Watch Your Blues Fade Away on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5W6WeLJ2R6eu07oD8gzQXY?si=52a94d5db26e47c3

You can also find it on Apple Music or Pandora.

And here are the lyrics so you can sing along!

Watch Your Blues Fade Away

© 1998 Verlene Schermer

 

Music is a sure cure for sadness

Music lifts you up above your day

Try list’ning to some bright tune

And watch your blues fade away

 

Music gets inside and delights you

You breathe out a warm, “won’t you stay

Now that you’ve come, such freedom!”

So watch your blues fade away

 

Music lovingly reassures you

Yours are not the only clouds that are gray

And soon there’ll be sun shining

So watch your blues fade away

 

La musica cura toda la tristeza

La musica levanta la ansiedad

Escucha esta melodia alegre

Mira desvanecer la infelicidad  

 

Music is a sure cure for sadness

Music lifts you up above your day

 

What are some of the songs and tunes that always lift your spirits?

 

Friend or Foe?

When I was 5 years old, my family went to an abstract art exhibit in Seattle while on a family vacation.  I don’t have a clear memory of this, but my Dad told a story many times over the years about an incident that happened there:

As the family walked through the exhibit, they noticed that I was missing. There was a bit of a panic as they searched for me. When they found me two rooms back staring up at a wall-size abstract art piece, shaking my head, Dad asked me, “Verlene, is something wrong?” I replied, “I guess he did the best he could…”  Here is an abstract painting that was in that exhibit, although I don’t know if this was the one I was found staring up at:

(Romare Bearden: Abstraction)

With my Dad telling that story several times, it really took root in me, and became my motto for everything I learned to do growing up and as an adult. It’s also my motto in my private teaching. Doing the best you can is really more important than the best in the world – and as a bonus, it’s actually achievable!  

This maybe made me less competitive since I was more concerned about doing my best than being better than anyone else, but I still struggle from time to time with not feeling “good enough.”

Even doing your best can be a challenge when there is a lot of negative input from others. That can sneak into our own way of thinking and add to any self-doubt and sense of not being good enough.

Years (decades) later, I was in a class at San Jose State University that was a performance class (theater, not music) and a student in the class was perpetually unprepared. The professor finally said (in an exasperated tone) “Who do you think you are? Your own worst enemy?” She went on to tell the whole class that we are only sabotaging ourselves by not preparing. She said, “You need to be your own best friend.” I took that line and her advice and wrote a song called Your Own Best Friend, so that whenever I might experience self-doubt, I could sing this to myself as a reminder.

Here is a Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/track/01NOOcCvnz4ISIqqyJQcxs?si=bc2e1881ccfc44e3

And here’s a YouTube link (just the song with the album cover as a visual):

 https://youtu.be/TA5nrYBgis4?is=tqHou557_Zqb2bwf

And of course, here are the lyrics so you can sing along:

Your Own Best Friend

© 1998 Verlene Schermer

 1.         Don’t be your own enemy, don’t sabotage your chances

            No one wants to keep you from success

            Be, instead, your own best friend, encouragement enhances

            Tell yourself to do your very best

 Ch:      And lift your head up, and feel the sunlight

            A friend would want you only to succeed

            And lift your hands up, and feel the fear subside

            Cause love is all we ever really need

            A loving friend would want you to succeed

 2.             Don’t tell yourself “you’re not good enough, why bother even trying?”

            ‘Cause who are you to tell yourself such lies?

            A friend would tell you to be well prepared for what is lying

            Up ahead and out beyond the skies!

 Ch:      So lift your head up, and feel the sunlight

            A friend would want you only to succeed

            And lift your hands up, and feel the fear subside

            Cause love is all we ever really need

            A loving friend would want you to succeed

Bridge:             Don’t make excuses, there’s nothing to excuse

                                Don’t listen to those who say you’re bound to lose,

                        ‘Cause who’s telling you that!

Ch:      Just lift your head up, and feel the sunlight

            A friend would want you only to succeed

            And lift your hands up, and feel the fear subside

            Cause love is all we ever really need

            A loving friend would want you to succeed

Tag:  So don’t be your own enemy…

 

This song is on my Rendezvous CD. If you’d like the whole CD (either the physical CD or downloadable mp3s) you can find it on my website at: https://verlene.com/rendezvous.html

Fall Has Fallen

We call the Autumn “Fall” due to the falling leaves, but I have also noted other kinds of “fall” that seem to happen in these months: As summer is over and students return to school, moods can fall both for parents and students as the summer fun ends and the work begins again. As the days begin to shorten, and darkness falls sooner every night, moods fall just a bit — or a lot. You may have felt this shift in mood  — and I know I have.  But one thing I’ve always loved about Autumn is the colors!

It’s true that no one comes here to San Jose to see the Fall Colors. That’s more of a northeast destination. On the California Fall Color website linked below, which says in small lettering “Autumn happens here too,” you can see how you’d need to go up to the Sierra mountains before you would see much of a fall colors display.

https://californiafallcolor.com/map/

People say that here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we go from Summer to Winter, with temperatures in the 90s through most of October, then suddenly it’s cold and rainy. We have a small maple tree in our backyard that seems reluctant to turn colors until the last minute before its branches are suddenly bare. If you blink, you miss it… But across the street is a tree that lets me know throughout October, that the season has turned to Autumn.

 

It was Autumn one year when I had a poetry class and was assigned to write a poem in iambic pentameter. That same fall, I was in a World Music graduate class studying Indonesian, Chinese, and Classical Indian music (which I particularly loved). So naturally, my iambic pentameter poem reflected both the season, and my new interest in classical Indian music. I had noticed a leaning in on nasal consonants in recordings and a couple of live concerts, so I based the rhyme scheme on the nasal consonants, n and m, rather than on vowel sounds.

Because I love a good metaphor, and nature provided a perfect example with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, that can be applied to life itself, or to the cycle of the creative process, or to any cycle that renews and continues on, I chose to write about the journey a maple leaf takes.

The poem became a song, which I recorded on wire and nylon strung harps with a wooden flute and tablas (pictured here).

You can hear Maple Leaf (which is on my Rendezvous with the Moon CD) on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/3aDrOo2XrtVJjNTbtlmTEX?si=uqsn-oxkSL6_BdKUq0Ma6A&utm_source=copy-link

Or look for it on Apple Music, Pandora, and other platforms. If you still have a way to play CDs, you can order one here (or purchase the downloads if you prefer): https://verlene.com/rendezvous.html 

I made a video and included photos I took while visiting a friend on Vashon Island in Washington. Here is the video on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/bu-dElt66LE?is=sJTx9R7bo0-iNF1X 

Here are the lyrics:

Maple Leaf

© 1998 Verlene Schermer

The maple leaf turned ripely autumn-toned

And fell uncertainly toward the ground

But then was rescued by a whirling wind

And carried to a brisk, impatient stream

 

And set so lovingly and lightly down

It did not sink, but floated swiftly on

And on past apple orchards, meadow lands

And rocky crags.  The river over ran

 

The cliff’s tall edge and with it fell the brown

Half-moistened maple leaf.  “How far I’ve come!”

The leaf exclaimed, “and yet how far from home

With no way ever to return again!”

 

And with the water falling all around,

It plunged into the pool’s dark depths.  And then,

It floated to the surface where the sun

Beat down its warmth to push the process on.

 

The blackened maple leaf could not have known

That it would finally come to winter-in

Among the mildew in the stagnant pond.

But this was not the lengthy journey’s end:

The decomposing leaf would now return

 

Its elements into the pool, the ground

And then into the air where they might find

Their way back to the tree in early spring

To feed her for the new growth on her limbs.

 

And as her spring-and-summer-worth of green

Begins to turn to gold when autumn comes,

She’ll willingly release what she has grown

Because the cycle must continue on;

Because the cycle must continue on.

 

May we always be reminded that the Fall is only one small part of the journey, and that the cycle “must continue on!”

Give Care – Take Care

I have been playing bedside music for patients at Stanford Hospital since 2003, and I thought I’d share a bit about what this means and why I do it.

As you can probably guess, I have played for hundreds of patients over 20 years, and there have been a mix of experiences – both for myself and for the patients I played for. Sadness when playing for an end-of-life, joy when playing for a transplant patient ready to move on to rehab, deep gratitude when playing for patients who were able to sleep for the first time in days.

It wasn’t about playing music that would make them well; it was about playing music that would provide comfort and rest or would (as some patients have said) transport them to a better place. There is evidence that therapeutic music lowers blood pressure and has other positive physical effects, but what the patients would say is that it made them feel better. Feeling better isn’t always about the prognosis – but about a patient’s ability to make peace with where they are.

I began to notice that the patients who always had someone dear to them in the room when I came to play had the “best” experience – even those who were terminal. And no, these special caregivers were not making the patient recover, but their presence helped the patient to bear what they were going through.

Many of these caregivers were family members or close friends. After weeks of visiting the same patient and seeing the same person sitting at the bedside, and noticing the toll it was taking on them, I realized that those who give care needed also to take care of themselves.

I wanted to sing a song to honor those caregivers and didn’t know of one that said what I wanted to say, so, I wrote one. This song is from the perspective of the patient.

You can hear it on Spotify (or look it up on Apple Music or Pandora):

https://open.spotify.com/track/1pr47T7vN0bc3v8pWGYYcd?si=8f387ed72af940fd

I made a video of the song using some patient photos (they gave permission to include them) as well as photos from when my mother was in her last days.

https://youtu.be/yrseVpJ-G-I?si=QHBdw3ChcoxLPOLd

Here are the lyrics – feel free to sing along!

Because You Choose To

© 2013 Verlene Schermer

I never chose to be here lying in this bed
There are many places I’d like to be instead
They tell me I am brave, but I know it’s really you
Cause you don’t have to be here but you choose to
 
I have the easy part, I sleep most of the time
You sit beside me now, watching numbers drop and climb
They tell me I am strong, but I know it’s really you
Cause you don’t have to be here but you choose to 
 
Just come and hold my hand, listen while I cry
Though I’m not the greatest company, I hope you realize
I know the price you’re paying by staying by my side
And I hope you know that I know what you do, when
You don’t have to be here but you choose to
 
They give me medication to reduce my sense of pain
While you are feeling powerless to make it go away
My friends all wish me well, they should wish the same for you
Cause you don’t have to be here but you choose to
 
Just come and hold my hand, listen while I cry
Though I’m not the greatest company, I hope you realize
I know the price you’re paying by staying by my side
And I hope you know I’m grateful that you do, and
You don’t have to be here but you choose to
 
Now those long, sleepless nights are telling on you
Don’t forget as you care for me, take care of yourself too
 
Just come and hold my hand, listen while I cry
Though I’m not the greatest company, I hope you realize
I know the price you’re paying by staying by my side
And I hope you know I love you, and I know you love me too, cause
You don’t have to be here but you choose to
No you don’t have to be here but you choose to

 

Here is a photo of my Mom when she was sent home from the hospital to hospice care. I’m playing the harp, and that’s my younger brother, John, at her side.

Musical Musings -- New Rememberings

I am realizing today that the last time I wrote a blog post was over a year ago. July 2025 in fact. I had written in that post that I was going to be focusing on songwriting and had let you know about a singer songwriter concert I was going to be featured in along with 3 other female singer songwriters called Divas Under the Moon in October of that year.

Well, unfortunately, I had a terrible experience that began on August 30^th and took months to resolve.

Either a virus or an allergic reaction left me with laryngitis – no other symptoms at that point, but two days later, I started coughing from the chest on top of the laryngitis. This is not a good combination. The cough was uncontrollable and no over-the-counter meds were helping. The doctor prescribed something stronger but I broke out in hives. Then she took me off that medication and didn’t prescribe another solution. She wouldn’t see me in the office, and wouldn’t listen to me (actually my husband had to do the talking) so she didn’t take this as a serious issue.

After 3 and a half weeks of coughing with no voice, and no letting up, she finally prescribed an antibiotic and that cleared up the chest infection. She sent me to an otolaryngologist and guess what he found -- two little vocal nodules that were brought on by close to a month of extreme coughing. He prescribed two full months of complete vocal rest.

I had to cancel all my concerts, including Diva Under the Moon, and I had to figure out a way to communicate (without speaking) with my students. I used chat on Zoom, and a text to speech app called Speechify https://speechify.com/ on my iPad for in person students and for concerts in Assisted Living. Instead of singing for those concerts, I played harp instrumentally. The app has several voices to choose from including a few famous people, so Gwyneth Paltrow introduced each tune! And rather than playing for individual patients at Stanford Hospital where it would have been impossible to explain my unwillingness to speak, I was allowed to play in the unit hallways. I had a little card with “laryngitis” to hold up when someone wanted to ask me a question…

In spite of these workarounds, it was still the worst 2 months of my life – not knowing if I’d ever have clear vocal folds again. Singing and teaching require a healthy voice, and I thought my whole performance career in music was going to be reduced to playing background music on my harp…

But there is a happy ending to this story. I went back to the otolaryngologist on January 6^th to have him scope my vocal folds again and the nodules were completely gone – no trace that they had ever been there! I was allowed to speak and sing again. The muscles for singing include the muscles in the larynx and the diaphragm and abdominal muscles for breathing. All these muscles had been out of use for 3 months, so I needed to start building up strength to regain my range, power, and endurance, but I at least was able to start singing again in concerts. Most of these were at the Assisted Living centers and not public, which is why you didn’t get notifications if you’re on my performance mailing list.

And finally, a year after this ordeal, I feel my range and strength has recovered, and I’m back to that focus on the singer songwriter aspect of my musical life.

Remembering again not only how to use my vocal muscles, but also remembering song lyrics, and how to play each original song after not performing them for years, has brought me to the “new rememberings” title of this post. I used that made-up term in a song I wrote about the creative impulse called “Blue on Blue.” Here is a link to the song on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Zr1hhQGnYyS4KcE26QB3R?si=64f3ddba5eab4daa

You can also find it on Pandora or Apple Music (search Verlene Schermer Blue On Blue).

Here are the lyrics:

There is a blue that is deeper than the sea

An ancient inner ache that shakes the heart of me

There is a blue that is darker than the sky

That pulses in the night through every part of me

 

And I touch the formless void & watch the shaping of a world

As I bring some clarity to the confusion

And I see what I have made and say, “it is good, it is good”

Dark and deep, sky and sea, blue on blue

                       

There is a blue that is bigger than the sea

Surrounds and covers me with womb rememberings

There is a blue that is brighter than the sky

It crowns and fills my mind with new rememberings 

 

And I touch the formless void & watch the shaping of a world

As I bring some clarity to the confusion

And I see what I have made and say, “it is good, it is good”

Big and bright, sea and sky, blue on blue

 

There is a blue that is lonely like the sea

It closes in on me and my fragilities

There is a blue that is endless like the sky

Expanding in my mind with possibilities 

 

And I touch the formless void & watch the shaping of a world

As I bring some clarity to the confusion

And I see what I have made and say, “it is good, it is good”

Day and night, dark and light, blue on blue

 

In my next blog, I’ll post about the progress I’ve been making in reconnecting with other singer songwriters, and my adventures at local open mics!

Verlene

Musical Musings -- Change is afoot

The last time I wrote in this blog, it was all about the new duo, Celtic Moon in January of 2024. Here it is, almost August of 2025, and I realize I have been too busy to write for over a year and a half! Wow. Was I really too busy, or had my focus shifted away from inner musings? Playing in Celtic Moon became such a strong focus, that I forgot that there are other things in my life worth pursuing. 

Now, my collaboration in Celtic Moon with my duo partner, Lynda, has come to an end. She is moving on to play with another group, and I will continue Celtic Moon with my longtime friend and musical colleague, Barbary Grant! But my focus is a bit lighter -- not trying for Celtic Moon stardom, but just having fun playing music with Barbary. We'll do a variety of performances, with the focus on playing Celtic music, but not necessarily limited to jigs and reels. I'll still get to play my numerous instruments, and Barbary brings her multi-instrumental talents to the duo, along with her beautiful singing voice. So we'll still have the stunning vocal harmonies and diversity of instrumentation. 

I've updated the Celtic Moon website to include Barbary, but have left up some videos of past performances with Lynda. I'll start to include videos of the new Celtic Moon, beginning with our performance at the Pleasanton Scottish Games on August 31st. 

Our website is at the same address: Celtic Moon Home Take a look and let me know what you think! 

In the meantime, as I said, this will be a lighter focus, which will allow me to include a focus on my singer/songwriter career. While working with Lynda in Celtic Moon, when I wrote new songs, she was happy for us to perform some of them, particularly if they had a "Celtic Moon" feel to them. But that's not all I write... We recorded a CD that included a remake of my song Rendezvous with the Moon (the content fit us so well) and two of my more recent songs: The Goddesses Three, and This Too Will End. But not all of my songs were a good fit. We still have a lot of CDs (also available as USB drives) if you're interested. You can find the "Shop" link in the menu bar of the Celtic Moon website.

When Lynda decided to move on, I started thinking about what it is I really want to do. And yes, I really still want to play Celtic music and play my variety of instruments, and I can't really perform solo on fiddle, mandolin, or nyckelharpa. So yes, I want to continue playing as Celtic Moon, but in addition, I've been missing playing other styles of music with other musicians, and also playing solo gigs where I can play my original songs in addition to cover tunes in a variety of styles. I was just looking over my CDs and realized that, including the two new ones on the Celtic Moon CD, I have recorded 67 original songs! 

So, as a result, I've redesigned my home page: Verlene Schermer & Karmalu Productions to include my performance offerings: solo, Celtic Moon, Silverwood, Parlez-vous Jazz, and Scandinavian music. I put together a little (well, not so little, as it's nearly 20 minutes long) video showing a bit of 20 different live performances, both solo and with various groups. I play harp, guitar, fiddle/violin, nyckelharpa, and tenor banjo, and of course, sing in several styles. 

I am scheduled to perform in a round-robin style house concert with three other female singer/songwriters in October, and will post details on my website soon! The hostess is calling this concert "Divas Under the Moon." I'll accompany myself on harp and guitar for this concert, and I look forward to sharing the stage with three wonderful singer/songwriters. 

Changes are difficult when they are not self-motivated, but I am moving past the sadness of ending one thing and moving on to the freedom to participate in a variety of musical ventures!

Musical Musings -- Out with the Old, In with the New

I think of myself as pretty up to date – I have designed not only my own website, but also a few others (including the new Celtic Moon website – more on that later!)

But one thing I’m starting to realize is that just like 45s, just like 8-track tapes and cassette tapes, fewer and fewer people own CD players, and I still have boxes and boxes of my 12 CDs waiting to be sold to future fans. Hmm… it looks like no one will have anything to play them on. So, I decided to join the march into the future and make all of my music available as digital downloads. 

Yes, a lot of my music is already on iTunes and Spotify and even Pandora, but if you want to have the full album, in its carefully planned out tune order, plus liner notes, and the cover art, you can now purchase them on my website instead of the physical CDs (yay!) You can check them out at: https://verlene.com/recordings.html.

But hey, this wasn’t going to just be an advertisement about my product. I wanted to talk about obsolescence and new tech.

As we are reorganizing where our “stuff” is going with the new sunroom (photos to follow), I started moving our records to a cabinet closer to the record player (yes, we still have one) and had to move books to other locations to make room. I realized that not only do we never play a record, or a CD, but I also never read these physical books anymore! I opened up one of my favorite Ursula LeGuin books and was dismayed that I really can’t read that print without upping my reading prescription. Thankfully, with my increasingly bad eyesight, I can increase the font size on the kindle app on my iPad, and even increase the brightness if needed.

So, I now have several boxes of CDs and several boxes of books that are going to try to find a new home. The record albums we will keep for posterity or because they’re not available online. (A lot of obscure ones in the collection.) We’re just not ready to let them go!

Another great use for the iPad is putting my sheet music on it so I can carry one slim iPad instead of a heavy binder. And it would be one single item for all the types of performances I do instead of a bookshelf full of binders. But I’m still getting used to using the foot switch for page changes. The cool thing about using the iPad is that it’s back lit, so that means we can leave our music stand lights home as well. And one unknown is whether I can see the screen on an outdoor gig. Lynda (my Celtic Moon bandmate) is also working toward upgrading to music on the iPad, but once we’re ready to try them out on a gig, we’ll still bring our big binders for “just in case.”

More new tech: In Celtic Moon, we started playing with my drum machine and Lynda’s looper and are looking forward to being able to add to our sonic palette with this new tech. We will sacrifice some spontaneity with mechanical rhythm devices, so we won’t overuse them! This is less an “out with the old” and more “in with the new.”

In other Celtic Moon news, we’ve added to our videos several tunes from our three recent performances at Wheelhouse of Willow Glen, and they can be seen on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@CelticMoonDuo) or on our website: https://www.celticmoonduo.com/videos.html. We’ve added a number of new tunes to our repertoire that are great fun!

And while you’re on our website, you’ll see our new logo designed by our wonderful artist friend, Deb Knodel. Here it is if don’t want to take the time now to visit the website:

Lynda has sent an email to our fan list and wrote up a lovely description of the significance of each element of the logo:

Red for passion,

Silver for innovation and grace,

a Moon for feminine energy and mystery,

a Wolf for wisdom and communication,

a Shooting Star for imagination,

a Celtic knot for interconnection!

The logo is proudly displayed on every page of our website, and we hope to make it available on a few fun products soon as well. What products do you think we should offer?

Here are some ideas:

T-shirts

Coffee mugs

Tote bags

Pins

Hats

If you can think of other products that would be fun to put this logo on, please let me know! (email info@verlene.com).

Oh, yes, I promised a few photos of the Sunroom progress for those who have followed the recent blog posts. Flooring is in, and we’ve move some of our furniture into it, and I’ve purchased cabinets for my book publishing, sewing, and art supplies. The cats are loving the new space and the rug that will most likely hide any evidence of kitty barf…

Still to come, sofa and chairs, more cabinetry and in the spring, new landscaping with native plants, a walkway, and maybe a water feature!