It is said that music soothes the soul, and for the Kamloops Threshold Singers, that is where their work begins.
The local group is part of an international movement of singers who offer gentle bedside music to people who are seriously ill, bedridden, or nearing the end of life, as well as to the families sitting beside them. “It’s lullaby singing,” explained local organizer Valda Roberts. “There’s no projection.”
Instead, two or three singers enter a room, ask permission to sing, and offer a few short, quiet songs selected for the person, usually in the moment. Roberts discovered Threshold Singing about eight years ago after a friend of hers sent a CBC story about a group in Saskatoon.
“As soon as I heard these women singing, the hair stood up on the back of my neck,” she recalled. “I went, ‘Yeah. How do I do this?’”
Threshold Singing is an international group that began in California with Kate Munger, who discovered the calming power of singing while sitting with a friend who was dying. Today, more than 170 Threshold groups sing all over the world, sharing a repertoire created largely by and for Threshold singers.
The music is deliberately simple, repetitive, and non-denominational, allowing singers to offer it to people with many different beliefs. Instead, songs carry messages of love, gratitude, peace, and connection. Singers learn core pieces by memory, allowing them to sing without sheet music and focus entirely on the people in the room.
Sometimes the choice of song comes from what they see. Roberts remembers going into a man’s room where his family had surrounded him with pictures of fly fishing, mountains, lakes, and streams. The singers immediately chose songs filled with images of mountains, rivers, and water.
Another time, they entered a room crowded with 11 family members. Roberts knew immediately which song should come first: “Arms of Grace,” a piece about holding a family in one’s heart and watching over their loved ones.
“You could have heard a pin drop,” she recalled. Afterward, a five-year-old boy turned to his mother and asked, “Are they angels?”
Other rooms are less crowded. Sometimes there’s no family present at all. In those cases, the singers might choose songs of gratitude, thanking the person for their life, their love, and what they have given.
“It just made them feel loved and cared for,” Roberts said. “That’s our job.”
The Kamloops group has been practising for approximately two years and is working to build relationships with local care facilities. They have begun singing at Overlander and hope to find more opportunities to offer bedside singing throughout the community. The group is also looking for new singers and a regular Monday evening rehearsal space.
Musical training or the ability to read music isn’t required. New members simply learn the melody through repetition. Some choose to remain melody singers permanently while others eventually move into alto or soprano harmonies. All are welcome.
Roberts compares the process to learning “Happy Birthday.” Most people know it not because they studied the notes, but because they heard and sang it, again and again.
For Roberts, Threshold Singing is as meaningful for the singers as it is for those receiving it. “I always feel better after than before,” she said. “There’s something about the vibrational tone we create within a space that is kind of meditative.”
Being invited into some of life’s most vulnerable moments carries something deeper, however.
“To be allowed to hold space with them,” Roberts said, “is just such an honour.”