Lynda Jardine’s music softens illness and death.

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Lynda Jardine’s Carmel Valley home is a cabin-like abode nestled in bucolic surroundings. A grand piano sprawls out in the middle of the room like a lion; a gold-leafed, pedal concert harp stands next to a small, wooden lever harp.

Jardine’s voice is serene, her eyes as gentle as the valley breeze that whisks through her front screen door.

Her grandmother, a concert pianist, introduced Jardine to the harp when she was 5 years old.

“I was living in Kansas City and my grandmother taught me how to play,” Jardine says, sipping a cup of homemade mint iced tea.

After 25 years of playing the harp professionally, Jardine says she “wanted something more meaningful” in her life.

“I read about music used for healing in a harp industry magazine,” she says. “There are music practitioners who are able to play a certain rhythm and regulate heartbeats of premature babies.”

The Music Practitioners and Music for Healing and Transition Program, Inc. (MHTP) was conceived in 1994 in Sacramento to train musicians to play beneficial and therapeutic music tailored to each individual patient’s condition.

Jardine graduated from the MHTP about a year ago and has been practicing on the Peninsula for 10 months. She says she is the only such practitioner in the area.

“I’ve been working a lot with the elderly; most of their worlds have shrunk to their beds or wheelchairs,” Jardine says. “The resonance of the harp seems to give them an overall good feeling. I help provide a healing environment; it’s not for entertainment.”

Her first client, an elderly woman in a Sacramento convalescent hospital, reaffirmed Jardine’s newfound calling.

“She was very cranky. She told me that she couldn’t get any rest,” Jardine says. “Within 10 minutes, she was asleep.”

Howard Blair, the activities director of the Pacific Grove Convalescent Hospital says Jardine “has had nothing but positive results.”

“It’s rare that the patients, some with dementia, ask for someone by name,” he says. “But they ask if Lynda is coming.”

As she plays the music of Debussy and Bach, Jardine must always be aware of the patient’s breathing patterns and physical condition. She plays differently, depending on the patient’s state.

On Jill Murray’s final day, Dick says it was evident to him that his wife would be dead by day’s end. He called Jardine.

Jardine says she played slow-paced, non-recognizable tunes with rests between each note during Jill’s final hours.

“I play completely differently for someone who is dying,” Jardine says. “The music’s supposed to make letting go easier.”

Dick recalls the last hours of Jill’s life: “I was in a bed beside Jill and we held hands as we listened to Lynda’s harp. Though Jill wasn’t conscious, we communicated through the music. I could feel pressure from Jill’s hand during certain moments in the music.”

To Dick, Jardine is “an angel from heaven” who is “calming and caring.”

Jardine admits that she had tears in her eyes when Jill died but that “it wasn’t a sad experience, it was just a profound experience to be there.”

Semi-monthly, Jardine plays her harp at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. In the Fountain Pavilion, the murmur of the hospital’s background chatter slowly fades as the harp reverberates in and around the glass-dome ceiling above the water. The stress of illness and activity persists throughout the other wings of the building, but as doctors, nurses, and patients pass through the pavilion, they are swept away to a place of peace.

FOR MORE ON JARDINE AND HER MUSIC PRACTICIONING, VISIT lyndajardineharpist.com.