Services

See the Services section for details of  how Marianne Dietzel and Linda Bergh are serving the community. Linda Is available for individual consultations; Marianne plays the lyre at the bedside. Both are part of a Twin Cities group supporting families wishing to care for their own. Please contact them with any questions.

Linda Bergh  mother of Kirsten, widow of Paul and Jack

I am available for phone or 1:1 consultation regarding any aspect of the threshold. At this time, these services are a part of my volunteer service. I have been through a number of experiences of death and loss, and feel called to be available to others in order to make those times as meaningful as possible. I would like to support people in finding what way it is best for them to support their family member at all stages of illness and dying. It is okay to all at any stage of the process to ask difficult and essential questions.

Music for Healing and Transition : Marianne Dietzel (certified music practitioner) 651-633-0432 m_dietzel@yahoo.com.

Live acoustic music has beneficial effects that can enhance the care of a friend, loved one, or patient in your home or your facility. Professional fee charged by the hour. …. brings the gentle and soothing tones of the lyre to individuals during illness, or around the time of birth or end-of-life. Marianne Dietzel provides this service as a Certified Music Practitioner. She offers music as a bridge to lift the individual out of his/her physically-bound condition to a place of timelessness and beauty where ailments can be soothed, strength and hope renewed.

What evidence we have in hand really does show that music makes a difference. . . If you want to understand the human condition, you can’t ignore something as essential to it as music. Dr. Mark Jude Tramo Institute for Music and Brain Science
Harvard Medical School

What is a Music Practitioner?
Marianne has been trained and certified by the Music for Healing and Transition Program. MHTP is a training for musicians to play live music as a therapeutic enhancement to the healing process and the life/death transition; for the critically ill, chronically ill, the dying, and elderly/children. The training includes classroom instruction, book study and reports, repertoire development, and an internship at a health care facility.

A Music Practitioner provides music as a service to patients to complement other medical treatments or healing modalities. Using variations of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tempo, she can address the immediate needs of the individual for whom she is playing. A Music Practitioner can work in homes, hospitals, hospices and other settings.

What is expected of the patient?
The music played by a Music Practitioner is participatory only in that the patient lends a listening ear. It is not necessary for the patient to interact physically or even verbally with the Music Practitioner. The music is offered as a service to the patient, and is not a performance.
A visit typically lasts between twenty and forty minutes.

Music can be beneficial to patients under anesthesia, and even when unconscious and comatose. Babies – before and after birth – are also responsive to music.

Introducing the Lyre
Marianne Dietzel brings the special qualities of the lyre to her work as a Music Practitioner. The lyre is a small stringed instrument ideally suited for playing therapeutic music. It is held close to the heart while the fingers “stroke” the strings. Developed in the 1920’s, it is the modern form of the ancient lyre of the Greeks and of the shepherd boy, David, whose lyre music consoled the tormented King Saul. Its pure tone creates an intimate musical quality that has a harmonious effect on the listener.

Comments from Patients and Families
“Your music brought peace and joy to my mother’s last months and days. Your presence on the day of her passing also brought much comfort to the rest of the family……….God has chosen well when he asked for your help in the mission you have taken.”

“When you play your music, I look at my painting on the wall, and I am transported to the ocean, floating on the waves.”

“The lyre music allowed my breath to slow down through no effort of my own. I have never felt so peaceful deep inside my body.”

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