I have played for infants in NICU wards (neo-natal intensive care). I have Reiki training, among other things, and am a trained musician with sensitivity. I understood that they should have music that would be good for their hearts, so I played the slow movement of the CPE Bach Sonata, which has a slow, steady pulse, and the strong theme, and the stimulation of ornaments, all of which I played quietly. It seemed perfect, and they all survived the experience.
I don’t think Reiki training is even necessary if you are sensitive and sensible. You should be able to play well. The idea that non-harpists can somehow be trained to perform this task is, to me, offensive. The first harpist I know to do this is Emily Halpern Lewis, who is as highly trained a harpist as you can find. She pioneered this back in the 1980s.
Indeed, it seems to me that certification programs have little value beyond producing income for the organizers, and sadly, it has possibly prevented real harpists who do not have certification from being able to do this blessed work. That is just wrong. Hospitals might require it now, I don’t know, but can only do so because those programs were created, and I doubt they paid much attention to the content of the programs. The idea that a harp therapist should even look at a patient’s medical chart, let alone read it, try to understand it, seems horrifying to me, and a total invasion of the patient’s privacy. I’ve probably said it before, but nothing has changed my mind on this.
What a harpist does need is some counseling, because it is emotionally challenging to play for people who are ill or dying. Reiki helps in that, because it teaches you channeling healing while remaining personally disengaged. Reiki is easily available, if not locally, then online. I only recommend that, because the Usui school of Reiki is very simple at the first degree level, and very principled. One simply channels and nothing more.
Maybe some certification programs have been designed with some substance, I think one I looked at included Reiki training, but turning this into an expensive program, and one that might even discriminate against actual harpists, is something we should all put down, I think.
Something related more harpists could possibly do, though it can be a hard sell, is to play at funeral homes for viewings. Memorial services are, to me, quite difficult to do.
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