m4tk in-hospital session
M4tK at Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.
This was a very special day in each of our lives. We arrived at Shriner’s with an open heart, unaware of what lay ahead. After we’d finished setting up our sacred space, the children filtered into the room with their parents and loved ones. Many more than we had been told were coming, what joy! It was a full house, and we were ready, until the hospital staff informed me that none of these beautiful ones spoke any english. As I believe all art is improvisational, we worked with this challenge in that medium and in the end were able to transform our differences and break through all language barriers with the music we made together and our heartfelt smiles. After I had played them our most recent song, “We’re Here”, that we had written only a few days before with our Venice M4tK group, they asked if we could translate it into their native tongue, so we all worked together to translate the song into Spanish. It was such a beautiful, and fun experience to write this new version with them, and once we all started singing, it came together magically. Everyone left with their own copy of the original song, as well as our new Spanish version. A magical memory in all of our hearts.


one comment
Ryan McMaster
24 May 2010
Great post! Thanks for sharing your experiences!