Category: Uncategorized
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Warm buildings, warm pianos, warm spirits
“the jigsaw pieces just all fitted together…” It was a damp and blustery day in Newport, on Thursday January 12. Tia was making the one-mile journey along the footpath by the Quay to Mountbatten. Normally it’s a nice walk but by the time she arrived she was more than a little cold and wet. So the dry,…
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“My answer is yes”
thinking about positivity and death The New Year is typically a time when people think about making positive changes in their lives. It is a time for resolutions, resets, fresh starts. It is also the time of year when the death rate is at its highest… For some time, Tia has been reading and writing…
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Mountbatten and me, part two
Realistic hoping at the end of life [this is the second half of Mountbatten and Me published on October 28, 2022] What is there to hope for at the end of life? As with all phases of the life cycle, some hopes are more ‘realistic’, and therefore perhaps wiser, than others. Unrealistically, we might hope that we…
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Mountbatten and Me
an exhibit on facing death and dying together “We were honoured,” Mountbatten say on the website that introduces this exhibit, currently on display at Mountbatten Isle of Wight, “that those who participated shared their stories with us.” “Sometimes those stories were serious and sad. Often, they were hilarious, fun, and full of achievement. The portraits reflect all…
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Pain, Culture and Perception
Linking humanities and sciences to think about painful experience If I feel physical pain, anguish, or anxiety, and I want or need to explain to someone else what I’m feeling (maybe you are a doctor and you say, ‘tell me what the pain feels like’), I need to use modes of expression that stand outside…
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What can happen when…
What can happen when the CEO of a major hospice is also a musician and a trained music therapist? Tia was already familiar with Mountbatten CEO Nigel Hartley’s publications on music, death, dying and care before she first visited St Christopher’s Hospice, Sydenham in 2010. Nigel was then working as Director of Supportive Care (he held that post from 2003…
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Essays
Longer blog entries linked to the project diary… (1) “…beyond words”: The importance of meaning, beauty, places of refuge… (2) What can happen when the CEO of a major hospice is also a musician and a trained music therapist? (3) Pain, Culture and Perception: Linking the humanities and sciences to think about painful experiences (4)…
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“…beyond words”
The importance of meaning, beauty, places of refuge… In 2013 Tia published a book called, Music Asylums: music and wellbeing in everyday life. It was about how many of us turn to music to find moments of asylum. Sometimes that process involves plugging in earbuds and removing ourselves from the world. Other times, it involves locating…
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Resources
Here you can find reading lists and other resources around the topic of culture, death, dying and bereavement. Including a list of Tia’s published work on that, and related, topics. Tia DeNora’s publications related to the project: DeNora, T. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DeNora, T. 2012. Resounding the Great Divide: Music…
Island Life and Death 