Through his piano music, Ira Serle brings a “breath of fresh air” to the residents of Greenwood House. Photos by Marilyn Silverstein
March 04, 2008
One by one, the tunes trickled off the keyboard as Ira Serle sat at the piano in Greenwood House’s Robert and Natalie Marcus Home for the Jewish Aged — “Embraceable You,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sholom Aleichem,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” “Secondhand Rose,” “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.”
“Yee-hah!” exclaimed 81-year-old Bernie Bennett as the lively notes of the last tune faded into silence.
The music made him feel “very well,” said Bennett, who had been silently accompanying Serle on an imaginary piano during the session as other residents of the home in Ewing sang along. “It’s music — that’s what it means to me,” Bennett said. “I like him. He’s a nice guy.”
Watching from her wheelchair, 89-year-old Dorothy Richman declared the music “marvelous.”
“It keeps our minds busy, and it’s very enjoyable,” she said. “It’s all the different eras of music — classics and jazz — and he plays a lot of ’40s music, which brings back a lot of memories. It makes me feel better.”
“It makes me feel great,” agreed 85-year-old Helen Small in appreciation of a place and event “where people can come and be Jewish people and be connected. We should have more.”
Making the elderly residents of Greenwood House feel great is exactly what Serle had in mind when he began volunteering his time and talent at the nursing home about six years ago.
Last February, Greenwood House made the arrangement official, hiring the pianist as a part-time staff musician. Since then, Serle, who is blind, has been coaxing familiar American and Jewish melodies out of the six pianos at the nursing home and adjacent Abrams Residence assisted-living facility every Wednesday and Thursday.
“Basically, what it comes down to is trying to relax the residents,” Serle said during an interview before one of his sessions. “I do music therapy for the mind. It’s music they can relate to — sing-along standards. We also play a game with them called ‘Name That Tune’ to see how much they remember.”
Raised in Brooklyn in a Reform Jewish home, the 51-year-old Serle said he found his way to the piano at an early age. “I was what’s called self-taught,” he said. “I was a prodigy in this. I started when I was three.”
Although he did have some formal training at the Lighthouse School for the Blind in Manhattan, Serle said, he has learned most of the melodies he knows by ear — some 1,500 of them.
“It takes me two to three times to pick up a song,” he said. “I do all types of genres — jazz, rock, classical. I’m a very humble-minded person,” he added. “I never brag about the talent I have because it all comes from God.”
Greenwood House resident Bernie Bennett keeps pace with Ira Serle’s music on his own imaginary piano.
Others, however, don’t mind bragging for him. “With Ira, he touches our alert residents,” said LaMar Crawford, Greenwood House activities director. “To see some of the expressions on the residents’ faces when they know the activity is going to start — it gives them a good feeling,” he said. “For them, it’s relaxing music.”
Serle’s music is also stimulating for lower-functioning residents and for those with dementia, according to Crawford. “When he plays, it decreases some of their agitation,” he said. “I think one of the things it does for them, it enhances their quality of life.”
Greenwood House executive director Richard Goldstein also welcomes Serle’s contributions to life at Greenwood House. “The residents just love him,” Goldstein said. “He’s just a tremendous person, and the residents love his music. It just perks everyone up when he’s here.”
The interactions with the Greenwood House residents have meant a lot to Serle, too.
“To be honest with you, when I was first doing this, I was really shocked,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to do anything for them. I was kind of surprised by the response of the residents — how much they enjoyed it. I literally have people that are very low functioning come up and have a conversation. They express how much they enjoy this.”
Asked to describe the meaning of music in his own life, Serle replied, “Life, health, strength, happiness — a breath of fresh air.
“I believe if I didn’t have the ability to do it, I don’t know where I would be,” he said. “It’s all therapeutic. And it works; it definitely works.”
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