Children's Hospital Charity Choose Percussion Play Musical Instruments

Children's Hospital encourage patients and visitors to go outside, relax and play on the musical instruments together

Client: Soroptimist International, Odense

Location: Child And Youth Psychiatry Centre In Odense, Denmark

Percussion Play Denmark has installed new outdoor musical instruments ‘Harmony’ and ‘Akadinda’ in the grounds of the Child and Youth Psychiatry Centre in Odense, for patients, visitors, and families to enjoy when attending the hospital.

Based on a traditional Vietnamese Bamboo xylophone called a T'rung, the Harmony is made of anodized aluminum tubes arranged horizontally to produce an irresistibly beautiful sound and resonance when struck. The Akadinda is a large outdoor marimba xylophone that produces deep sounds and is perfect for improvising and experimenting with music outdoors.

Akadinda – Outdoor Traditional Xylophone

Harmony – Outdoor Aluminium Chimes

The instruments were donated by the local ‘Soroptimist International’ group in Odense, with funds raised from their raffle at the Hans Christian Andersen Christmas Market. Soroptimist International is a global volunteer movement working at local, national, and international levels to educate, empower and enable opportunities for women and girls and has over 80,000 members across the world.

Staff at the hospital have told us that the musical instruments with their calming tones have proved very successful in relaxing the children. “Sometimes when the children become upset, angry, or agitated they can go outside in the fresh air, play a little music and calm down. Because of their mood, you may expect them to cause some damage to the musical instruments, but no, they simply pick up the beaters and start playing gently on them. After some time they come in again in a better mood”.