The familiar chorus of When the Saints Go Marching In can do more than get your toe tapping. Enjoying the rhythm of a well-known song can also improve your quality of life – especially if you are a senior. “Active participation in music can reduce levels of anxiety, and decrease depression and feelings of loneliness,” explains Joanne Keenan, who instructs wellness-enhanced music classes for seniors at Schmitt Music in Burnsville.

Keenan, whose students range in age from about 60 to 94, will conduct a seminar on putting fun in your life through music at the upcoming Seniors Spring Show (www.101expos.com), April 2-3 at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel. She explains the many physical and emotional benefits of learning to play a musical instrument like the home organ:

• Music requires the use of the right and left sides of your brain. “It’s one of the few activities humans do that uses both sides. Seniors especially understand the concept of ‘use it or lose it’ when it comes to their mental acuity.”

• Music can change your whole mood. “Playing something relaxing can calm you and lower your pulse rate. Or if you are feeling down, playing something upbeat can energize you.”

• Music can decrease the effects of arthritis. “I’ve had students tell me that playing the organ keeps the joints in their hands from getting stiff. Their doctors tell them to keep doing whatever they are doing!”

There’s also the vital social aspect. Not only are they learning to play songs from their youth, including big band music and the all-important Happy Birthday song, they suddenly find themselves enjoying a new sense of camaraderie. “Becoming involved in music is a chance for them to meet new friends,” Keenan says. “For some widows and widowers especially, music classes become the high point of their week. They come early and stay late.” She recalls one man, lonely and depressed after the death of his wife, who began smiling and telling jokes after just a few classes. “He’s definitely one of our success stories.”

Today there are organs that are incredibly easy to learn to play even without prior experience. “Probably 80 percent of the seniors in my classes have never had their hands on a keyboard before. Many fear that by their late 60s/early 70s, it’s too late for them to learn. But by the end of the first lesson, they are playing with their right and left hands, and reading the large print music,” says Keenan.

She laughs: “Plus, I’m not their third grade piano teacher who will smack their hands if they hit a wrong note. If they play notes that are not on the page, we call that playing their own arrangement.”

The Seniors Spring Show is two days filled with nonstop seminars on health, wellness and enjoying life to the fullest. For additional information and half price tickets visit www.101expos.com. Or call the expo hotline at 612-798-7256

The Seniors Spring Show is sponsored by Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, 5 Eyewitness News, Channel 45 KSTC-TV, Good Age, Casino Magazine for Seniors, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Best of Times, Stressfree Living, KLBB and KOOL 108.

Media Note: For additional information, or to schedule an interview with Joanne Keenan, contact Media Relations, Inc. at 612-798-7220.