The gentle melodies wafted through the atrium on June 1, and people lingered by the second-floor railing for a moment to drink in a few notes before continuing to their destination.
It wasn’t recorded music playing inside the Piedmont Vascular, Heart and Endovascular Center’s lobby that caught their attention. Rather, it was Ralph Beardsworth seated at the hospital’s grand piano playing songs from the list he’d prepared.
Beardsworth spends an hour on most Mondays playing a mix of Great American standards, patriotic melodies and a few requests now and again.
“If I know it, I’ll play it; if not, I’ll wing it,” he said. “I try not to get wild or risqué. Nobody is here for the big entertainment.”
Beardsworth noticed the piano with a plaque that indicates it was donated by Anne and Larry Read “enhance the healing experience of its patients,” when he went to the center to have a procedure.
“I have good rhythm now. I have a pacemaker,” he said and laughed.
His resume, however, indicates he had good rhythm long before the mechanical device synced his heartbeat. The retired educator spent 30 years teaching music, musical theater and chorus to schoolchildren mainly indigenous populations of Alaska and to Native American groups such as the Navajo.
While he plays the piano at the hospital, he also plays the trumpet for the Augusta Concert Band.
“They had the piano…and I wanted to give back a little that way,” said Beardsworth, who is an official hospital volunteer.
Mondays are Beardsworth’s typical volunteer days although if he can’t make a Monday, he’ll come on a Thursday instead. Only instrumental music is allowed; however, no singing.
Beardsworth isn’t the only musician who plays at the hospital. Ray Griggs plays guitar, and Nell Morris has been playing her harp for many years for patients, families and staff.
Volunteer coordinator Amanda Bishop said the instrumental music provides a calming effect in what can be a stressful environment. Hospital staff members have said to her they “are really grateful for the calm.”
They all play different mixes of music and try to find tunes that people like to hear, Bishop said.
“One of the nurses loves Lady Gaga. (Morris) got music to play,” said Bishop.
Since their instruments are easier to move than the piano, Griggs and Morris can play in different parts of the main hospital.
To play the vascular center’s piano or any other instrument at the hospital, people must be registered with the hospital’s volunteer service department. Volunteers go through an orientation, which includes a hospital tour, a health screening and background check, according to Bishop.
Playing an instrument is just one of the ways people can volunteer and use their talents.
“We have tons of opportunities for people,” she said.
Piedmont Augusta has more than 150 volunteers who work in 30 hospital departments from the ER to the gift shop/ To learn more about volunteer opportunities, call 706-774-2208 or email PAGvolplacement@piedmont.org.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named Augusta Magazine’s best local writer in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
