Throughout my recent studies of community music, one element has always shone through: engagement. Whether small or large, this is where the communication inherent in music thrives. We see this in the versatility of warmup activities – they introduce everybody; establish equality; gauge people’s abilities; release endorphins and oxytocin1– all the while serving as a springboard for the facilitator to launch into the main body of their session. Despite its power, however, engagement is still the first rung of the ladder of successful community music.
During our visits to Greenacres Care Home, we realised that this would be a challenge. Our group will be a mix of temporary residents (such as those in a half-way house from hospital) and long-term residents, some of whom are dementia patients. We will be delivering our sessions in their main lounge, which we got to see. It was stereotypical of a care home – of the 15 people there, half were asleep, and the rest didn’t seem to notice us. My only experience of leading a workshop has been the opportunities in Professional Studies, this was a stark contrast to a group of eager, trained musicians. Albeit concerning, it made clear to us that if engagement would be hard earned, then our goal was to promote this as possible. This could be the change that we make, the first rung of the ladder was high up for us, but that meant that it was high up for them too, and by reaching it and securing it we had already aimed to make a difference. Once there, we would learn more about our group, ourselves as first-time facilitators, and also the relationship we would have formed. This in turn would allow us explore into deeper waters, but our first priority is to form strong and stable communication.
The first week of our project is designed to get to know everybody and have some fun. This will also be an opportunity for our group to discuss music, and their relationships to it, in a way they maybe never have with each other before. For the first session, employing activities which are more hands-off will initiate the project in a way where each person’s voice is as loud as everybody else’s, an important ethos to have. A care home environment can often curb one’s individuality. Music is a powerful outlet of individuality and group participation is an opportunity for self-expression. Going around the group and sharing our music with a critical and emotional approach (e.g. “I love this lyric, it reminds me of…”), this is like an exercise of identity and self-empowerment, utilising the power of having your opinions being seen by a group of people. By hearing the group in the first session rather than the other way around we also get to learn a lot more about them, which will influence how we run our later sessions.
An idea influenced by an Instagram trend, (there are a few of these, fun yet simple and proven to be highly accessible) where one person names a song and then the next person rates it out of ten, could be adapted where the whole group gives a rating, and then a few people share their thoughts on it. This would everybody the chance to talk about their own song and allow the rest of the group to contribute. Some people will be more talkative than others, and contribute more, whereas others not so much, and we would try to encourage everybody to give an opinion. These group dynamics are helpful to learn as this shows us how each individual person engages. Something to note is how to consider the space we use, organising ourselves into a circle provides the most democratic setup, however the mobility of individuals and their own designated chair could be an obstacle. Knowing how the space affects us in this first session will be one of the key takeaways.
As we move into the following four sessions, we will be delivering reminiscence-based activities throughout four eras of music. This will build a comprehensive journey through the lives of our group. The goal of reminiscence therapy is a supportive yet informal way to connect people to their pasts2. Unlike life review therapy, it doesn’t confront deeper meanings such as regret or identity, which would be unethical to attempt as it is a more psychotherapeutic approach to working with the elderly. I mention this because it helps to outline the boundaries of our reminiscence work, regarding how we can achieve a meaningful outcome without overstepping. These weeks will be a more specific and targeted exploration than the activity in week one, using resources such as BBC Memory Radio and Playlist for Life.
Building a playlist of music over the weeks would offer our group a tangible takeaway from these sessions, and amongst the group it would allow us to discuss how each person interacted with music through these eras. What does the soundtrack of our lives sounds like? And how does the way we live our lives influence the way the soundtrack changes? For instance love or loss, what the people in our lives listen to (one lady we spoke to on our first visit loves anything with a saxophone because her husband used to play), or perhaps more exciting times result in us listening to more exciting music. Asking these questions will create opportunities for individual and group reflection. One person may mention a song that others haven’t thought about in years and open up new memories; discussion is key to this because rather than one person’s story we’ve turned ourselves into a living music library.
The reason we are allocating a lot of our time getting to know our group and taking things at a comfortable pace is because as first time facilitators, we are unsure as to where the comfort zones lie for the demographic we are working with. Our feedback suggested that we continually evaluate our sessions so that we can expand upon what really clicked with our group and grow from there. These inaugural sessions allow us to absorb a lot of information which will allow us to tweak the sessions later on in the project. Having an overarching direction will allow us to be flexible with our activities and responsive to the growth of our group whilst avoiding being unprepared.
I recently undertook a community music skills workshop which included a talk from Music for Mind, a dementia-focussed music therapy organisation. The biggest takeaway from this was to take the focus away from what people can’t do, their disease or their limitations: put it onto what they can do. You’re trying to let people’s individuality shine through, but part of somebody’s personality is also how they learn and experience new things. An elderly person isn’t just a timestamp of who they were when they were younger. This would give us a goal to work with in our later sessions, how can we unlock the potential of our group as each person is today?
We’ll now be on week six, with four sessions before our farewell session. By this time engagement will hopefully be achieved more easily, and we can ramp up the intensity of our sessions and go beyond our initial goal of reminiscence ⇒ engagement and aim for higher rungs on the ladder, such as experiencing new things and stepping outside of our comfort zones. This affords the group with ways they can interact with an activity focussing on the present, and as suggested in our feedback, will work off of the ways the group engaged most with us, tailoring it to the group as a whole and the individuals.
One idea was a rap battle, after talking about how it might be a fun way to teach the group about more modern forms of music that they might not be familiar with and be a cool way to approach writing lyrics. This would match the description of an outside-the-comfort-zone task perfectly, and also be easily tailored match and push the level our group was working at.
Whatever the activities and sessions plan out to be, the most important factor is making sure that there is growth in the group based on the level from the start. By evaluating our role and relationship with the group we can expand upon strong areas and delve into the weaker areas, hopefully leaving at the end not just an opportunity for fun, but an opportunity to address ourselves as ourselves using music as a mirror.
