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Be active through music: Six Ways to Wellbeing

This week we are thinking about how to be active through music as part of our ‘Six Ways to Wellbeing’ programme in Maidstone in Kent which is funded by Kent County Council, with investment from Artswork and the Royal Opera House Bridge.’. Russ Callaghan Grooms, the project manager, reflects on his early days listening to his walkman and how music, movement and being active go hand in hand.

When I was 12 years old, I took a paper-round to bring in some pocket money and eventually after 4 years hard slog in all weathers, bought my first Gibson Les Paul. Every single morning I would set off with a selection of cassettes in my jacket pocket and conduct my rounds to the sounds of whatever band I’d discovered that week, usually taped from a friends LP (did home-taping kill music?). After a while, I would develop favourites and start to mark the route with certain tracks. I knew that in order to get up the incline of Liander Drive, I would need something pretty upbeat but that on sunnier days, coasting round the estate at the top of Whitehill Rd, I could switch over to something more relaxing. Fast forward to now and the modern obsession in going to the gym and I see that my walkman on my paper-round was as crucial as my iPod is to not only push me through my paces. Judging by the Hi-NRG soundtrack provided by the gym (to which my headphones serve a handy shield to) it would seem that someone else has cottoned onto the power of music to increase heart-rate too.

Mankind has always connected with music to move to. From the first time that someone beat out a rhythm in a repetitive fashion, we have been aware of the way that our body responds and moves to sound. Developed to it’s full potential, dancers can map complex movements to music or indeed vice versa. Composers and producers use strict devices to influence how we move (the drop in Drum and Bass to the half-time change in Metal), or carefully select tempo’s to give us a sense of pace (80bpm in Trip-Hop, 120bpm in Pop, 160bpm in D&B). Lyricists can go down the most obvious of routes by directing dance moves (Shake a Tail Feather, The Locomotion) or give us something that is perfectly paced for a specific dance (think line-dancing in Country and Western or waltz-time in Ballroom dancing). Scientific study is littered with articles extolling the virtues of synchronizing heart-rates during exercise to certain beats per minute and the ability of this synchronization to increase our stamina and raise our cardioid strength.

Whilst I personally welcome government programmes for becoming more active and increased awareness of the links between diet and exercise, I do worry about the proliferation of health clubs springing up in every town as I can’t help feeling that this is simply a cultural shift away from dance-halls and live music venues where the combination of great music and a group of people would inevitably result in movement, an increased heart-rate and a sense of being more active. Dancing and music go hand in hand - if we can step back a little bit to realise that once again, music, along with dance plays a vital role in what it means to be human and that the sense of tapping our feet to a beat is hard-wired into our DNA, not something to become the preserve of the Zumba dance class then perhaps we can recognise that in protecting music in society, we also protect the dance and in turn engender a more active lifestyle.

As Martha Reeves once sang ‘There’ll be dancing in the street’

 

More information about Six Ways to Wellbeing

We are interested to hear what other organisations think about the Six Ways to Wellbeing and will be blogging over the coming weeks about our learning and experiences of the pilot programme.

The Six Ways to Wellbeing are:

  • Connect: People
  • Be active: Body
  • Take notice: Place
  • Keep learning: Mind
  • Give: Spirit
  • Care: Planet

You can find out more about Six Ways to Wellbeing

Website: www.sixwaystowellbeing.org.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/liveitwellkent

Twitter: https://twitter.com/liveitwelluk @liveitwelluk

#sixwaystowellbeing

 

PREVIOUS SIX WAYS BLOGS

1) Introduction Ways to Wellbeing Through Music: Here we introduce the ‘Ways’, look at how our tutors have adopted the ‘Six Ways to Wellbeing’ using music to engage the ethos behind the project and Russ Grooms (Project Manager) reflects on the programme as a whole. Article here

2) Connect with People Through Music: Six Ways to Wellbeing Lucy Stone, our Strategic Director reflects on the minutiae of music making and how music making enables young people to connect with peers and their communities. Article here