Ways to Wellbeing Through Music

Rhythmix is working on a ‘Six Ways to Wellbeing’ programme throughout Maidstone in Kent which is a programme funded by Kent County Council, with investment from Artswork and the Royal Opera House Bridge. 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. 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.

The Six Ways to Wellbeing (www.sixwaystowellbeing.org.uk) is part of a Wellbeing Campaign across the County and we have been engaging young people in four locations throughout Maidstone and in a number of large scale public events. We will be doing more activities over the summer using the Six Ways framework.

Six Ways to Wellbeing encourages people to make small changes to their lives which can make a big difference to the way they feel and the way they cope with challenges in life.

The Six Ways to Wellbeing are:

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

Below our tutors reflect on each of the Ways

Connect: People

‘The project has brought together a new bunch of young people who have never met before but are now a tight knit bunch. The younger people have been connecting with the elderly community and have been learning repertoire from the 1930’s and 40’s.’

‘The individuals that attend these sessions seem to have a positive interaction towards one and another and I am sure this is making a positive impact in the music session's and improving their team working skills’

You can read our first blog here by Lucy Stone, (our Strategic Director) where she reflects on the minutiae of music making and how music making enables young people to connect with peers and their communities .

Be active: Body

‘The playing of instruments, especially drums and guitars has really heightened the physical side of playing music. It’s reminded me that just because I can gig with my instrument for 2 x 45 mins sets in a club, there is a huge physical development involved in being able to even have a guitar round my neck for that amount of time!’

‘During this project it has been great to see that the young people have been effected by music in a positive way with even the most shy individuals dancing and moving to the music they create’

Take notice: Place

‘We’ve taken small groups on ‘sound-walks’ and captured nature sounds; running water from the weir, ducks quacking on the pond, the wind in the trees etc. We’ve then taken these sounds back and manipulated them into new sounds and built tracks from them’

‘I really feel that the young people are starting to appreciate the time, effort and planning that goes into these music sessions and what a luxury it is to have them in their Community Centre. They now help me unpack my car and offer to hoover the room up when we’re done. It’s nice to see them taking pride in the sessions and in the environment they’re delivered in’

Keep learning: Mind

‘For me, this whole project has been about learning; learning new songs. learning to play new instruments, learning to play as a group, learning to use new technology including ipads’

‘While the sessions have been running, it’s been great to see that what I teach them about music and production is fed back to myself in the sessions through their music’

Give: Spirit

‘It is always great to see that the positivity of the young people is strong in the session’s and that the young people have such individualism and various ways of expressing themselves and how they interact with each other’

‘The sense of pride that I get when I see a young person see some confidence in themselves after they’ve suggested a lyric or mastered a chord affects the whole room and lifts the atmosphere’

Care: Planet

‘One small theme we taclked in lyric writing was to get a group of girls to think about what they would like to do when they grow up. They then played the song to an elderly group who were visiting and had a great conversation about what the older generation wanted to be and what they ended up doing. There was a real sense of connection that everyone has aspirations and dreams’

Russ’s Reflections

Whilst it’s been fascinating to read about how the tutors have succeeded in addressing the needs of the project through our music sessions, I can’t help feeling that it was always going to be possible to address the targets of a wellbeing programme through music, so much so that it should be accepted as a universal truth!

Thinking about it, I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced a musical environment, from the smallest community music session to being in the audience when Jimmy Page joined the Foo Fighters at Wembley that intended to hurt or damage the people listening to it (those who aren’t fans of Led Zeppelin may not agree!). Subjectivity aside, even the loudest most industrial gigs are going to be enjoyed by the people that choose to engage with them, regardless of appearing to be violet sonic assaults by others less attuned to the subtle naunces of ‘Agnostic Front’ or ‘Crass’. Whether you experience music as an escapism, as relaxation, therapy, a chance to synchronise your heart beat to 160bpm with 2000 other ravers, gaining a sense of pride from watching a son or daughter play in the school orchestra or simply enjoying learning or re-learning an instrument for pleasure, the ability of music to increase and influence our wellbeing is inarguable.

It’s great to see that Health Commissioners, Local Councils, NHS staff and the wider Cultural Community embracing the benefits of music to and for all. With any luck, (with the relative collapse of the record industry and an ever increasing obsession on the ‘fame’ game that we are seeing in some workshops), this recognition of music, wellbeing and health may see a return to the real value, historical relevance and most of all, an increased awareness that the power of music is written deeply into our DNA and is one of the defining characteristics of what it is to be human. If we can raise the recognition high enough that it is accepted as a universal truth then music will not only survive, it will also help the human race to survive. I for one can’t wait.