Music & Disability: a reflection on the Keeping In Time SEN day

Music Leader West Midlands ran a day for musicians on the 5th October titled Keeping In Time: Music and Working in SEN Schools. This is the second blog post about that day by documenter Nikky Smedley.

MUSIC LEADER WEST MIDLANDS - SEN TRAINING DAY AT MAC

On September 25th, mac Birmingham hosted the final major event in the life of Music Leaders West Midlands - a training day for musicians, teaching staff and related professionals who work with people with disabilities.

With the opening session presented by guest speaker, Gus Garside (National Arts Development Manager, Mencap), the day then comprised of workshops delivered by Louise Braithwaite (freelance musician & project manager), Duncan Chapman (freelance composer), Karen Hayes (freelance writer/director) with Lucy Griffiths (Assistant Director of Music, University of Warwick and freelance vocal animateur) and Richard Hayhow (Director, Open Theatre Company), and culminated in a panel discussion.

In this blog, I’ll give you a brief outline of the day and then explore the common threads and themes that emerged.

Gus led a discussion around the nature of music and what it’s for, also discussing perceived barriers to music participation for people with learning disabilities, as well as the barriers they identify for themselves. The central conclusion was that everyone can be a music maker.

Louise’s workshop mixed discussion around her own experiences, with activities that she had used to draw musical engagement from children, utilising movement, sound and mark making, enhanced by her own beautiful oboe playing.

Karen and Lucy worked with song, poetry and drama techniques to illustrate the deeply held philosophies that underpin their work - more of that later - in ways that were enthusiastically embraced by the delegates.

Richard’s afternoon session explored using music and physicality to grow emotional narrative, showing the deep learning for practitioners and participants alike that can occur through non-verbal communication.

Unfortunately, time restraints meant I was unable to attend Duncan’s workshop - but an in depth conversation at lunchtime brought to the fore the ways in which his work organically growing soundscapes, had parallels with that of the other workshop leaders.

The day concluded with a panel discussion chaired by Gus, with questions ranging from the practicalities of sessions in schools, to the key personal skills needed to be effective, to the nature of beauty and Ofsted!

With a commitment to identify 3 things needed to progress; as a musician; as a music leader and as a person who works with people with disabilities; the delegates left a day to which they had brought the same level of enthusiasm, involvement and conviction as those that ran it.

So - from my privileged position as outside observer and documenter, it was utterly fascinating to see how clearly commonalities in practice and experience emerged.

Repeatedly the notion of what music is was discussed - and even more so how perceptions of what music can be, differ. In the context of working with people with complex needs, it was acknowledged that each individual is capable of making their own kind of music, and that the role of the practitioner is, in part, to be sensitive to what is offered up by that individual, to notice it, praise it and be flexible in moving forward - regardless of one’s own agenda.

Pretty much everyone could talk about an experience where the expectations of adults had been, “Here come the music people to do ‘proper’ music” and that whether that expectation had been to lead in singing songs together, or to perform pieces on their chosen instruments - this was a total disconnect with the expectations of the practitioner. It seems it needs to be communicated that playing the instrument, or singing in tune isn’t the most important skill and that performing and entertaining are different things from using music and related art forms as learning tools.

Some got around this problem by describing their work as soundscape creation; some by ensuring that at the outset of any project, time was put aside to discuss intention, method and desired outcome; some by making time after each session to reflect on the observed learning in the session and some by clarifying the process as it occurred.

There was no malice in these discussions, rather an acknowledgement that this attitude is born out of insecurity, nervousness or just downright fear. The feeling of not being good enough at music - now that the expert has arrived, they can take over and do it properly - and an unwillingness to look silly in front of the young people in ones care. Of course, there is a delicate line to tread, being employed, the needs of the employer must be respected too, so it’s imperative that the true nature of one’s practice must be clearly explained.

The pressure of this expectation from others can be compounded when sessions use incredibly simple techniques as starting points, and yet from these simple triggers, amazing things can grow. Duncan articulated the shared belief in organic growth of material created by the participants in a session, rather than moving away from what each individual offers up into another outside entity called ‘music’, or ‘theatre’, or suchlike; to allow what is natural to that individual to develop into something special and unique to them. Richard spoke about allowing music inside oneself, to help discover the emotional narrative, rather than imposing a plot narrative with the brain.

Similarly, all leaders echoed the importance of waiting and patience - that it is imperative to be relaxed enough in a session to allow an individual to work at his or her own pace, not to push, and not be afraid of silence. Louise pointed out that in those silences it’s possible to pick up on breathing patterns, tiny sounds and physical cues to feed into the communal creation - and this had echoes in Richard’s physical work, where music can help free up a person to do much much less with more meaning. Indeed, humans read meaning into everything and in improvising movement to music, narrative creation in performers and audience members is implicit, and how they vary is fascinating.

There can be internal conflict around the need to DO something, waiting for something to happen and what might happen if YOU don’t drive it - but with genuine respect for the child’s expertise, the magical may occur. The power of this focus on the individual to surprise both young participants and adult observers as to what a child may be capable of, is beyond question.

The words honesty; authenticity; real; truth; commitment; openness; trust and the notion of being generous with oneself, came up time and time again - not just in relation to the attitude of the practitioner, but to the experiences offered to the participants.

We all experience a range of emotions, and most of us can cite occasions when music has brought one or more of these emotions to the fore - however, there is often a reticence to allow children, and especially those with complex needs, to explore deeper and/or darker emotions, even in the safe environment of school. Every session included discussion around this, how each individual has a right to explore their full range of emotions, and how music can be a powerful tool to provide a liberating experience in releasing and exploring those emotions. The skill of the practitioner is to manage these experiences, and to ensure that they are effectively ‘shaken off’ at the end of the session.

Although music was at the core of this training day, other art forms were also touched on to a greater or lesser degree; drawing and mark making; theatre; poetry; opera; dance; mime - but all used music not as an add-on, but at the creative core. Music can stand alone, but it has many partners, and all these activities had a common thread more pertinent and central than any other - communication.

The driving force of the practice shared on the day was the desire to find ways to have meaningful conversations in different languages - whether through the language of music alone or languages where there is more than one conduit - the important thing is that conversation and communication happens.

So, to go back to where we came in and the question of what music is, my favourite definition came in Karen and Lucy’s session - although Karen was actually talking about poetry, I believe it holds true for any of the arts:

It is because you believe it to be so.

Nikky Smedley