Rewarding? Some musings....
Why did you become a music leader?
I have been reflecting on this particularly lately, partly because of many discussions with Plymouth Music Zone's music leading team, as well as freelance practitioners and other music organisations. PMZ is also celebrating it's 20th Anniversary this year and reflecting on the distance travelled in terms of the breadth and depth of its work over this time. One of the most significant changes to our provision has been that we now work with adults of all ages as well as children and young people (currently ages range from 3yrs - 104yrs!)
I have personally been music leading and involved in community music for over 20 years this year, including work with Drake Music, as a freelance musician, performer and composer, in mainstream education, private music instrument teaching and in the last five years becoming part of the leadership team at Plymouth Music Zone as Creativity and Learning Director. I continue to work as a music leader also and am becoming increasingly interested in musician resilience as we delve into increasingly complex work, exploring music and wellbeing for ourselves as well as our participants.
Oh that must be sooooooo rewarding?
Ok, so it’s just a figure of speech, or perhaps just a way that someone wants to recognise your good work. It’s very contextual, subjective and a multi-layered comment / question. However, for you music leaders out there, how do you respond to this question / statement when you try to describe what you do to someone who inhabits a very sort of different working life?
Patronised? Energised? Defensive? Keen to talk more to explain the challenges as well as the rewards within the work? Compelled to compare this with the experiences of the person delivering that statement? Keen to drill down into what that really means to you?
I’ve heard it many times. I'm not saying it's positive or negative, but thought it would be interesting to think about what this triggers in me when I start to unpick it. Even from people who understand the work…”Oh what a gift!” Yes, there are indeed gifts every day. Learning every day. New connections. Profound moments that never cease to amaze and of course, we all need rewards and positive feedback to stay motivated. However, does that question ever begin to feel patronising? Does it make you feel defensive of the less pleasurable aspects of the work? Does it somehow add to the charitable, sometimes pejorative slant that can frame some of the work? Such as, working with people who are sometimes described as from ‘deprived’ areas, or who are socially and economically ‘disadvantaged’, who have a ‘disability’ or ‘dis-engaged’ or ‘vulnerable’….etc. – all words loaded with ‘less than’…which I personally find problematic, but then again, that’s a whole other subject. However, within these ‘less than’ descriptors of people and places is richness, diversity, wonder, creativity and yes….rewards, but who is to say who is rewarding whom?! (Check out The Arts Council’s Creative Case for Diversity if you haven’t done so before: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Diversi...
It must be so rewarding…..
...for us as facilitators, or for the participants, or the effect on the person hearing the impact stories? Like a string of medals and rosettes and pats on the back? Well…all of those things perhaps. A shift of sorts – a ‘becoming’ – a change that we can observe and measure as good or bad on our life’s journey together. A collective experience.
Well….not every participant is going to connect with you and part of us always gets really disappointed with that. It’s frustrating not being able to help. We are so many things as music leaders – teacher, musician, technician, empath, social worker (of a kind!), advocate…the list goes on.
It gets me thinking about all the things that I have not been able to fix or change. I think about those who are ‘not in the room’. Those who I was unable to reach or connect with. And anyway, was it really my responsibility to do that? Is that my ego trying to get some attention from the corner? Because, hey, music (and particularly participatory music making) is not for everyone….and nor am I as a person going to be someone that everyone likes or want to engage with. The experience just might not be very rewarding for them. The old saying is – you can’t be everyone’s friend.
I wonder also whether there is a danger that for those of us working in participatory music settings where intense interactions happen every day, that they become normalised? In a way they do, because I start to expect certain kinds of outcomes from particular situations, but there are still always surprises and these are never less profound. In many ways, I have spent my years sharpening all the tools I use to notice the little things that make a difference within the work and take great pride and pleasure from that. My worst fear has always been that I might stop noticing or that the colours would be dulled down somehow.
In a very different context, but a similar theme of ‘normalising’, I spoke about this with my sister about her work as a nurse in an intensive care setting and also end-of-life care. After many years she now accepts death as quite a normal part of her work at times, but who reflects that in her mind she can never normalise it. She has learnt to accept it. She can remain professional, factual but caring and focuses a lot on the support that she gives to those who are left behind the person who dies. She has found mechanisms within herself to be able to go home to her family life and ‘park’ her experiences for a time. And every day, she goes back into work to face similar situations with different families. However, none of us can really separate out these things from how we really feel and how they affect us more widely.
Yes – there are so many positives to music leading that feed us and enable us to keep hungry to do more. I have made it a daily habit to think about this. It’s something I have to actively do. If I was not here and hadn’t noticed that little thing about that person – what then? I can’t really answer that. However, I do choose to really celebrate those little things that may have helped someone. It’s ok to remember my own value in the work, but sometimes I have just been the person that turned the kaleidoscope for someone to help them find a new pattern or picture. Yes – this was rewarding for someone.
There will always be a dark side to the moon, however, and it can be helpful to have a really good look at that too. The best learning comes from the things that didn’t go so well after all. The frustrating bit is when you think you’ve tried everything and perhaps external influences or a lack of time means that there’s really nothing more you can do about it. That’s life. We also need to be mindful of ‘at what cost’ some things can demand and over long periods of time as a music leader what this really means in terms of our own wellbeing.
It seems quite common among freelance practitioners in particular to feel quite isolated in their work and that having critical friends and time for reflective practice to remind them of the impact they can have on others is really helpful.
My work across different age ranges (from Early Years to working in residential care settings and lots in between) has consistently brought me new challenges. Alongside wonderful work with energetic, thoughtful and creative music leaders and young people, I encounter a lot of not-so-rewarding aspects, such as frustration and loss. I see patterns of behaviours running through families – perpetuations of sadness or negative behaviours passed between people. I witness things that cannot be remedied, changed or questions that have no answers. I hear the frustrations of wonderful, creative teachers trying to shoehorn music into a cramped curriculum with many barriers in their way. I hear about the decline in music opportunities in schools and the reduction of students taking up arts subjects into higher education. I hear all the discussions about the charity / voluntary sector trying to plug gaps left through insufficient funding and the various plans to try and help us to be a healthier society overall. I regularly get news that one of my older participants has died. This always affects me deeply. So…is it still rewarding? With some re-framing in my mind, it drives me even more within the work. I did make a difference and I was part of someone’s life for a little bit of time, making music and thinking together. If there’s a challenge – let’s keep trying to make a difference and do something about the not-so-good things in life. Then…..that’s rewarding!