Rachel’s Blog

A few months ago I received an email from  the Age Concern community development worker I work with, asking if I would like to take the Singing for Fun group to a festival in Long Wittenham, near Abingdon. This year was the 10th annual Wittfest, or Long Wittenham’s Charity Music Festival.  It is free to go along, and any money raised is divided between 2 charities. This year the charities were Pets as Therapy and Age Concern’s Singing for Health programme.

We were given a room from 4.30 in the afternoon, but the weather was so warm and beautiful, and the room a little small, we all decamped to the front garden of the pub….

Now, this side, you sing this bit....

It was great fun to be singing outside – many of the passers-by stopped to join in, and as we continued the crowd grew. At it’s height there must have been between 30 and 40 people, all singing in 4-part harmony.

As well as the act of singing together being a truly wonderful community activity in practice, it also serves as a living metaphor of Diversity + Unity = Harmony.

I was very pleased with the way our session went – the Singing for Fun and Health group from Abingdon really enjoyed themselves, and it was great for them to meet the Witney group, who were still on a high when I saw them on Wednesday. They all had a wonderful day out, and described Wittfest as ‘their own Glastonbury’. A great deal of credit is owed to Lucy Quinn and the proprietors of The Plough for the fantastic organisation that went into the weekend.

I think we’ve signed up for next year! You can view the photos here.

I’m just home from a residential care home, having led a short ‘taster’ session. It was seriously challenging as well as being enjoyable too.

It is a fairly large residential care home, with a fantastic ethos – the activities co-ordinator frequently takes some of the residents to the pub! As with larger numbers of people, there is bound to be a greater diversity of people in terms of their abilities/limitations. Having previously met some of the residents, I wasn’t quite prepared (in terms of variety of songs/resources) to cater for the different levels that I found there. Although the session went reasonably smoothly, and part of the reason for this taster session was to gauge people’s needs, I was disappointed that I had not been able to engage with every person, and draw them into what I hoped to be an enjoyable and uplifting musical experience.

Having said this, many participants did enjoy themselves. Some were singing along and using percussion instruments to beat (or shake) in time. I think a small change of mixing up the people of different abilities would help enormously, as it would enable the less able people to feel more involved.

Key Learning:

• Take in more material than you plan to use, including songs of varying complexity, from the very simple, to the more difficult.
• Develop songs or activities to assess people’s different levels.
• Underline the importance of a tailored music session and emphasise the point of a taster session
• Don’t be afraid to ask staff for small changes in the set-up. They want the sessions to be positive, as much as you do.
• Enjoy it! Even if you feel like you are struggling, keep going, keep being enthusiastic, don’t give up.

A couple of weeks ago I ran a session which went really well. Looking back on the session plan – which is happily written in purple felt-tip – I could see why:

• I thought very carefully about each song
• I experimented with soundscapes, and vocal sounds, not just on songs and song-words
• Many of the songs used very simple guitar chords so I could concentrate more on interacting with the participants
• We varied dynamics, speeds – almost resulting in seasickness during What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor?
• I introduced simple descants over well-known songs
• Participants were encouraged to think of their own words for verses

All of these things, as well as other elements relating directly to the singing and the use of percussion instruments, I feel helped the participants feel more confident about their musicality and the range of sounds they can produce. So, why can’t they all be like this? As I gather new repertoire, inevitably, some of it might be a little shaky – it may take me some time to develop the activities around a song. The key is to keep things relatively simple and to rely on the range of emotions we can employ and convey with our voices.

It was good to see another hospital embracing singing as an aid to people’s health. I find it interesting that it is referred to as singing ‘therapy’. Yes it is therapeutic – but isn’t it simply singing?

I want to draw attention to this wonderful choir based in London. Called Sing for Joy, it is made up of people with Parkinson’s Disease, and their friends and carers. It was initiated by two women who were diagnosed with PD and did not want to sit back and be medicated.

I heard these women speak at a conference last year, and there was something so inspiring about them. I felt they refused to be pathologised in a way so common in the healthcare system; you are your disease. And I felt it must be so empowering to feel, as someone with a life-changing condition, that there is a way of self-medicating, that something you are doing is helping, and you’re not just sitting back and letting someone prescribe drugs for you to passively swallow.

In fact, there is something about singing which is the antithesis of ‘passively swallowing’. Singing is powerfully life-affirming; I am still breathing. This is my voice. My voice. Do you hear me? Listen.

I wanted to track all the potential health benefits of singing, so this post will be updated as I come across more evidence. The World Health Organisation describes health as “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease” (WHO’s Website) For this reason, I’ve divided up the page into 3 categories: Physical Health, Mental Health and Social Health, although of course, they are all interlinked and one aspect of health is bound to determine another aspect of health.

Physical health benefits include:

• Increased lung capacity through developed breath control (singing can help strengthen and tone the diaphragm, a muscle which sits beneath the lungs, and the intercostal muscles. These muscles are essentially what dictate thoracic capacity)

• Improved co-ordination e.g. through rhythm games

• Increased circulation

• Aids speech ability by exercising the mouth, toning facial muscles, and developing ability to project the voice with improved breath control

• Improves and maintains posture

• Stronger immune system – some research suggests that singing promotes the production of two body chemicals that are part of the body’s immune defence system – immunoglobulin and cortisol.

Mental health benefits include:

• Relaxation and release of tension through deeper breathing

• Engaging in positive activity helps alleviate mental distress by offering a distraction and diverting the participant from day-to-day worries

• The boost in self-confidence and self-awareness that comes from opportunities for creative self-expression.

• A sense of joy that comes from feeling part of something larger than oneself.

• Singing produces the same ‘happy’ brain chemicals produced by sex and chocolate

• Improved mental alertness as a result of learning new songs, and new challenges such as singing in a different language or singing in harmony.

• Chance to think or explore issues that are perhaps too difficult to talk about, but which can be examined in a song.

Social health benefits include:

• Meeting new people

• A relaxed atmosphere, conducive to conversation

• Songs which may jog people’s memories, providing a way-in to reminiscence dialogues

• Opportunity to discuss difficult issues in a supportive environment, should these issues arise.

A friend of mine, a freelance writer/philosopher/theologian (who’s blog can be found here) has just scuppered my attempt to convince people in my risk assessment that singing is safe, by saying the following…

“Singing is one of the most dangerously subversive, creative, life-affirming, anti-consumerist activities in the universe. “

Damn!

I was just looking back through my bookmarks – bookmarking always happens fairly haphazardly for me – and I came across this post I found a little while back which I enjoyed, entitled ‘Music and Collective Wellbeing’, from Kevin Harris’ Neighbourhoods blog. Please, have a read! I think it’s interesting the importance he places on relationship – these are ultimately one of the most important things for our overall wellbeing.

I love singing and this project is so much fun for me, let alone the participants! Watching older people engage in a creative experience is very rewarding. Seeing them smile and laugh, and ask to take the song-sheets home at the end is such a joy, for me, and for them. But what else? The Silver Song Club model, run across the South-East region by the charity Sing For Your Life has pioneered singing for older people and have developed, from extensive evaluation of its clubs, a set of criteria:

1. Initiate one-to-one welcoming

2. Invoke memories

3. Stimulate fine motor skills

4. Stimulate grand motor skills

5. Encourage social interaction

6. Encourage client leadership

7. Provide progressive learning outcomes

8. Provide platforms for reminiscence dialogue

9. Give free choice

10. Cover multicultural material

11. Encourage shared performance


(from the Sing for Your Life website)

These criteria help shape workshops which engage with individuals through physical and mental stimulation, no matter what their circumstances/abilities, as well as helping facilitate interaction between the participants, and develop community. Having been involved for a little while with a Silver Song Club, the intentionality of some of these criteria can be fantastic to shape what could simply be a sing-along into something with more structure and purpose. However, it can run the risk of being formulaic, lacking in spontaneity as well as being a little bit patronising. Despite this, it is an extremely good checklist for workshops, particularly those  for older older people.

The group I work with in Witney is a younger group, and on the whole everyone is still physically fit, living independently and not really needing a lot of the above criteria. Most of the participants stay on for a gentle exercise class afterwards, so I try and focus on singing new songs, on engaging their creativity by asking them to come up with new verses or actions, and on harmony singing which many find takes a lot of concentration.

It is my hope to develop my own tools and frameworks to help me when planning workshops for groups that have different needs.

Today was the third in a pilot series of ‘Singing for Fun’ sessions, so it’s more than time to reflect on how it’s going

Location

Singing for Fun is supported by Age Concern and is held on a Wednesday morning in Witney Methodist Centre. The centre is a fantastic example of how churches can really use their premises for social good. Tea and coffee are available cheaply (50p for a cup of tea) in the lobby area, so it’s a relaxed place to come and meet friends, without having to spend a lot of money on an expensive mug of something-you-can’t-pronounce.

People

The first week 8 people came, the following week there were 11 and this week, 10, plus two carers. In all, about 17 different people.

There is no minimum or maximum age on this project – anyone can join in, although because it is on a weekday morning, and supported by Age Concern, the average age I would guess is around 65. The people who attend are mainly quite ‘young’, but it is really great to see a mixture of people of varying abilities and mobilities.

Workshop Set-up

The sessions are set up in a hall with a circle of chairs – so everyone feels included, although occasionally there have been people who simply want to listen, and whilst they are invited into the circle, they sometimes choose to sit at the edge. I sit in the circle – with a low music stand. Participants have a booklet of the songs we will be singing, approximately in the right order. This saves time during the session because there is no handing out/taking in sheets, and it is simpler for the participants to follow.

The sessions run for an hour – although we don’t usually get started until about 10.25 (the advertised start time is 10.15), but as there is an exercise class at 11.30, I try and finish on time at 11.15. It would be great to try and start on time, so I have more time to introduce some more challenging songs…

…please read the next post for some more reflections on the workshop content and structure.