“LOVING ME AND MY BUTTERFLY WINGS:” A STUDY OF HIP-HOP SONGS WRITTEN BY ADOLESCENTS IN MUSIC THERAPY
A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ______
by Michael Viega January 2013
Examining Committee Members:
Kenneth Aigen, Advisory Chair, Music Therapy Cheryl Dileo, Music Therapy Edward Flanagan, Music Lisa Kay, Art and Art Education
© by Michael D. Viega, 2013 All Rights Reserved
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ABSTRACT
The aim of this arts-based research study was to experience, analyze, and gain insight into songs written by adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences and who identify with Hip Hop culture. This study investigated the aesthetic components of eleven songs including their musical elements, the compositional techniques, the affective- intuitive qualities, and the interaction between the music and the lyrics. An arts-based research design, rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop, was employed to gain a holistic understanding of the songs.
My artistic encounters and subsequent analyses of the songs revealed the complex inner struggles and developmental challenges for adolescents who have experienced extreme trauma. Three groupings of songs emerged: Songs that Protect Vulnerability,
Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love. Each category reflects a different stage of developmental growth for the songwriters. Employing Fowler’s (1981/1995) stages of faith development, a music-centered developmental model of therapeutic songwriting with adolescents is proposed in this study. This model consists of three therapeutic songwriting stages: Imitation, Developing Self-Reflection, and Developing
Self-Love. The implications for this study include developing an arts-based method of song analysis for students and professionals, developing a music-centered therapeutic songwriting assessment, developing a perspective for music therapy practice and research rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop, and developing longitudinal arts-based research studies that track the life of songs across various stages of developmental growth.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation represents the culmination of knowledge that I have gained from my musical, clinical, and scholarly experiences, from my family, friends, teachers, mentors who have supported and nurtured me, and from the clients who have inspired me.
To my loving wife Cat Viega, thank you for your patience, understanding, and support throughout this process. You are a tremendous mother, woman, and my best friend. To my son, Graham Viega, you are an eternal source of joy and happiness in my life. To my Mom, Margaret Doyle, thank you for believing in me even when I doubted myself. To my brother, John Viega and stepdad John Doyle for your love and constant support.
To my Doctoral Advisory Committee, thank you for your invaluable guidance and feedback, which led to the completion of this dissertation: To my chairman, Dr.
Kenneth Aigen, thank you for your mentorship and musical kinship. It is hard to put into words the influence you have had on me; the song “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead comes close. To Dr. Cheryl Dileo, thank you for your vision to provide music therapy programming, like Hear Our Voices, for underserved communities in Philadelphia. Your belief in me has been humbling and I cherish your mentorship. To Dr. Edward Flanagan, your knowledge and expertise of popular music was invaluable to the completion of this dissertation.
To the members of the reflexive team who lent their expertise to this study: To
Dr. Felicity Baker, thank you for your groundbreaking work in defining and understanding therapeutic songwriting. I am grateful for our discussions and for the
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feedback you provided. To Dr. Jaleel Abdul-Adil and Dr. Lisa Kay, thank you for taking the time to provide sensitive and insightful reactions to these songs.
To my fellow peers in the Doctoral Program who offered support, camaraderie, and feedback throughout the years: Andre Brandalise, Nadine Cadesky, Trish Winter,
Heather Wagner, Heeyoun Cho, and Yuki Mitsudome.
To the members of the Co-Pilots for offering me a place to make music, relax, and be with good friends: Scott MacDonald, Bryan Muller, Ari Pizer, and Adenike
Webb.
To all the musicians I have had the pleasure playing with, listening to, and basking in our mutual love of music: Kyle Averill, Jennings Carney, and Van Carney
(Bubba Knute), Brice Woodall, Joshua Frattarola, VJ Hyde, and John Carpente. Your friendships and our musical moments together have been transformative for me.
Finally, thank you to the adolescent songwriters whose songs I analyzed. Thank you for sharing your hopes, fears, life experience, and struggles within these recordings.
You and your songs, have influenced me and impacted my life in innumerable ways, and for that, I am forever grateful.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….……………. ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT……………………………………………….…………… iii
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………. xiv
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………… xv
LYRICS TO ORIGINAL SONGS……………………………………………………. xviii
LYRICS TO REMIX COMPOSITIONS………………………………………………xix
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………… 1
Overview………..…………………………………………………………….. 1
Topic and Purpose……………………………………………….……………. 3
Source of Study……………………………………………….………………. 5
Personal Source………………………………………….……………. 5
Professional Source from which Data Emerged.……………………… 12
Research Questions………..………………..………………………………… 20
Limitations……………………………………………………………………. 21
2. LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………….…………… 24
Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 24
Topic-Related Literature……………………………………………………… 24
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)…………………….………… 24
Music and Psychological Development in Adolescence...…….……… 26
Music and Identity Creation in Adolescents………………….………. 27
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Music Therapy and Hip Hop………………………………………….. 30
Therapeutic Songwriting and Adolescence…………………………… 32
Method-Related Literature……………………………………………………. 37
Arts-Based Research and Music Therapy…………………………….. 37
Music Analysis in Music Therapy.………………………….………… 39
3. DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY………………………………………………. 46
Overall Rationale and Approach……………………………………………… 46
Song Selection and Sampling Strategies……………………………… 47
Data Collection and Analysis.………………………………………………… 51
Materials and Setting for Data Collection.……………………………. 54
Methods of Data Collection and Analysis……………….……………. 55
Stages of Data Collection and Analysis………………………………. 61
Evaluation………………………...…………………………………………… 65
Aesthetic Evaluation…………………………………………………... 65
Authenticity Evaluation..……………………………………………… 66
Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration..……………………………………. 67
Ethical and Political Considerations…………………………………………... 69
4. INTRODUCTION TO THE RESULTS.…………………………………………. 71
5. RESULTS: SONGS THAT PROTECT VULNERABILITY..…………………… 73
Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 73
Song 1: Lost...…………………………………………………………………. 73
Introduction to “Lost”………………………………………………… 73
Musical and Stylistic Elements……………………………….………. 74
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Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 78
Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………………………... 79
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics....………………………… 80
Song 2: My Party...….………………………………………………………… 82
Introduction to “My Party”……………………………………………. 82
Musical and Stylistic Elements………………………………….……. 83
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 90
Affective-Intuitive Qualities………………………………………….. 91
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 92
Song 3: Reek Mugga………………………………………………………….. 94
Introduction to “Reek Mugga”…………………………………………94
Musical and Stylistic Elements………………………….……………. 94
Compositional Techniques……………………………….…………… 97
Affective-Intuitive Qualities………………………………………….. 98
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 99
Summary of Songs that Protect Vulnerability………………………………… 102
Musical and Stylistic Elements…………………………………….…..102
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 103
Affective-Intuitive Qualities………………………….………………..104
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 104
6. RESULTS: SONGS OF ABANDONMENT………………………………………106
Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 106
Song 4:Cryin’….……………………………………………………………… 106
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Introduction to “Cryin’”………………………………………………………. 106
Musical and Stylistic Elements…………………………………….…..107
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 110
Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………………………... 112
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 113
Song 5: Emotional Disaster....………………………………………………… 114
Introduction to “Emotional Disaster”…………………………………. 114
Musical and Stylistic Elements………………………….……………. 115
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 119
Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………………………... 123
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 124
Song 6: Darkness....…………………………………………………………… 126
Introduction to “Darkness”……………………………………………. 126
Musical and Stylistic Elements…………………………….…………. 126
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 132
Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………….….…………. 135
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics……………….……………135
Song 7: Numb....………………………………………………………………. 138
Introduction to “Numb”………………………………………………. 138
Musical and Stylistic Elements……………………………….………. 138
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 143
Affective-Intuitive Qualities………………………….….……………. 145
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 145
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Summary of Songs of Abandonment…………………………………………. 147
Musical and Stylistic Elements………………………….……………. 147
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 150
Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………………………... 151
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 151
7. RESULTS: SONGS OF FAITH AND LOVE……………………………………. 153
Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 153
Song 8: Who’ll Understand?...... ………………………………………………153
Introduction to “Who’ll Understand?”…………………………………153
Musical and Stylistic Elements…………………………………….…..154
Compositional Techniques………………………………….………… 159
Affective-Intuitive Qualities………………………………………….. 160
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 160
Song 9: Love………………………………………………………………….. 163
Introduction to “Love”………………………………………………... 163
Musical and Stylistic Elements…………………………………….…..163
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 167
Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………………..………. 168
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 168
Song 10: A Girl Like Me...….………………………………………………… 171
Introduction to “A Girl Like Me”……………………………………... 171
Musical and Stylistic Elements…………………………….…………. 171
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 177
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Affective-Intuitive Qualities…………………………….……………..179
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 179
Song 11: Butterfly Wings...….………………………………….…………….. 181
Introduction to “Butterfly Wings”…………………….………………. 181
Musical and Stylistic Elements……………………….………………. 181
Compositional Techniques…………………………….……………… 186
Affective-Intuitive Qualities……………………………….…………. 188
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 188
Summary of Songs of Faith and Love………………………………………… 191
Musical and Stylistic Elements………………………….……………. 191
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………. 193
Affective-Intuitive Qualities………………………………………….. 194
Interactions between the Music and Lyrics…………………………… 194
8. RESULTS: RISING FROM THE ASHES……………………………………….. 197
Introduction……………………….…………………………………………... 197
Overview of the Concept Album………………………….…………………... 199
Title of the Concept Album………………………….……….…….…. 199
Stages of the Concept Album………………………………………… 199
Narrative Characters………………………………………...………… 202
Musical Characters…………………………………….……………… 202
Song Narratives…………………………………………….…………………. 206
Overture- Call to Adventure…………………….…………………...... 206
Stage One: Going into Hiding………………………………………… 207
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Stage Two: Down in the Labyrinth…………………………………… 215
Stage Three: “Loving me and my Butterfly Wings”………………….. 220
9. ANALYSIS OF THE AESTHETIC ELEMENTS……………….……………….. 228
Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 228
Musical and Stylistic Element………………………………………………… 228
Keys and Tempos………………………………………………………228
Song Structures…………………………………….…………………. 229
Vocals…………………………………………………………………. 230
Melody………………………………………………………………… 231
Harmony………………………………………………………………. 233
Rhythm………………………………………………………………... 235
Sound Effects and Ambient Textures…………………………………. 236
Compositional Techniques……………………………………………………. 239
Recording Techniques………………………………………………… 240
Production Techniques………………………………………………... 244
Recording Vocals……………………………………………………... 248
Affective-Intuitive Qualities……………………………….…………….……. 251
The Role of the Body…………………………………………………. 251
The Interactions between the Music and Lyrics………………………………. 257
Songs that Protect Vulnerability………………………………………. 257
Songs of Abandonment………………………………………………. 258
Songs of Faith and Love…………………………………….………… 259
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10. A DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL OF SONG ANALYSIS FOR THE SONGS IN
THIS STUDY……………………………………………………….…………….. 262
Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 262
Analysis of Songs in this Study as Related to Fowler’s Stages of Faith
Development…………………………………………………….……………. 263
Pre-Stage: Undifferentiated Faith…………………….….……………. 264
Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective…………………………….…………….. 265
Stage 2: Mythic-Literal……………………………………………….. 267
Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional……………………………………… 269
Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective…………………………………….. 270
Developmental Model of Therapeutic Songwriting for Adolescence………… 271
Phase 1: Imitation……………………………………………………... 273
Phase 2: Developing Self-Reflection…………………………………. 274
Phase 3: Developing Self-Love………………………………………. 275
11. FUTURE DIRECTIONS…………………………………………………………. 277
Developing a Hiphop Perspective in Music Therapy………………………… 277
Method for Analyzing Songs Written by Adolescents within a Hiphop
Perspective……………………………………………………………………. 279
Considerations in Developing a Music-Centered Songwriting Assessment for
Adolescents with Adverse Childhood Experiences…………………………… 281
Education and Training……………………………………….………………. 282
Future Research……………………………………………………………….. 284
Epilogue- I am Hiphop! …………………………………….………………… 286
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REFERENCES……………………………………………………..…………………. 288
APPENDICES
A. INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL………………….…………. 307
B. EXAMPLES OF DATA COLLECTION………………………….……………… 309
C. EXAMPLE OF CROSS COMPARISON SUMMARIES………….…………….. 326
D. MANDALAS…………………………………………………….……………….. 331
E. QUESTIONS GOING INTO REMIX COMPOSITIONS………….…………….. 336
F. DEFINING CONCEPT ALBUM IN RELATION TO THIS
STUDY………………………………………………………….………………… 337
G. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL OVERVIEW OF HIP HOP IN RELATION TO
THIS STUDY………………………………………………….………………….. 338
H. AESTHETIC EVALUATION……………………………….…………………… 340
I. REFLEXIVE TEAM: PROCESS AND FEEDBACK……………………………. 342
J. OVERVIEW OF FOWLER’S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT……….………… 345
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LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
1. Included Songs for Analysis……………………………………………….……….. 49
2. Stages of the Concept Album and Result Categories………………………………. 72
3. Concept Album Stages and Track Listings………………………………………… 201
4. Summary of the Narrative Cycle and Characters..……………….………………… 204
5. Development of Musical and Stylistic Elements……………………………………238
6. Clinical Function of Recording Techniques………………….…………………….. 244
7. Production Techniques……………………………………….…………………….. 248
8. Techniques for Recording Vocals…………………………….……………………. 251
9. Development of Affective-Intuitive Qualities……………………..……………….. 256
10. Summary of The Interaction Between the Music and Lyrics…………..…………. 261
11. Relationship Between Fowler’s Stages of Faith and Song
Categories in this Study…………………………………………………………… 264
12. Developmental Model of Therapeutic Songwriting for Adolescents…………….. 272
13. Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development…………………………………………… 346
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figures Page
1. Relationship between the Design and Method…………………………………..…. 53
52. Hiphop Perspective Bricolage Effect…………………………………………..…. 278
“Lost” Music Scores
2. Synthesizer Melody………………………………………………………………… 75
3. Whistle Melody………………………………………………………………….…. 76
4. Section A Harmony in Synthesizer………………………………………………… 76
5. Guitar Harmony in Section B………………………………………………………. 77
6. GarageBand Recording..…………………………………………………………… 79
“My Party” Music Scores
7. Score- Measure 1-12……………………………………………………………….. 85
8. GarageBand Recording..…………………………………………………………… 91
“Reek Mugga” Music Scores
9. Drum and Bass………………………………………………….………………….. 95
10. GarageBand Recording……………………………………….…………………... 98
“Cryin’” Music Scores
11. Piano Melody #1………………………………………………………………….. 108
12. Vocal Melody……………………………………………….…………………….. 108
13. Piano Melody……………………………………………………………….…….. 109
14. Drum Pattern……………………………………………………………………… 110
15. GarageBand Recording.…………………………………………………….…….. 112
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“Emotional Disaster” Music Scores
16. MIDI Keyboard Melody (Measure 1-34)…………………………………………. 116
17. Chords and Lyrics (Measures 1-32)………………………………………………. 118
18. “Deep Electronic Piano 01” Loop………………………………………………… 119
19. GarageBand Recording- Tracks 1-7………………………………………………. 121
20. GarageBand Recording- Vocal Tracks……………………………………….…… 122
“Darkness” Music Scores
21. Vocal Melody- Hums……………………………………………………………... 128
22. MIDI Keyboard Melody- Synthesized Voices……………………………………. 130
23. Drum and Bass……………………………………………………………………. 131
24. GarageBand Recording- Tracks 1-3………………………………………………. 132
25. GarageBand Recording- Darkness and Distorted Vocals (Tracks 4-11)…………. 133
26. GarageBand Recording- Clean Vocals (Tracks 12-14)…………………………… 134
“Numb” Music Scores
27. Synthesizer Melody……………………………………………………………….. 139
28. Melody and Harmony (Verse-Chorus)……………………………………………. 140
29. Harmony and Melody (Coda 2:35-end)…………………………………………... 142
30. GarageBand Recording…………………………………………………………… 144
“Who’ll Understand?” Music Scores
31. Vocal Melody- Measures 1-7……………………………………………………... 155
32. Guitar Loop Melody………………………………………….…………………… 156
33. Harmonic Piano Loop…………………………………………………………….. 156
34. Percussion Loop…………………………………………………………………... 158
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35. GarageBand Recording…………………………………………………………… 159
“Love” Music Scores
36. Vocal Melody (excerpt from verse)………………………………………………. 165
37. Vocal Melody (excerpt from chorus)……………………………………………... 165
38. Percussion Loop…………………………………………………………….…….. 166
39. GarageBand Recording…………………………………………………………… 168
“A Girl Like” Me Music Scores
40. Introduction (Measures 1-12)……………………………………………….…….. 173
41. Verse (Measure 13-24)………………………………………………….………… 174
42. Chorus (Measure 25-28)……………………………………….………………….. 175
43. Bridge Excerpt (2:40-3:04)……………………………………………………….. 176
44. GarageBand Recording…………………………………………………………… 178
“Butterfly Wings” Music Scores
45. Vocal Melody (Measures 1-24)…………………………………………………… 183
46. Piano Harmony…………………………………………………………….……… 185
47. Ambient Harp Effect……………………………………………………………… 186
48. GarageBand Recording…………………………………………………………… 187
Music Scores in Concept Album
49. Leave me Alone (I’m Scared): Guitar Chords and Lyrics………………………... 211
50. Melody Line for the Synthesizer in “Thaw”……………………………………… 219
51. Score for “Opening a Door”……………………………………………………… 222
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LYRICS TO THE ORIGINAL SONGS
Song Page
Lost…….……………………………………………………………………………… 81
My Party...…………………………………………………………………….………. 93
Reek Mugga…...……………………………………………………………………… 100
Cryin’………………………………………………………….…………………….… 114
Emotional Disaster……………………………………………………………………. 125
Darkness………………………………………………………………………………. 137
Numb………………………………………………………………………………….. 147
Who’ll Understand?...………………………………………………………………… 162
Love…………………………………………………………………………………… 170
A Girl Like Me.………………………………………………………………………. 180
Butterfly Wings……………………………………………………………………….. 190
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LYRICS TO REMIX COMPOSITIONS
Song Page
Hide it all in my Body………………………………………………………………… 208
Like Icarus…...………………………………………………………………………... 213
U R U!………………………………………………………………………………… 226
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Overview
This is an arts-based research study that examined eleven songs created by inner-city adolescents who participated in a therapeutic songwriting program. The aesthetic components of the songs were analyzed—including the musical and lyrical elements, compositional techniques, and affective-intuitive qualities—for the purpose of revealing the experience of adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences. The interaction between the music and the lyrics was also considered so that a holistic understanding of the songs could be gained.
The meanings of the songs were constructed through my own creative engagement with, and subsequent analyses of, the recordings. My role as an arts-based researcher was not to dictate the nature of meaning of the songs but rather to present the analyses so that readers can reconstitute their significance as they engage with the research materials. Barone & Eisner (2012) summarize the symbiotic role of the researcher and reader in creating meaning through arts-based research, which is directly relevant to the intention of this study:
Thus, the contribution of arts based research is not that it leads to claims in propositional form about states of affairs but that it addresses complex and often subtle interactions and that it provides an image of those interactions in ways that make them noticeable. In a sense, arts based research is a heuristic through which we deepen and make more complex our understanding of some aspect of the world. (p. 3)
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The ethos of Hip Hop culture played a central role in the design of this study. Hip
Hop1 not only reflects the preferred aesthetic of the adolescent songwriters, but its core tenets are congruent with arts-based research. KRS-One (2009) proposed various spellings and definitions of Hip Hop with the specific intent to help scholars disseminate the various levels of knowledge within Hip Hop scholarship:
1) hip-hop is the commercial product of rap music. It is used to refer to the genre of music and the mainstream media attention associated with rap music.
2) Hip Hop is the cultural engagement in the artistic and stylistic elements of hip-hop.
Today, Hip Hop culture is global and provides unconditional acceptance for all people whose voices have been marginalized, oppressed, and stifled by societal structures.
(Hip Hop is) the creation and development of Breakin’, Emceeing, Graffiti Art, Deejayin, Beat Boxing, Street Fashion, Street Language, Street Knowledge, and Street Entrepreneurialism. It is what we call ourselves, and our activity in the World. Hip Hop is the name of our culture. (KRS-One, 2009, p. 80)
3) Hiphop is the spiritual and creative force from which Hip Hop was born. “(Hiphop is) our unique Spirit, our unique collective consciousness, the creative force behind Hip
Hop’s elements” (KRS-One, p. 80). Going further, KRS-One (p. 81) suggests that
Hiphop is the incarnation of “GOD; the Great Spirit, the Great Event” who speaks through the aesthetic elements of Hip Hop, providing hope to those living in an oppressed, depressed, and marginalized state.
1 Often confused in popular discourse are the differences between Hip Hop and rap. Rap music is the musical expression within Hip Hop in which a rapper rhymes, sometimes spontaneously, over a rhythmic musical backdrop provided by the Deejay (DJ). Hip Hop on the other hand is the amalgamation of the creative arts including dance (break dancing), art (graffiti), and music (rap) to voice one’s uniqueness in the world through style (b’boyin’).
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Topic and Purpose
In this study, songs composed by adolescent songwriters in music therapy provided the primary source of data; experiential methods of song analysis utilizing creative-arts modalities were used in analyzing the data, presenting the results, and formulating discussion. An arts-based research design provided a qualitative framework to analyze the songs in a manner that reflected how adolescents experience and engage with their preferred songs, how these songs were created in a music therapy setting, and in a way that remained true to the ethos of the musical cultural of the participants, Hip Hop.
The aesthetic components adolescent clients conciously put into the creation of their songs can reflect their lived experiences, internal resources, developmental struggles, and aspirations. Although the process of therapeutic songwriting has received attention in case studies and foundational research (Baker, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d;
Baker & MacDonald, 2012a, 2012b; Baker, Wigram, Stott, & McFerran, 2008, 2009;
Wigram & Baker, 2005), missing from this literature is a full exploration and explication of the aesthetic components of songs composed in music therapy sessions.
I have had extensive clinical experience utilizing therapeutic songwriting with adolescents who have suffered extreme abuse and trauma and who identify with Hip Hop culture. The lyrics and music of songs that they compose in therapy are often provocative and challenging, while also being impassioned and heart-felt. These songs reveal the challenges and inner lives of adolescents who have suffered abuse and trauma; within the aesthetic components of a song, one can hear the cries of an abused child, the angry screams that result from experiencing violence first-hand, and the dystopian soundscapes of harsh inner-city environments. Concurrently, one can hear the hopes, dreams, and
3
wistful emotions that are within every adolescent, although these sounds are more distant and difficult to hear due to a disruption in their development.
Songs composed by adolescents in music therapy are complex and require holistic analysis to have their meaning fully revealed2. Analyses that examine single dimensions—such as those that look at lyrics in isolation from the music—are not able to fully illuminate the significance of these songs. Also, it is my belief that the lyrics and the music are inseparable when analyzing the content of these songs. An arts-based research design was chosen to allow for more dynamic and creative interpretations to emerge.
Additionally, a fluid and flexible inspired research design encouraged interrelatedness when analyzing the aesthetic components of songs, which in turn allowed for a more holistic portrait of the song to emerge.
This study analyzed songs composed by adolescent songwriters in a manner that mirrored how they experience their music in the context of both music therapy and their daily lives. These experiences can take various forms: dancing to the music, using the song to enhance everyday activities, fantasizing or daydreaming while listening to the music, projecting one’s own identity onto the song, and using the song to enhance and regulate complex emotions (Laiho, 2004). In other words, adolescents absorb their favorite songs by listening to the music in alert and relaxed states of consciousness, and they engage in their favorite music in both receptive and active ways. Therefore, I utilized a variety of experiential and creative methods of song analysis in a manner that was congruent with the phenomenon of the study, songs created by adolescents who live in an urban setting, who identify with Hip Hop culture, and who have experienced trauma and abuse.
2 Aesthetics, meaning, and wholeness, will be discussed in further detail in the section, “Limitations.”
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Source of the Study
This section introduces the sources from which the topic for this study emerged: First, is the personal source; this source represents my own history with being a songwriter and a fan of popular music, and how my musical background directly influences my clinical approach. Second, is the professional source, which provides the context from which the songs analyzed for this study emerged. In this section, the culture, musical histories, and lives of the participants who wrote these songs are introduced. Also in this section is my theoretical orientation as a professional. The interactions among these sources—my personal history, my interaction with the songwriting participants, and my theoretical orientation—provided the foundation from which the research questions for this study surfaced.
Personal Source
I was fourteen years old and in the ninth grade when I first picked up a guitar and learned to play. Almost immediately, I wrote my first song. I remember my excitement when my favorite teacher brought his mobile recording studio into the classroom to record my song after school. The teacher put headphones on me and had me test out my guitar and vocals before recording. Suddenly, I was transported into another world of musical sound unlike anything I had ever heard before. He added some simple sound effects of chorus and reverb to my guitar, and a little echo and reverb to my vocals; this slight sound adjustment greatly heightened my emotional response to recording and influenced how I emoted in the song. What was captured on that record was the unabashed sentiment of my teenage self, with all my vulnerabilities, awkwardness, and longings exposed safely within the medium of song.
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Transfixed by the recording process, the music studio became hallowed ground for me; a place where I communed with the bands I was in, or a place I could go to alone and tap into a feeling of being a part of something greater than myself. I saw the record producer as the person who held and contained the creative space. Without the producer,
I would have been lost within all the possibilities of a music studio. Since that time, I have always felt that good record producer listens deeply to the artist’s needs, builds a creative relationship with the artist, provides technical options based on the artist’s creative urges, and sets boundaries to help the songwriting process move forward, yet is open enough not to stifle creativity.
By my mid-twenties, my attention began to shift away from songwriting as I immersed myself in listening to and expanding my knowledge of all styles and genres of popular music. My tastes included traditional forms of rock and roll, electronic dance music, ambient music, and hip-hop. I became transfixed with popular music’s ability to provide enjoyment, social commentary, spiritual transcendence, and sonic worlds into which I could escape. I began to see my preferred music as a window into my own mythic journey, with my favorite albums, artists, and songs reflecting archetypal battles and triumphs unfolding in my own personal development. These ideas were expanded upon in my music therapy studies, influencing my master’s thesis for Temple University,
Conceptualizing the Lived Experience of Three Adolescents Through the Interpretation of the Core Metaphors in their Preferred Music, and subsequent writing on the therapeutic songwriting and the application of Hip Hop in music therapy (MacDonald & Viega,
2012; Viega, 2012).
By my late twenties and early thirties, I began to reclaim my abilities as a
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songwriter. This time my focus moved from the guitar-based songs of my youth and turned to creating electronic and ambient textures on drum machines, synthesizers, and electronic samplers. I found that the skills I developed in creating electronic dance music, ambient music, and hip-hop beats were transferable to music therapy sessions I conducted with adolescents within an inner-city environment. The amalgamation of my knowledge of the historical roots of popular music and my skills in creating songs using various instruments from an array of genres influenced how I practiced music therapy, the techniques I used with the adolescents I worked with, and how I evaluated and understood health within a music therapy context.
As a professional music therapist, I use my own experience of writing songs as a way to understand the clinical possibilities when engaging adolescents in therapeutic songwriting. My instinct as a clinician is to provide a therapeutic space similar to the one
I had experienced in recording studios. A studio-like environment offers adolescent clients a heightened sense of camaraderie with their peers and helps to develop trust and rapport with the therapist. In addition, it creates a sense of timelessness caused by being immersed in the creative process, aided in their creative focus, and created sustained feelings of satisfaction and joy. I called upon these ideas when, in 2007, I was asked to be the co-therapist in a community-based songwriting program called Hear Our Voices, an
3 initiative of The Arts and Quality of Life Research Center at Temple University .
Hear Our Voices was conceived as a music therapy songwriting program geared towards helping to bring the arts to children and adolescents living in unstable socio- economic neighborhoods of Philadelphia. The aim of Hear Our Voices—a program that
3 For more information on Temple University’s Arts and Quality of Life Research Center visit http://www.temple.edu/boyer/community/aql.asp
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has expanded and continues today—is to provide children and adolescents living in those communities an opportunity to express the challenges they face, while also finding solutions for the community in which they live through the medium of therapeutic songwriting. In 2007, co-therapist Scott MacDonald and I facilitated the first Hear Our
Voices project at a local after school program located in an economically depressed neighborhood of Philadelphia. While engaging the children in songwriting, we decided that creating a studio environment would allow for the songs to emerge and be captured in a relaxed, creative atmosphere. Creating a therapeutic space based on the concept of a music studio was successful and the children, families and the community reported loving the songs. Months after that first group, we continued to hear comments from parents and children such as, “We listen to that CD more than you think!” The Hear Our
Voices program continued to expand, and with the help of Temple Faculty Senate Seed
Grant, the Arts and Quality of Life Research Center was able to offer and provide the program for the adolescents whose songs are featured in this study.
I found myself responding viscerally and emotionally to the music created by the songwriters I worked within the Hear Our Voices projects. As a fan of popular music and its history4, I listen to songs in a way that an ethnomusicologist or folklorist might explore music and art; the songs created by the songwriting participants represent the essence of outsider folk art. Aesthetically, these songs were unlike anything I had ever heard. I found that the raw vulnerability expressed in the music and lyrics was profoundly emotional. Out of these listening experiences, I felt a greater need to have these songs, and the voices within the songs, heard and understood by others. The power of my own
4 Sylvan (2002) notes the historical development of Western popular music from West African possession rituals, to African-American slave spirituals, to the blues and jazz, country & western ballads, and finally to the birth of rock and roll and beyond.
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emotional responses to the music, along with my recognition of how intensely these songs expressed the realities of their creators, stimulated the idea for this study.
Musical influences on my aesthetic sensibilities. As the therapist in the sessions in which the songs analyzed in the present study were created, my aesthetic sensibility was one of many factors that influenced their content and arrangement. It is therefore relevant to describe my own aesthetic sensibilities in relation to this particular musical style so that the specific nature of their influence can be made explicit.
A commonality among many of my favorite popular music artists is in how they utilize the recording studio as a compositional tool. Their songs often employ ambient musical textures, electronic soundscapes, and studio techniques that create an immersive listening experience. Often these compositional techniques entice the listener to listen repeatedly, with new sounds and melodies being revealed each time. Harmonic structures are often simple and repetitive, which is common in hip-hop and other genres of electronic dance music.
The focus on ambient and textual musical elements in popular music stems from
20th century composers who blurred the distinctions of music, noise, silence, and non- musical sounds, and confronted traditional notions of how music was heard and how music can be played (Cox & Warner, 2007). Their ideas influenced the studio manipulations of The Beatles, and later would play an essential role in modern electronic dance music and hip-hop. Two 20th-century composers, Brian Eno and R Murray Shafer, are particularly influential in my conceptualization of the therapeutic use of various studio techniques during the creation of the songs analyzed in this study. Their work shaped my aesthetic sensibilities in relation to this study; in particular, I considered the
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studio as the primary compositional tool during the creation of the songs analyzed in this study.
For Brian Eno5, the recording studio is a place where a composer can work directly with sound, manipulating, layering, and providing aural space through panning and mixing techniques. The studio is a place where composers become familiar with what is available to them and utilize these elements in the creation of the song without a fixed starting point. This is unlike the traditional use of a studio where the musician comes in to record a finished piece. Eno (as cited in Cox & Warner, 2007) elaborates:
You’re working directly with sound, and there’s no transmission loss between you and the sound- you handle it. It puts the composer in identical position of the painter- he’s working directly with a material, working directly onto a substance, and he always retains the options to chop and change, to paint a bit out, add a piece, etc. (p.129).
From this perspective, the composition is never static or finished. With technology, a piece that is composed in the studio can be put back into another software system at any time for further manipulation.
R Murray Schafer’s (1977/1994) term soundscape provides a metaphor for how to understand and listen to the interrelation of sounds that create a composition. He defines soundscape as, “the sonic environment...The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an environment (pp. 274-275).
5 Brain Eno coined the term Ambient Music. In his opinion Ambient Music “must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular, it must be as ignorable as it is interesting” (as cited in Cox & Warner, 2007, p. 97). Eno’s introduction of Ambient Music has influenced multiple genres of music including minimalism, techno and house music, new- age compositions, noise rock, dub reggae and dubstep, and hip-hop. Each genre values immersion into sonic worlds, uses electronics to create various soundscapes, contains mood and emotion, and focuses on textures, densities, and utilizes space in production, rather than melody, harmony, and tonality.
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His definition inspired me to consider the soundscape of the songs when guiding their creation.
Creating a studio environment within a music therapy context takes music’s role away from the dimension of time and locates it more within the dimension of space.
Instead of formal musical parameters—such as keys, tempos, and song structure—loop- based structures, sonic manipulation, and affective-intuitive responses to raw sound material were valued in the therapeutic songwriting process. Time-oriented musical elements such as melody, harmony, and rhythm do play an important role in understanding the meaning of the songs, but only when placed within the context of how they interrelate with the spatial dimensions associated with the production and affective- somatic elements (moving in space) of the songs. Understanding the raw material of sound this way, one can draw the analogy of therapeutic songwriting being similar to painting on a canvas. In other word, sounds layered and manipulated within the recording studio are like colors that start on a palette and then are manipulated on canvas. This highlights the importance of understanding compositional techniques when analyzing the meanings of the songs within this study; these components give us insight into how the songs were organized and arranged with clinical intent by the client and the therapist
When these songs were created, I often directed the adolescent songwriters to listen and consider the spatial elements of the recordings, and the compositional and production elements within the studio, as a way to deepen their connection to their songs.
I helped the songwriters consider the music in relation to the lyrical content. The affective qualities of the music and production elements of the songs created potentials for imagery in the soundscape that enhanced the lyrical contact.
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Professional Source from which Data Emerged
Participant context. The adolescents who wrote the songs that were analyzed in this study received psychological, social, family, and educational support from a residential treatment center in the Philadelphia region of Pennsylvania. The children and adolescents placed there live and go to school on its main campus, either after having been released from a previous psychiatric placement or having a court ordered placement due to a crisis within the family system. The participants who created the songs for this study were of Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic origins and they ranged from eighth to twelfth grade. They all suffered multiple traumatic events including emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical abuse, parents in abusive relationships, parents with mental health needs, parental separation or divorce, and/or incarcerated household members. Such experiences had resulted in severe emotional trauma that manifested as behavioral, psychiatric, and emotional disorders, as well as learning disabilities. The residents at this facility received educational, psychological, and emotional support, and assistance reintegrating into their family network.
Each of the participants was raised within the inner-city communities of
Philadelphia, lovingly known to them simply as “Philly.” The neighborhoods in which they are from have high crime rates, —18% higher than the national average for the
United States of America—along with the highest poverty levels within the city
(http://www.city-data.com/city/Philadelphia-Pennsylvania.html; Philadelphia Safe and
Sound Report Card, 2007, retrieved from, http://phillyviolenceprevention.org/communities-in-focus/). The issue of child poverty and violence in Philadelphia is also ethnically charged in that the majority of young
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people in Philadelphia are African-American and living in poorer neighborhoods that are commonly marginalized and underserved due to their socio-economic status
(http://www.census.gov/regions/philadelphia/www/resources_services/).
The dominant form of expression for the youth within these communities is rooted in the creative elements of Hip Hop culture (Hadley & Yancy, 2012a). Hip Hop culture invites participation in ritualistic music experiences, providing community members a shared source of collective expression and belonging; Hip Hop is not just a genre of music but it is a way of life and being in the world (KRS-One, 2009). There is a unique community of rappers and DJs in Philadelphia; mixtapes—a collective of rap songs meant to introduce and debut new rap artists—are shared among those within the
Hip Hop culture, and youth are commonly freestyling rap lyrics and/or listening to music in public spaces within these communities. These forms of expression are a positive medium through which “these youth describe and interpreted the existential density of lived urban spaces” (Hadley & Yancy, 2012a, p. xxv). Participation in Hip Hop culture provides a vehicle for transcendent movement out of an existence of high poverty and crime and into a shared sense of cultural identity. In the Hear Our Voices program, the participants’ identification with Hip Hop culture was seen as a resource that would allow them to engage and trust in the therapeutic songwriting process, build a working relationship with their music therapist, and provide a platform from which they could build their own skill set in relationship to the craft of songwriting (Aigen, 2005a;
Rolvsjord, 2010).
Hip Hop culture allows for a diversity of ideas and expression and accepts voices from across the social spectrum, from academic knowledge, to community and social
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activism, and street knowledge and entrepreneurship (Hadley & Yancy, 2012a; KRS-
One, 2009; Tyson, 2002; Tyson, Detchkov, Eastwood, Carver, Sehr, 2012; Viega, 2012).
Each participant in the program had his or her own unique musical identity with some having innate music abilities, while others required more support in the songwriting process. The participants also had various musical tastes with a few songwriters only liking rap, while others were more eclectic in their tastes and preferred a variety of musical styles including R & B, modern and classic rock, and electronic dance music.
Clinical context. I was the music therapist who conducted the sessions in which these songs were created. My primary goal was to enhance the songwriting experience for the adolescent participants so that they could produce a song that they felt held personal meaning and value. This approach is grounded in a music-centered philosophy in which musical process is considered as a clinical process (Aigen, 2005a). My belief is that the experience of making music, as well as the product of those experiences, mirrors developmental challenges adolescents face, such as maintaining agency, developing identity, regulating mood, and working through individuation and group belonging challenges (Laiho, 2004; Saarikallio, 2007; Viega, 2008). Therefore, the assumption of this study is that the musical properties of songs that are created during the music experience are directly related to the clinical and psychological processes. The musical choices, styles, and structures of the songs hold valuable clinical information for music therapists regarding the developmental challenges for adolescents who have had multiple adverse childhood experiences.
The relationships that are built within a music-centered framework help to depersonalize resistance and interpersonal challenges that can emerge between the client
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and therapist. The therapeutic relationship is established from a sense of mutuality with the client being thought of—and asked to think like—a musician. The client is able to receive the direct benefits of engagement in music without intra- or interpersonal challenges that might appear in other forms of psychotherapy.
Within the context of this study, I built a strong working relationship with each of the adolescent participants. Each participant was considered a songwriter and I developed a collaborative relationship with them in the songwriting process. Many of them referred to me as their producer. Within hip-hop, the producer partners with the rapper to create a musical backdrop that best matches the rap narrative. By calling me their producer, the participants framed our therapeutic relationship within their lived experience of Hip Hop culture. I felt that my job as the music therapist was to understand the role of the producer within that culture. By doing so, I was able to individualize the songwriting experiences to meet the clinical needs of the participants within their own cultural experience.
Music therapist as music producer. There are three primary parallels between the role of the music producer in hip-hop and my clinical orientation6:
1) A producer enhances the artist’s involvement in the music. In hip-hop, a producer guides the rapper in choosing and creating musical backdrops that will help bring forth the emotional and affective qualities needed in the song. This process is both receptive and expressive in that the producer and artist listen to the music and production qualities that will best support the rapper’s self-expression and self-exploration. Similarly, in
6 Sources for this list include, the book Sonic Alchemy: Visionary Music Producers and Their Maverick Recordings (Howard, 2004) in which the musical process of several hip-hop producers is discussed and detailed. In addition my knowledge as a popular music fan served as an intuitive guide in making this list. Further, Aigen’s (2005a) chapters on “Values Central to Musicing” and “Rationales, Practices, and Implications of Music-Centered Music Therapy” provide theoretical support for the notion of music therapist as music producer.
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music-centered thinking Aigen (2005b) asserts that
because the musical process is the clinical process–in the sense that, at times, a purely music description of a clinical interaction can be a self-justifying clinical event–the therapist’s primary focus is to formulate strategies to deepen and differentiate the client’s musical experiences. (p.94)
As the therapist, I guided the songwriting participants in having them choose and create beats that would best support their musical expression.
2) A producer empowers artists to discover new strengths and reach their fullest potential. In hip-hop, music producers are often credited with discovering an artist and/or reviving the career of an artist who has already had success in the past (Howard, 2004).
The producer does so by co-constructing and enhancing new forms, identities, or characters for the artist to explore in the song. Likewise, many of the adolescent participants I worked with might have been drawn to the songwriting process in hopes of being “discovered.” Rarely, if ever, did this literally mean being discovered as a famous rap star; instead, the discovery appeared to be more internal in the search to find positive resources already within themselves. It appeared as if the songwriting participants understood intuitively the metaphorical role of a producer as a discoverer of new talent as a way for them trust the process of self-exploration and expression in songwriting. In music-centered thinking, a therapist’s message to the client—just as a producer would communicate to an artist—is “I am here to help you make music, rather than I am here to change you, fix you, control you, or heal you” (Aigen, 2005a, p. 120).
3) A producer co-constructs a sound that captures a musical portrait of the artist. In many popular music traditions—especially ones related to electronic music production such as hip-hop and dance music—a producer’s role is to help create a musical soundscape that captures the environmental conditions reflective of an artist’s lyrical
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narrative and lived experience. As the music therapist, I acted as a technical and supportive guide in helping the songwriting participants capture the sounds to create a musical portrait of their internal and environmental lived experiences. This was done using sampling technology that can capture environmental sounds and manipulate and organize them in a musical manner.
Music therapist as a fan. Once the songwriting participants gained a level of autonomy within the song creation, they were able to be their own producer and I was able to take the position of an enthusiastic, supportive listener. In this therapeutic stance,
I respond to the songwriting participant as that of an artist while reacting and listening to the song with authentic interest. Such a therapeutic orientation is consistent with strength- based and empowerment models of therapy such as Rolvsjord’s (2010) resource-oriented music therapy. In this concept of the therapeutic relationship, the client is the expert while I (as therapist) act as a witness to what the client has to offer. I am a fan of all the songs created by the songwriters who participated in the songwriting program; the songwriters in this program became artists who I admired and not just problem children who needed to change to conform to societal expectations.
Music therapist as a studio engineer. A studio engineer differs from a producer in specializing in the technological aspects of capturing sound rather than helping to compose the music. Many times the adolescent songwriters created their songs spontaneously and my role was not to guide them as a producer but to capture the improvisational freestyle; therefore, I had to know how to engineer the studio equipment in a way that allowed the flow of the session to continue without it being interrupted due to technical difficulties. In addition, I had to understand the technological components of
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the therapeutic-studio when the adolescent songwriters wanted certain sound effects or sonic textures added to their songs.
Research Context. My theoretical and research framework stems from a perspective rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop culture, the preferred form of cultural expression for the songwriting participants whose songs were analyzed in this study. Within all of the creative modalities of Hip Hop, an emphasis is placed on providing a creative outlet for subjugated voices in the community. Topics and themes relevant to therapy that emerge within the artistic elements of Hip Hop include promoting personal empowerment, exploring and regaining a sense of cultural identity, exploration of gender issues, raising group consciousness, and building strong communities (Hadley & Yancy, 2012a; Korbin
& Tyson, 2006). Emerging music therapy perspectives and theories that identify with these themes include resource-oriented music therapy (Schwabe, 2005; Rolvsjord, 2010), music as empowerment (Rolvsjord, 2004), feminist perspectives in music therapy
(Hadley, 2006), community music therapy (Pavlicevic & Ansdell, 2004), cultured- centered music therapy (Stige, 2002), and music-centered music therapy (Aigen, 2005a).
There are a number of commonalties among these music therapy perspectives and Hip
Hop:
1) Mobilizing and activating self-healing, potential and contact with a client’s
internal and external resources (Schwabe, 2005; Rolvsjord, 2010).
2) Challenging patriarchal hierarchies and power differentials in therapeutic
relationships. Music participation is empowering and encourages social and
cultural interaction (Rolvsjord, 2004; Hadley 2006).
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3) Promoting health and healing not only on the individual level but also the meso-,
exo-, and macro- systems. Therefore, making music can be an interrelated
participatory and healing experience for all voices in the community (Pavlicevic
& Ansdell, 2004).
4) Acknowledging the unique cultural identity of both the client and therapist,
focusing on reflexive dialogues, authentic interest, and respect for each
individual’s culture (Stige, 2002).
5) Seeing therapeutic progress for clients within the connection, growth, aesthetics,
and musical sensitivity that occur in the context of a musicing experience (Aigen,
2005a, 2005b).
The foundational beliefs regarding the benefits of Hip Hop and arts-based research have many areas of congruence. First, Hip Hop and arts-based research are interested in gaining access and providing a platform from which members of marginalized and underserved communities can express themselves. In the process, these voices can raise awareness of social injustice, uncover resources and solutions, create dialog, and expand social consciousness. Second, they both honor multiple perspectives and participatory action in the process of accessing and increasing knowledge of the community. Third, they both support the exploration of relationships within complex systems to gain a holistic understanding of social and cultural patterns. Last, they both suggest that knowledge and understanding can be gained through aesthetic experience and creative engagements (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Hadley & Yancy, 2012b; Korbin & Tyson, 2006.)
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Research Questions
I analyzed songs written by adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences and who identify with Hip Hop culture for the purpose of answering the following central research question:
How do musical compositions, experienced through their various elements and as
aesthetic wholes, reflect the experiences and lives of adolescents who have had
adverse childhood experiences?
A comprehensive answer to the central question will involve addressing the following sub-questions:
1) What do the musical elements of the compositions reveal about the experience
and lives of adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences?
2) What compositional techniques are employed in songs created by adolescents
who have had adverse childhood experience and how are they used expressively?
3) What do the affective-intuitive qualities of the compositions reveal about the
experiences and lives of adolescents who have had adverse childhood
experiences?
4) What is the relationship between the music and lyrics in the songs created by
songwriting participants who have had adverse childhood experiences?
5) What does the relationship between the music and lyrics reveal about the
experiences and lives of adolescents who have had adverse childhood
experiences?
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Limitations
In this study, I am making meaning of songs created by adolescent songwriters through my engagement with their various aesthetic elements and wholes. From a music-centered perspective, the individual context in which a music experience unfolds is important when making meaning of the music. Aigen (2005a) points to four levels of determining meaning from music within a music therapy context:
1) What the music expresses for a client/composer who created the music.
2) What the music represents in its formal qualities, which for the therapist (or
another listener) could be expressive of an emotion different from what the
client/composer originally intended to express.
3) What the music evokes in the therapist or client, which is different from levels
one and two.
4) What the meaning is for the client/composer when it is re-experienced, which
could be different from the first three levels.
For the purposes of this study, my analyses focused on levels two and three: First, I made meaning of the aesthetic qualities of the music through my artistic and heuristic experiences with the original songs. Then, I inferred the significance of the songs related to the lived experience of adolescents who have suffered abuse and trauma. An additional source of meaning making for this study is the reader, who will create meaning by engaging with the research materials.
Since this study focused on the therapeutic product—the songs—created in music therapy songwriting program, the therapeutic process of the individual songwriting participants was not explored. The results of this study did not reveal meaning of the
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songs as determined by the adolescent songwriters, or the meaning of the music when the songwriters listened back to their songs. Instead, this study revealed the meaning of the songs through their aesthetic components as experienced by me as the listener.
This study concerned itself with the aesthetic elements of songs created by adolescents who have experienced trauma and abuse. These aesthetic elements included,
1) Musical and stylistic elements: I analyzed the vocal styles, melody, harmony,
rhythm, sound effects, and ambient textures.
2) The compositional techniques: I explored the elements that went into the
production and arrangement of the recordings. The techniques examined included
layering, mixing, and editing techniques.
3) The affective-intuitive qualities: For this element, Bonny’s (1993) definitions of
affective and intuitive were utilized: Affective relates to “the emotional
concomitants of the music material used within the session,” while intuitive refers
to “the inner spaces and responses discovered within oneself that allow archetypal
and spiritual insights to arise” (Bonny, 1993, p. 5).
4) The interaction between the music and the lyrics: I examined the relationship
between the musical elements and lyrical content and related it to the experience
of adolescents who have experienced abuse and trauma.
Taken together, these various elements create the aesthetic whole of the song7.
Experiencing the aesthetic elements of each song through multiple methods of artistic
7 The concept of wholeness is an important one in humanistic and transpersonal therapy; humans strive for integration of the self and the journey towards wholeness can be powerful and transforming (Aigen, 2005a; Broucek, 1987; Kenny, 2006). Aigen (2007), citing the work of Carolyn Kenny (2006), explains that although the person might be experiencing psychological fragmentation and express that musically, the music is created and experienced as an aesthetic whole.
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analysis allowed a more holistic representation of their meanings to emerge.
Last, this study reflects the values of Hip Hop culture. Debate upon the whether or not Hip Hop is a positive or negative cultural force is prevalent amongst ethnomusicologists, sociologists, and those with invested interests in Hip Hop in therapy and education (Rose, 2008; Tyson, 2002; Tyson, Detchkov, Eastwood, Carver & Sehr,
2012). Critics of Hip Hop believe that it incites violence, demeans women, destroys
American values, and reflects harmful and dysfunctional ghetto culture. Defenders of Hip
Hop argue that it simply reflects reality and its positive attributes are rarely highlighted
(Rose, 2008). Rose notes that such arguments are too simplistic and biased to capture the complex influence of Hip Hop. This study considered the cultural and musical qualities of Hip Hop that are relevant to individual and collective health within a music therapy context (Hadley & Yancy, 2012a, 2012b). From this perspective, even the most challenging lyrics, music, and images in rap music offered insights for developing a richer understanding of the therapeutic potentials of Hip Hop.
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
The literature review is divided into two sections, topic-related literature and method- related literature. The topic-related section reviews the four primary subjects that are of interest in this study: 1) adolescents who have suffered adverse childhood experiences, 2) music therapy and psychological development in adolescence, 3) Hip Hop culture, and 4) therapeutic songwriting. The second section reviews literature related to the research method in this study. This method-related literature focuses on arts-based research and music therapy, musical analysis in music therapy, and methods of song analysis in music therapy.
Topic-Related Literature
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)
The importance of preventing and eradicating childhood maltreatment cannot be overstated. In a 2006 report on violence against children, then United Nations Secretary-
General, Kofi Annan asserted that
the consequences of violence can be devastating. Above all, it can result in early death. But even children who survive must cope with terrible physical and emotional scares. Indeed, violence places at risk not only their health, but also their ability to learn and grow into adults who can create sound families and communities. Violence against children is thus a major threat to global development and our work to reach the Millennium Development Goals. (Pinheiro, 2006, xi)
The World Health Organization (WHO) followed this report by highlighting that childhood maltreatment can lead to antisocial and violent behavior as an adult (Browne,
Hamilton-Giachritsis, Vettor, 2007).
A large-scale study that began in 1995, called the Adverse Childhood Experiences
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Study (ACE), has been considering the relationship between adults who engage in high- risk behaviors and who are vulnerable to disease, and childhood experiences of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse and household dysfunction8. The study defines adverse childhood experiences as pertaining to those persons who are in their first eighteen years of life and have suffered one or more of the following conditions: 1) emotional abuse, 2) physical abuse, 3) sexual abuse, 4) battered mother, 5) household substance abuse, 6) mental illness in household, 7) parental separation or divorce, 8) incarcerated household members (Felitti et al., 1998).
ACE studies have found strong relationships between the number of childhood traumas experienced by a child and difficulties later in life including early death, alcoholism and alcohol abuse, depression, illicit drug use, smoking, suicide attempts, unintended pregnancies, fetal death in pregnancies, engaging with multiple sexual partners, sexually transmitted diseases, and being involved in abusive relationships that continue the cycle of violence. Experiences of childhood maltreatment can also increase the risk of health-related issues in adulthood such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, health-related quality of life, ischemic heart disease, and liver disease. For those who have experienced four or more categories of childhood maltreatment the above health and social risks significantly increase. (Dube, Anda, Elitti, Chapman, Willimson,
& Giles, 2001; Felitti, et al., 1998). Other studies have supported these findings, linking adverse childhood experience with premature death rates, increased risk of lung cancer, and the development of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in adulthood (Briggs & Price,
2009).
8 The study has tracked over 17,000 participants who have been enrolled with Kaiser Permanente. The prospective phase of the study continues (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010, retrieved from (http://www.cdc.gov/ace/).
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Music and Psychological Development in Adolescence
Adolescents who have repeated and prolonged states of depression, confusion, aimlessness, fear, helplessness, hopelessness, and unhappiness due to childhood abuse can experience a decrease in motivation and a sense of purpose in life, severely disrupting the process of finding meaning and happiness in adulthood (Csikszentmihalyi
& Larson, 1984). Csikszentmihalyi & Larson (1984) see the transition from adolescence to adulthood as a transformation of consciousness, where an adolescent develops the psychic attention needed to socialize functionally as an adult. Saarikallio (2007) similarly contends that successful transition from childhood to adulthood results in the
“reconstruction of self and establishment of adult identity” (p.18). Participating in music experiences plays a vital role in the psychological development for adolescents
(McFerran, 2010; Laiho, 2004; Saarikallio, 2007; Viega, 2012).
Adolescents are inherently motivated to be a part of music experiences due to music’s ability to meet their emotional and psychological needs as they transition into adulthood (McFerran, 2010; Laiho, 2004; Saarikallio, 2007). McFerran (2010) considers music to play an important part in the development of identity formation, resilience, competence, and connectedness. Similarly, Laiho (2004) provides a useful conceptual model for music therapy clinicians and researchers to understand music’s role in the psychological development of adolescents. She categorizes music’s role in the achievement of developmental tasks in four areas: 1) emotional field, 2) identity, 3) agency, and 4) interpersonal relationships. In addition, she adds that seeking musical experience is “a goal-oriented activity of the psyche” (p. 48) for adolescents and helps to ease transitional distress that comes with growing into adulthood.
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Music and Identity Creation in Adolescence. Adolescents’ participation in music plays a central role in helping them work through and explore challenges concerning identity. Ruud (1998) suggests that identity refers to the feeling one has of being the same as others while at the same time feeling unique from others. Development of adolescent identity depends on cultural factors, as well as interpersonal dynamics such as identifying and exploring one’s own inner-authentic self to reflect back in society
(Laiho, 2004; Ruud, 1998). A goal in the transition from adolescence into adulthood is to develop a new sense of wholeness and integration of identity, which can be described as a spiritual transformation (Aigen, 2005a, 2008; Ruud, 1998; Sylvan, 2002). However, such transitions can also be a source of anxiety, tension, and existential fear of not returning from such transitional spaces. Naturally, adolescents experience these feelings on almost an ongoing basis but this is enhanced when a child has experienced trauma.
Consequently, abuse and violence can have consequences detrimental to the success of an adolescent’s transition into adulthood (Dube, et al., 2001; Felitti, et al., 1998).
Popular music plays an important role in developmental tasks related to identity formation in adolescence (McFerran, 2010; Laiho, 2004; Ruud, 1998; Saarikallio, 2007).
For example, Laiho (2004) notes that adolescents use their preferred songs as a reflection of their self and then express that self in the world. Aigen (2005a) suggests that the structures, forces, experiences, and dynamics in popular music allow for people to experience ritual and safely navigate transitional spaces during identity creation. In addition, Aigen (2008)—citing Sylvan’s (2002) qualitative study on the religious dimensions of popular music—notes popular music’s potential to induce quasi-religious experiences in clients due to the music's lineage in West African possession rituals. As a
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result, adolescents who participate and engage in experiences involving popular music may be receiving experiences of ritual, group belonging, and spiritual transcendence, which might not be available to them in their daily lives.
Mythological Transformation and Transition. Aigen (2005a) suggests that the processes that unfold while making music mirror developmental transitions throughout all stages of life. Especially relevant for adolescent development is the metaphor of the
“Hero’s Journey,” a narrative arc proposed by anthropologist Joseph Campbell (1988,
2008)9. One can frame adolescence using this journey, seeing it a transformation of consciousness from childhood to adulthood, with adolescence being an important transitional phase within this period. The goal of adolescence is to prepare on to be an adult who lives a meaningful and happy life (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984) and it is rich with mythic narratives of trails, adversity, challenges and rituals that deserve attention. In the Hero’s Journey, it is not the destination that is the focus but rather the challenges, rewards, and transformation that occurs during the voyage; a belief shared with music-centered music therapy. As Aigen (2005a) states, “The wisdom in realizing that origins and goals are the same in both music and life embodies the insight that the value in life is the travel, the motion, the voyage, not the destination” (p. 275).
Music therapists have used this myth to discuss and inform processes in music therapy (Aigen, 1998, 2005b; Clark, 1995; Kenny, 2006). More recently, Viega (2012) describe ways in which this myth can be used to understand the preferred music of adolescents, particularly Hip Hop, and how this understanding can help music therapists conceptualize their adolescent clients’ developmental journeys towards adulthood. The
9 Campbell (2008, 1988) found similarities within myths across various cultures in which the hero goes through stages of separation, initiation, and return. The ultimate goal of the journey is transformation of consciousness and brining and sharing that gift to the world.
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connections between myth, music, and human development play an important role in adolescence, especially within ideas of liminality, ritual, communitas (Aigen, 2005a,
2005b, 2008; Ruud, 1998; Sylvan, 2002; Turner, 1969; van Gennep, 1960/2004).
Ritual, communitas, and liminality. A rite of passage shares a similar narrative arc as Campbell’s Hero’s Journey (2008), in which there is a separation from a previous identity— which for adolescence is childhood— a liminality that causes existential anxiety, and a process of reincorporation as one returns into society transformed within his or her new identity (van Gennep, 1960/2004). Adolescents often utilize shared music experiences, such as going to see concerts10, as a medium in which they can experience ritualistic rites of passage (Aigen, 2005a; Sylvan, 2002). Additionally, the structures within music allows for adolescents to experience ritual, which aids in the transformation from one identity role to a new sense of self (Aigen, 2005a)11.
Liminality is a transitional period that is noted for its ambiguity and is reflective of the adolescence. Turner (1969) suggests that a person in a liminal phase is “physically invisible in terms of his culture’s standard definitions and classifications” (p.125). Often adolescents might feel invisible to their parents, peers, or society, and thus use music as a coping mechanism (Laiho, 2004; McFerran, 2010). Mood regulation is a primary need for most adolescents due to having to negotiate challenges that comes with being in a transitional state (Saarikallio, 2007). Participation in Hip Hop cultures provides a musical
10 Often involvement in these mass gatherings provides youth participants with a sense of numinous existence—the experience of feeling as if one is in the presence of a divinity—and communitas, which is a powerful connection of being involved in a greater good within a community (Aigen, 2005a, 2005b 2008; Ruud, 1998; Sylvan, 2002). 11 Aigen (2005a) sees establishing the balance between freedom and structure as a primary challenge for many clients. He contends that the structures of music feature a similar dichotomy, which allows a client to experience the tension of opposites within its aesthetic properties. The polarity between freedom and structure is heightened in adolescence where conflicting developmental needs appear such as wanting to individuate versus needing a peer group, and needing boundaries versus needing room to expand and explore identity (Laiho, 2004).
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medium for adolescents to express themselves, experience ritual, and communitas
(Sylvan, 2002; Viega, 2012)
Ritual and communitas play an important role in the Hip Hop community. Block parties, which are neighborhood gatherings, ritualize the Hip Hop experience by creating a sense of community among neighbors through the music. Often a DJ’s role is to be a ceremonial leader in which the goal is to create a space for the dancers to feel as if they are involved in something greater than themselves; this is also known as communitas
(Aigen, 2005a, 2005b; Ruud, 1998; Sylvan, 2002). Doing so can be quite powerful for adolescents to experience, as explained by an adult participant in Sylvan’s (2002) study:
What I felt as a kid was strictly vibration, rhythm, and that music has a rhythm that just called my soul. It would make my soul jump out of my body, literally, and I’d have to move it…It really calls me, it really does. It’s just a link. Something touches you one day, just sparks your whole consciousness and shows your body you can. Time and space is all about the rhythm in your body. It’s hard to understand when you’re a kid…I mean, now that I’m older, I can put in perspective what I felt as a young kid…It’s the ancients. It’s definitely the ancients. (pp. 208-209)
The ritualistic structures built within musical and cultural elements in Hip Hop are beneficial within music therapy. MacDonald & Viega (2012) discuss the benefits of creating a block party environment to introduce a CD created by an inner-city youth songwriting group called “The Little Saints” in order for the message of the songs to be communicated among community members.
Music Therapy and Hip Hop
Music Therapy is “a systematic process of intervention wherein the therapist helps the client to promote health, using music experiences and the relationships that develop through them as dynamic forces of change” (Bruscia, 1998a p. 20). It developed as a profession in the United States in 1950 with the formation of the National Association of
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Music Therapy. During its formative years, music therapy was closely related to the behavioral sciences “because it often concerns musically elicited behaviors in therapeutic situations” (Sears, 2007, p.1). As the breadth of practice in music therapy expanded, many music therapists found perspectives rooted in the humanities more beneficial towards constructing theory. Examples of authors who utilize such a perspective include
Stige (2002), who discussed the importance of cultured-centered music therapy;
Pavlicevic & Ansdell (2004), who introduced community music therapy and ecological- based practices; Aigen (2005a, 2005b), who was inspired by aesthetics, musicology and ethnomusicology when developing music-centered music therapy; Hadley (2006), who used gender studies to ground her argument within feminist perspectives in music therapy; Ruud (1998), who found sociology and quality of life important to describe the impact of music in the everyday life of people; Rolvsjord (2004), who framed her ideas of resource-oriented music therapy within the concept of empowerment. The ethos of Hip
Hop12 culture fits within these perspectives, which value the creative-arts as the primary medium for providing a voice for marginalized and underserved people within multiple ethnicities and cultures (Hadley & Yancy, 2012a).
Much of the media attention surrounding hip-hop has focused on the violent and misogynistic lyrics of rap. However, music therapists have noted the therapeutic benefits of Hip Hop for adolescents, which include providing a source of individual and group empowerment, formation of identity, regulation of mood, expanding group consciousness, creating community, spiritual development, gender/role exploration, creating individual and group efficacy, individual and group affirmation and validation,
12 See Appendix G for a cultural and historical overview of Hip Hop in relation to this study.
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exploration of cultural identity, improving impulse control and self-esteem, and identifying resources and implementing positive solutions to life challenges (Alvarez,
2012; Donnenwerth, 2012; Elligan, 2012; Hadley & Yancy, 2012a; Hara, 2012; Ierardi &
Jenkins, 2012; Lightstone, 2012; MacDonald & Viega, 2012; McFerran, 2012; Steele,
2012; Veltre & Hadley, 2012; Viega, 2012). Given the therapeutic benefits of Hip Hop, its global popularity, and adolescents’ strong identification with rap music, it is imperative that music therapists approach working with youth culture within the values of
Hip Hop. One music therapy method used when incorporating Hip Hop in a music therapy setting is songwriting (Ahmadi & Oosthuizen, 2012; MacDonald & Viega, 2012;
McFerran, 2012).
Therapeutic Songwriting and Adolescence
Wigram & Baker (2005) define therapeutic songwriting as “the process of creating, notating and/or recording lyrics and music by the client or clients and therapist within a therapeutic relationship to address psychosocial, emotional, cognitive, and communication needs of the client” (p. 16). Baker (2011) refined this definition in order to accommodate the influence of a song on a client after it is completed in therapy: “The song creations become a tangible record of a client’s therapeutic journey or a representation of the client’s transformed state” (PowerPoint, Slide 3). Implementing therapeutic songwriting in therapy depends on clinical goals, types of needs addressed in therapy, and the therapist's clinical orientation.
Music therapists have addressed the therapeutic use of songwriting as a way to help adolescents who have mood disorders and emotional and behavioral challenges
(Davies, 2005; Derrington, 2005; Edgerton, 1990; Goldstein, 1990), who have anorexia
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nervosa (McFerran, Baker, Patton, Sawyer, 2006), who have been victims of trauma and abuse (Lindberg, 1995), who have suffered traumatic injuries and other medical conditions (Robb, 1996; Robb & Ebberts, 2003a, 2003b), and who are in bereavement
(Dalton & Krout, 2005; Krout, 2005). In addition, therapeutic songwriting has been used to help adults work through childhood abuse and trauma (Day, 2005; Day, Baker, &
Darlington, 2009).
There are a number of different types of goals addressed by songwriting: instilling a sense of hope and resilience (Goldstein, 1990; Kinney, 2012); enhancing self- expression; addressing issues of self-image and self-esteem; improving interpersonal relationships; facilitating coping, recovering repressed material, (Dalton & Krout, 2005;
Davies, 2005; Derrington, 2005; Edgerton, 1990; Lindberg, 1995; McFerran, Baker,
Patton, & Sawyer, 2006; Robb, 1996); experiencing flow, identity, achievement and ownership (Baker & MacDonald, 2012a, 2012b, ); addressing feelings of isolation and loss of independence (Robb & Ebberts, 2003a, 2003b); decreasing anxiety and distress
(Derrington, 2005); validation, identifying and clarifying clinical needs, normalization
(Dalton & Krout, 2005; Derrington, 2005); enhancing relationship to music, regulating mood, and assisting in creating a therapeutic environment conducive to change (Davies,
2005).
Experimental research on songwriting interventions with adolescent clients is limited. Viega (2010) explored the benefits of a songwriting program for adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences. The results of that study indicated that visual analog scores (VAS) for motivation increased, while VAS scores for anxiety were reduced during the initial and final stages of treatment. In addition, negative mood scores
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trended towards significantly improving after six sessions. However, at this time, there appears to be no other empirical research studies in music therapy that consider therapeutic songwriting specifically with adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences.
Case studies and clinical papers describing adolescent clients’ processes during songwriting interventions and therapist approaches to facilitating therapeutic songwriting are common in the literature (Davies, 2005; Derrington 2005; Edgerton, 1990;
Linderberg, 1995; Robb; 1996; Krout, 2005). Clinical approaches to songwriting when working with adolescents range from spontaneous and improvisational (Davies, 2005;
Derrington, 2005; Edgerton, 1990) to more structured and contained approaches (Krout,
2005; Linderberg, 1995; Robb, 1996) depending on clinical goals, types of needs addressed in therapy, the therapist clinical orientation, and whether the songwriting occurs in a group or individual therapeutic context.
Baker, Wigram, Stott, & McFerran (2008, 2009) compared the music therapy literature concerning therapeutic songwriting with actual practices in the field through a survey that was sent to music therapy clinicians who work with clients who create songs in therapy. This descriptive study highlighted the current trends in music therapy regarding songwriting approaches. The survey results indicated that the literature generally represents what is happening in practice, while also highlighting the need for further exploration of songwriting methods with people with autism and developmental delays. More importantly, the survey suggests practice guidelines for working with various clients and clinical needs. For example, the authors note that in practice, more structured approaches to songwriting, such as fill-in activities, are appropriate for clients
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with developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injury or other disabilities with limited cognitive capacities. The authors recommended that improvisational approaches to songwriting might be more suitable in psychiatric, oncology, and palliative care settings
(Baker et al., 2008, 2009).
There is very little music therapy literature that investigates how music therapists should approach therapeutic songwriting according to the specific structures of various genres of popular music and how those styles are used within specific adolescent musical cultures. A few authors have attempted this inquiry when discussing their work with adolescent clients who identify with Hip Hop (Lightstone, 2012; MacDonald & Viega,
2012). Lightstone discusses utilizing rap battles—competitive improvisational vocal improvisations—in music therapy and how they helped the youth develop authentic expression. MacDonald & Viega discuss the use of freestyle rapping and music technology in working with at-risk youth in order to create a therapeutic environment geared towards creative expression. In addition, the authors describe how Hip Hop culture provides a model for creating various roles for the songwriting participates such as music producers, DJs, and MCs, all of which contribute to the goal of creating a creative community.
Little has been written regarding the influence that a song created in music therapy might have on the ongoing health of an adolescent client. Performance of a song created in therapy, either recorded or live, is common and has been viewed as an ongoing part of the therapeutic process (McFerran, 2010; Baker 2012b, 2012c). Baker (2011) reports that the songs created by clients have been used to facilitate further reflection on their progress and achievements in therapy. MacDonald & Viega (2012) discussed the
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importance of community participation in listening to songs created in music therapy in order for the song to have a greater impact on raising group consciousness. Aasgaard
(2001, 2002, 2005) and O’Callaghan, O’Brien, Magill, & Ballinger (2009) studied songs created by children diagnosed with cancer. These studies suggest that the life of a song can have a positive impact on family, staff, and other patients inside and outside the hospital.
Although the benefits of performing songs created in therapy have been noted,
Baker (2011a, 2011b, 2012c) found that there are inherent risks involved as well. For example, while listening to a song created in therapy clients may recall painful emotions or be dissatisfied with the product and how they are portrayed in the song. In addition, sharing songs can have risks that include leaving the client vulnerable to criticism and breaching confidentiality and privacy laws. Baker’s research suggests that greater understanding of the aesthetic qualities of the songs created in therapy is needed in order for music therapists to be more informed of the benefits and risks in sharing songs after they have been created. No literature has been found that looks at the musical elements, compositional techniques, affective-intuitive qualities, and/or the interaction between the music and the lyrics of songs created by adolescent clients within particular genres of popular music, such as those found within Hip Hop.
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Method-Related Literature
Arts-Based Research and Music Therapy
Arts-based research uses creative-arts methodologies in all stages of social research including collecting and analyzing data, interpreting, reporting, and representing results.
In addition, arts-based research values creative dissemination of the results through performance in order to invite critical thinking, broaden social awareness, develop empathetic understanding, create community, and give voice to, and challenge stereotypes of, marginalized voices within society (Austin & Forinash, 2005; Barone &
Eisner, 2012; Leavy, 2009). Shaun McNiff (2008), who first coined the term arts-based research, provides a full definition of arts-based research, distinguishing it from other forms of arts-based inquires:
Arts-based research can be defined as the systematic use of the artistic process, the actual making of artistic expressions in all of the different forms of the arts, as a primary way of understanding and examining experience by both researchers and the people that they involve in their studies. These inquiries are distinguished from research activities where the arts may play a significant role but are essentially used as data for investigations that take place within academic disciplines that utilize more traditional scientific, verbal, and mathematic description and analyses of phenomena. (p.29)
Arts-based research has been widely accepted by researchers to describe the role of the arts throughout each stage of research. Others researchers have used the terms arts- informed (Cole & Knowles, 2001), artistic inquiry (Kapitan, 2010), and artistically crafted inquiry (Eisner, 1995). McNiff (1998, 2008) differentiates arts-based research from other forms of artistic inquiry in which the arts are used to enhance research findings or guide them through other forms of analysis. Kay and Kaiser (in press) explain that employing the arts within the research process helps researchers comprehend the
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phenomena being study in a way and helps link research directly to artistic processes.
Additionally, the authors note the importance of recognizing the socio-political implications of arts-based research through aesthetic engagement.
Arts-based research values the ability of the creative arts to transform perceptions and expand consciousness through dialog and the aesthetic engagement of social phenomena (Barone & Eisner, 2012). At the heart of arts-based research is the systematic
“process of discovery and invention” through the “performance of social reconstructions”
(Finley, 2008, p. 72). Through aesthetic engagement, arts-based researchers discover new ways to portray social injustice. Emerging from that discovery is the invention of a new path towards transforming oppressive social constructs and pedagogy (Finley, 2008).
Arts-based research prioritizes aesthetic experience and its process cannot be defined by a set prescriptive methodology but must allow for diversity so that critical thinking, dialogue, and community building can be involved in the process (Finley, 2008).
There are only a few arts-based research studies in music therapy13. Ledger &
Edwards (2011) note that this is surprising due to the rise of arts-based research within other creative-arts modalities. They state music therapy researchers might not clear about the definition and boundaries of arts-based research. In addition, they propose that music therapists may be wary of employing arts-based inquiry in research due to identifying with traditional research structures that might limit such research practice. Arnason and
Seabrook (2010)—sharing their experiences of using creative arts in research—found that
13 Carolyn Kenny (2006) is often seen as a pioneer in phenomenological and arts-based music therapy research; her theory of the field of play developed out of her aesthetic musical engagement with clients in music therapy. Diane Austin (as cited in Vaillancourt, 2009a) was one of the first music therapists to utilize arts-based research throughout each phase of the research process in her study on Alcoholics Anonymous, where she used music and poetry during her initial research phases, and created and performed a musical to disseminate the results of the study.
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arts-based inquiry in music therapy was a rigorous journey that required discipline and patience.
Most music therapy studies reflect arts-informed research in which the arts were used to enhance research findings or to guide researchers through data analysis (Arnason
&Seabrook, 2010; Rykov, 2008; Vander Kooiji, 2009; Warner, 2004; Woodward, 2012).
Two music therapy studies utilize the arts throughout the research process and are considered arts-based research. Vaillancourt (2009a, 2009b, 2011) utilized action participatory methods to research and create a model of mentorship and apprenticeship in music therapy training. Schenstead (2009, 2012) utilized a heuristic framework to guide her arts-based inquiry into her relationship with the flute and how it impacts her work as a music therapist. Clearly, there is opportunity for expansion and growth in the use of arts-based research in music therapy. Vaillancourt (2009b) notes that
there is still room for innovative research methods that could address music therapist researchers’ questions. It is natural for music therapists, who are immersed daily in music, to use their sensitivity, intuition, musicality, and combining it with their clinical knowledge and experience. (Retrieved from http://testvoices.uib.no/?q=colvaillancourt270709)
Music Analysis in Music Therapy
Aigen (2009) asserts “the ability to connect the specific properties of one’s means of intervention to a specific outcome is an essential aspect of a modern approach to healthcare” (p. 240). He argues that analysis of musical artifacts in music therapy, such as scores of improvisations or recordings of song creations, allow music therapists to construct how the musical decisions made by both the therapist and client “facilitate the achievement of clinical goals” (Aigen, 2009, p. 264). Aigen summarizes the benefits of music analysis in music therapy: “Therefore, to analyze music is to analyze human
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experience…the structure of human experience in music is homologous with the structure of music itself” (p. 265).
Many of the studies that analyze musical processes in relation to clinical processes focus on Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) and Nordoff-Robbins Music
Therapy (NRMT). This is understandable considering that both are considered music- centered approaches where “the mechanisms of music therapy process are located in the forces, experiences, processes, and structures of music” (Aigen, 2005a, p.51). In GIM, clients listen to specially designed classical music programs while in an altered state of consciousness and dialogue with the therapist. The music programs have been analyzed by GIM practitioners using two approaches: analytical methods that provide cognitive understanding of the music and its elements and experiential methods that help develop a personal sensitivity to the music and the imagery potentials of the programs (Abrams,
2002; Bonny, 1993; Bruscia, 1999; Viega, 2010). Whereas GIM is concerned with analyzing pre-composed music created by classical composers, NRMT analyzes musical improvisation and improvised songs that are either created together by clients and therapists or composed by the therapist for clinical use. Each NRMT session is recorded for the purpose of analyzing musical moments and the music properties (melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture) in relation to the clinical decisions and progress unfolding moment-to-moment (Aigen, 2009).
Several authors have explored the use of creative arts in analyzing the music used and created in music therapy. In GIM, Helen Bonny, the creator of the Bonny Method of
Guided Imagery and Music, developed the experiential method of body listening. It involves moving the body freely to the music in order to deepen one’s affective and
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intuitive relationship to the music (Bonny, 1993). Viega (2010) explored body listening in his analysis of the GIM music program Mostly Bach. He found that body listening led to a deeper understanding of how the body shapes affective-intuitive responses to the musical properties of the compositions. Other creative-arts methods of analysis in GIM include mandala drawing and working with clay (Lewis, 2002). Such analysis is typically used with trainees of GIM to help deepen their understanding of the potentials of the music.
Graphic notation—a non-traditional musical score that incorporates the visual arts to represent musical processes—has been used in the analysis of client created musical improvisation (Bergstrøm-Nielsen, 2009, 2010; Gilboa, 2007). These visual representations can either be done by hand (Bergstrøm-Nielsen, 2009, 2010) or they can be computer generated (Erkkila, Lartillot, Luck, Riikkila, & Toiviainen, 2004; Gilboa,
2007). Analysis of songs using graphic notation has also been used to help increase music therapy students’ sensitivity to musical moments in therapy. (Bergstrøm-Nielsen, 1999).
The above-mentioned methods of music analysis are typically associated with musical idioms outside of popular music genres.
Lyric analysis is the most common method of analyzing songs created by clients in music therapy. O'Callaghan & Grocke (2009) compared nine different research methods to provide an overview of current practice in music therapy. The authors point to two primary functions of lyric analysis in music therapy: First, inductive analysis attempts to better understand lyrical content to discover what clients express in their songs, as well as construct a clinical portrait of the clients' lived experiences. Second, deductive analysis generalizes themes found in clients' lyrics to an overview of clinical
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topics that are relevant for therapeutic songwriting experiences. The authors recommend two methods of lyric analysis: First, analysis informed by grounded theory that allows for a broader conceptualization of the lived experiences of the songwriting participant to emerge. Second, analysis informed by phenomenology that provides a more focused description of clients' feelings about life and their illness as expressed in their lyrics. The authors conclude that lyric analysis provides music therapists a better understanding of their clients' lived experiences, helps increase clinical empathy towards their clients, and helps during evaluation procedures in therapy.
Lyric analyses are primarily concerned with interpretations of textual content within the songs created by clients. Analyzing musical content of song creations is also warranted but underrepresented in the literature. Aasgaard (2001, 2002, 2005), Turry
(2006), and Forinash & Gonzalez (1989) looked at how music influences the lyrical content within the songs of patients who are struggling with a cancer diagnosis. By analyzing the interaction between music and lyrics, a more holistic description emerges of the songs and their influence on the therapeutic process.
Aasgaard (2002) considered all aspects of how songs were created, performed, and used by children with leukemia, aplastic anaemia or myelodysplasia within a hospital setting. Within this study, Aasgaard looked at the lyrics and the musical elements in relation to the patients' stay at the hospital and in relation to therapeutic process of each patient. However, the lyrics and the music are analyzed separately.
Whereas Aasgaard (2002) described a songwriting process, which involved structured songwriting methods, Turry (2006) explored improvised songs created together with a woman who had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Turry’s
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study provides an in-depth exploration of how the music and the lyrics interact, showcasing how intertwined the two are when analyzing a song. Turry used song analysis to highlight the therapeutic process with this client, looking at the linkages between musical, psychological, and clinical processes. Turry’s study demonstrates the unique musical communications that occur between his client and himself when improvising songs. Although the author was not conscious of his own shifts in musical tonality and melody while in the creative process, subsequent analyses revealed how his musical decisions reflected clinical intention. Turry’s study demonstrates how both the lyrics and music can reflect and contain the complexities of human emotions and interactions.
Forinash & Gonzalez (1989), working with a woman dying from cancer, analyzed clinical improvisations that were based on two pre-composed songs. The authors developed a phenomenological approach that combines both musical and clinical analyses in order to create a holistic understanding of music’s use in the treatment of the patient. There are seven steps to their method:
1) Client background
2) Session description
3) Syntax- analyzing the musical elements of the session
4) “Sound as Such” (p.39)- describing the qualities of the sounds in the session
5) Semantic- describing the referential meaning of the session
6) Ontology- understanding the lived experience of the client as constructed by the
therapist
7) Metacritical evaluation- reviewing the data, its limitations and strengths and
evaluating its impact on the results
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The song analyses done by Aasgaard (2002), Forinash & Gonzalez (1989), and
Turry (2006) focus on clinical process while having specific clients in mind. Four studies on song analysis have been done only for the purpose of understanding and explaining clinical processes in music therapy more broadly (Aigen, 2009; Biddle, 2011; Schmidt,
1984; Vander Kooij, 2009). Aigen and Schmidt both analyzed songs used in Nordoff-
Robbins Music Therapy. Aigen (2009) examined one composed song and one improvisation using the cognitive schemas of CONTAINER and VERTICALITY. He reinforces Turry’s findings that music and lyrics are inseparable and supportive of one another. Schmidt (1984) analyzed a play-song composed by Nordoff & Robbins for use with children with developmental and intellectual disabilities. She connects the clinical use of the song with the qualities of the music, such as the rocking rhythmic pacing and flowing, sustained melodic structures.
Biddle (2011) analyzed precomposed rap songs with evocative lyrics in order to gain a broader understanding of the preferred music of her clients. Her analysis revealed that complex messages were being communicated in the music, which sometimes contradicts the lyrics. For example, while some lyrics were blatantly misogynistic the quality of the music was sometimes childlike and conveyed innocence. This suggested a more complex emotional and psychological story being told within these songs.
Vander Kooij (2009) used hermeneutic phenomenology in an arts-informed analysis of songs written by adults with mental illness to gain a deeper understanding of their condition. Although no formal musical analysis was conducted, language, metaphor, poetry, music, and visual arts were used to interpret the songs, in addition to interviewing the participants on their experience of the songs. Links between emerging themes were
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found. In her findings, Vander Kooij noted the journey that unfolds for people with mental illness: Hopelessness to hope, loss of identity to resorted identity, no perceived control to taking control, and social isolation to social connection.
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CHAPTER 3
DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Overall Rationale and Approach
An arts-based research design that employed elements of heuristic inquiry—specifically embodied and reflexive phenomenology—was chosen to study songs created by adolescent songwriters who have had adverse childhood experiences. In heuristic approaches to research, the researcher studies his or her experience, interacting with the object or phenomenon being studied; this experience becomes the primary tool for data gathering. Although heuristic approaches were used, this is not a study of my experience of the songs, but rather I used my experiences to inform the analyses of the original songs through arts-based approaches. Artistic representations of the original songs were utilized as a way to inform and inspire subsequent creative analyses of the musical elements, compositional techniques, affective-intuitive qualities and the interaction between the music and the lyrics.
Such a design allowed for experiential and artistic methods of song analysis to take place at three ontological levels: embodied knowledge (knowledge already held within the body), reflexive understanding (reflecting on my beliefs, thoughts, feelings, preconceptions, and emotions related to the songs through artistic recreations), and interpretation (constructing meaning of the songs through artistic interpretation, narrative, and formal score analyses). Starting from the body as a source of knowledge, moving to reflexive understanding, and finally to interpretation, the design of the research moves from the bottom-up, or maybe more appropriately, from the inside out. This approach was taken for two reasons: First, it provided a metaphor that mirrors adolescent
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development. For example, physically and cognitively, adolescents are driven by sensation and instinct, and eventually move towards more rational thinking as they enter into adulthood. Second, I believe that music listening experiences are first felt in the body before meaning and interpretation of the song’s content is made through reflection14.
Song Selection and Sampling Strategies
Criteria for song selection were based on Lincoln & Guba’s (1985) notion of purposive sampling, which allows for selecting songs based on practical and aesthetic requirements specific to the purpose of a particular study. Turry’s (2006) criterion of what constitutes a song was used to determine which compositions to exclude: “A song is a musical form that includes at least in part words and/or a melodic theme that can be remembered after the form as a whole has been completed” (p. 99). This meant that instrumentals and spoken poetry read over “background” music were excluded from selection15.
A total of twenty-two songwriting participants recorded one hundred and fourteen compositions over the course of the songwriting program. Thirty-six songs were excluded because they were either instrumental compositions, poetry over background music, or songwriting exercises that did not represent completed songs. A total of seventy-eight songs remained. In order to select songs for analysis, I conducted an initial open listening to each song, allowing myself to respond and react to the music in whatever manner felt
14 Schema theory (Aigen, 2005), as well as research by Bonny (2003), Trondalen (2007), and Viega (2010) addresses this by suggesting that the meaning of music is mediated by metaphoric structures that originate in our experience of our own bodies. This highlights the importance of this research design starting with the body and subsequently moving towards more reflection and interpretation. 15 With regards to the poetry read over background music, there were several songs excluded in which it was clear that the poetry was meant to be in the foreground and did not interact or relate specifically within the musical backdrop. This is much different from rap music, in which the rapper interacts rhythmically and sometimes melodically with the music.
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right in the moment. I noted the songs that induced an emotive and visceral response in me during my listening experience. These responses ranged from positive physical reactions such as nodding my head and singing along with the song, to uncomfortable feelings with lyrics and music that were more challenging for me to listen to. I felt that both reactions warranted further investigation; therefore, these songs were highlighted.
Twenty songs of the original seventy-eight remained after this listening experience.
It was determined at the onset of the study that a minimum of eleven to fifteen songs were needed to provide sufficient information to reveal possible patterns and to allow the analysis to reach the point of redundancy and saturation. Having twenty song selections to choose from provided access to a variety of styles, moods, genres, and lyrical themes. In addition, having a number of songs from various songwriting participants provided diversity in musical and production styles, which allowed the exploration of different textures, compositional elements, and interactions between the music and lyrics across multiple genres popular with adolescents.
Songs were chosen for analysis for several reasons: At the outset of the study, songs that I found to be emotionally intense and raw were chosen. This included songs with evocative and challenging lyrical and musical elements, as well as those that were uplifting and vulnerable. As the study unfolded, songs that presented unique musical and lyrical qualities not present in previous analyses were selected; thus, songs were chosen purposively to explore emerging trends and themes from the data (see Table 1).
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Table 1
Included Songs for Analysis
Song Title Music Style Type of Song Song Decision for Length Inclusion Cryin’ R & B Lyrics layered over 1:00 This was the first precomposed loops song chosen for analysis due to its short length and simple production qualities; thus it served as a pilot analysis for how subsequent songs were to be analyzed.
Emotional R & B and Original lyrics recorded 4:24 This was the second Disaster Rock hybrid over layered precomposed song chosen for loops and live guitar and analysis. This song synthesizer was chosen based upon my need as a researcher to immerse myself within the more challenging subject matter and musical arrangement this song offers. Butterfly R & B Original lyrics over pre- 2:34 This was the third Wings composed instrumental song chosen for analysis. This song was chosen based upon the positive qualities within the music and lyrics, which appeared to drastically differ from “Emotional Disaster.” My Party Rap Rapping over pre-composed 1:14 This was the fourth song instrumental song chosen for analysis. This song was chosen based upon the lyrical themes of excessive partying and its more evocative musical soundscape, which was vastly different from previous songs.
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Table 1 (continued) Included Songs for Analysis
Song Title Music Style Type of Song Song Decision for Inclusion Length Darkness Rap- Original composition with 4:20 This was the fifth song “Horrorcore” electronic instruments chosen for the study. This (drum machine and song was chosen for its synthesizers) evocative lyrics and the fact that the songwriter was highly invested in the production and creation of the song. Who’ll Rap Composed lyrics over 2:18 This was the sixth song Understand? pre-composed song chosen for analysis. This instrumental song was chosen based upon the songwriter’s vocal style, which combined singing and rapping, a style not previously examined. Lost Rap Pre-composed 3:11 This was the seventh instrumental and rapping song chosen for analysis. This song was chosen due to the evocative lyrical content. I felt the need to choose this song to get a feeling for the extremes presented in the subject matter. Love R & B Lyrics sung over pre- 3:11 This was the eighth song composed instrumental chosen for analysis. The song was chosen based upon the need to examine a song that reflect subject matter that differed from the past few song analyses, specifically a love relationship. Numb Singer Singing over guitar 4:05 This was the ninth song Songwriter chosen for analysis. This song offered affective qualities not explored in the past few analyses. Reek Mugga Rap Rapping on client created 2:46 This was the tenth song instrumental chosen for analysis. It was chosen because the music and lyrics expressed a playful, carefree quality not expressed in other songs.
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Table 1 (Continued)
Included Songs for Analysis
Song Music Type of Song Time Decision for Inclusion Style A Girl Like Me R& B Original lyrics over client 3:39 This was the eleventh song created music chosen for analysis. This song was chosen because I wanted to continue explore the song’s playful qualities, which are tied to self-love. Butterfly Wings R & B Original lyrics over pre- 2:34 This song was revisited to (Revisited) composed song explore celebratory instrumental qualities within the music, and to examine my feelings of closure, ritual, and celebration.
Data Collection and Analysis
To gain a complete portrait of the song, I interacted with the music at three experiential levels: embodied, reflexive, and interpretative. At level one—embodied—body listening was used as a way to gain experiential understanding through my body first. At level two—reflexive—I reflected on my beliefs, predilections, emotions, and feelings towards each song by creating my own compositions. I employed other creative arts modalities while creating these compositions, such as free musical improvisation, mandala drawing, and poetry16. At the last level—interpretive—I interpreted the meaning of each song through musical, lyrical, and score analysis.
Data was collected and analyzed simultaneously and not in separate stages. My experiences and songs were analyzed and produced more data for subsequent analysis
16 I chose to draw mandalas, as opposed to other forms of drawing and artwork, as it is the visual- art medium with which I am most comfortable This comfort stems from my experience as a practitioner in the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music in which clients process sessions by drawing mandalas. Other forms of creative arts employed during the song analyses in level two were chosen spontaneously to enhance the creation of my compositions.
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within and between each level. Figure 1 illustrates the interaction of the design of the study with the methods of data collection and analysis.
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Figure 1
Relationship Between the Design and Method
INTERPRETIVE Methods Used • Interaction between the music and lyrics • Analysis of music scores • Analysis of GaragBand tracks • Creating a concept album
REFLEXIVE Methods Used Remix compositions aided by, mandala drawing, free improvisation, and/or writting poetry
EMBODIED Methods Used Body Listening
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Materials and Setting for Data Collection and Analysis
The procedures in level two occurred immediately after the creative encounter at level one. For each song, I used a private space to move to the original songs and create my compositions based on my body listening encounter. The space I used remained consistent throughout the data collection period. Within the room there were multiple instruments available to me to create my compositions. These instruments included multiple hand drums, a drum set, melodic instruments such as xylophones, gongs and other toning bells, piano, and various shakers and sound effect instruments and microphones. The following additional materials were available:
1) Macbook Pro with GarageBand to record audio and iMovie to record video
2) Apogee Duet- an audio interface used with GarageBand to recording instruments
and vocals
3) Korg (ESX-1) Electronic Sampler Production Station- Includes a drum machine,
synthesizer, and sampling capabilities
4) 11 x 14 white paper for mandala drawing
5) Set of 48 Cray-Pas Expressionist oil pastels
6) iPod to play songs through stereo speakers in the room
The room was arranged in various stations: On the far side of the room I put a mat on the floor with pillows and a sheet. This was used at the start of my body listening experience to lie down and relax before the music began. I left a large space in the middle of the room to move around freely and without constrictions. In the corner of the rooms were two tables; the first was with all the recording equipment and the second was for mandala drawing and free writing. Sessions were videotaped and the songs that I created
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were recorded and placed in an Mp3 format.
The musical elements, production techniques, and interaction between the music and the lyrics were analyzed after my creative encounter with each song. During this phase, songs were listened to using the computer and headphones. A good set of headphones was utilized in order to pick up textures and instruments that might not be heard on other speaker devices. The headphones that were used were Senheiser HD 600, which provide natural, spatial imaging that allow one to clearly hear the instrumentation.
Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
Level one: Embodied knowledge. Body listening—a method of music analysis created by Helen Bonny17 (1993) to help practitioners and students of the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music sensitize to the affective-intuitive qualities of the music— was used for each song at the start of the analysis. At this level of experience, I focused on my insights regarding my bodily sensations, my emotional responses to the music, and the insight my movements provided me on the lived experiences communicated in the participants’ songs. I followed the steps outlined below, which were suggested by Bonny and revised by Viega (2010).
Step 1: I found a quiet place to conduct my body listening experience, and begin to
“clear my mind of its busy pre-occupations” (Bonny, 1993, p. 6).
Step 2: I brought my mind to only be aware of how my body felt in the moment. I
reported on how my body felt and the sensations I was experiencing.
Step 3: I stretched my body while standing. I continued to report about how my
17 The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music has been summarized as “a form of psychotherapy, developed by Helen Bonny, in which the client images to specially designed classical music programs in an altered (relaxed) state of consciousness, while dialoguing with the therapist.” (Bruscia, Abbott, Cadesky, Condron, McGraw-Hunt, Miller, & Thomael, 2005, p. 1).
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body was feeling, noting areas that felt relaxed, as well as areas that felt tense.
Step 4: I moved to a lying position and using a remote control, I played the song.
Step 5: With my eyes closed, I began to imagine my body lying flat in whatever
space came to me.
Step 6: I allowed my body to receive the vibrations of the music.
Step 7: I allowed my body to move freely with the music and express whatever
arose from the listening experience. Bonny (1993) clarifies this step, writing,
“movement which I initiate only in response to the vibrations of the music. I move
only when the music suggests movement. My mind is solely on the music and its
effect in and through my body (p.6).
Step 8: I repeated steps 5-7, repeating the song several times if necessary, to gain
further clarity or move deeper into my bodily reactions.
Step 9: I completed the body listening experience once I felt that I explored every
possible way to move my body and a question had appeared that I wanted to pursue
through a composition experience.
Movement was not a requirement of the body listening experience, meaning that the music at time suggested stillness or brought only sensations in my body. Therefore, the purpose of body listening was not the creation of a dance but rather listening to the messages of the music embodied within me as a source of data interpretation.
Level two: Reflexive knowledge. In level two, I reflected on the affective qualities and musical elements that I responded to in my body listening experience by creating songs inspired by the original songs. I called these experiences remix compositions. I created the remix compositions by cutting and pasting elements of the original songs and
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recontextualizing them into a new composition. This technique is known in Hip Hop as sampling18. For this study sampling was defined in two ways: First, in literal terms, musical elements of the original songs were digitally cut and pasted, creating a starting point in the creation of my own composition. Second, and more figuratively, I would sample emotional or affective qualities of the original songs and reflect on them within the context of my own composition. For each song, one or more of the following sampling techniques were utilized for my remix composition:
1) Sampling musical or vocal elements that stood out to me during the body listening
experience. Here, I would use the Korg (ESX-1) or the original GarageBand files
to digitally sample the musical or lyrical elements needed for my remix
composition.
2) Sampling the original lyrics and creating a new musical backdrop to gain insight
and new perspective on the lyrical content.
3) Utilizing affective qualities communicated in the original songs and bringing
them into my compositions for further reflection.
4) Improvising on harmonic or melodic themes from the original song.
Multiple instruments were utilized in the process of creating my remix compositions. There were three reasons why I chose certain instruments in my remix:
18 The terms sampling and remix stem from Hip Hop culture. Remix has been defined as
a global activity consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies. Remix, as discourse, is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste. The concept of Remix that informs remix culture derives from the model of music remixes which were produced around the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City, with roots in the music of Jamaica. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Remix (the activity of taking samples from pre-existing materials to combine them into new forms according to personal taste) has been ubiquitous in art, music and culture at large; it plays a vital role in mass communication, especially in new media. (Navas, 2009, p. 159)
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1) I chose instruments used in the original song. I explored these instruments fully as
I reflected on feelings, thoughts, images, and fantasies that arose in my body
listening experience.
2) I chose instruments that I had a relationship with, which intuitively felt similar to
how a different instrument was used by the original songwriter. For example, I
could have felt that the piano was protecting the songwriter’s vulnerable emotions
and so I chose to play the guitar for my song because it represents an instrument
that I have used to protect my vulnerability in the past.
3) I chose instruments that would enhance emotional qualities that I wanted to
convey in my remix composition.
Other creative modalities, such as drawing mandalas, free musical improvisation, and poetry, were employed in the song creation process. These other creative encounters were used to enhance and support my remix composition experience in a variety of ways:
1) Providing a grounding experience after particular emotional body listening and
composition experiences.
2) Processing challenging emotions not resolved after the remix composition.
3) Allowing tensions still within my body after the remix composition to be released
within another modality.
4) Exploring melodic or lyrical ideas first raised in the body listening experience.
5) Making abstract or ambiguous feelings from the body listening experience more
concrete for the remix composition.
[See Appendix D for mandalas that were drawn during the data collection]
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Level three: The interaction between the lyrics and music. A more objective musical and lyrical analysis of the original songs occurred in level three. In addition,
GarageBand analysis occurred in which compositional techniques were scrutinized in regards to how they enhanced the music and lyrics.
For songs that were created using precomposed hip-hop instrumentals, the musical elements and lyrical content was analyzed. For these songs I followed the following steps19:
Step 1: I noted the musical elements and production techniques that stood out to me
from my previous experiences with the songs (levels one and two).
Step 2: Then, listening to the song in a more focused manner, I noted any musical
or production elements that I perhaps did not respond to in the first two levels.
Step 3: Listening to the song, I focused on the specific musical elements and
describe the song’s musical characteristics. Structural elements and characteristics
of texture and timbre were described in narrative format. Important melodic,
harmonic, and rhythmic elements were notated and examined.
Step 4: I repeated step 2-3 as many times as needed until all the musical elements
were described and/or scored.
Step 5: I created a summary of the major musical elements.
Step 6: I listened to the song again and transcribed the lyrical content.
Step 7: Looking at the lyrical content, I conducted a deductive analysis—as
described by O'Callaghan & Grocke (2009)—to find themes that had broad clinical
19 Not all songs were analyzed in the precise sequence. Each song was approached individually and salient elements from previous encounters typically received attention first.
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relevance for adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences.
Step 8: I provided a summary of the lyrical themes in narrative form.
Step 9: I compared the musical and lyrical summaries while asking myself the
question, “What am I learning about the interaction between the music and the
lyrics from each song?”
Step 10: A final summary of how the music and lyrics interact was created.
For songs that were created using various live and electronic instruments, and instrumental loops20, a track-by-track analysis was undertaken. Analysis included the following steps:
Step 1: I noted the musical elements and production techniques that stood out to me
from my previous experiences with the songs (levels one and two).
Step 2: Then, listening to the song in a more focused manner, I noted any musical
or production elements that I perhaps did not respond to in the first two levels.
Step 3: Going track-by-track in each GarageBand file, I identified each instrument
and vocal that was recorded.
Step 4: Then, going track-by track, I listened carefully to each of the original songs
and analyzed the musical elements and composition techniques used.
Step 5: I repeated step 2-4 as many times as needed until all the musical elements
were described and/or scored.
Step 6: I created a summary of the major musical elements and compositional
techniques used in the songs.
20 Some participants used Apple Loops, a composition tool that comes with GarageBand. Apple Loops are short digital samples, typically 4-16 measures, which can be lengthened, manipulated and arranged in a way that creates a song. A songwriter could choose from a variety of loops representing different instruments and genres of music.
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Step 7: I listened to the song again to make sure that nothing was missed in my
analysis of the musical elements and composition techniques.
Step 8: I listened to the song again and transcribed the lyrical content.
Step 9: Looking at the lyrical content, I conducted a deductive analysis—as
described by O'Callaghan & Grocke (2009)—to find themes that had broad clinical
relevance for adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences.
Step 10: I provided a summary of the lyrical themes in narrative form.
Step 11: I compared the musical elements/composition techniques summaries with
the lyrical themes while asking myself the question, “What am I learning about the
interaction between the music and the lyrics from each song?”
Step 12: A final summary of how the music and lyrics interact was created.
Stages of Data Collection and Analysis
Stage 1. I first engaged with each song using the body listening method; for each encounter, I played each song multiple times moving to it spontaneously and freely. Once
I reached a point of repetition and saturation in my movement, I moved into the song creation process guided by a question that arose during my body listening experience. I began the songwriting process differently for each song meeting the individualized needs of the question I took into each experience21. Each session was videotaped; each song I wrote in response to the original song was recorded into GarageBand and turned into an
Mp3 file so that I could listen to it multiple times afterwards.
Stage 2. After moving and recreating the original songs, I reviewed, reflected on, and transcribed the video from each session. The videotaped material had a number of
21 See Appendix E for questions asked going from the body listening experience into my remix compositions
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elements:
1) An introduction, in which I reported how my body was feeling and any other
pertinent information before beginning.
2) The complete body listening experience, in which I reported important information
about how my body was or was not responding to the music.
3) A report on what I was feeling and my creative choices moving into the
songwriting experience.
4) A verbal report, if needed, during my songwriting experience to process any
feelings or awareness that were emerging for me.
5) A verbal report after the songwriting experience that helped me reflect on what I
was experiencing.
6) Occasionally, I continued to process my experience through mandala drawing, in
which case I would follow up with a verbal report.
First, each video went through an open viewing so that familiarity could be gained with the material. A second viewing was conducted, this time focusing on the body listening portion of the video, while asking myself the question, “what am I learning about the affective qualities of the songs from my body listening experience?” During this viewing, I reflected on this question by noticing my physical and verbal responses to the musical elements and production qualities of the songs. These responses were timed and segmented according to moments in which notable changes in my movements and verbal responses occurred during my body listening experience. These moments were then grouped and charted according to what instruments stood out during my experience, where my body was impacted, the affective quality that each instrument carried, and the
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major music and production elements that broadly influenced my movements. A final narrative was then created to summarize my body listening experience.
Stage 3. I conducted multiple listenings within various settings— in my car, walking around with headphones, in my home office— in order to gain familiarity with each remix composition I composed in response to the original song. Then, I conducted a more focused listening in which I reflected on the primary question I went into at the start of each songwriting experience. For each remix composition, I wrote out the materials I used in creating my composition and any videotape reflections I had during my recreative experience. I concluded with a final narrative that reflected on how my composition experience deepened my understanding of the original song.
Stage 4. I completed a full musical and lyrical analysis—as described above in level three, the interaction between the music and lyrics—of the original song. A final narrative was completed that summarized how the musical elements and the lyrical themes interrelate22. The summaries from stages 2-4 were used for subsequent data analyses.
Stage 5.
Structural corroboration: Creating a concept album. The process of gathering pieces of evidence in order to create a compelling whole is known as structural corroboration (Barone & Eisner, 2012). Barone & Eisner explain that structural corroboration “deepens the conversation. It makes the analysis more sensitive; it yields an array of questions that will make more complex the analysis that was initially undertaken” (p. 162). Structural corroboration is used to promote credibility and to
22 See Appendix B for examples of transcripts and analyses of the original songs.
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address issues of validity in arts-based research.
I was looking for a way to artistically group and categorize the data I had been collecting during my creative, heuristic analyses. After each body listening/remix composition experience, I added the song I completed to a playlist in my Mp3 player and listened to it in the car on my way home. After six songs were completed, I noticed that certain songs sounded right together in terms of thematic unity, harmonic qualities, tempo, and textural connections. I began to play with the order of the songs and found that there was a compositional flow to the songs that I had created. A narrative began to unfold within the ordering of the songs and the idea to create a concept album began to emerge23.
The concept album takes separate songs that I created in the creative analyses of the original songs and pieces them together to make a unified artistic statement. The creation of this concept album was itself an artistic process, where I began to piece together a narrative arc with introduction, sequences, transitions, and resolution. The formation of the concept album helped to categorize the songs so that the findings could be grouped and organized for further analysis.
Stage 6.
Cross-comparison of songs within each category. I categorized and grouped the original songs according to the narrative arc of the concept album. Going song-by song within each category, I scrutinized and summarized the musical elements, compositional techniques, affective and intuitive elements, and interaction between the music and lyrics of the original songs. The formal song analyses gathered in stage four of the data
23 See Appendix F for more about the concept album in popular music.
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collection process served as a primary source for my within-category analyses.
Additionally, the songs were listened to again and the GarageBand files were reexamined as a way to verify and recheck my initial analysis during my data collection. The songs within each category were then compared to create a final summary of how their aesthetic elements interrelate and interact24.
Evaluation
Central issues related to the trustworthiness of this study include aesthetics, authenticity, and collaboration. The evaluation criteria and procedures for this study reflect the values of arts-based research and Hip Hop culture, specifically the power of the arts to empower, give voice to subjugated perspectives, raise consciousness, and provide critical awareness
(Leavy, 2009).
Aesthetic Evaluation
Leavy (2009), in a discussion regarding evaluation for arts-based research, suggests that aesthetics is “central to the production of arts-based texts as well as our evaluation of them” (p.16). This evaluation criterion served several primary functions: First, it ensured that the research process contained a fluid merger of research and artistic methods. As a result, the craftsmanship of research design and the organization of the report in terms of its creativity, elegance, and courage were considered (Lincoln & Guba, 1990). Second, this study attempts to promote a shift in thinking by expanding and raising the consciousness of the audience. Therefore, having the reader25 engage with the artistic creations within this study will help provide a deeper understanding and empathy for
24 See Appendix C for example of cross comparison analysis. 25 Barone and Eisner (2012, p. 153) note “in using the term reader, we are not restricting our comments to people who read books or articles or newspapers; we mean people who secure meaning in whatever form it needs to be read. Paintings are read, music is read, and dance is read.”
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adolescents who have suffered abuse and trauma. Last, the benefit of aesthetic evaluation of this study is that it has implications for multiple audiences, including academic evaluators, funding agencies, healthcare administrators and workers, and everyday people interested in topics such as music and adolescence26.
Authenticity Evaluation
Throughout the study I endeavored to maintain a commitment to the ethos of Hip Hop culture and arts-based research, both of which value authenticity. Lincoln & Guba’s
(1989) evaluation criterion of authenticity—specifically ontological authenticity, educative authenticity, catalytic authenticity, tactical authenticity27—was utilized to provide a framework for assessing the interconnection between the design, method, and results of the study.
1) This study is meant to expand and reshape societal understandings of adolescents
who have experienced abuse and trauma, as well as Hip-Hop’s role in health care;
Lincoln & Guba refer to this as ontological authenticity.
2) In this study, the artistic representations of my findings are designed to educate
audiences about the complexities of adolescence, Hip Hop culture, therapeutic
songwriting, and arts-based research; Lincoln & Guba refer to this as educative
authenticity.
3) The artistic representations of the findings are meant to stimulate social action
26 For more about aesthetic evaluation in relation to this study see Appendix H 27 Fairness—the extent to which different perspectives and constructions are honored in the evaluation process—was not included since this term relates to the researcher identifying tensions among various stakeholders of the research. As discussed in Chapter 1, Limitations, this study was concerned with my perspective and analysis of songs—making meaning from my creative engagement—rather than the songwriters creating meaning from the song. However, I did make meaning utilizing multiple theoretical perspectives and various ontological frameworks (embodied, reflexive, interpretive). Additionally, readers reconstruct their own meaning through their engagement with the research materials; however, this speaks to aesthetic evaluation noted above.
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through aesthetic engagement by the reader; Lincoln & Guba refer to this as
catalytic authenticity
4) This study provides a forum to have the songwriters’ voices heard and
understood. The intention here is to increase readers’ empathy for adolescents who
have experienced abuse and trauma; Lincoln & Guba refer to this as tactical
authenticity.
Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
Cross-disciplinary collaboration and peer debriefing strengthened the aesthetic dimensions of the research, promoted prolonged engagement and persistent observation of the data, and promoted dialogue and critical thinking. For the purposes of this study, I created a reflexive team that consisted of a combination of creative arts therapists, educators, and social workers in order to promote a reflexive dialogue about my creative encounters with the songs.
The term reflexive team was inspired by Jones’s (2006) use of the term “reflection team” (p. 75) to describe a cross-disciplinary approach to introducing multiple voices and perspectives when viewing the artistic representations of the data. I use the term reflexive instead of reflective to communicate the interaction between the research and the individualized nature of listening. Stige, Malterud, Midtgarden (2009) summarize that reflexive dialogue enables the research and the collaborative community “to articulate, question, and criticize preconceptions from different perspectives. Accordingly, a truly reflective inquiry requires individual and collective efforts to articulate various attitudes to the subject matter under study” (p. 1508). Such reflexive dialogue and collaboration promotes community, which is a guiding principle of both Hip Hop culture and arts-
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based research (Barone & Eisner, 2012; Hadley & Yancy, 2012a, 2012b; Korbin &
Tyson, 2006; Leavy, 2009; McNiff, 1998, 2008).
Reflexive team. Prior to analyzing the first song, I contacted potential members of the reflexive team via email and asked if they would provide consultation in this study.
The reflexive team consisted of three members, who collectively covered the four foci of this study, therapeutic songwriting, adolescence, Hip Hop, and arts-based research:
1) Dr. Lisa Kay, an art educator and art therapist, and is an assistant professor at
Temple University, Tyler School of Art. As a researcher, Dr. Kay has a
conducted arts-based research working with at-risk adolescents.
2) Dr. Jaleel Abdul-Adil, an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in
Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as Associate Director
of the Disruptive Behavior Clinic. Dr. Abdul-Adil is a leading expert on the use
of Hip-Hop to enrich their lives of urban youth in the Chicago-land area.
3) Dr. Felicity Baker, a music therapy researcher, educator, and scholar. Dr. Baker
is an Associate Professor and Australia Research Council Future Fellow (2011-
2015) at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. She is a leading
expert and researcher in therapeutic songwriting methods in music therapy. Dr.
Baker will be transferring her Fellowship to The University of Melbourne in
January 2013.
After agreeing to participate, a welcome letter was first provided to the reflexive team, which introduced them to one another, provided them with initial information regarding the study, and explained the purpose of the reflexive team. The members of the reflexive team were individually consulted twice during the data collection, once at the
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mid-way point and again at the end of the data collection process. Each team member was contacted individually by email; digital Mp3 files were attached to the email along with Microsoft Word documents that provided each reflexive team with additional material regarding my creative analyses.
The reflexive team listened to my remix compositions and to the original songs, providing feedback regarding the trustworthiness of the results. They were asked to reflect on the songs and note if my remix compositions were grounded within the content of the original pieces. Additionally, the reflexive team provided questions to consider and insights into their own experiences with the original songs and my remix compositions. It is important reiterate that the reflexive teams served as consultants to emerging results to substantiate the analyses, rather than providing additional data for analysis28.
Ethical and Political Considerations
This study received an expedited review and was approved by the IRB at Temple
University. I no longer worked at the facility where the songwriting program had taken place, nor did I have any contact with the songwriting participants that would have influenced my judgment of their songs. To protect the confidentiality of the participants, songs were scrutinized for possible identifying information. This included any specific information related to the songwriting participants, such as their names or the names of family and friends, specific identifying information relating to participants’ geographic location such as their school, home, or other places in their lives. In one song, “Love,” the songwriter dedicates the song to her love interest. This name was edited from the recording and written analyses, as it was unclear if this was or was not a real name. No
28 See Appendix F for more about the process and feedback of the Reflexive Team.
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other identifiable information was uncovered. Several songwriters utilized pseudonyms while recording their songs. Their songwriting monikers were kept in as they did not reflect their real names and did not identify the songwriting participant.
I believe that research is not politically neutral and can be used towards a political end. In this study, I am concerned with the broader political usage of the songs that were analyzed. My hope is that the findings of this study can help reshape and redefine negative stereotypes regarding adolescents who have experienced abuse and regarding
Hip Hop culture. The adolescent clients who created these songs are referred to as songwriters throughout this report. The reason for this is that the word client can be linked to culturally embedded beliefs that these adolescents are “problem children” with emotional and behavioral disturbances29. Instead, the stance of this study is that the adolescent participants are artists who are giving creative voice to their childhood abuse and trauma. Moreover, media discourse on Hip Hop often reflects and perpetuates the idea that it is a negative influence on adolescents as opposed to being seen as a form of shared cultural expression. Therefore, this study is meant to further critical thinking and engage in a dialogue that promotes the benefits of Hip Hop and therapeutic songwriting, as well as deepen cultural empathy for adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences.
29 Rolvsjord (2010) suggests that the term client is disempowering and that other terminology is needed when framing clinical work within a strength-based orientation.
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CHAPTER 4
INTRODUCTION TO THE RESULTS
This chapter provides a brief introduction to the results of the study: Chapter five presents the analyses of songs grouped as Songs that Protect Vulnerability; chapter six presents the analyses of songs grouped as Songs of Abandonment, and chapter seven presents songs grouped as Songs of Faith and Love. These groupings represent findings of the study that were gained from the creation of the concept album that will be introduced in chapter eight. Chapters five through eight are sequenced so that the reader will encounter the material as I did, first experiencing the original songs and then encountering the concept album of remixed compositions.
The sequence of the concept album relays a thematic narrative of my journey into the inner world of adolescence. The concept album was conceived as a song cycle in three stages, each highlighting a different phase of the mythic journey that unfolds during the album: The three stages include Going into Hiding, Down in the Labyrinth, and
Loving Me and My Butterfly Wings. I then grouped the original songs in a manner that mirrored the stages of the concept album. In essence, the concept album allowed me to organize the results of the analyses in a way that made them more understandable and manageable. Titles were given for each grouping of songs during my last stage of data analysis. These titles included, Songs that Protect Vulnerability, Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love. These titles reflect the overall function of the songs in relation to the psychological development of adolescents who have experienced adversity and trauma, as revealed though my multiple creative analyses of the original songs (see
Table 2).
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Table 2
Stages of the Concept Album and Result Categories
Stages of Concept Remix Composition Original Songs Result Category Album Tracks Overture Track 1: Rising from the Butterfly Wings Not a category- serves as Ashes dramatic devise that introduces the concept album. Butterfly Wings appears below in the category “Songs of Faith and Love.” Going into Hiding Track 2: Hide it all in my Lost Body SONGS THAT PROTECT Track 3: Leave me My Party VULNERABILITY Alone, I’m Scared
Track 4: Like Icarus Reek Mugga Down in the Track 5: Her Words are Cryin’ Labyrinth Lost Emotional Disaster SONGS OF Track 6: My Heart Can’t ABANDONMENT Take it Anymore Darkness Track 7: Funeral Procession Numb
Track 8: Thaw
“Loving me and my Track 9: Shining Up in Who’ll Understand? Butterfly Wings” the Sky SONGS OF FAITH AND Track 10: Opening a Love LOVE Door A Girl Like Me Track 11: U R U! Butterfly Wings Track 12: Soar!
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CHAPTER 5
RESULTS: SONGS THAT PROTECT VULNERABILITY
Introduction
In this chapter, the songs “Lost,” “My Party,” and “Reek Mugga” are analyzed. Each song’s aesthetic components—musical and stylistic elements, compositional techniques, and affective intuitive qualities—are examined. At the end of each song analysis, a summary is provided of how the song’s musical and lyrical elements interrelate. At the end of this chapter, I cross-compare the aesthetic elements of each song and provide a final summary of how the music and lyrics interact to create the category of Songs that
Protect Vulnerability.
Song 1: Lost
Download Link http://db.tt/R3OYOiO4
Note: For faster download, cut and paste the above link directly into your web
browser.
Introduction to “Lost”
Three adolescent males performed this song, calling their group “Flava Boys.” Their nicknames were, Nasty Nell, Lil’ Sean, Mar Money. The group first chose an instrumental track and then rapped over the music in an improvisational manner. My role was to guide the rappers through the recording process, help build their songwriting skills, work on their rhythmic timing as rappers, and work with them in choosing production elements.
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Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: F minor Tempo: Quarter Note: 144 BPM, 4/4 Instrumental: “Drop the World” by Lil Wayne (2009, retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x1u8fEYnGE) Song Structure: Rapping over an instrumental beat
Vocals. This is a rap song featuring three different rappers who are improvising lyrics—also known as freestyling—over a pre-composed instrumental that they chose.
Their vocals are monotone and rhythmic, move between eighth-note and sixteenth-note rhythms, and occur without pause or breath. Each vocalist introduces another and they provide each other with support by taking on the role of the hype-man throughout the piece30. The lyrics utilize double entendre and word play common in rap songs. For instance, Nasty Nell, who raps first, plays on multiple meanings of the word “baby.”
Excerpt #1 (:35- :46)
BANG! See that nigga, he lying (laughs) on his mommy cryin’. Baby, little, sobbing baby You better just drop him baby Maybe you just see me lady, you fuckin’ you crazy baby
In the example above, Nasty Nell belittles his opponent by reducing him down to a scared, sobbing baby. He turns to the girl he is trying to obtain, referring to her as a baby.
While belittling, the term baby is a common phrase in popular music when referring to a love interest. Soon after, Nasty Nell improvises a string of explicit phrases. Although the use of obscenities are present, Nasty Nell does show innate ability to rhyme and morph
30 The role of the hype-man is to provide grunts, shouts, and encouragement in the background of the music to motivate and validate the primary rapper’s vocal freestyle. Stylistically, this technique has roots within the call and response traditions of gospel and blues.
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words from one phrase to the next, a foundational skill that is essential to developing the craft of rapping.
Except #2 (:46-1:06)
Listen, don’t fucking play that dumb shit They know I come around, then you better run quick Every time I see them hoes they out there for their drum stick Every time I see them hoes they better drop their drumstick Yeah, cause I give them bitches dumb dick Dirty working dumb shit All about that gun shit
Melody. Melodies in this song are hidden within the mix of the production; their primary role is to enhance the rhythmic elements of the song. The principal melody can be found at :53, 1:45, and 2:39 within a synthesizer that plays in the upper registers. The melody is characterized by descending intervals, plays on the offbeat and adds syncopation to the rhythm (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Synthesizer Melody
Another melody can be found at 1:35 within whistles that appear in the production. This melody primarily stays on F minor, starting on the third, moving up the triad by relying on passing tones as it rises (Figure 3).
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Figure 3
Whistle Melody
Harmony. Harmonically this song represents an A-B structure. In section A, the primary harmonic movement can be found within the synthesizer and arpeggiates between the i v VI chords (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Section A Harmony in Synthesizer
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Section B, introduced by pounding drums, is carried harmonically by the sound of a distorted, synthesized guitar and later transforms to an acoustic guitar. Here the harmony moves between iVIIII (Figure 5).
Figure 5
Guitar Harmony in Section B
Rhythm. Many of the harmonic and melodic elements provide rhythmic grounding for the song, especially for section A in which there are no drums present. At
:49 the drums forcefully enter and land on the downbeat of the next phrase. The drums represent a rock-oriented style in which the backbeat is stressed on beats two and four.
The more syncopated rhythmic elements occur in the melodic and harmonic elements of the music described above.
Sound effects and ambient textures. At :12 a missile effect is introduced, along with a voice that says “arms.” This effect introduces the overall mood of the piece, which is confrontational and war-like.
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Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The production of this song was fairly simple but did require recording the vocals in several takes. First, the Mp3 of the instrumental track was brought into GarageBand. The rappers then recorded their vocals one at a time. The first two rappers recorded their vocals in one take, while the third rapper required multiple takes. One microphone was used for each of the rappers.
Mixing and editing. The mixing of this song required a small amount of volume adjustments and edits. The instrumental track was lengthened at 2:39 to accommodate the improvisation of the rappers. Each rapper was given a “Live Performance” preset effect on their voice, which consists of a small amount of compression and bass reduction. For the introductory shout-out31, the voice’s pitch was increased and made to sound like it was coming through a telephone—a preset called “Telephone Lines” in GarageBand—by adding compression, bass reduction, auto-wah, and echo. An edit was made to the last voice that says “we gone.” Here, the telephone effect was used again without pitch but with the addition of echo. This produced an effect of the rappers dramatically disappearing into the distance. All vocals were located in the center of the stereo mix, with the final “We gone!” being slightly panned to the left channel. The final mix was given a “Hip-Hop Excite” effect, which increased the reverb of the entire song and gave a small amount of echo for each quarter note; this enhanced the sound of the entire mix
(Figure 6).
31 A term shout-out is slang for a public expression of gratitude. Shout-outs are mainly directed towards other but can also be self-serving and self-congratulatory.
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Figure 6
GarageBand Recording
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
Engaging with this song multiple times through body listening revealed a sense of urgency within the tonality of the vocals, felt within the core of my body. Its entrance felt violent, sexual, and physical. I was not able to stay with those feelings for long and felt the need to prevent them from surfacing. I did so by moving my body randomly and without concern for my surroundings. What emerged was a character who acted overly confident and heedless to shield feeling of powerlessness and to hide shameful sexual and violent feelings hidden below the surface.
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Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
The rappers fantasize about achieving power and control, themes that can be found in the lyrics. However, achieving power comes at the price of self-destruction and violence towards others. The music supports this fantasy through its ethereal, detached, musical qualities while also providing a powerful backbeat with the synthesizers and the drums.
The whistle, the guitar, and other melodic qualities are hidden within the mix of the music, as if the rhythmic force propelling the narrative does not want more vulnerable, human elements to surface. The elements represent hidden messages of vulnerability and fear that are not outwardly expressed in the lyrics of the song.
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Lyric to Lost
(Spoken) Flavor Gang, everyone wanna taste of us. MAR Money, Nasty Nell, Lil Sean Get em!
Nasty Nell OK, ya’ll niggas actin’ crazy Ya’ll don’t know me baby They call me Nasty Nell, I get to spraying like I’m 80 Fuck it, get the rabid, get the crazy Get the snappin’, get them ladies, get the money All that crazy shit ain’t funny When you see me I be rollin’ like an Audi With a hottie, better try me Motherfucker don’t try me I’m gonna get him, I’m gonna hide him I’m gonna cut your fuckin’ body BANG! See that nigga, he lying (laughing) on his mommy cryin’ Baby, little sobbing baby, you better just drop him baby Maybe you just see me lady, you fuckin’ you crazy baby Listen, don’t fucking play that dumb shit They know I come around and you better run quick Every time I see them hoes they out there for their drum chick Every time I see them hoes they better drop their drumstick Yeah, cause I give them bitches dumb dick Dirty working dumb shit All about that gun shit Pass the mic to MAR man Crazy on this beat He bout to start rapping on this shit He’s crazy like some sneaks
MAR Money Yeah- Don’t think I’m gonna fuckin’ snap 45’s and oozies all up in my duffle bag Yeah, I’m driving this game I think I’m gonna fuckin’ crash MAR get his bread up, yeah he got his head up No one’s gonna stop me till I get sent up The only time you stop me is when I fuckin’ die Until then, I spread my wings and then I fuckin’ fly The beat keep drowning I picked up the world, I don’t think I’ll drop it
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I’ma just rock it, till I fuckin’ sleep All these niggas battling me They think I’m fuckin’ sweet I’ma just kill ‘em softly but really hard You think I’m gonna sin but I’m coming off hard Sean gonna get ‘em, he really gonna get ‘em
Lil Sean This is ‘Lil Sean on this motherfucking beat Flavor gang boys and we bring the motherfucking heat So you better get your boys and meet us in the street Now we killin’ ya’ll rhymes and we sitting on your lies It’s like your fuckin’ with us, your fuckin’ with a bomb Press too many buttons nigga, tick-tock BOOM! Took all your fuckin’ rhymes, then we made them into words Took them niggas right back to their fuckin’ planet Mars Now its Lil Sean on this motherfucking beat You can’t stop me nigga now I’m fucking lost on this beat Me, MAR, and Nasty Nell MAR fuckin’ Money, he started this crew and now we actin’ funny And we takin’ over this fuckin’ world And we dropping beats now Lil Sean trippin’ now Beat going crazy Haha, now we laugh motherfuckers Don’t fuck with us nigga Cause we laugh motherfuckers, haha We laugh motherfuckers we gone!
Song 2: My Party
Download Link http://db.tt/zdpaAM8x
Introduction to “My Party”
The songwriter of this song—whose nickname is “Muffin”—painstakingly chose instrumentals to match the rap lyrics she created in her music therapy sessions. She was a prolific songwriter, creating eight songs in the course of six music therapy sessions. The song “My Party” came out of an early session. It consists of a pre-composed instrumental track with rapping. My role was to help guide her through her listening experiences,
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recording process, and post-production. She was an autonomous participant in making aesthetic choices for this song.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: F# minor Tempo: Quarter note= 80 BPM, 4/4 Instrumental: Coups 2 battes by Nordybon & La Resis (2010, track 2) Song Structure: Rapping over an instrumental beat. Verse-chorus structure in the lyrics
Vocals. The rapper presents a persona influence by her favorite rapper, Nicki
Minaj, imitating her voice, rhythmic flow, and attitude. The songwriter’s raps have sixteenth note rhythms, which mirror the rhythms of the synthesizer melody (see Figure
7). She gets into her persona quickly saying, “I’m back” at the start of the track and announcing her exit at the end of the song.
Melody. The primary melody is located in the upper register of the synthesizer.
The melody descends down the F# minor chord (see Figure 7). The melody is accented, and like the synthesized melodies in “Lost,” serves to enhance the rhythmic elements of the song.
Harmony. The harmony and the instrumentation in the music are minimal. The harmony stays within the minor i chord. The low bass tone that enters at measure six (see
Figure 7) grounds the tonic, while the synthesizer plays in the upper registers. The split within the orchestration provides a hollow space in the harmony.
Rhythm. As noted above, the harmonic and melodic elements primarily enhance the rhythm of the song. A low bass tone— tuned to a F#— is used as a bass drum, while the melody in the upper register acts in a similar manner to that of a high-hat cymbal on a traditional drum set. Additionally, there is the slap of a snare drum occurring on beats two and four of each measure providing the grounding backbeat. The low bass tone and
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high-hat keep the songwriter torn between two polarities, while the sound of the snare drum traps her in the middle of the registration.
Sound effects and ambient textures. Sound effects are used to enhance the minimal and dramatic soundscape of the orchestration. First, a missile effect announces the rapper before measure six. Additionally, a siren signals at the start of the piece moving from E- C#.
Figure 7 provides a musical score for the first twelve measures that demonstrates how the rhythm, melody, harmony, and sound effect interrelate to create a minimal and hollow soundscape.
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Figure 7
Score- Measures 1-12
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Figure 7 (continued)
Score- Measures 1-12
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Figure 7 (continued)
Score- Measures 1-12
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Figure 7 (continued)
Score- Measures 1-12
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Figure 7 (continued)
Score- Measures 1-12
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Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The production for this song was simple and quick. The Mp3 of the instrumental was dragged into GarageBand and the rapper recorded her vocal track in one take, adding an additional track of shout-outs at the beginning and end of the song.
Mixing and editing. A “Female Dance Vocal” preset effect was added to the primary vocal track. This effect added compression, bass reduction, and a noise gate to her voice. The second vocal track for the shout-outs at the beginning and end of the track received a “Telephone-Line” preset effect comprising of compression, bass reduction, auto-wah, and a small amount of echo. All vocals were located in the center of the stereo mix. A small amount of delay and reverb were added to the entire track in the final mix
(Figure 8).
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Figure 8
GarageBand Recording
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
My initial reaction during the body listening experience was to hide from the terrifying, apocalyptic soundscape of the orchestration. The unchanging tonic note—played in a bass drum is tuned to F#—as well as the missile and siren sound effect created an aural dystopia that kept me trapped. In order to move to this song, I felt the need to take on the persona of the rapper, allowing the bouncy, vocal qualities to enter into my movements.
What emerged was a tough, uncaring, and indestructible character able to move heedlessly within the dense and minimal orchestration. However, underneath the persona
I created, was an isolated and frightened child waiting and hoping for someone to rescue him.
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Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
Although the lyrics describe the rapper’s escape into a partying lifestyle, the musical backdrop is anything but a party. The orchestration for the instrumental is sparse and minimal. Sirens and a heavy bass drum create a backdrop of an empty apocalyptic soundscape, making one feel confined and trapped. The synthesizers float and bounce above this soundscape, defiantly avoiding the bottomless pit of the bass drum and preventing disappearance into the emptiness. A portrait of the songwriter emerges of a girl who escapes into an isolated and numbing world of partying to cope with the devastation around her. The songwriter puts on an aggressive, insensitive, and isolated mask in order to maneuver through an apocalyptic soundscape that may represent her physical environment and her internal world.
______
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Lyrics to My Party
(I’m back) Walk up in that party all these niggas on my dick Walk into the bar you know I’m ‘bout to take a sip Getting filthy rich can buy what I want I’m a mean spoiled bitch and I ain’t giving a fuck
Walk into my party getting freaky on the ground We took another ‘round and we took another ‘round
Who party my party let’s party let’s party who party- my party let’s party- let’s party
I’m feeling kind of groovy (Inaudible) like the movie I tuning all you out Cause I’m all about my business Smoking Dutches, rolling up, I’m ‘bout to smoke a blunt I’m on all Petron I’m like ‘leave me alone’
Who party my party let’s party let’s party who party- my party Let’s party- let’s party
Who party my party who party my party let’s party let’s party let’s party let’s party
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Song 3: Reek Mugga
Download Link http://db.tt/UlOxDc4P
Introduction to “Reek Mugga”
The songwriter—who called himself “Reek Mugga”—created the beat for this song on an electronic sampler and then improvised rap lyrics over the music. He wrote and recorded this song in one session. My role was to help engineer the recording, taking care of the technological aspects of the recording in order to maintain the songwriter’s flow in creating his song.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: E major Tempo: Quarter Note= 98 BPM, 4/4 Song Structure: Rapping over instrumental beat
Vocals. The rapper, named Reek Mugga32, freestyles lyrics throughout the piece.
Emulating his favorite artist, Roscoe Dash, his vocal delivery is monotone and comes in sixteenth note bursts. Reek Mugga relies on shout-outs throughout the song. At 2:18 he rhythmically and suggestively grunts, “ah, ah, ah, ah” before fading away as the music comes to end.
Melody. There is little melodic movement in this song. The only melodic movement is in the bass, which descends and ascends in repeated half steps. This creates a sense of very constricted space; there is no movement, no escape, and no liberation. It serves as the tonal center as well, as it moves from and arrives back to E (see Figure 9).
32 In slang terminology, Mugga means having everything that other people want, while Reek is the nickname of the artist. The character that emerges is a person who has inflated his status as a person who has anything you want; a “pocket full of mugga.”
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Harmony. Buried within the mix of the production is a synthesized harmony that suggests movement between I and VII chords, E major and D major. The third, which provides definition to the harmony, is omitted. It is as if the absence of the third is expressive of the songwriter’s emotional ambiguity.
Rhythm. The rhythm is syncopated with the snare falling on the two and four of each measure and the bass drum stressing the offbeat. This rhythm stays consistent throughout the piece until 1:42, which provides a small respite from the rhythm before entering back in at 1:50. In addition to the bass and snare sounds, the songwriter added a percussive scratch sound that enters on the offbeat throughout the song. Overall, this track provides rhythmic movement that supports Reek Mugga’s vocal freestyles. Below is the bass and drum loop that provides the syncopated and chromatic grounding for the entire song (see Figure 9).
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Figure 9
Drums and Bass
Sound effects and ambient textures. The song contains several textural elements created on the electronic sampler. The first one is a random arpeggio that changes frequencies and comes in and out throughout the song at various times. At 1:59, the pitch of the modulating arpeggios is altered to create a siren effect. These siren effects move up and down within the key of E. Filter effects, created by simultaneously turning the cutoff and resonance knobs in opposite directions, are also utilized to create a drip sound effect.
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Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The production for this track was minimal. First,
Reek Mugga created the drum track on the electronic sampler; the drum track was recorded into GarageBand (track 2). He then recorded his freestyle vocal on top of the drum track in one take.
Mixing and editing. A “Male Basic” preset effect was added to enhance Reek
Mugga’s vocals (track 1), which added bass reduction, compressor, and a noise gate. No effect was added to the drum track (track 2). At the end of the track, “Long Panning
Echoes,” consisting of echo, reverb, compressor, and tremolo was added to his shout-out to Bang-Bang. No other effects were added to the final mix of the song (see Figure 10).
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Figure 10
GarageBand Recording
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
While moving to this song, my body fought two opposite movement tendencies.
The first one was the urge to contain my movements by staying within the syncopated rhythms and melodic/harmonic elements. The second desire was to move freely within the modulating frequencies of the arpeggiated synthesizer and the free-associative tonality of Reek Mugga’s vocals. As I moved freely, without caution for boundaries, I became giddy and wanted to move more in that manner. I developed a “pain in my neck,” as I avoided conforming to the beat. The more I moved in this manner, the more I felt myself harming my body by not paying attention to the pain I was causing.
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Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
The rhythmic and melodic/harmonic textures in this piece keep the songwriter constrained within a small space. The modulating frequencies of the arpeggios move frantically around the drum beat and turn into sirens. It is as if the songwriter wants to urgently burst free from his contained space. This is supported by the lyrical content of the song, which presents Reek Mugga as someone eager to escape the confines of his daily life by taking on the role of his favorite rapper who has access to power and influence over others. He asks for the music, specifically the DJ, to help in this escape
(“DJ turn me up!”). As he moves higher within the frequencies of the arpeggios he realizes that people are jealous of him (“Haters getting mad because the DJ turned me up.”). The arpeggios blend and become sirens towards the end of the piece, perhaps signifying that if he is unable to escape soon there might be trouble ahead.
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Lyrics to Reek Mugga
Spoken Yeah, 100 Reek Mugga Shout out to my baby Bang Bang Shout out to Flo Mugga Yeah, I love you Bang Bang Mo Reek Mugga He rip shit fo’ real That’s all I do Let’s get to it
Yeah, Yeah, Ok
DJ turn me up DJ, DJ turn me up Haters getting mad ‘cause the DJ turned me up Pocket full of mugga Pocket full of mugga DJ turn me up, DJ turn me up Hatrer’s getting mad, cause the DJ turn me up DJ turn me up so the haters getting mad DJ turn me up, DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up Haters getting made cause the DJ turn me up Hey, let’s get to it
Pocket full of mugga I aai’nt talking ‘bout no cash DJ turn me up, turn me up like Roscoe Dash Haters getting mad cause their pockets kinda fat Stack it ain’t big cause I put it on their back DJ turn me up DJ, DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up
Pocket full of mugga, I ain’t talking bout no cash DJ turn me up, turn me up like Roscoe Dash Haters getting mad Hatters getting mad Haters getting mad cause their pockets kinda fat Stack it ain’t big cause I put it on their back
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Reek mugga (x4) Flo Mugga, Bang Bang, Bang Bang OK Reek Mugga Yeah, I rip shit fo real, 100 It get like that sometimes And at times it really do I Love you Bang Bang
DJ turn me up DJ, DJ turn me up DJ turn me up Tell the DJ turn me up Hey, haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up The DJ turn me up, so the haters getting mad The DJ turn me up and so the haters getting mad DJ turn me up DJ, DJ turn me up Pocket full of mugga, pocket full of mugga DJ turn me up DJ DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up Haters getting mad cause the DJ turn me up And the DJ turn me up so the haters getting mad Ah, ah, ah, ah Yah, yah, yah , yah Yeah, just turn me up I like it like that DJ turn me up DJ, DJ turn me up DJ turn me up Turn me up like Roscoe Dash baby
All about the mugga, mugga city Got to love it BANG, BANG! (Echo effect)
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Summary of Songs That Protect Vulnerability
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Vocals. Each song presents rappers who idolize and imitate their favorite rap artists as they develop their own rapping skills. The rappers are stylistically similar; each has a monotone delivery and sixteenth-note rhythms over mid-tempo rhythms. Their stylistic skills range from the stream of consciousness flow of “Reek Mugga” to the instinctual word play of the rappers in the song “Lost.”
Melody. Melodic elements are either hidden within the mix of the music or play a supportive role in enhancing the rhythmic elements of each song. Most melodies are located within the synthesizers of each song. The melodies of “Lost” and “My Party” can be found within the upper regions of the orchestration. “Reek Mugga” lacks an overt melody but does present some melodic movement in the chromatically ascending and descending bass line.
Harmony. Each piece contains very little harmonic movement. Two songs, “My
Party” and “Reek Mugga” do not stray from the tonic, while “Reek Mugga” suggests movement from the I to the VII. “Lost” has more harmonic movement, however it too stays harmonically close to the tonic chord throughout the song.
Rhythm. Rhythm plays an essential role in each of the songs. The drum patterns for each song are syncopated with the snare stressing beats two and four and while the bass drum plays the offbeat. Added percussive effects—such as the scratch percussion in
“Reek Mugga”—are used to enhance the syncopated groove. Harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic textures typically serve to support and enhance rhythmic elements for each song.
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Sound effects and ambient textures. Each piece presents sound effects that augment the dramatic narratives of the lyrics. Missiles fly into the mix for both “Lost” and “My Party,” while sirens warn the listener in both “My Party” and “Reek Mugga.”
“Reek Mugga” has other sound textures that are produced by using filters and modulating arpeggiated frequencies, which enhance the free-associated qualities of the lyrical content.
Compositional Elements
Production and arrangement. Each song was produced quickly and without many additional tracks beyond vocals and the basic instrumental. Two songs, “Lost” and
“My Party,” utilize Mp3 instrumentals that were dragged into GarageBand. “Reek
Mugga” has a simple beat created by the rapper on an electronic sampler recorded into
GarageBand. Once the instrumental tracks were in place, each rapper recorded vocals on top of the instrumental. No vocals were layered, although some songs added vocal takes at the beginning and end to provide additional shout-outs.
Mixing and editing. Effects were used to enhance the vocals using a combination of compression, bass reduction, small amounts of echo, and noise gate. Vocal introductions occurring at the beginning and end of each piece were altered for effect.
The “Telephone Line” preset effect—comprising of a lot of compression, echo, auto-wah, and bass reduction—was used in both “Lost” and “My Party.” The “Long Panning
Echoes” preset effect was used at the end of “Reek Mugga.”
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Affective-Intuitive Qualities
My body felt confined and trapped within the small melodic and harmonic intervals of each song. The syncopated rhythms of each song provided some movement but they too felt bound within their repetition. I felt afraid within the dystopian soundscapes of “Lost” and “My Party,” which contain sirens and missiles signaling danger. I detached myself from my fear by acting overconfident and without concern for the boundaries around me; the melodic synthesizers helped me to escape into this new persona. I disconnected myself from any vulnerability and emotional pain that might be voiced within the instrumentation, such as the acoustic guitar and whistles found within “Lost.” I numbed myself to painful and awkward feelings in my body by moving and by focusing my attention on my extremities—head, feet, and hands—so that I could survive the apocalyptic soundscapes of the music.
Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
“Lost,” “My Party,” and “Reek Mugga” have been categorized as Songs that Protect
Vulnerability due to contradictions found in the interaction between the music and the lyrics. On the surface, the lyrics appear superficial and overconfident, with each rapper striving to achieve power and control without boundaries or regard for others. The music narrates more complex stories where each rapper escapes into a new persona to avoid feeling emotional pain. The speed and tonality of their rapping expresses a sense of urgency, as if they are trying to escape threats within their environment and powerful feelings of anger and hopelessness within themselves. Each instrumental provides a repetitive syncopated beat and bound harmonic and melodic elements; this creates a confined space that each rapper is trying to escape from. Synthesized textures provide
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detachment from the body to protect themselves from the apocalyptic sound environments. Each rapper moves through these environments by creating a persona that appears to disregard boundaries in order to survive. Natural elements within “Lost”— piano, handclaps and acoustic guitar—are hidden in the mix of the music, as if they have to go into hiding in order to protect their vulnerable voices. Each song provides shout- outs at the start and end of each song announcing the rappers’ presence and signaling their exits; this provides them a forum to inflate their power and presence to preemptively protect themselves from feeling defenseless.
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CHAPTER 6
RESULTS: SONGS OF ABANDONMENT
Introduction
In this chapter, the songs “Cryin’,” “Emotional Disaster,” “Darkness,” and “Numb” are analyzed. Each song’s aesthetic components—musical and stylistic elements, compositional techniques, and affective intuitive qualities—are examined. At the end of each song analysis, a summary is provided of how the song’s various musical and lyrical elements interrelate. At the end of this chapter, I cross-compare the aesthetic elements of each song and provide a final summary of how the music and lyrics interact to create the category of Songs of Abandonment.
Song 4: Cryin’
Download Link http://db.tt/oQnlJdi4
Introduction to “Cryin’”
This song was written and recorded in one session. The songwriter composed the music using precomposed loops in GarageBand. For this recording session, she invited a friend to rap on her song. The rapper improvised over eight bars of the song, freestyling lyrics that related to the theme presented by the primary songwriter. My role was to help guide the songwriter’s choice of instrumental loops, facilitate the creative partnership between the songwriter and rapper, and guide them through the recording process.
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Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: C major Tempo: Quarter note= 120 BPM, 4/4 Song Structure: Verse/Rap Interlude/Coda
Vocals. There are two vocalists performing on this song. The first is the primary songwriter who produced the music and lyrical theme—“Don’t you hear me cryin’?” for the song. Her vocals have vibrato and contain a breathy quality. The second vocalist is a guest rapper33 who appears mid-way through the song (:35). The rapper uses pitch- correction even though she raps in a monotone style. The rapper uses simple and brief rhythmic phrases entering in on the offbeat. The primary songwriter returns with her vocals at :51 to sing “Can’t you hear me cryin’?” one last time.
Melody. Melodic elements occur within the upper registers of the piano accompaniment and the songwriter’s vocals. The piano melody enters first and emerges from an arpeggiated pattern (see Figure 11).
33 The term guest rapper is used here to refer to a friend that the original songwriter invited to her sessions. Often, songwriting participants in the Hear Our Voices program would invite friends to join them on their songs. This was encouraged as a way to enhance the original songwriter’s connection and involvement in the songwriting experience. When this occurred, the focus remained on the original songwriter and the guest would be encouraged to elaborate on the original songwriter’s musical and lyrical themes. Guest rappers and vocalists are common in rap songs due to the community building aspects of Hip Hop culture.
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Figure 11
Piano Melody #1
At :11 the vocal melody begins. At first, the melody ascends and descends without going above the third or below the seventh. She finally climbs upward to the fifth at the end of the phrase, singing “Can’t you hear me cryin’?” (see Figure 12).
Figure 12
Vocal Melody
At :52 a new melodic line is briefly introduced in the piano but fades away after four measures. This melody is within the upper registers and descends until the fourth measure where it climbs back up the C major scale (see Figure 13).
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Figure 13
Piano Melody #2
Harmony. The harmony is carried throughout the piano and provides a traditional pop accompaniment of IviV IV. The last four measures of the song pivot around the tonic. The harmonic movement in the piano also supports the melody within its upper registers.
Rhythm. The drum rhythm is syncopated and repetitive. The bass and high-hat skip through sixteenth notes, while the snare lands on the four of each measure. The pitched bass drum is sonically low providing depth to the orchestration of the music (see
Figure 14).
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Figure 14
Drum Pattern
Sound effects. The sound of thunder and rain begins the song. The primary songwriter chose this effect to enhance the mood of the piece, which appears to be contemplative and longing (“I love you, why can’t you see?”). There are additional ambient textures within the piece that were produced by a MIDI keyboard. This ethereal texture floats above the mix of the music, as if a shooting star is passing in the sky.
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The songwriter created this song by choosing and layering precomposed instrumental loops into GarageBand. In addition, she improvised on a MIDI keyboard to produce an ethereal texture meant to enhance the atmosphere of the music. The GarageBand recording consists of the following tracks (see Figure 15):
Track 1: The principle piano loop, “Delicate Piano 01”
Track 2: The primary drum loop, “Hip-Hop Beat 01”
Track 3:“Rain Heavy Thunder” preset sound effect
Track 4: Improvised MIDI keyboard using “Lunar Strings” preset effect
Track 9: Final piano loop, “Delicate Piano 02”
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Tracks 5 and 6 feature the vocal tracks sung by the primary songwriter; she layers her vocals on top of each other singing them in the same octave. Tracks 7 and 8 feature the guest rapper who needed several takes to complete her vocals.
Mixing and editing. Each vocal track has a “Live Performance” preset effect that consists of bass reduction and compression. The primary vocalist has pitch-correction on her voice set at sixty-one percent34 and the guest rapper has it set to her voice at one hundred percent. The primary vocalist has her two vocal tracks panned, one to the left channel and the other to the right channel. The guest rapper is placed in the center of the mix. All of the music tracks are centered within the stereo mix, except for “Delicate
Piano 02,” which is set in the right channel. The end of the song is cued by a volume fade. Sounds of the songwriter and music therapist talking were left in the mix and can be heard faintly in the background (:02 and :38). Although the songwriter and music therapist did not do this intentionally, leaving those sounds in enhanced the intimacy of the recording. Finally, a small amount of echo and reverb was added to the entire song to provide space within the overall production (Figure 15).
34 The pitch-correction option in GarageBand allows for the composer to determine the degree of pitch manipulation that is added to the vocal track.
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Figure 15
GarageBand Recording
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
The sound of rain and thunder at the beginning of the song had me seeking shelter from the storm. I felt that to move my awareness towards more intimate and vulnerable feelings, I first needed distance from external forces that threatened me. The piano supported this movement inwards, while the low bass tones brought a deep feeling of longing into my abdomen; it was as if there was a hole left in the core of my body from the person who abandoned me. I felt the longing and sadness of the primary vocalist within my chest. The pitch-corrected vocals of the rapper sounded like tears falling and enhanced my melancholic mood. I tried to reach out for help but the descending melodies
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left me feeling helpless after their initial ascending promises. As the longing and sadness enveloped me, I detached from these feelings in my body and escaped into the ambient effects of the synthesizer keyboards.
Interaction between the music and the lyrics
The melodic and harmonic elements of the song create a contained and neutral space for the songwriter to begin to safely explore the challenging feelings of being abandoned. The songwriter creates distance from the subject matter through the creation of small melodic intervals, a repetitive harmonic progression (I, vi, V, IV), ambient sound effects, pitch-corrected vocals, and lullaby like arpeggios within the piano loops. In addition, a guest rapper improvises on the theme of abandonment provided by the primary songwriter, which in turn allows the songwriter to further distance herself from the topic. It is as if the songwriter is psychologically creating a safe space within herself to begin the process of exploring her abandonment.
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Lyrics for Cryin’
Singing I need you, yes I want you. Got to have you here with me. Can’t you hear me cryin’ Cant’ you hear me cryin’ I love you why can’t you see?
Rapping I love you, I need you I need you with me. When you leave it feel like we just can’t be… Together, forever deep down in my heart I told you that I loved you right from the start.
Refrain from vocalist 1 Don’t you hear me cryin’ Don’t you hear me cryin’
Song 5: Emotional Disaster
Download Link http://db.tt/XBsvzEy7
Introduction to “Emotional Disaster”
This song was written and recorded over a series of three sessions. The songwriter came to the session with the completed lyrics for this song in poetry form. He chose the drum pattern and sound effects using precomposed loops in GarageBand; the songwriter also improvised on a synthesizer in order to enhance the atmospheric production of the piece.
I provided the lead and rhythm guitar with the songwriter’s approval of the harmonic structure. The vocals were recorded piecemeal to help with his vocal phrasing. In addition, he added layered vocals to increase the tension of the lyrical content. My role was to provided choices and opportunities for self-exploration throughout the recording/songwriting process.
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Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: C major Tempo: Quarter Note= 82 BPM, 4/4 Song Structure: Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Verse/Chorus
Vocals. The songwriter speaks his lyrics using short monotone phrasing. His vocals intermingle with the music in the chorus, “I’m an emotional disaster/and my heart can’t take it anymore,” by interjecting “no, no, no.” The singer’s vocals become slightly tonal by giving his vocals a sound effect that gives the illusion of a melodic blend between tones.
Melody. Melodies in “Emotional Disaster” are hidden within the musical arrangements of the lead guitar (played by the music therapist) and an improvised MIDI synthesizer (played by the songwriter). The lead guitar enters into the mix at 2:02 and improvises an A minor pentatonic scale. The voicing of the guitar looks to offer melodic possibilities for the songwriter to sing, “I’m an emotional disaster.” The improvised
MIDI keyboard creates a more ethereal melody that hovers over the mix of the production. The melody here stays within the middle register, ascending from A D and then descending back to A (see Figure 16).
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Figure 16
MIDI Keyboard Melody (Measure 1-34)
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Harmony. Harmonically, this song is driven by an acoustic guitar that plays I vi IV
V during the verse, IV V during the chorus, and vi V IV during the bridge.
Functionally, the acoustic guitar is used to contain the lyrical content to leave room for the appearance of simple melodic development from the songwriter (see Figure 17).
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Figure 17
Chords and Lyrics (measures 1-32)
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Rhythm. The drum loop used in this song is syncopated with the snare falling on beats two and four, the bass drum stressing the offbeat, and the hi-hat stressing the downbeat and playing an eight-note rhythm. The sound of claves enters in on beat three of each measure. A cowbell can faintly be heard at the end of every eighth measure. The drums serve to contain the stylistic structure of the pop music format. The drums are non- confrontational and do not attempt to push the narrative of the lyrics.
Sound effects and ambient textures. Rain and thunder set the mood for the song. An ambient piano loop, along with the improvised MIDI synthesizer melody, enters at :06 to create an ambient backdrop to the harmonic progression of the guitar. The ambient piano loop continuously descends throughout the piece, enhancing the melancholic mood of the lyrical content (see Figure 18).
Figure 18
“Deep Electronic Piano 01” Loop
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The production of this song consists of a combination of precomposed instrumental loops, synthesized instruments, acoustic instruments, and vocals. Tracks 1-7 in GarageBand constitute the music for “Emotional
Disaster” (see Figure 19).
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Track 1: Rhythm guitar- Played by the music therapist. The songwriter chose the
style and effect.
Track 2: Drum loop “R n B Beat 06”- Chosen and arranged by the songwriter
Track 3: Ambient piano loop “Deep Electronic Piano 01”- Chosen and arranged
by the songwriter
Track 4: Lead guitar “Big Hair Metal” preset effect- Played by the music
therapist. The songwriter chose the style and effect.
Track 5: MIDI keyboard- Improvised and arranged by the songwriter.
Tracks 6: “Rain Heavy Thunder”- Chosen and arranged by the songwriter.
Track 7: “Thunder Clap”- Chosen and arranged by the songwriter.
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Figure 19
GarageBand Recording- Tracks 1-7
Tracks 8-12 consist of the vocal tracks. The songwriter doubled his vocals, layering them on top of each other, which has the effect of enhancing the disoriented mood of the lyrics.
Track 8-11 consists of the primary spoken lyrics, while track 12 is the songwriter saying,
“no, no, no” using a preset filter effect that causes a dripping sensation (see Figure 20).
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Figure 20
GarageBand Recording- Vocal Tracks
The rhythm guitar, drum loop, rain and thunder effects, and “Deep Electronic
Piano” were the first tracks to be created. Vocal takes were added next. The lead guitar and MIDI Keyboard were added after the vocal takes in order to help the songwriter explore possible melodies within the song.
Mixing and editing. Various preset effects were explored throughout the mixing and editing process to help the songwriter explore the overall mood of the lyrics. Most of the effects create an ethereal atmosphere that surrounds the vocalist. The rhythm guitar has a “Shimmer Chorus” preset effect that has compression, chorus, and track reverb; the
“Deep Electronic Piano 01” loop is filled with echo and reverb; the MIDI keyboard has a
“Wandering Around” preset effect that has compressor, tremolo, echo and reverb. The lead guitar has a “Big Hair Metal” preset effect that creates a distorted sound, used to give voice to the emotional pain suggested in the lyrics. The primary vocals were
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recorded without added effects, enhancing their raw and vulnerable qualities. The vocal for “no, no, no” has compression, echo, reverb, and filters to create a sound as if the songwriter’s voice is disappearing into thin air. The drum loop has a little compression on it but it is mostly without effect.
Stereo panning and volume edits help create a sense of space in the production of the song. The rhythm guitar, MIDI synthesizer, and instrumental piano loops are panned slightly to the left of the stereo mix. The drums remain in the center of the mix. The lead electric guitar is panned far to the right. The sound effects of the rain and thunder are panned to the left and the right. Vocals are panned in both the left and the right of the stereo mix to create a surround-sound effect. The vocals for “no, no, no” are kept in the center. Volume adjustments were made throughout the mix to help balance the many tracks. The instrumentation slowly fades away at the end of the song. A “Pop Basic” preset was added to the final mix of the entire song, which consisted of echo, reverb, compression, and a peak limiter that equalized the low, mid, and high frequencies.
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
I found myself getting lost within the possibilities of the orchestration when moving to this song in my body listening experience. My body felt pulled in two directions: The first was to detach from the emotional pain suggested in the songwriter’s vulnerable vocal delivery and just move to the music. My attention wandered to different sonic environments in the orchestration without having to dwell on one particular emotion within my body. The second possibility was to stay with the vocals, which stopped me from moving my body and left me feeling helpless deep within my stomach and chest. I found myself feeling frustrated and confused by both possibilities. Towards the end of
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my body listening experience, I felt the need to strip the song of all its orchestration and stay within the wallowing feelings expressed in the vocals.
Interaction between the Music and Lyrics
The lyrical content focuses on the theme of unrequited love and its subsequent painful heartbreak. The songwriter expresses more menacing feelings by signaling that his “heart can’t take it anymore.” This ominous sentiment is supported by the rain and thunderous sound effects, which sound more threatening and foreboding than the song “Cryin’,” due to their interaction with the descending ambient piano loop and the dry, emotionless drums. His vocals are stripped of any production effects; it is as if he is exposed, which creates a human, open, and honest listening experience.
The ethereal musical backdrop provided by the MIDI keyboard, the chorus effect of the rhythm guitar, and the “Deep Electronic Piano 01” offer the songwriter an escape from his pain; the distorted lead guitar offers to voice the songwriter’s pain. However, it feels as if the songwriter refuses to move from his emotional state by staying confined within his monotone vocal delivery, without being swayed by the offerings of the instrumentation.
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Lyrics for Emotional Disaster
Verse 1 My heart is sore It’s bleeding all over (It) wants to die for something it cannot have For that, my tears hurt even more
Chorus I’m an emotional disaster And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no) I’m an emotional disaster And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no)
Bridge Too much stress and pain in my life Different things going on My emotions out there in the open Just waiting for someone to grab for an instant
Verse 2 And I’m struck by the emotion of love Wanting to be their all and everything But to be their everything I have to hide myself from what I want us to be
Chorus I’m an emotional disaster And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no) I’m an emotional disaster And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no) I’m an emotional disaster And my heart can’t take it anymore I’m an emotional disaster And my heart can’t take it anymore
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Song 6: Darkness
Download Link http://db.tt/FyWQiKCJ
Introduction to “Darkness”
This song was produced, written, edited, and performed by the songwriter during six- sessions. As the music therapist, I provided technical and musical guidance throughout the songwriting process. The songwriter had no previous musical experience and came into the therapeutic songwriting session with little to no interest in participating in the program. However, he quickly became deeply involved in using the drum machine during the first session. He came to the second session prepared with lyrics and his investment in creation of the song grew from session to session.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: Eb minor Tempo: Quarter note= 92 BPM, 4/4 Music: Created, produced, and edited by the songwriter using the Korg EMX-1 and GarageBand Song Structure: Rapping over the composed instrumental. Improvised rhythmic humming provides transitional breaks between verses.
Vocals. The vocalist delivers the lyrics in a style similar to what is known as
“Horrorcore,” a subgenre of rap music that focuses on horror-influenced topics and distorted, moody beats. The vocals play a primary role in creating a terrifying mood.
There are four vocals parts presented in the recording: The first is the spoken narrative at the beginning and end that serves to set the horror-like atmosphere of the piece; the second is the monotone rapping vocal that is fast paced, distorted, and intense; the third are hums that introduce melodic elements into the song, and the fourth were vocals
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digitally produced on a MIDI keyboard and made to sound like a choir singing in the background.
Melody. The primary melodic elements of the song are comprised of rhythmic and layered humming (see Figure 21). This melody stays confined within the third (Gb) and the fifth (Bb) of the key, as if it is having a hard time finding its home on the tonic.
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Figure 21
Vocal Melody- Hums
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Figure 21 (continued)
Vocal Melody- Hums
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The second melodic line is played on a MIDI keyboard and is made to sound like a choir singing. The function of this melody is to enhance the overall mood of the song by providing a mournful, funeral-like quality that interacts with the distorted beats and vocals. This melody starts and ends on the tonic, providing a counterpoint to the humming melodies that move between the third and the fifth (see Figure 22).
Figure 22
MIDI Keyboard Melody- Synthesized Voices
Harmony. Harmony does not play a major role within this song. Tension in this song is created by the harmony remaining confined in the minor tonic chord. Melodies and bass lines ascend and descend between the notes of the tonic chord; it is as if the harmony forms a trap to envelop the listener within the horror-filled atmosphere of the song.
Rhythm. The rhythm plays a central role in producing the character of the song.
The bass drum pounds the listener with its sixteenth note rhythms and is immediately followed by the slap of snare drum. Sounds of a high-hat enter in and out of the drum track mirroring the sixteenth note rhythm of the bass drum. There is a bass line that
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ascends and descends in half steps; its function is primarily rhythmic, serving to support the depth of the bass drum (see Figure 23).
Figure 23
Drum and Bass
Sound effects and ambient textures. Sound effects do not play a role in this piece. Most of the effects in the voices and instruments—which serve to enhance the overall mood of this piece—were added in the mixing and editing phase and are discussed in the next section, “Compositional Techniques.”
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Compositional Techniques
Production and layering. The songwriter served as the primary producer of this song, spending a majority of time layering, editing, and mixing the music and the lyrics.
First, the drum and bass tracks were created on the Korg EMX-1 drum machine and then added to GarageBand. Next, the songwriter added all of his vocals, including the spoken narrative and the rapping. Last, the MIDI keyboard with the choir melody was added.
Tracks 1-3 in GarageBand represent the music tracks: Track 1 is the drum and bass pattern that were created on the Korg EMX-1 drum machine. Tracks 2-3 are the
MIDI keyboard melodies made to sound like a gospel choir (see Figure 24).
Figure 24
“Darkness” GarageBand Recording- Tracks 1-3
Tracks 4-14 introduce the vocal tracks arranged in three parts: the voice of “Darkness,” the distorted vocals, and the clean vocals. The first voice (tracks 4-8) is the voice of
“Darkness,” which consists of the songwriter’s voice lowered in pitch and speed. This voice provides the spoken narratives at the beginning, middle, and end, as well as rhythmic improvised humming. The second voice (tracks 9-11) is the songwriter’s rap
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and humming vocals with added distortion. Tracks 12-14 represent the songwriter’s rap and humming without distortion (see Figure 25 and 26).
Figure 25 GarageBand Recording- Darkness and Distorted Vocals (Tracks 4-11)
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Figure 26
GarageBand Recording- Clean Vocals (Tracks 12-14)
Mixing and editing. Lowering the songwriter’s voice two octaves and slowing down the speed of his vocals created the voice of “Darkness”. Additional effects on the voice of “Darkness” include noise gate, bass reduction, compressor, tremolo, echo and reverb. The voice of “Darkness” is panned to the left channel of the speaker; a tremolo effect was added at 1:06 in the center of the stereo mix so that its effect is felt in both channels. For the distorted vocals, amplification was added to the pre-gain and master volume. Additional effects include bass reduction, noise gate, compression, chorus, echo, and reverb. The clean vocals have significantly less effects with only bass reduction, reverb, and compression added. The distorted vocals are primarily in the center channels of the speakers, while the clean vocals are flush left, as if the clean vocals are being buried and enveloped by distortion and “Darkness.” The MIDI keyboard simulates the sound of a mournful gospel choir with additional echo, reverb, and chorus. The MIDI choir is panned in the left and right speakers to create a surround-sound effect. The drum
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and bass track are in the center of the stereo mix, as if it is the driving force of the song.
No added effects were given to the drum and bass track.
Volume edits are made throughout this song, helping to create tension and dynamics between the lyrics and the music. For instance, multiple volume edits occur in the drums between 2:50 and 3:39 creating a sense of tension between the mournful vocals hums and the pounding drums. Volume edits in the vocals serve to enhance the dramatic narrative of the music, creating a dialogue between the voice of “Darkness,” the distorted voice, and the clean voice. A small amount of echo and reverb was added to the overall mix of the song to provide space within the entire production of the song.
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
I felt nauseated and sick within the core of my stomach while moving to this song in my body listening experience. The relentless pounding of the drums, as well as the speed, distortion, and intensity of the rapping, left me feeling disoriented, powerless, helpless, and beaten down. I found solace within the synthesized choir melody and the vocal hums.
There I was able to center myself; my nauseous feelings turned into mournful emotions.
The hums felt as if they were toning, moving from a closed mouth (mmm), to a slightly opened tone (eee), and finally to a full open “ahhh.” The vibration of this toning, along with the presence of the choir, felt as if something healing was emerging; I felt as if I was not alone in this darkness but that a presence was guiding me through my hopelessness.
Interaction between the Music and Lyrics
The narrator details his history with abuse and his subsequent abandonment of hope through his lyrics. The vocal takes center stage so that the songwriter can express and explore the depths of his hopelessness. The song is narrated by three voices, all
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representing aspects of the songwriter’s emotional world: The first is “Darkness,” whose voice is lowered to create a monster that rules the dark underworld and rejects any chance for hope, happiness, and love. The second voice is distorted and expresses the songwriter’s history of abuse and descent into violence and hopelessness. The third vocals are clean, as if it is the voice of the healthy child who is trying to emerge from the mix. The vocals dialogue and merge with each other throughout the song.
The musical backdrop creates a sonic portrait of abuse with drums that pound and slap and a low bass line that moves in half steps, as if trapping the narrator in a confined space. Midway through the song, the pounding of the drums ceases, leaving behind mournful, humming vocals; it is as if the anger voiced in the drums helps disguise the sadness and depression that lie underneath. The sound of a choir is present and buried within the mix of the song. Along with the humming, the choir offers a glimmer of light within the darkness, a sense that a presence is with the rapper trying to guide him through his despair.
From the interaction between the lyrics and music, a portrait of the songwriter emerges: He is an adolescent who is mourning the loss of his childhood from years of abuse, while simultaneously surrendering to the feelings of hopelessness that are enveloping him. The voice of “Darkness” returns at the end of the song, rejecting and mocking feelings of empathy that the listener might have declaring, “you do not understand my pain. You do not understand the darkness! Stupid light lovers.”
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Lyrics for Darkness
Voice of Darkness I am not your savior. I am what you don’t want to happen. I am not happiness, I am not joy, I am not great. I am destruction, I am pain, I am death, I am fear. I exist everywhere; I am in your mind, in your body, in your soul. I am the one in control. You have a God? So do I. I was weak; I was joyful; I was happy but I was weak. I loved; I cared; I felt. Hahaha, no more. No more love; no more caring; no more emotions. NO MORE WEAKNESS!!! Hahahahahaha.
Narrator (Ha-ha-ha, welcome to darkness) Alright, so you wanna feel my pain? You wanna know how to go utterly insane? Try getting beat with a dog chain I rolled my sleeve up cause I stayed ‘round with my gang I don’t need no guns My eyes are number one I predict the future; I call it “shining gun” Black fire in my eyes can’t you see it son? I trained so hard I forgot how to fucking run You see darkness is eternity Pain and suffering is everything that is me I’m everything that you wanna be But little do you know darkness has truly buried me
Vocal improvisation (toning and rhythmic chanting)
Narrator I don’t mind; I think it’s alright But never will you catch a heart that’s walking through the light To love it to hate, to hate is to fight Darkness is my power; my power is my might You cherish life; I take it as a game Time to bring back to what started my pain I have no soul; I have nothing to gain Death is my target and I have a perfect aim When you control the darkness It’s really you at harness Every night and day, the light seems the farthest Welcome to my life, the true life of pain Welcome to the darkness, the way of everything!!
Voice of Darkness Hahahaha, pathetic. You do not understand my pain; you do not understand my power; you do not understand the darkness! Hahahahahaha. Stupid light lovers
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Song 7: Numb
Download Link http://db.tt/wl0pt3H2
Introduction to “Numb”
This song was written and produced by the songwriter during two sessions. The songwriter had brought to a session a poem that she wanted to turn into a song. Most of the first session was spent choosing the musical backdrop to the song. This included the songwriter choosing the instruments, harmonic progression, sound effects and other production devices. The second session was spent developing a melody for the song and recording her voice. The decision-making process was autonomous, with me acting as a musical and technical advisor, providing supportive suggestions along the way.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: B minor Tempo: Quarter note= 54 BPM Music: Therapist on guitar Lyrics: Created by the songwriter Song Structure: Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Coda
Vocals. The vocalist sings in a soft, whispery tone. Her voice is enhanced by pitch-correction, which in turn augments the feelings of numbness described in the lyrical content. The vocals carry the primary melody.
Melody. During the verse, the melody descends from the fourth (E) to the seventh
(C#); landing on the passing tone creates tension before finally resolving to the tonic note
(B). The melody for the chorus ascends, as the harmonic progression moves to the relative major. The melody does not rise above the fifth, as if the melody is confined to stay within the chord tones of the tonic chord. At 3:00, a second vocal melody is introduced. This vocal melody stays within B minor but does attempt to pivot to the
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relative major by climbing from B to D in step-like manner (see Figure 28 and 29 for vocal melodies and harmonic accompaniment).
A secondary instrumental melody plays a small but vital role in the song. From
1:38-1:56 a single synthesized melody enters, mirroring the vocal melody of the chorus.
This lone melody indicates a transitional moment, helping guide the singer from the numbness expressed in the first half to discovering internal resources voiced at the end
(“But I did learn to trust again.”). This melody is in the upper registers, as if it is a distant voice calling from beyond (see Figure 27).
Figure 27
Synthesizer Melody
Harmony. The guitar voices the harmony whose progression creates tension between the relative minor and major throughout the song. The verse begins in B minor.
Although the chords pivot around B minor, the movement of the bass within the harmonic arrangement attempts to reach towards the relative major. The chorus opens up to the relative major but the VII in B minor continues to pull the harmony back to the relative minor. This creates a tension between the melody, which is trapped in the minor key, and the harmony that attempts to pull the melody towards the relative major (see
Figure 28).
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Figure 28
Melody and Harmony (Verse-Chorus)
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Figure 28 (continued)
Melody and Harmony (Verse-Chorus)
At 2:35 a coda is introduced in order to support new lyrical content that is emerging (“But I did learn to trust again.”). Using the III at the end of the chorus, the guitar modulates to I IV progression in the relative major (D). The vocal melody stays in B minor, while the harmony repeats IIV in the key of D, as if it is attempting to help the melody practice being in this new lyrical space (see Figure 29).
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Figure 29
Harmony and Melody (Coda 2:35-end)
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Figure 29 (continued)
Harmony and Melody (Coda 2:35-end)
Rhythm. There are no drums on this song. The coda introduces a quarter note rhythm in the strumming pattern of the guitar, which provides the song its first sense of rhythmic movement. The guitar strum in this section supports the lyrical themes of trust that are emerging for the songwriter.
Sound effects and ambient textures. No additional sound effects were brought into the song. Effects were used on the vocals and guitar in the production of the song to enhance the lyrical theme of numbness; this will be described in further detail in the next section.
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. This song was rehearsed multiple times with the songwriter before recording it. First, the guitar was entered into GarageBand using a drum track to help keep the timing. The drum track was subsequently deleted. Then the
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songwriter rehearsed her vocals with the guitar track. Once she felt comfortable with her timing, the vocalist recorded her lyrics. Several takes were made before she felt at ease with the final version. The lone synthesized melody was added after the vocal tracks were complete. Track 1 is the guitar track; tracks 2-3 are the vocal takes; track 4 is the MIDI keyboard melody (see Figure 30).
Figure 30
GarageBand Recording
Mixing and arrangement. No volume edits were made to the song, except for a fade at the end. The guitar and vocals remain in the center speaker, while the synthesized melody is panned to the left channel. Effects were added to the guitar and vocals to enhance the illusion of numbness. A “Swirling Echoes” preset effect was added to the guitar, which consisted of flanger, echo, and compression. An “Ambient Vocals” preset effect was used for the vocals, which comprise of bass reduction, compressor, tremolo, echo, and reverb. In addition, pitch-correct was used and set to one hundred percent on
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the vocals. This enhanced the overall mood of the song, as if the vocalist was singing from the bottom of a deep well. Finally, a small amount of echo and reverb was added to the entire mix of the song, which provided space in the overall production.
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
I was frozen and unable to move to this song during my body listening experience.
Instead, I remained still on the mat curled in a fetal position feeling a deep sadness and longing in my abdomen. Tears surfaced as I wept for the loss of innocence caused by the abuse the songwriter suffered. The emotional pain was so great within my body that I just wanted to stay on the mat and not move. The lyrics in the coda, “But I did/but I did/but I did learn to trust again/my flower has grown back/and the world doesn’t seem so bad/so bad,” encouraged me to stand up, without feeling forced or pushed to do so. The repetitive chord progression in this section felt gentle and caring, supporting new growth and movement within me. I felt that the song ended too soon, and I left wanting more support for the emerging feelings of trust that had arisen in me.
Interaction between the Lyrics and Music
The songwriter details her history of sexual abuse and confronts her perpetrator in the lyrics. She relays to the perpetrator the depth of the emotional, physical, and psychological pain that he has caused. The singer is able to identify how she has coped with the abuse, which has been to numb herself to everything around and inside of her.
This new awareness and expression leads the way to an emerging trust that feels fragile in its movement.
The word “numb” is sung on the tones C# and E. These unstable tones hang just above the relative major and minor tones (B and D), as if her voice is frozen and cannot
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resolve to the tonic. This mirrors the songwriter’s emotional detachment from her body at the moment of her sexual abuse, leaving her emotions unresolved and unstable. Her innocence was taken from her and she appears to be just beginning to trust again and rediscovering what was lost.
The music attempts to provide the songwriter space for exploration through its minimal orchestration, while the use of filters, panning echoes, and pitch-correction help to enhance the sonic illusion of numbness described by the songwriter. The singer finds herself in a transitional space between the realms of numbness and mistrust on one hand, and feeling and trust on the other. The harmony and melody reflect the tension between the opposites. A lone synthesizer provides a melodic voice in the distance of the production, which provides a light to help guide her away from her hopelessness and isolation. The guitar change in the coda provides supportive and gentle movement towards emerging feelings of trust.
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Lyrics for Numb
Verse 1 I’ve become numb To all the sounds around me Numb to your voice You hurt me so badly My feelings have left Numb to this life I live
Chorus You took my heart And ripped apart You’ve made it hard So hard… For me to trust again
Verse 2 I’ve become accustomed To this numbness My heart no longer sings My eyes no longer shine
Chorus You too my heart And ripped it part You made it hard So hard… For me to trust again
Summary of Songs of Abandonment
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Vocals. The vocals in this chapter present rapping and singing styles. The vocalists’ phrasing is more intentional within the structures that the music provides. This characteristic is not present in Songs that Protect Vulnerability where the music functioned as a background for the freestyle and improvisational rapping. In addition, the use of pitch-correction is more prevalent within the vocals, which is stylistically common within the current culture of popular music.
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“Cryin’” has both a singer and a rapper in the song, and both use pitch-correction.
“Emotional Disaster” utilizes a rap-like vocal; however, its lack of rhyming, word play, and simple phrasing suggest possible movement towards a melody rather than just rapping. The rapper for “Darkness” carefully constructs a narrative that goes along with the musical backdrop. Additionally, toning vocals and choir-like melodies introduce more melodic elements within the song. The vocals for “Numb” are sung and are heavily pitch- corrected to enhance the feeling of numbness described in the lyrics.
Melody. Melody plays a bigger role for this group of songs due to the stylistic vocal elements described above. Although melodic elements are introduced, melodies within these songs are underdeveloped and remain within small, step-wise intervals.
Melodies do not go above or below the fifth. The pull between the tonic and fifth plays an important role in enhancing the thematic conflict of trust versus mistrust. Melodies in this group of songs rely heavily on ascending and descending passing tones that help the songwriters find their way back home to the tonic.
Harmony. More harmonic elements are introduced within this group of songs than in Songs that Protect Vulnerability. Stylistically, the harmonies remain simple and adhere to popular music structures. What is noticeable in this group of songs is the tension of opposites that is created between the interaction of the harmonies and melodies. For instance, in “Emotional Disaster,” the harmony of the guitar tries to remain within the key of C; however, the lead guitar and synthesizer move around the minor pentatonic scale. In “Numb,” the harmony tries to move the melody towards the relative major key and even though the harmony modulates to the relative major, the melody remains anchored in B minor throughout the rest of the song.
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Rhythm. Although each song consists of rhythmic elements, the rhythm does not propel the narratives as much as it did for Songs that Protect Vulnerability. “Cryin’” has a bass drum that is heavy and suggests a hollow depth within the affective qualities of the music. However, this is overshadowed by the interaction between the vocal melody and the delicate piano. The drums for “Emotional Disaster” are dry and emotionless, and although they might mirror and support the vocal delivery of the vocalist, the guitar orchestration and vocal delivery takes center stage. The drums and rhythms for
“Darkness” are intense and pounding but appear secondary to the dialogue of the vocals, which are the primary source of tension and dynamics within the song. Finally, there are no drums or bass in “Numb.” Since bass and drums often bring the listener into the body, the choice to leave out these instruments might reflect the songwriter’s need to avoid being within her body where the sexual abuse took place.
Sound effects and ambient textures. Sound effects and ambient textures do not play a primary role in this chapter. Rain and thunder sound effects are introduced in
“Cryin’” and “Emotional Disaster.” Although the same loops were used to create this sound effect for both songs, the resulting mood is different in each piece. In “Cryin’,” the thunder and rain interact with the delicate piano to create a contemplative environment for reflection. On the other hand, the thunder and rain in “Emotional Disaster” interact with the lifeless drums and descending electronic piano to create a more ominous presence. Instead of sound effects and ambient textures being used in these songs as part of the orchestration, it is the compositional techniques used to enhance the musical elements that provide the primary focus in the sonic exploration of emotions for each songwriter.
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Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The production for each of these songs was more detailed and involved than for Songs that Protect Vulnerability. Each song is purposefully constructed in order to help the songwriters explore feelings of pain and abandonment. Most songs have multiple vocal and instrumental tracks, possibly due to the songwriters’ need to voice and explore conflicting feelings.
Mixing and editing. Multiple effects were added in the mixing and editing process to enhance the mood of the subject matter. In “Cryin’,” pitch-correction was used as a way to help ease the anxiety of the vocalists who were voicing painful emotions of abandonment. Additionally, pitch-correction was used in this song as a way to create the illusion of crying, shaking and wobbling the voice. In “Emotional Disaster,” multiple edits were made in order provide the songwriter opportunities for emotional exploration.
This included distortion and chorus on the guitar, as well as ethereal and detached synthesizers. No additional effects were added to the vocals when editing the song. In
“Darkness,” multiple effects were added to the rapper’s voice including lowering the speed and pitch of the vocals, distortion, and compression. In “Numb,” pitch-correction, reverb, and echo used in the vocal tracks, as well as swirling echoes added to the guitar, enhance the illusion that the vocalist is frozen to her feelings.
Volume edits and stereo panning play a more important role within the mix of the music. These edits serve to create dynamics within the music. For example, “Darkness” uses volume edits within the drum track in order to create tension between the pounding of the drums and the toning vocals. In “Numb,” the lone synthesizer melody is lowered and panned into the left channel to create the effect of a voice calling in the distance.
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Affective-Intuitive Qualities
Each of the songs brought deep feelings of confusion, despair, powerlessness, and hopelessness within the core of my body, most prominently in my abdomen. My body had less movement in these songs, as they often left me feeling dizzy, nauseous and frozen. In “Cryin’,” I wanted to move my body to the delicate piano and escape into the ethereal ambient keyboard; however, the deep tones of bass and drums kept me from being able to fully get up and move. While moving to “Emotional Disaster,” I found my body was confused and overwhelmed by the possibilities within the orchestration. I therefore abandoned any help offered by the music and chose to focus on the monotone delivery of the vocals. “Darkness” left me feeling dizzy and beaten down, while “Numb” left me feeling cold and isolated to my emotional pain. However, by the end of “Numb” the gentle rhythmic movement of the guitar offered a glimmer of support towards feelings of and emerging sense of trust.
Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
The songs in this section are connected by lyrical themes of abandonment. This abandonment causes pain that the songwriters then inflict on themselves by isolating and succumbing to hopelessness. In “Cryin’,” the songwriter pleads to a loved one but her cries are left unanswered. In “Emotional Disaster,” the songwriter has to hide his true feelings for a girl knowing she would reject the love he has to offer, which leaves the songwriter emotionally devastated. In “Darkness,” the songwriter abandons the light of hope after years of abuse, and he resigns himself to despair and hopelessness. Last, in the song “Numb,” the songwriter detaches herself and abandons her body, a coping mechanism she learned from being sexually abused. “Numb” is a transitional song to the
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next chapter because the songwriter begins to move from utter hopelessness into delicate, new feelings of trust.
While the lyrical content serves to share the songwriters’ internal conflicts, the music supportively attempts to provide opportunities for resolution, provide answers, contain evocative emotions, and locate resources for their debilitating feelings of abandonment. Compositional techniques are used to sonically enhance powerful feelings since the songwriters are unable to embody the emotions expressed in the lyrics vocally.
Effects that distort their natural voices such as pitch-corrects, filters, and echoes provide opportunities to develop their ability to use their own voice as a medium to explore their inner conflicts and feelings. Melodic and harmonic elements voice the conflicts of opposites within them, especially the areas of trust versus mistrust and being numb versus feeling. Synthesizers provide direct voicing of detachment and isolation. Last, rhythmic elements are present within these songs but their function is to provide a supportive and contained presence for their expression, instead of taking them into their bodies for movement through emotional states.
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CHAPTER 7
RESULTS: SONGS OF FAITH AND LOVE
Introduction
In this chapter, the songs “Who’ll Understand?” “Love,” “A Girl Like Me,” and
“Butterfly Wings” are analyzed. Each song’s aesthetic components—musical and stylistic elements, compositional techniques, and affective intuitive qualities—are examined. At the end of each song analysis, a summary is provided of how the song’s various musical and lyrical elements interrelate. At the end of this chapter, I cross-compare the aesthetic elements of each song and provide a final summary of how the music and lyrics interact to create the category of Songs of Abandonment.
Song 8: Who’ll Understand?
Download Track http://db.tt/xaeoF2SY
Introduction to “Who’ll Understand?”
This songwriter brought into the session a precomposed instrumental to record lyrics he had written. The songwriter diligently worked on recording the vocals for this song, trying out different versions before settling on the final mix. My role was to guide him through the song’s production. This included recording his vocals, helping him choose effects for his voice, and listening to multiple vocal takes in order to get the version of the song that felt most meaningful for him.
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Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: C minor Tempo: Quarter note= 82 BPM, 4/4 Music: “Run This Town” instrumental by Jay-Z (2009, Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqgUT7iFLWY) Lyrics: Original lyrics created by the songwriter Song Structure: Transition between rapping and singing over the instrumental track, creating a loose A-B structure
Vocals. The vocalist switches between singing and rapping throughout the song.
The songwriter struggles to stay in pitch while singing but chose not to use pitch- correction on his voice. The quality of his voice is impassioned, breathy, and incorporates a slight vibrato. The songwriter raps with confidence showing proficiency in his precision, rhythm, and timing35.
Melody. There are several sources of melody within the song. The primary melody comes from the vocalist (:00-:22 and: :48-1:12). His vocal melody contains small melodic movements as pitches bend in half-steps. Additionally, the vocal melodies consist of sixteenth note rhythm; it is as if the vocalist is blending rapping and singing as he discovers his own unique voice (see Figure 31).
35 The lyrics indicate this songwriter’s “gang” prevented him from singing, which in turn developed his rapping skills; “And they told me not to sing/so I had to rap and they forced me to trap.” It is as if he uses this song to show his skills rapping while also rehearsing a more sensitive side of himself through singing.
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Figure 31
Vocal Melody- Measures 1-7
A secondary melodic line can be found in the ascending guitar loop that runs throughout the song. This melody continuously ascends from C and Ab, as if he is looking to climb out of the abuse he describes in the lyrics (see Figure 32).
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Figure 32
Guitar Loop Melody
Harmony. Piano provides the primary harmonic movement in the song. The piano plays within the middle registers, offering the grounding presence of a stable half note rhythm. The chords move between i VII i VI (see Figure 33).
Figure 33
Harmonic Piano Loop
Rhythm. Rhythm plays a primary role in creating a militaristic backdrop for the lyrical content. Handclaps and the sound of “hut, hut, hut” are stressed on every downbeat. The word “GO!” enters in on the last eighth-note of every fourth measure, providing movement and motivation throughout the piece. The drums are played on a
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drum set, providing a large and powerful presence. The rhythm is syncopated in the bass and the snare rolls in militaristic fashion (see Figure 34). Additionally, towards the end of the song (2:11) a low bass tone glides in and out bouncing around at the bottom of the mix, the bass ascends and descends, as if it is unsure as to what to do next.
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Figure 34
Percussion Loop
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Sound Effects. Militaristic rhythms enhance the mood of the piece; “Hut, hut, hut” and “GO!” propel the rhythm. A woman’s voice is heard at the start of every fourth measure and echoes into the next measure. It is as if a feminine presence is calling in the distance, helping to nurture and guide the singer through the militarist soundscape.
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The production of this song was quick and simple. First, the Mp3 of the instrumental was dragged into GarageBand. The vocals were then recorded in two takes. Vocal track 1 lasts from :00 - :50 and vocal track 3 goes from :51 to the end of the song (see Figure 35).
Figure 35
GarageBand Recording
Mixing and editing. Minimal edits were used when mixing “Who’ll
Understand?.” A “Live Performance” preset effect was placed on both vocals, which consists of bass reduction, compression, slight echo, and a small amount of reverb.
Additionally, some volume edits were made. Most notably, vocal track 2 has the volume fade out at 1:15-1:19 to cover pitch concerns. Last, the master track has a volume fade at the end. A “Hip-Hop Excite” preset effect was used to master the entire track, which consists of a small amount of echo being added to each quarter note, and reverb and
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compression added to every track. This gave the entire song an extra rhythmic element to the production.
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
In my movement experiences, I felt the need to confront my feelings of being confined, controlled, abused, and powerless within the militaristic presence of the music. First, I marched in a circle over and over again. The ascending guitar line continuously pulled at my heart, allowing me to break the confinement I felt. I brought feelings of anger into my body safely and productively. Owning my anger allowed me to open up to the supportive presence of the piano and feminine echoes that had been traveling with me throughout the song. These nurturing voices allowed me to make amends with my abusive past, as represented by the militaristic backdrop of the music.
Interaction between the Music and Lyrics
The songwriter narrates his experience of being abandoned as a child and the abuse he suffered from his primary caregivers. His childhood adversities led him to a moment where he almost died from a gunshot wound; “Dear God, I’m only what you made me
You could’ve let me die, but you let that bullet graze me.” After surviving that experience, the songwriter felt that the light of God had been guiding him throughout his childhood. The song ends with a feeling of salvation and hope, as he heeds the call of the light within himself.
The songwriter moves between being a rapper and a singer; the rapper portrays a street-wise character that had adapted to an abusive environment. The militaristic soundscape of the music supports this tough persona and gives voice to the discipline that is needed in order to survive in a gang-like environment. Conversely, the songwriter
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expresses a softer side by expressing his feelings through singing. The piano and feminine echoes help nurture this side of him, while the ascending guitar line provides encouragement for him to look up and accept the Light. This song describes the songwriter exploring two separate worlds, his abusive past and his spiritual longings for the future. The songwriter appears to be on a path in which he is dealing with his past and exploring his own unique voice in the world around him.
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Lyrics for Who’ll Understand?
(Singing) Who will understand me, my life, the things I can’t get right Never played with toys, had to hang on the streets with the boys Who will understand that at a young age I had to be a man Couldn’t get no help, nobody offered me a hand Who will understand the pain that I had, as bad as I have Who will understand me, ‘stand me, ‘stand me
(Rapping) Who will understand that I did not have a childhood I just had the hood and nothing was good It was be rough or die and you couldn’t ever cry Always had to be down or they’d call you a clown.
Who will understand that my mom would just stare While her boyfriend abused me, she didn’t even care Had to stay on the streets so I always kept the heat And I knew it wasn’t right So I always prayed to God to forgive me for my sins And let me live to the end…
(Singing) Who will understand me Who will get me to see the light that shining so bright Trying to fight the streets and I knew I wasn’t gonna be So I had to be around the gang and I tried my best to hang And they told me not to sing So I had to rap and they forced me to trap Who will understand the pain I have? And my heart is so dark, if you look in my eyes, I just won’t cry And I’ve been told so many lies.
(Rapping) You don’t understand that my mom’s boyfriend was an angry man He used to abuse me, stomp me, hurting me everyday And then DHS got involved and said I got to go away I said “no I won’t go, I love my mom too much” But until this day, I walked around with my head down Mad at the world, I thought I was ugly because I got rejected by almost every girl Then I realized that I wanted to die, so I just got high So I wouldn’t even cry Then I saw that pretty light, shining up in the sky
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Had me think twice before I did anything, so I thank God Dear God, I’m only what you made me You could’ve let me die, but you let that bullet graze me All that people said, it always did phase me Hurt me deep down in my heart and it felt I was alone in the dark But you was there for me Couldn’t see back then you were trying to help me
Song 9: Love
Download Link http://db.tt/QD3F6P68
Introduction to “Love”
This song was completed in one session. The songwriter had come into the session prepared with most of the lyrics. She spent the majority of the session choosing the instrumental to match the mood of her lyrics. Once the instrumental was chosen, the songwriter listened to it multiple times refining and editing her lyrics to match the music.
Once the lyrics were complete, the songwriter recorded her vocal performance of the song. She went back to correct one mistake but felt satisfactory about the song’s outcome. My role during the songwriting process was to guide her through her listening experiences. Additionally, I took care of the technology and production elements in a manner that did not disrupt her flow while she created her song.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: Eb major Tempo: Quarter Note= 92 BPM Music: “Be Alight” instrumental by Foreign Exchange (2004, track 7). Lyrics: Written by the songwriter Song Structure: Verse with slight melodic development into a chorus- a lose A-B structure
Vocals. The vocalist for this song sings in a soft, whispery manner. Pitch- correction is used as the vocalist attempts melodic runs that she might not usually be
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comfortable in attempting. This song looks to achieve a vocal presence similar to many current female R & B singers. The vocalist provides a shout-out at the beginning of the track, dedicating the song to her love interest.
Melody. The primary melody occurs within the vocal track. At first, this melody moves in a step-wise fashion without moving past the fifth. However, quick sixteenth note vocal runs appear to propel her to leap intervals. For example, at :39, the vocalist starts her melody a fourth below the tonic (Ab); she moves in rhythmic spurts up the scale, gaining energy, and makes the leap from Ab to G. Her vocals continue to practice rhythmic runs that transition to intervallic leaps throughout the piece, using pitch- correction to help her practice and support her movement (see Figure 36 and 37).
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Figure 36
Vocal Melody (excerpt from verse)
Figure 37
Vocal Melody (excerpt from chorus)
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Harmony. The harmony occurs within the synthesizers of the instrumental track and consists of simple movement between I V IV. The tone Ab serves as a pedal point within the bass, as if the movement from the tonic to the fourth connects the songwriter to a higher power that is implied in the lyrical content.
Rhythm. The drums are syncopated, with the bass drum stressing the offbeat and the snare occurring on the second and fourth beat of each measure. The drums remain consistent and provide a non-threatening presence. It is as if the rhythm and the harmony act together to support and nurture melodic development in the voice (see Figure 38).
Figure 38
Percussion Loop
Sound effects and ambient textures. No added sound effects were used in the creation of this song. However, ambient textures appear within the overtones of harmonic synthesizers. The synthesizers float above the music creating an ethereal soundscape that bathes the songwriter within “the true meaning of love.”
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Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. Production of this song was similar to “Who’ll
Understand?” First, the Mp3 was dragged into GarageBand. The songwriter then rehearsed the song several times before recording her vocals. Pitch-correction was added to her voice while rehearsing vocals to help her practice vocal runs that she would attempt when recoding. The vocals were recorded in two takes, with her going back to fix an error (1:31) once during the production.
Mixing and editing. Minimal edits were made when mixing the tracks. All tracks are kept in the center of the stereo mix. A volume fade-out was given to the instrumental track, while vocals fade-in at the start of the song. Echo and reverb were added to the final mix of the album (see Figure 39).
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Figure 39
GarageBand Recording
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
A feeling of love entered deep into my chest as I moved to this song. This love felt like a spiritual connection, pulling my body vertically onto my tiptoes. The harmonies in the synthesizers left me feeling as if I was in the clouds. For a moment I felt vulnerable; however, the repetitive and non-threatening rhythms and harmony protected me. Once I felt safe, I allowed myself to bask within the light that I had found within myself.
Interaction between the Music and Lyrics
The songwriter is connecting with powerful feelings of being in love. The love she feels has quasi-spiritual intentions by erasing her past struggles and elevating her mood. The music supports these feelings by providing otherworldly textures within the synthesized harmonies, while simultaneously remaining rhythmically grounded. The vocal melodies practice singing praise for this love. Pitch-correction is used in the vocals to help her
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nurture and practice being in this newly formed spiritual space. The grounded yet ethereal musical soundscape provides a supportive backdrop for the songwriter’s emerging feelings of self-love.
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Lyrics for Love
(Spoken) This one is dedicated to my (edited to protect confidentiality), I love you baby.
Verse 1 I never thought I’d see the light Like everything in my life wasn’t going right Until you stepped in and opened the door To all my imagination, everything and more
Verse 2 I never thought I’d fall in love You must have been sent from above When I saw your face It made my heart erase
Chorus I never knew I could succeed Until you started believing in me To me you’re like a beautiful dove Made me realize the true meaning of love
Verse 3 Being me is hard I must admit ‘Cause people are always putting me through some shit But when I’m with you stuff seems to calm down You turn my face to smile from a frown I really love you, you can see I just hope you keep loving me.
Chorus (x2) I never knew I could succeed Until you started believing in me To me you’re like a beautiful dove You made me realize the true meaning of love
Outro I really love you I really love you And I love you forever…(alright that’s enough)
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Song 10: A Girl Like Me
Download Link http://db.tt/eyJP99Sj
Introduction to “A Girl Like Me”
This song was written and recorded during two sessions. First, the songwriter chose precomposed instrumental loops to build the musical backdrop for the song. She brought in some ideas for lyrics, which she edited and arranged while listening to the music she created. She enthusiastically sang the song but needed guidance from me to help her with its timing and delivery. My role was to also help guide her listening and choosing the instrumental loop for her song. Additionally, I added production elements to help enhance the sound quality of the recording, which in turned motivated and maintained the songwriter’s flow in the process of creating her song.
Melodic and Stylistic Elements
Key: C Tempo: Quarter note= 120 BPM, 4/4 Song Structure: Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus
Vocals. The singer passionately sings the lyrics for this song using full breath support. The song shares characteristics of current female R n’ B singers, although the unabashed vocals of the singer sound unique, expressing her joy and playfulness.
Melody. The primary melody for this song can be found within the vocals. The melody is similar to “Love” in that is uses step-wise movement to help propel leaps within the melodic intervals. The song starts with the singer vocalizing “ooooooo,” which descends from the fifth to the tonic, then travels down a major third, and finally back up to the tonic (see Figure 40). The melodic movement here is free and unashamed,
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ascending and descending comfortably. The movement in the first verse (:16-:48) mirrors the “ooooooo” of the introduction (see Figure 41). At :49, the chorus begins in which she proudly proclaims “This girl like me!” The melody moves slowly until jumping to the fifth as she sings the word “meeeeeee!” (see Figure 42) At 2:49, a bridge occurs in which the singer becomes more definitive and assured with her melodic delivery, which is grounded within the tonic (see Figure 43).
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Figure 40
Introduction (Measures 1-12)
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Figure 41
Verse (Measure 13-24)
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Figure 42
Chorus (Measure 25-28)
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Figure 43
Bridge Excerpt (2:40- 3:04)
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Harmony. The harmony for this song can be heard within the instrumental piano loops. In verse and the chorus, the piano line moves between the I V IV as the bass line descends in half steps. The piano harmony in the bridge stays grounded in the tonic in the upper registers, while the bass descends in half-steps; it is as if the assured lyrical content is being supported by the strong, grounded presence of the piano.
Rhythm. The drum loop for this song, “Funky Pop Drum 01,” provides a bouncy, syncopated rhythm during each chorus. A looped shaker was added to provide extra movement to the rhythm, while cymbal crashes occur every fourth measure in the chorus, as if she is celebrating the positive attributes she has uncovered.
Sound effects. No sound effects were used to enhance this recording.
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. The songwriter first chose the piano and drum loops (tracks 1-4) to be arranged in GarageBand. The vocals (tracks 5-6) were recorded piece-by-piece, which required me to be more hands-on in the production of the song.
The songwriter focused only on her vocals, whereas I arranged the loops to match her vocals. I added the cymbal crashes and shaker, with the songwriter’s approval, at the end to enhance the drum track (see Figure 44).
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Figure 44
GarageBand Recording
Mixing and editing. A “Live Performance” preset effect was used for the vocals, which consists of bass reduction, compression, trace amounts of echo and a small amount of reverb. The volume fades were utilized at the beginning and end of the song. The cymbal crashes were panned slightly in the left channel of the stereo mix, while the shakers were panned to the right. The final mix of the song received a “Pop R & B” preset, which added echo, reverb, and compression to the final mix. The bass and tremble frequencies were raised and balanced, while the mid-range frequencies remained flat.
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Affective-Intuitive Qualities
I bounced and moved playfully with the music during my body listening experience. The joy expressed in the vocals moved throughout my body, as I waved my arms, bounced up and down, and twirled around. As the music and lyrics became more assured, I stood with my feet planted firmly on the ground and my legs and arms outstretched, as if I was letting others know that I had arrived. The piano during the bridge helped to confirm my confidence and embody my sense of empowerment. Towards the end, I imagined the songwriter was in front of me. I felt the need to pass these feelings onto her. I felt proud of her achievements and wanted to celebrate with her in the music.
Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
The songwriter projects her positive attributes onto a girl who is her mirror image; the songwriter needs to transfer these qualities onto someone else before she can fully embody these feelings within herself. It is as if the songwriter has created a positive role model to compensate for her lack of guidance as a child. The music supports feelings of empowerment and strength with a steady rhythmic drive on the piano, grounded harmonic progressions between IIVV, playful drumming, and self-assured singing.
The use of pitch-correction offers her a tool to practice vocalizing her strengths out loud.
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Lyrics for A Girl Like Me
Verse They say she’s pretty, they say she’s silly They say she has a beautiful smile And she likes to bow She’s a girl like me And I want you to see Chorus (x4) This girl like me This girl like me This girl like meeeeee!
Verse She has pretty eyes And she’s has a nice size She tries not to lie And she always cries
She’s a girl like me She’s a girl like me She’s a girl like meeeee!
She’s a girl like me A girl like me A girl like meeeee!
A girl like me A girl like me A girl like meeeeee!
A girl like me A girl like me A girl like meeeeee!
Bridge She kind-hearted Not retarded She fights for her rights So she can see lots of sights
She a girl like me And I want you to see She got the key to my heart She’s just another part of meeeeeee! Repeat Chorus (x4)
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Song 11: Butterfly Wings
Download Link http://db.tt/sEqZAZZ4
Introduction to “Butterfly Wings”
The songwriter wrote the lyrics and chose a pre-composed instrumental to accompany them. This song was recorded quickly but carefully. Her primary focus was layering and doing multiple vocal takes during the recording process. She was autonomous in the creative process, with my role being to contain, capture, and engineer the song in
GarageBand.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Key: C major Tempo: Quarter note= 96, 4/4 Music: Unknown instrumental brought in by the songwriter Lyrics: Composed by the songwriter Song Structure: Verse-Chorus-Bridge (A-B-C)
Vocals. The vocalist begins the song with a shout-out to “everybody who did not have enough courage growing up. This is for everybody who is entering into a new life… or coming from an old one.” With this introduction the vocalist sets the mood for the piece, which is liberating, free, and spirited. The songwriter’s voice sounds natural, although she did express wanting slight pitch-correction on two background vocal tracks.
Melody. Two melodies stand out in the song. The first is within the upper register of the piano, which dances around the tonic of C. The movement within the piano melody suggests stability within the key, even though the sonic textures of the production vary.
The second melody comes from the vocalist. In the verses, the melody starts firmly on the tonic note, preparing for flight. When she sings “with butterfly wings”
(measure 12, see Figure 45) she leaps to the fifth and descends back down. Her melody is
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also rhythmic, with sixteenth note stutters that sound like an engine revving up for flight.
The chorus, which first enters in at :40 with “just soar,” remains melodically similar to the verses.
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Figure 45
Vocal Melody (Measures 1-24)
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Harmony. Although the piano melody suggests the key of C major, its harmony never resolves to the tonic. Harmonically, the song moves from Fmaj7Em7Dm7 and then to Fmaj7 Em7 G Am7; the harmonic pattern never finds closure as if it is moving perpetually into the future. It appears that the harmony simultaneously expresses conflicting feelings of optimism and uncertainty for the future. The bass line moves towards the relative minor by ending on an A in the bass; however, the melody still carries a relative major feel. This integration of the relative major and minor feels harmonious and supportive. The piano harmony drops out at 2:00 leaving only the harmonic pulses of the synthesizer. This moment feels important as the piano, which has supported the vocalist throughout the song, allows the songwriter to safely fly on her own
(see Figure 46).
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Figure 46
Piano Harmony
Rhythm. The rhythm of this song plays a central role in helping the vocalist gain melodic lift-off. Tom-toms enter in at the end of every fourth measure supporting continued movement into each new phrase, while wind chimes enter every sixteen measures signifying flight.
Sound effects. Synthesizers enhance the ambient textures throughout the piece.
Their textures sound as if they are floating through space, creating the illusion of flight.
Figure 47 is an example of an ambient texture, made to sound like a harp, which enhances the sonic feeling of flight within the song.
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Figure 47
Ambient Harp Effect
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. This production of this song focused primarily on recording and layering the songwriter’s vocals. First, the Mp3 of the instrumental was dragged into GarageBand. The vocalist worked quickly, recording and layering her vocals one after the other. My role was to capture her vocals without losing the momentum that she was building during the session.
Tracks 1- 3 represent the primary vocals; tracks 4-6 add vocal flourishes that support the narrative of the song. Each layered vocal is recorded in the same octave as the original (see Figure 48).
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Figure 48
GarageBand Recording
Mixing and editing. Edits were made in volume and stereo panning during the mixing process. The volume of each vocal track was balanced throughout the recording to blend tracks together so that each voice had space to breathe within the mix. Vocal tracks 1, 3, and 5 remained in the center of the stereo mix; track 2 was slightly panned to the left; track 4 and 6 were panned far to the right.
Each vocal track received a “Live Performance” preset effect consisting of bass reduction, compression, and a trace of echo. The final mix received a “Pop Ballad” preset, which added echo, reverb, and compression to the overall song. This effect
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opened up the sound of the final mix, adding one final touch to enhance the sound of freedom and flight being expressed by the songwriter.
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
During the study, I moved to this song on two separate occasions. The first was towards the beginning of the study, during which I felt grounded and detached from the flight of the music. As the study progressed, I decided to revisit this song so that I could move to the free and spirited qualities within the optimistic melodic and harmonic elements and the ambient textures. I allowed the pulsating synthesizers, nurturing piano, wind chimes, and the joyous vocal push me into flight. As I felt this joy deep in my body, I felt the need to celebrate this feeling. It felt like a rite of passage, as if I too had transformed into something new. From these contrasting experiences, I realized that a listener might feel either detached from the song and assume that the songwriter is acting on a flight of fancy, or the listener could connect with the songwriter’s sense of transformation and joy and share in the celebration of the music.
Interaction between the Music and Lyrics
The lyrics focus on themes of self-love, redemption, and renewal. This song narrates the songwriter’s path towards personal transformation, while also providing mentorship for others who are on a similar quest. Her ultimate message is “believe in yourself.” The music supports the songwriter’s flight towards self-love with soaring, pulsating synthesizer textures, wind chimes, and openness in the orchestration and production.
Drums, tom-tom fills, finger snaps, and piano give the song a natural, embodied feel, showcasing the songwriter’s uniqueness and allowing her to “take flight.”
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Harmonic and melodic elements create a conflicting sense of uncertain optimism within the songwriter when interacting with the lyrics. For instance, “just soar” is sung to a descending interval as if the music is questioning the lyrical statement. Additionally,
“butterfly wings” is sung using higher tones, while “fly higher than you ever thought you could” is more monotone and grounded. The harmony enhances this hesitation through its unresolved chord structure. The piano exits at the end of the song while the songwriter sings, “Just soar;” there is a moment of tension, as if the singer is unsure if she is truly ready to fly on her own. However, textural and melodic elements maintain a positive feeling, supporting the theme of faith and the message of “believe in yourself.
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Lyrics for Butterfly Wings Spoken Ya’ll know what this is, Butterfly Wings This is for everybody who didn’t have enough courage when you were growing up This for everybody who is entering a new life Or coming from an old one
Verse I’m being rebirthed like a phoenix rising from the ashes I’m not old but I’m new with butterfly wings Humanity better watch out cause I’m bringing something new Loving me and my butterfly wings
Chorus Just soar Fly higher than you ever thought you could For if you didn’t believe Just take to the ground with a speed of a cheetah The grace of a dove And the serenity of a doe For knowing you have butterfly wings You can make it You can take it Just take off and fly with me
Bridge I know ya’ll feel this beat So just repeat after me You all know you can Fly with me Just fly with me, you can do it All you got to do is believe
Verse I’m being rebirthed like a phoenix rising from the ashes I’m not old but I’m new with butterfly wings Humanity better watch out cause I’m brining something new Loving me and my butterfly wings
Chorus Just soar Fly higher than you every thought you could For if you didn’t believe Soar with me Just fly with me
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Summary for Songs of Faith and Love
Melodic and Stylistic Elements
Vocals. The vocalists in this group of songs—Songs of Faith and Love—display an emerging uniqueness in their singing styles, while still being anchored within the stylistic features of their preferred music. Singers within these Songs of Faith and Love display more breadth and freedom within their vocal delivery than Songs that Protect
Vulnerability and Songs of Abandonment. Pitch-correction is used in many of these songs; it has a functional use that allows these singers to voice their uniqueness in a manner that is safe, contained, and aesthetically pleasing to them. Shout-outs are used in this chapter not to serve the purpose of inflating or preparing the listener for the rappers’ entry, —a function served in Songs that Protect Vulnerability—but instead to give a place to share their love and wisdom with those around them.
Melody. The melodies in this chapter play a primary role in expressing the songwriters’ uniqueness and wisdom. Melodies in this chapter often contain rhythmic motifs that ascend and descend in step-wise intervals before making a leap of a fourth or fifth. This melodic technique can be seen as each songwriter gaining momentum to take leaps of faith they are not used to taking. In “Who’ll Understand?,” the singer’s vocal melody provides a way out of his past abuse and serves as a guiding light towards self- awareness and owning his own identity. The singer’s vocal melody in “Love” is tender and delicate as she sings about the powerful feelings of falling in love. The melody supports spaces in which the singer can both protect these feelings (small step-wise intervals), while simultaneously opening up to the light she has found (leaping to intervals of a fifth). The vocal melody for “A Girl Like Me” and “Butterfly Wings”
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shares similar stylistic qualities as “Love”, although their delivery and presence is more assured and empowered.
Harmony. The function of the harmonies within Songs of Faith and Love is to allow melodies the freedom to expand and grow. The piano harmony in “Who’ll
Understand?” plays a simple half note rhythm that provides space for melodic development and exploration. For “Love,” the harmony lies within the ethereal synthesizers providing space below for the singer to nurture and expand her growing awareness of self. For “A Girl Like Me,” the piano serves as a grounding presence that helps the singer to be fully in her body in order to voice her uniqueness and positive attributes. The harmony for “Butterfly Wings” is expansive and never settles on the tonic, which simultaneously helps the vocalist take-off and enjoy flight with her new butterfly wings, while also creating a sense of ambiguity about the future.
Rhythm. The rhythms for Songs of Faith and Love allow for supportive movement towards feelings of empowerment and self-love. “Who’ll Understand?” presents the strongest and most forceful rhythm, its large sound reminiscent of the drums in “Lost” from Songs that Protect Vulnerability. However, here the addition of militaristic rhythms works with the guitar and piano to provide the discipline needed to actively find a way out of the labyrinth of hopelessness. The rhythms for “Love” hold a space so that feelings of self-love can be nurtured. The drums and percussion for “A Girl
Like Me” are bouncy and playful, as the singer embodies a child-like, innocent, and playful spirit. Last, the rhythm for “Butterfly Wings” supports flight with its wind chimes and propelling tom-toms, while the gentle finger snaps and bass drum provide stability needed for flight.
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Noticeably absent from each piece is the strong presence of the low bass tones more prominent in Songs that Protect Vulnerability. When bass sounds do appear in the mix they serve to propel the songwriter upward. For instance, in “Who’ll Understand?” low bass tones can be heard bubbling under the mix (more prominent towards the end of the song at 2:10). Instead of enveloping the listener, the bass mirrors the function of the guitars, which is to pull the songwriter out of a helpless state and into a more active state.
Sound effects and ambient textures. For the most part, Songs of Faith and Love do not rely on sound effects since the focus for these songwriters is to share their unique voices with the listener. “Who’ll Understand?” has militaristic sound effects that enhance the rhythmic elements and support feelings of anger that arise in the lyrical content.
“Butterfly Wings” does have an ethereal texture that supports the illusion of flight in the music.
Compositional Techniques
Production and arrangement. Songs of Faith and Love focus on recording the songwriters’ voice. Each of these songs required me to be more hands-on during the recording process. The reason for this was that each vocalist moved quickly in sharing his and her voice and trusted me to be present for, and capture, these feelings.
Mixing and editing. Songs of Faith and Love present multiple volume and stereo panning edits. This is primarily due to the need to balance the mix of voices so that they can take center stage in the recordings. Simple settings were used to record their vocals, primarily the use of the “Live Performance” preset effect, which provides the minimal amount of effect to push the voice forward in the mix and provide sonic space with the slight addition of reverb.
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Affective-Intuitive Qualities
Moving to Songs of Faith and Love allowed an opening to my chest and heart, which brought with it more hopeful, playful, and transcendent feelings of love. I also was more embodied in my movements, meaning that I had no urge to detach from my feelings in my body but instead wanted to revel in them. In “Who’ll Understand?” I had to first safely express my anger and mistrust, taking those challenging feelings into my body.
More nurturing, delicate, and fragile feelings emerged in the song “Love.” In “A Girl
Like Me,” I brought a playful, child-like innocence in my body; subsequently, this brought feelings of empowerment and strength back into the core of my body. Finally, in
“Butterfly Wings,” I felt integrated, stable, and free in the melodic elements and ambient textures, while also feeling uncertain and unsure about the future.
Interactions between the Music and the Lyrics
The sequence of the songs within Songs of Faith and Love traces the development of the blossoming, fragile, and powerful nature of emerging self-love. The songwriter in
“Who’ll Understand?” begins by sharing with the listener his belief that God’s light was with him throughout his childhood abuse. The songwriter shares his pain without being enveloped and lost within it; instead he trusts the light, challenges difficult feelings within himself, and moves beyond his hopelessness. This glimmering sense of hope delicately expands in the song “Love,” in which the light found in “Who’ll Understand?” shines even brighter. Although the songwriter in “Love” sings about another person she has fallen in love with, the listener gets a sense that her love is intensifying into feelings that are more spiritual and directed towards self-love: “I never thought I’d see the light/Like everything in my life wasn’t going right/Until you stepped in and opened the
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door/To all my imagination, everything and more.” This growing sense of self-love is powerful and at first the songwriter in “A Girl Like Me” has to project her self-love onto another subject in order to receive feedback and acceptance from others. The music helps her embody these feelings so that she can voice the positive attributes she sings about in the lyrics. In “Butterfly Wings,” the songwriter owns and celebrates the gift she has received, self-love. In addition, the songwriter moves into a mentorship role in which she shares her wisdom with those who have experienced the same types of adversity.
The music within these songs supports and nurtures the development of faith, trust, and self-love. In “Who’ll Understand?,” the militaristic soundscape of the song supports the songwriter’s release of anger; the piano provides him space to develop his own voice, while the guitar and bass offer a new path upwards and out of the despair that had enveloped him. In “Love,” the synthesizers provide an ethereal backdrop to the emergence of spirituality and self-love. Whereas in other categories the synthesizers served to detach the songwriter from the body, here the drums interact with them in a manner that nurtures and supports the songwriter. The piano is front and center in “A Girl
Like Me” to help ground the songwriter and allow her to take ownership of her positive attributes. Meanwhile, the rhythms support a child-like playfulness as the songwriter regains her lost innocence. The music in “Butterfly Wings” fully supports and provides space for flight. The music starts by providing stability and motivation for her journey and ends with the songwriter being out on her own. This is heard within the orchestration of the song, which starts off with piano being a guiding presence, allowing her to move away from the tonic. Towards the end of the song, the piano exits, leaving the songwriter to fly on her own supported by the pulsating synthesizers. Overall, Songs of Faith and
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Love offer hope that these songwriters can move past their troubled childhood, find self- acceptance and love within themselves, and transition into a more meaningful adulthood.
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CHAPTER 8
RESULTS: RISING FROM THE ASHES
Introduction
This chapter presents the results of the arts-based analyses of the original songs in the form of a concept album. In this chapter, the results are presented in two formats: The first is a written narrative where the storyline of the concept album unfolds and the thematic unity between its primary characters and the musical elements is unveiled. The second format is musical; links to each song are embedded in the text so that the reader can access and listen to the songs individually and as a unified whole.
It is vital that the reader interact with both the narrative and music to gain a deeper understanding of the results through aesthetic engagement. I encourage the reader to freely engage with the material in order to best interrogate the results. Here are suggestions to help guide the reader through the material.
1) First, the reader should listen to the concept album fully, without interruption. It
is recommended that the reader listen to the album on a good set of headphones or
a trusted set of speakers. This allows for the appreciation of subtleties found
within the mix of each song.
2) While listening, the reader should take note of any reactions such as somatic
sensations, images, associations, and memories. The reader can ask, “What
connections and themes do I hear between each song and as a unified concept
album?” A link to the full album, without interruptions, can be found at the top of
the section Song Narratives.
3) Next, the reader should go through the narratives provided in this chapter to get a
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broad understanding of thematic unity and character development of the concept
album.
4) After reading the narratives, the reader should then go back and listen to each
song independently while reading the narratives provided in this text.
5) Last, the reader should revisit this chapter and listen to the music again once he or
she has finished reading the rest of the study.
The songs on the concept album are intended to reveal overall archetypal and universal content related to the internal lives and developmental challenges of youth who have faced extreme trauma and adversity in their lives. The remix compositions incorporate stylistic elements representing genres of music that might be different from those of the original songwriters. Musical choices made on this album reflect my musicality, and my own aesthetic and artistic sensibilities. I encouraged committed listeners to engage with the songs on this concept album multiple times, whether listening in a relaxed state, listening while reading the narratives, or listening after completing the entire study. The purpose of this is two-fold: First, listening over an extended period of time deepens the reader’s connection to the music and can expand understanding regarding how the concept album reveals the inner lives of adolescents who have experienced trauma and abuse. Second, listening to the album over time will help the reader deepen the connections between this chapter and the analyses in chapters four through six, thus making the results more transferable for the reader.
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Overview of the Concept Album
Title of the Concept Album
The title of the album is Rising from the Ashes. It conveys the narrative arc of the album, and provides a metaphorical interpretation of results that that were analytically explored in chapters five through seven. The title comes from a lyric found within the original song, “Butterfly Wings”— a central song in this study— that introduces the theme of renewal and transformation.
The title Rising from the Ashes evokes the image of the Phoenix, a mythological firebird whose story of rebirth provides a powerful symbol for the cycle of death and rebirth. This death-rebirth cycle encapsulates the stages of the Hero’s Journey as envisioned by mythologist Joseph Campbell (2008) and has been utilized in music therapy for understanding musical and psychological processes (Aigen, 2005a; Kenny,
2006; Viega, 2012). This mythic journey is experienced from multiple perspectives throughout this concept album:
1) The narrative of the album is intended to convey the death-rebirth journey of the
characters that undergo transformation through the progression of the album.
2) The musical elements of the album transform throughout the course of the album.
3) Listeners undergo a journey as they listen to the album with the birth of a newly
expanded consciousness regarding the challenges of adolescence.
Stages of the Concept Album
The concept album is arranged and presented in three stages:
Stage 1) Going into Hiding
Stage 2) Down in the Labyrinth
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Stage 3) “Loving me and my Butterfly Wings”
The stages of this album are meant to correspond to the primary stages of the Hero’s
Journey, as well with the grouping of songs presented in chapters five through seven:
Songs that Protect Vulnerability, Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love.
Stage one— the preparation for the journey—begins by the hero accepting the call to adventure. During this stage, the hero must equip himself for the journey ahead, which is typically guided through some form of supernatural intervention and aid. Stage two—the journey/becoming real—begins when the hero crosses the threshold and enters into a new, unfamiliar world. Here, the hero faces trails and tasks that must be confronted before moving forward. Once completed, the hero enters into stage three, the return/becoming free. In this stage, the challenge is to integrate the gifts of the journey, form a new sense of self, and then share what has been learned to benefit the greater community. This stage has its own complications in terms of hesitations and fears about returning to the world36. The songs within this album are categorized according to the stages noted above. Table 3 lists the song sequence and stages of the album.
36 Campbell (2008, 1988) coined the term Hero’s Journey in response to his studies of various myths across many cultures. He found the narrative cycle of the Hero’s Journey to be universally shared in its basic archetypal patterns, even though the mythological characters might take on different forms. Murdock (1990) elaborated and expanded upon this narrative cycle to meet the unique journey of the feminine with the Heroine’s Journey. Although both cycles are different in the tasks and trails the hero and heroine might face, the overall structure of the death-rebirth narrative remains consistent in its cycle.
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Table 3
Concept Album Stages and Track Listings
Stages Track Listings
Overture (Call to Adventure) Track 1: Rising from the Ashes
Going into Hiding (Preparing for the Track 2: Hide it all in my Body
Journey) Track 3: Leave me Alone, I’m Scared
Track 4: Like Icarus
Down in the Labyrinth (Becoming Real) Track 5: Her Words are Lost Track
Track 6: My Heart Can’t Take it Anymore
Track 7: Funeral Procession
Track 8: Thaw
“Loving me and my Butterfly Wings” (The Track 9: Shining Up in the Sky
Return/Becoming Free) Track 10: Opening a Door
Track 11: U R U!
Track 12: Soar!
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Narrative Characters
Below is a summary of the primary characters found within the narrative of the album:
1) The Witness- This is the primary character of this album. He travels deep into the
various realms of adolescence, encountering characters during his journey.
2) The Girl with Butterfly Wings- This is the mystical guide of the concept album;
she introduces the Witness to the world of adolescence. Her presence is with the
Witness throughout the album guiding him throughout his journey.
3) Darkness- This is the antagonist of the story. The voice of Darkness is low in
pitch and pulls the Witness down into the labyrinth, which represents the depths
of abuse and trauma as experienced by adolescents.
4) Lost Girl- This character appears within the depths of the labyrinth. Her voice
transforms within different songs reflecting various conflicts and triumphs that
adolescents encounter.
5) Lost Boy- This character appears within the depths of the labyrinth. His voice
transforms within different songs, reflecting the struggles and growth that
adolescents encounter.
6) The Light- This presence helps guide the Witness, the Lost Girl, and the Lost Boy,
through the depth of hopelessness and despair. The Light is the only character that
is represented by instrumental qualities rather than being part of the vocals.
Musical Characters
The instruments within the album play supportive roles and propel the narrative across the various stages of the journey by creating the soundscapes where the narrative unfolds.
Below is a summary of the key instruments and their role within the narrative.
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1) The piano- The piano plays the role of the supportive nurturer.
2) The Synthesizers- The synthesizers play the role of other worlds waiting to be
explored. These worlds are at first detached and isolated. Slowly, they give voice
to inner conflicts found within the primary characters, revealing an inner light
within them. By the end, the synthesizers become the voice of integration and
support towards transformation.
3) The Guitar- The guitar, much like the piano, provides a platform for supportive
reflection. However, its voice is not as stable and plays the role of a chameleon
that is able to reflect the various moods voiced by the primary characters. Its role
is vital in helping provide direction towards moving through the challenges within
each stage.
4) Gongs- The gongs appear in one song, “Funeral Procession.” They play a small
role; however, they also play an integral part of the story, their vibrations aurally
reflecting the cycle of death-rebirth.
5) Electronic Drums- The electronic drums voice the feelings that come with the
internal struggle between being free and being contained. These feelings move
from aggressive and bound in stage one, to random and arrhythmic in stage two,
and finally to free and balanced in stage three.
6) Bass- The bass plays an intentional role of providing supportive movement
towards transformation, especially towards the latter half of the album.
7) Drum Set and Percussion- The natural sounds of the drum set and percussion
provide a space for release, healing, and ritual celebration.
Table 4 provides a summary of the characters, stages, and songs in Rising from the Ashes.
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Table 4
Summary of the Narrative Cycle and Characters
Stage Song Primary Characters Primary Musical Characters Overture— Call Rising From the Ashes The Girl with Butterfly Piano- Gentle, nurturing, to Adventure Wings supportive
The Witness Guitar- Holding, nurturing, supportive
Bass- Grounded and supportive
Going into Hide it all in My Body The Witness Synthesizer- Detached Hiding Drums-- Release of tension in body
Going into Leave me Alone, I’m The Witness Guitar- Protection against a Hiding Scared dangerous environment Going into Like Icarus The Witness Electronic Drums- Hiding Aggressive movement Darkness Synthesizers- No boundaries Lost Boy and uncontained Down in the Her Words are Lost Lost Girl Electronic Drums- Labyrinth Aggression directed out to Darkness the world
The Witness Synthesizer- Self-directed aggression
Down in the My Heart Can’t Take it Lost Boy Electronic Drums- Labyrinth Anymore Uncontained, modulating The Witness without boundaries
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Table 4 (continued)
Summary of the Stages and Characters
Stage Song Primary Characters Primary Musical Characters Down in the Labyrinth Funeral Darkness Gongs- Vibration relating to Procession death-rebirth The Witness Natural percussion- Beaten down and dying Down in the Labyrinth Thaw Lost Girl Electronic Drums- Breaking down walls The Light Electronic Bass- Grounding Girl with Butterfly Wings support on the way out of the labyrinth The Witness
“Loving me and my Shining Up in the Lost Boy Drum Set- Release of Butterfly Wings” Sky tension The Witness Guitar (distortion)- Voicing pain constructively
Electronic Bass- Finding the ground for support
“Loving me and my Opening a Door Lost Girl Guitar- Supportive and Butterfly Wings” nurturing The Witness
The Light
“Loving me and my U R U! The Witness Drum Set- Playful Butterfly Wings” The Light Guitar- Supportive
Piano- Supportive
Bass- Grounding “Loving me and my Soar! The Girl with Butterfly Guitar- Supportive Butterfly Wings” Wings Percussion- Ritual The Witness celebration
The Light Bass- Grounding, supporting release
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Song Narratives
Download uninterrupted version of Rising From the Ashes here-
http://db.tt/1xZW5LY0
Note: Please allow a few minutes to download. Your file will download faster if you
copy and paste the link directly into your Internet browser.
Overture- Call to Adventure
Track 1: Rising From the Ashes. Lyrics by the original songwriter, sampled and rearranged by Michael Viega. Music by Michael Viega.
Download Link http://db.tt/ms7W1Dqb
The opening track to the album introduces the Girl with Butterfly Wings and the
Witness. The song fades in quickly with the bass and piano providing a warm blanket of support and grounding for the exploration that is about to unfold. At :04, the Girl with
Butterfly Wings says, “Here we go.” Supported by the bass and piano, her tone is contemplative and reassuring. At :11, she sings, “You can make it, rising from the ashes.”
The Girl with Butterfly Wings repeats this several times, as if she is gaining strength and momentum for the journey ahead.
At :33, the music shifts as the inverted tonic chord on the piano is held. The Girl with Butterfly Wings repeats the phrase “Here we go,” as if she is standing on the precipice ready to leap off. Her vocals trail off as the scene changes, and the Witness is introduced. The Witness is playing the guitar and strums with the downbeat of the bass and piano. A second guitar plays arpeggios in a lullaby fashion. The Witness, honored
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and humbled to be there, is feeling apprehensive about moving forward on this journey.
The music fades away and does not resolve leading into the next song.
Stage One: Going into Hiding
Track 2: Hide it all in My Body. Lyrics by Michael Viega. Instrumental, “Drop the World” by Lil Wayne. (2009, Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- x1u8fEYnGE)
Download Link http://db.tt/TpkDa6Jx
The Witness starts the song by saying “Here we go,” an echo from the overture.
However, this time the Witness is thrown into the musical backdrop that represents an abrupt shift in mood from the first piece. The Witness is left alone to navigate through the chaotic world presented to him. The melody consists of rhythmic arpeggios in synthesizers that forebodingly hang in the upper registers of the music. At :11, a missile and a voice saying “arms” appears. It is as if the Witness has entered into a battle zone.
The Witness begins to take on a new persona that is not familiar to him, that of a rapper. He begins to imitate the flow and style of rappers he has heard in the past. This helps him to feel like he has some control over the powerful soundscape of the music.
The chorus of the song enters at :13, “I hide it all in my body/things change so fast lord I can’t even stop it/ I can’t keep up with this/no rhyme no reason to the way I act I’m feeling overconfident.” The Witness understands that in order to uncover the inner world of adolescence he must first enter into the body to uncover the feelings that are left unexpressed and unexplored by adolescents.
The Witness voices being “confused,” “lost,” and “awkward,” as he looks to
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understand and embody the inner world of adolescence. It is as if the music knows he is uncovering something important, and at :49 the drums aggressively enter into the mix to protect the vulnerable messages hiding below the surface. The Witness repeats the chorus as the music and the lyrics dance together, the music voicing the overconfidence and heedlessness of adolescence, while the narrator voices the vulnerabilities that might lie at the root of that behavior.
The Witness continues to deepen his understanding of how adolescents respond to the world around them, with the music continuously answering back to protect itself.
While freestyling, the Witness practices being random at 2:25, “What matters is action/keep in motion/keep it going/keep it flowing/Michael Jackson!” Suddenly, the music stops and the Witness continues to move forward. However, he still needs further preparation and understanding before entering fully into the depths of adolescence.
Hide it all in my Body Lyrics
Chorus (x2) Yeah- hide it all in body Things change so fast Lord I can’t even stop it, no! I can’t keep up with this No rhyme no reason to the way I act Feeling overconfident
Verse Confused Lost in my body- not really sure what’s happening body shaking, don’t stop me
Awkward Walk around trying to hide it I’m going to protect it If I feel it I’m gonna fight it- Yeah!
Chorus (x2) I hide it all in body
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Things change so fast Lord I can’t even stop it, no! I can’t keep up with this No rhyme no reason to the way I act Feeling overconfident
Verse Playful When I have my friends around me They protect me for the moment from feeling so lonely With them (mmm) you know I ain’t so scared In fact its only time I feel like I’m here Existing on this earth and without them (man) I don’t even what to think about what I’d do without them
Confident But not sure if that’s true If you play with us you got to play by our rules
Chorus (x2) I hide it all in body Things change so fast Lord I can’t stop it, no! I can’t keep up with this No rhyme no reason to the way I act Feeling overconfident
It’s random The way I experience the world It’s who I am right now I found some people who will Accept me you know that’s my crew They understand the little things the feelings not the words Cause they don’t mean nothing what matters is action Keep in motion, keep on going, keep it flowing Michael Jackson!
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Track 3: Leave me Alone, I’m Scared. Music by Michael Viega. Lyrics by the
Original Songwriter
Download Link http://db.tt/L64dK5v6
The Witness finds his guitar for protection, pushing away any other instrumentation that could be a perceived threat to him. The guitar plays a simple accompaniment pattern that shifts between the major and relative minor in the key of G.
The Witness embodies a character that attempts to numb his feelings by using alcohol and drugs. The partying lifestyle allows him to inflate his alter ego so that he can protect himself from feeling emotional pain. The world around him feels completely out of his control.
The voice of the Witness is tough and aggressive, as if at any moment the party could become violent. At 1:03, the Witness emits a low guttural moan; he is sinking further into his numbness and is preparing himself for random acts of violence and aggression. As the song ends these growls become more frequent and the guitars lose their steady rhythm and spiral out of control until coming to a complete chaotic stop (see
Figure 49).
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Figure 49
Leave me Alone (I’m Scared): Guitar Chords and Lyrics
Intro Em G- Em G (x4) I’m back
Verse 1 Em G Em G Walk into the party all these people on my dick Em G Em G Walk into the bar you know I’m bout to take a sip
Em G Em G Getting filthy rich can buy what I want Em G Em G I’m a mean motherfucker and I ain’t giving a fuck
Em G- Em G (x2)
Verse 2 Em G Em G Walk into my party getting freaky on the ground Em G Em G We took another round and we took another round
Chorus
Am Em Who party? My party Am Em let’s party let’s party Am Em Who party? My party D7 let’s party- let’s party
Em- G (x2)
Verse 3 (same as verse above) I’m feeling kind of groovy Wasted like the movies
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I tuning all you out Cause I’m all about my business Smoking Dutchess rolling up I’m bout to smoke a blunt I’m on all Petron I’m like leave me along
Chorus Who party? My party let’s party, let’s party Who party? My party let’s party, let’s party
Who party? My party Who party? My party Who party? My party Let’s party, let’s party let’s party, let’s party, let’s party, let’s party
End on vamp between Em-G- continuously get louder and faster until it crashes down at the end.
Track 4: Like Icarus. Lyrics by Michael Viega. Music from “All the Way Turnt
Up” by Roscoe Dash (2010, retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0e7_ugNXNI).
Additional music and lyrics sampled from the Original Songwriter.
Download Link http://db.tt/i1REbEaM
The song starts off by introducing a new character, the Lost Boy. The Lost Boy has detached himself and is disappearing into thin air. From up high, the Lost Boy gives shout-outs to those below him. This Lost Boy is trying to inflate his ego to avoid having to come down and face the vulnerabilities within himself. The Witness enters at :17 but with him is the voice of Darkness singing from the depths below. The Witness and
Darkness both know the boy’s fate; he will fly too high, be burned by the sun, and come
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crashing down into the void of nothingness. The Witness’s voice wants to rescue the Lost
Boy, while the voice of Darkness is eager to consume another lost boy.
The Lost Boy repeats the phrase “DJ turn me up,” his voice becoming stretched out and thin. Meanwhile, the Witness directs the narrative by voicing the immortal feelings of youth, “I’m Icarus/except I won’t crash/Make one wish/that this will last.” The
Witness, knowing that the Darkness is below, tries to warn the Lost Boy of his doom if he continues to fly without regards for boundaries; “With no boundaries/you soon will crash/Like Icarus the sun fights back/but there’s no water/or solid ground/When you fall you won’t make a sound.” In the background of the music, a thin synthesized sound— audible at 2:08—floats around as the music fades away. It is as if the Lost Boy is disappearing into nothingness. The Witness must enter into the void to help find him.
Like Icarus Lyrics
Intro (x2) Haters getting mad Haters, haters getting mad (x4) cause the DJ turned me up
Verse One (DJ turn me up) I’m in my space (DJ turn me up) Watch me go (DJ turn me up) Going higher (DJ turn me up) Than I’ve been before (DJ turn me up) I’m Icarus (DJ turn me up) except I won’t crash (DJ turn me up) Make on wish (DJ turn me up) That this will last
Chorus With no boundaries You soon will crash Like Icarus The sun fights back But there’s no water Or solid ground
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When you fall it won’t make sound
Verse 2 (DJ turn me up) Got me on drugs (DJ turn me up) All controlled (DJ turn me up) Got these feelings (DJ turn me up) I ain’t felt before (DJ turn me up) I’m getting tired (DJ turn me up) But can’t stop now (DJ turn me up) Turn me higher So I can sound
Haters getting mad, Haters, haters getting mad (x4) cause the DJ turned me up
Haters getting mad, Haters, haters getting mad (x4) cause the DJ turned me up
Chorus (x2) With no boundaries You soon will crash Like Icarus The sun fights back But there’s no water Or solid ground When you fall it won’t make sound
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Stage Two: Down in the Labyrinth
Track 5: Her Words Are Lost (Crossing the Threshold). Lyrics by the Original
Songwriter, sampled and rearranged by Michael Viega. Music by Michael Viega.
Download Link http://db.tt/VIiDsplu
The song starts with the voice of Darkness ominously echoing back and mocking the Lost Boy as he and the Witness trail off into nothingness. The Witness, confused and disoriented, is suddenly thrown into the labyrinth. Electronic drums, with a pounding bass drum and slapping snare, greet the Witness; the saw-tooth, oscillating synthesizer aggressively and violently announces itself, while a modulating synthesizer signals that the Witness is entering into another world.
The voice of the Lost Girl is introduced at the onset of the song; she is screaming and is in total agony. At :10, the Witness hears the Lost Girl sing, “Can’t you hear me crying?”. This voice is faint, distant, and fades in and out, lost within the labyrinth. At
1:34, the voice of the Lost Girl transforms in Darkness singing, “Don’t you hear me crying?” The Witness, who suddenly feels a great empathy for Darkness, knows that he must face Darkness to escape the labyrinth.
Track 6: My Heart Can’t Take it Anymore. Lyrics by the Original Songwriter.
Music by Michael Viega.
Download Link http://db.tt/9STH7Kwr
The pounding of the bass drum resonates from the last song, but it has become thin, faint and distant. At :12, the Lost Boy returns to share his story of rejection. The Lost
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Boy’s voice is multi-layered, as if to suggest that multiple forms of abandonment have taken place over many years, leaving him in this hopeless state. “My heart is sore/it’s bleeding all over,” the Lost Boy says. With those words, the drum becomes the sound of his heart, struggling to find a pattern and strength amidst his isolation. His heart fades in and out and has a hard time enduring the weight of the pain he has suffered.
At :53, a second drum enters in and beats without regularity, as if he experiencing the anxiety that comes from cardiac arrhythmia. His heart-beat races and gets more frantic as he sings at 1:12, “Too much stress and pain in my life/different things going on.” At 1:39, the drums become clear but the palpitations soon speed up as he makes the realization, “To be their everything, I have to hide myself from what I want us to be.” At
1:59, the drums become thin and drip at an irregular pace. At 2:26, the drums come back more faint than before and slow down; suddenly, there is a quick skip of his heart at 2:28 as he sings, “and my heart can’t take it anymore.” Suddenly, the music ends and the
Witness realizes that the Lost Boy’s heart has finally given up; he has died.
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Track 7: Funeral Procession. Words by the Original Songwriter. Music composed by Michael Viega
Download Link http://db.tt/UO87gYeJ
The voice of darkness appears at the start of the song revealing to the Witness, “All that I was promised was a good life, a happy life. All that is left is darkness and no hope.”
Three gongs signal the beginning of a funeral procession for the Lost Boy. Leading the procession is the voice of Darkness who, at :30, reveals himself to the Witness in his human form. Darkness exposes the source of his pain, which becomes a eulogy for all those who have lost their innocence through childhood abuse and trauma.
I am not your savior. I am what you don’t want to happen. I am not happiness, I am not joy, I am not great. I am destruction, I am pain, I am death, I am fear. I exist everywhere; I am in your mind, in your body, in your soul. I am the one in control. You have a God? So do I. I was weak, I was joyful, I was happy but I was weak. I loved, I cared, I felt. Hahaha, no more. No more love, no more caring, no more emotions. NO MORE WEAKNESS!!! Hahahahahaha.
At 1:29, the increasing tension of the gongs gives way to a simple pounding of a wooden percussion; it is as if the nails are shutting and lowering the coffin down into the ground. The voice of Darkness hums a rhythmic melody and the Witness notices that there are other voices joining in as the funeral procession takes place. They all recognize and mourn the fate of the Lost Boy.
The Witness feels a deep sadness but at the same time he senses that this mourning process is healing. The Darkness can feel the Witness’s empathy and quickly pulls away. As he exits, he warns and mocks the Witness at 2:35, “You do not understand my pain. You do not understand my power. You do not understand the darkness!” The
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vibrations of the gongs trail off and the Witness finds himself in the center of the labyrinth, which is total darkness.
Track 8: Thaw (Transition). Words by the Original Songwriter, sampled and rearranged by Michael Viega. Music composed by Michael Viega.
Download Link http://db.tt/d268Q89j
There is nothing but blackness around the Witness, no light and no hope. He hears the sound of the wind whipping and swirling around him. He faintly sees the Lost Girl, cold and dying. At :37, the Lost Girl sings faintly and delicately out from the depth of darkenss, “I’ve become/numb/ to all the sounds/around me/numb to your voice.”
Suddenly the wind changes and takes on a more sinister tone. It is as if the Lost
Girl is being sucked further into nothingness. The Lost Girl is resigned and continues singing; “You hurt me so badly/My feelings have left/numb to this life I live.”
The Lost Girl’s voice trails off and the Witness fears she is gone forever. All that the
Witness hears is the sound of the wind; its overtones threaten to envelop him.
At 1:39, the Lost Girl reappears. Her voice sounds more determined and expressive as she sings, “You took my heart/and ripped it apart/You made it hard/so hard/for me to love again.” The wind settles and at 2:06 the Witness hears the faint sound of a lone synthesizer in the distance. It is the sound of the Light entering in and softly shining a path in the midst of the darkness (see Figure 50).
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Figure 50
Melody Line for the Synthesizer in “Thaw”
The wind ceases and the Light thaws the ice that has hidden the path that will take them away from the depths of darkness. At 2:35, the Lost Girl cautiously moves forward with the Witness towards the Light. She continues to sing as she slowly steps forward, the Witness moving at her pace without rushing her; “I’ve become accustomed/to this numbness/ My heart no longer sings/ and my eyes no longer shine/ You took my heart and ripped it apart/ You made it hard/so hard/ For me to trust again.”
At 3:21, as the Lost Girl sings the word “again,” the floor suddenly disappears out from under both of them. They notice that the bass is supporting them, as if a set of large, caring, supportive wings has been guiding them the whole time. The Witness realizes that this is the Girl with Butterfly Wings. Suddenly, her wings carry them up and caries them towards the Light. At 3:42, the Lost Girl sings, “But I did learn to trust again/My flower has grown back/And the world doesn’t seem so bad.” At 4:11, the drums blast off away from the labyrinth, propelling them out of the darkness.
The music fades away and at 5:29 the Witness and the Lost Girl find themselves gazing upon a bustling city. The Witness senses that Lost Girl is apprehensive about being here. Both the Witness and the Lost Girl have a moment of doubt whether or not this is the right move, but taking a leap of faith they step forward together.
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Stage Three: “Loving me and my Butterfly Wings”
Track 9: Shining Up in the Sky. Words by the Original Songwriter, sampled and rearranged by Michael Viega. Music recreated by Michael Viega; inspired by the song
“Run this Town” by Jay-Z (2009, Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqgUT7iFLWY).
Download Link http://db.tt/RsVAllki
As the Witness moves forward out of the labyrinth, he is surprised to find the Lost
Boy is not dead and has been transformed. The Lost Boy repeats the phrase “shining up in the sky,” and shares with the Witness his tale of salvation. The Lost Boy exclaims that he too felt a supportive presence of the Girl with Butterfly Wings leading him out of the labyrinth.
He confesses to the Witness that the distorted guitars helped him give voice to his anger, while the drums helped to release his aggression. At :53, the Lost Boy shares with the Witness that he “didn’t have a childhood.” He repeats this a few times, releasing his tensions and anger as he moves forward. At 1:20, the Lost Boy continues to share the pain caused by years of abuse; “He used to abuse me, hurting me everyday. Stomp me, stomp me, hurting me everyday.”
At 1:42, the Lost Boy reveals the pinnacle moment of his salvation when the Light saved him from death. The Lost Boy states, “The bullet grazed me.” The music stutters, as if to stress how close he came to dying. The drums and guitar return at 1:53, with the
Lost Boy continuing to repeat the phrase, “shining up in the sky.” It is as if the Lost Boy has been received the gift of hope and has been transformed by it. The Witness looks up,
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hoping to make contact with the Light.
Track 10. Opening a Door. Words by the Original Songwriter. Music by Michael
Viega.
Download Link http://db.tt/iSTcUOZ7
The Witness looks up towards the sky and hears radio static. A voice is trying to tune-in saying, “Just reach out, you can do this.” The static clears; the Witness sees the
Lost Girl bathed in the Light. The Witness is overjoyed to be reunited with the Lost Girl in this space. He picks up his guitar and supports the Lost Girl as she sings, “I’d never thought I’d see the Light.” This Light has opened a door to her imagination, something that has been stifled from years of being abused and neglected.
At 1:05, the bass enters and ascends as the vocal melody and guitar progression ascend and descend. This lift provides the emotional apex of the album, a moment of unification and integration between the opposites; the Witness cries. A door to Self-Love opens as the Light helps the Lost Girl realize “the true meaning of Love.” At 1:58, the guitar ascends and lands on the IV chord. It stays there for a moment praising the Light.
The Light returns to join the Lost Girl and the Witness. The Lost Girl sings to the Light,
“I never knew/I could succeed/Until you started believing in me/To me you’re like a beautiful dove/Made me realize the true meaning of love” (see Figure 51).
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Figure 51
Score for “Opening a Door”
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Figure 51 (continued)
Score for “Opening a Door”
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Figure 51 (continued)
Score for “Opening a Door”
Track 11: U R U! Words and Music by Michael Viega.
Download Link http://db.tt/KSjeoLQO
The Witness finds himself in a playground surrounded by children. There is a sense of innocence and playfulness that has not been present, a gift brought by the Light.
The Witness joins in by playing music and singing his message to the children around him.
The piano playfully bounces around the mid-register with the bass mirroring its movement. Joining the bass and piano is the guitar, which supports the music by playing on the downbeat of each measure. At :36, the Witness—layering his voice in an octave— sings to the children; “You are pretty/and kind of silly/You have a beautiful smile.” At
:51, the drums playfully enter as if they are stumbling in and acting silly. Once all the
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instruments are playing together the Witness sings, “This is who you are!”
At 1:08, the music holds a contemplative space, as if the Witness does not want this moment to end. The verse returns at 1:21 as the Witness continues to try to hold on to the innocence of childhood. As the music bridges again at 1:51, the Witness realizes that, though this moment cannot last, he can help instill a sense of empowerment and hope for the children as they continue to face challenges in their lives. The Witness introduces an electric guitar playing a minor pentatonic scale. This new musical voice provides the strength needed to move forward.
The lead guitar descends down the scale into the last section of the song. At 2:00 the bass of the piano progression moves down in half steps as the guitar continues to improvise and gain strength and momentum. The Witness repeats passionately, “This is who you are.” As the music fades at 2:42, the Witness—echoing the beginning of the album—repeats the words, “You can make it, rising from the ashes.” The music fades, leaving the voices of the children. The Witness has come to a moment where his journey has ended. The Girl with Butterfly Wings returns to the Witness, flying towards him mystically and magically.
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U R U!
Verse 1 You are pretty and kind of silly You have a beautiful smile So take a bow ‘Cause this is who you are And I want you to see
Bridge That this is who you are…
Verse 2 You have pretty eyes It’s up to you (it’s up to you, it’s up to you) to realize That this is not (this is not, this is not) not a lie We hate it (we hate, we hate it) when you cry
Bridge ‘Cause this is who you are…
Outro You’re kind-hearted A broken heart mended Keep fighting for your rights So you can see lots of sights
This is who you are I want you to see That you got this key
This is who you are…
Track 12: Soar! Music pre-recorded Hip-Hop Instrumental by an unknown artist, additional music added by Michael Viega. Lyrics by the Original Songwriter.
Download Link http://db.tt/QSpiwl7a
The Girl with Butterfly Wings returns and the celebration begins! The children surround the Witness playing various drums and percussions. Together, the Girl with
Butterfly Wings and the Witness dance. The Witness realizes that the Girl with Butterfly
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Wings is actually a combination of all the characters he has come across on his journey, the Lost Boy, the Lost Girl, the Darkness, and the Light.
At :28, the Witness encourages others to “throw your hands up.” There is a realization for the Witness that it is now his responsibility to share what he has learned with the world because he too has been transformed on this journey. At :40, the Girl with
Butterfly Wings sings, “I’m being rebirthed like a phoenix rising from the ashes/I’m not old but I’m new with butterfly wings/Humanity better watch out/’cause I’m bringing something new/Loving me and my butterfly wings!” The Witness sings with her, supporting her and backing her up.
At 2:00, the Witness and the Girl with Butterfly Wings sing together in unification.
The synthesizer returns as the Light, moving in large steps and providing the momentum needed for lift-off. The music fades away and the sound of a jet is heard taking the
Witness and the Girl with Butterfly Wings off to new adventures, transformed and renewed.
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CHAPTER 9
ANALYSIS OF THE AESTHETIC ELEMENTS
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to investigate the aesthetic components—musical elements, the compositional techniques, the affective and intuitive qualities, and the interaction between the music and the lyrics—of the songs created by adolescent songwriters in music therapy to gain insight into their significance. My intent was to determine how these musical compositions, experienced through their various elements and as aesthetic wholes, reflect the complex internal lives and developmental struggles of adolescents who have had multiple adverse childhood experiences. In the present chapter,
I will analyze the connections among Songs that Protect Vulnerability, Songs of
Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love to highlight aesthetic components that were valued in the creation of these songs within a music therapy context.
Musical and Stylistic Elements
Keys and Tempos
The keys and tempos for these songs vary and little inference can be made regarding the relevance of particular keys in relation to understanding these songs. This may be due to the role technology played in producing, arranging, editing, and mixing these songs. The music for these songs was created in a spontaneous manner where the studio was used as the primary compositional tool rather than writing the song first and then taking the finished piece to record. As a result, choosing the key and tempo became secondary to choosing music—precomposed instrumentals and loops, sounds for the drum machine, synthesizers, live instruments—based on the affective qualities and determining where
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how they would be arranged, layered, and manipulated within the mix of the production.
Songs created using loops typically relied on the Key of C (“Cryin’,” “Emotional
Disaster”, and “A Girl Like Me”). The Key of C is the default key for loops in
GarageBand and once the songwriter began to choose and layer various loops the default setting was kept. Songs using precomposed instrumentals (“Lost,” “My Party,” “Who’ll
Understand?,” “Love,” and “Butterfly Wings”) have a variety of keys including F minor,
F# minor, C minor, and Eb major; songs using the Korg (EMX-1) drum machine (“Reek
Mugga” and “Darkness”) utilize E major and Eb minor; “Numb,” the only song performed solely on guitar, uses B minor. In summary, the key that was chosen for each song was determined more by the medium used in creating and recording the song rather than by a specific musical consideration.
Tempos range from lento (54 BPM, “Numb”) to Allegro moderato (120 BPM, “A
Girl Like me” and “Cryin’”). Most songs remained mid-tempo, common to many rap and
R & B songs within popular music. Mid-tempo ranges (80-120 BMP) permit the songs to have danceable groove, while also allowing for fast sixteenth note rhythms to be explored when rapping and within the hi-hat and other instrumentation within the upper registers.
Song Structures
For the most part, the songs in this study provide affective and imagery-based soundscapes that enhance and support narratives rather than relying on musical structures that separate the lyrics in various sections (verse-chorus-bridge). When recording the songs, lyrics were added in a manner that followed the affective qualities of the music rather than focusing on following musical structures, such as how many measures occur during a verse. Songs that Protect Vulnerability were often recorded spontaneously and
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quickly; they do not present formal distinctions between a verse and a chorus. For Songs of Abandonment, two songs, “Emotional Disaster” and “Numb,” do contain transitions within the harmony that support a verse-chorus-bridge structure. This is due to my increased involvement within the songwriting and therapeutic process to support the songwriters’ movement through challenging affective states and to help guide them towards their own internal resources. Songs of Faith and Love present formal song structures that were intentionally imposed by songwriters instead of being spontaneous
(Songs that Protect Vulnerability) or relying on my direct input as the music therapist
(Songs of Abandonment). The addition of more formal song structures may be related to the songwriters’ ability to negotiate boundaries and impose structure in their lives, which reflects the self-empowered messages within their lyrics.
Vocals
The vocals that appear on these songs reflect popular music styles commonly associated with hip-hop, especially rap and R & B. Many of the songwriters use their preferred artists as a template for how they want their voices to sound. Identifying with their favorite artists is an important developmental stage that allows adolescents to perform and rehearse their identities (Laiho, 2004; McFerran, 2010; Ruud, 1998). Therefore, we can view the progression of the songs in this study as a journey towards identity formation for these songwriters as they discover and perform their unique voice in the world.
Songs that Protect Vulnerability contained songs where the songwriters embodied various personas related to their favorite artists, such as Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and
Roscoe Dash. Each vocal was delivered in a monotone rhythmic style common in rap.
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Little room is given in the vocals for breath and pause between phrases and verses. Songs of Abandonment presented songs in which singing and rapping styles began to blend as the songwriters explored feelings of vulnerability. Songs of Faith and Love presented songs whose vocals moved towards more melodic exploration. The vocals in these songs have more breath and freedom within their delivery, mirroring the lyrical themes of these songs.
Shout-outs are utilized in Songs that Protect Vulnerability and Songs of Faith and
Love. For Songs that Protect Vulnerability, shout-outs are provided at the beginning and end of songs as a way to announce the presence of the songwriter. These announcements usually serve as a warning to the listener, such a “I’m back” in “My Party” or “Get ‘em!” in “Lost.” The shout-out used in this way allows for the songwriters to become immersed within the personas they are exploring. For Songs of Faith and Love, shout-outs are used as dedications to important people in the songwriters’ lives. In “Love,” the songwriter dedicates the song to her love interest. In “Butterfly Wings,” the songwriter dedicates the song to those who have struggled in their past and invites them to take the same journey she has towards self-discovery. Interestingly, there are no shout-outs in Songs of
Abandonment, possibly due to the themes of isolation and hopelessness presented in the songs.
Melody
The emergence of melody in music therapy has been explored in relation to identity formation and developing autonomy within a clinical context, especially within a music- centered framework (Aldridge & Aldridge, 2008; Robbins & Robbins, 1998). Aldridge &
Aldridge (2008) suggest that melodic development in music therapy is essential to
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understanding how clients develop a sense of independence, emotional expressivity, and a greater sense of self. These clinical goals are foundational developmental needs in adolescence: identity formation, developing autonomy and agency, regulating emotions, and individuation (Laiho, 2004). We can view the melodic development of the songs in this study as a way of understanding the burgeoning emergence of self-love that is portrayed in the sequence of each category of songs.
In Songs that Protect Vulnerability, melodic elements primarily serve the function of supporting the rhythmic drive of the music. Aldridge and Aldridge (2008) observe that, “a rhythmic form with a stabilizing effect is an important precondition for emergence of a melodic form” (p. 316). It is as if the melodies first must be sculpted and shaped within the grounding rhythms of the songs; this in turn can relate to the needs of safety and trust in adolescence before identity formation can develop. It is interesting that the melodies in Songs that Protect Vulnerability are primarily found within the synthesizers and then transfer to the voice by Songs of Faith and Love. It is as if the synthesizers’ function is to help the songwriters explore their own unique voices by providing interesting sonic worlds that reflect the preferred music of the songwriters.
Vocal melodies do emerge within Songs of Abandonment, but they are often underdeveloped and rely on half-step ascending and descending movements. This relates to the fragile developmental stage in which the songwriters are just beginning to trust self-exploration. Therefore, melodies move slowly, are unformed, do not leap, and rely on staying close to the tonic.
Melodies in Songs of Faith and Love take more risks and leaps as the songwriters’ identities become more assured. Vocal melodies are more present within the mix instead
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of being buried within the rhythmic elements as in Songs that Protect Vulnerability and
Songs of Faith and Love. Here, melodies gain momentum by rhythmically moving up and down in half steps before breaking free and jumping in intervals of fourths and fifths. We can see this occur in both “A Girl Like Me” and “Butterfly Wings” in which leaps to the fourth and fifth signal moments where the songwriters are freed from their past and have moved forward to a new understanding and love of self.
Harmony
Songs analyzed for this study contain little harmonic movement and rely heavily on simple popular music structures. When harmony plays a more active role in the songs it is to provide a contained space for the songwriters to rehearse and perform melodic movement. Functionally, the harmony provides contained boundaries that are needed for the songwriters to expand into more free and open melodic spaces. Experiencing both containment and freedom is a developmental need in adolescence to safely explore new identities and ways of being in the world (Aigen, 2005a). Aldridge & Aldridge (2008) summarize the importance of harmony in support of identity formation:
The therapeutic significance of harmony shows not only in the unification and support of the patient’s melodic voice but also in the promotion and shaping of its individual development and expression. A psychological-therapeutic significance is clearly revealed in the instigating, stimulating and balancing effects. (p. 316)
Some songs remain harmonically static and do not stray from the tonic including
“My Party” and “Reek Mugga” from Songs that Protect Vulnerability and “Darkness” from Songs of Abandonment. For “My Party” and “Reek Mugga,” the lack of harmonic movement relates to a metaphorical wall the songwriters build around themselves as they shut out feelings and the concerns of others. In “Darkness,” the lack of harmonic
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movement evokes feelings of being stuck deep within hopeless feelings. Therefore, songs that harmonically stay on the tonic can be seen as a reflection of the songwriters’ fear of moving from their immediate comfort zones due to perceived external threats to their safety.
Songs in minor keys often pull towards their relative major, creating tension between the harmony and the melody. For instance, in “Lost,” the primary harmonic movement is i VI III in the key of F minor, but its melodies tend to focus on the relative major creating the feel of moving between the IIV in the key of Ab. In “Who’ll
Understand?,” the primary harmonic movement is iVIIVI in the key of C minor, while the songwriter pivots around the relative major of Eb when singing, as if his melodic development is moving in a new direction. In “Numb,” the chord progressions rotate around the minor i chord in B minor but stretch out towards the relative major as the songwriter reaches new levels of self-awareness. Conversely, the songwriter stays close to B minor within her melodic development as if she is cautious of what the harmony is offering.
Songs that are in major keys stay firmly anchored in popular music structures of I
(vi) IV V. This harmonic structure provides the singers with a melodic lift from the tonic and an assist in reaching towards the fifth. This occurs within the songs “Cryin’, ”
Love,” “A Girl Like Me,” each of which center around the songwriters’ attempts to connect with feelings of self-love. However, “Emotional Disaster” presents tension between its melodic elements and IviIVV harmonic offerings, reflecting the ambiguous state that the songwriter sings about. “Emotional Disaster” stubbornly stays within the major key while its melodic offering pulls towards its relative minor; this
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occurs in the lead guitar and synthesizer, which rotate around an A minor pentatonic scale. Additionally, the singer sings in a monotone voice centered on the tone E, which could be the third of C major or the fifth within A minor; this relates to the confused emotional state of the songwriter.
The song “Butterfly Wings” stands out due to its open harmonic structure and its relationship with the vocal melody. The harmonic movement never resolves to the tonic, while the bass line floats around the IV and the vi. The open harmony provides a welcoming space for the songwriter and listener to move towards themes of transformation that the lyrics offer; however, it can also be a place of tension if one needs more grounding and familiarity within the harmonic structure.
Rhythm
Rhythm is an essential element in Hip Hop that not only brings listeners into somatic experiences but also unifies them with the larger “body” of the community around them
(Sylvan, 2002). Music therapists have also discussed the clinical value of rhythm as a source of both embodied and communal experiences (Aigen, 2005a, 2005b; Hiller, 2011).
The rhythmic elements of the songs analyzed in this study play a primary role in moving the listener and the songwriter further into their body and, in Songs of Faith and Love, they support and nurture emerging feelings of self-love and empowerment. The rhythms of these songs are primarily syncopated, with the bass drums stressing the offbeat and the snare hits entering on the two and four of each beat, which is vital to the feeling of movement within the body. Rhythms are often repetitive and loop, which prevents change in movements and holds the listener in a particular somatic state throughout the piece. They provides a contained, nurturing space that allows the songwriters to rehearse
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and perform new identities, explore challenging emotions, and cultivate emerging feelings of self-love. Whereas the harmony serves as the setting for melodic development to occur, the rhythm provides the backdrop for textural elements to emerge and provide new sonic environments in which the songwriter can place him or herself.
The functionality of rhythm within the narratives changes from Songs that Protect
Vulnerability, Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love. At first, rhythm is primarily used to propel the songwriters through minimal, challenging, and apocalyptic sonic environments. The first four songs—“Lost,” “My Party,” “Reek Mugga,” and
“Cryin’”—have deep bass drums that reflect the deep well of hopelessness characteristic of their external environments, as well as their depth of internal loss cause by being abandoned by their primary caregivers. In “Emotional Disaster” and “Darkness,” the low bass qualities disappear and are replaced with rhythms that feel as if the songwriters are stuck within lifeless, depressed, and hopeless affective states. “Numb” has no drums, signifying detachment from the body, which relates to the songwriter’s experiences of being sexually abused. The drums in Songs of Faith and Love support feelings of empowerment and strength as described in the lyrics. Here, the songwriters use the drums to hold and contain internal feelings of love, whereas in previous songs the drums act upon the songwriters, propel and trap them within deep emotional and somatic states.
Sound Effects and Ambient Textures
Sound effects and ambient textures offer the songwriters new sonic worlds, which they run away from, hide away and get lost in, soar into, and explore. In Songs that Protect
Vulnerability, songs rely heavily on sound effects that create the illusion of a war zone. In
“Lost,” “My Party,” and “Reek Mugga,” sirens and missiles create a sense of impending
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danger. In Songs of Abandonment, the sound of rain and thunder in “Cryin’,” and
“Emotional Disaster” created an external force that the songwriters take shelter and hide from. By Songs of Faith and Love, sound effects transition from external forces acting upon the songwriters to integrated musical textures that support internal movement towards self-love. Militaristic sound effects in “Who’ll Understand?” create the illusion of an army supporting the songwriter in his fight against the hopeless feelings he is beginning to emerge from. Meanwhile, ambient synthesizers within “Love” and
“Butterfly Wings” create ethereal soundscapes that support the songwriters’ connection to a higher sense of self.
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Table 5
Development of Musical and Stylistic Elements Music and Songs that Protect Songs of Songs of Faith Developmental Stylistic Vulnerability Abandonment and Love Summary Element Key and Varied Varied Varied N/A Tempo Song Spontaneous Transitions between More formal and Spontaneous Structures sections appear recognizable Intentional No formal distinctions distinction between between sections verse/chorus Vocals Imitates and Singing and rapping Singing No vocal phrasing identifies favorite styles blend Free and intentional artists Shout-outs phrasing No shout-outs related to others Little phrasing Rapping Singing/rapping Shout-outs related to Melodic singing self Self-involved shout- Monotone rapping outs Other- focused shout-outs Melody Monotone Melody emerges but More developed Monotone rhythmic are underdeveloped melodies that rappingFully Provide support for and move in brief take leaps in formed melodic rhythm half-step intervals intervals movement Harmony Simplistic and Simplistic and Simplistic and Simple harmonic repetitive repetitive repetitive structures that reflect popular music styles
No development between categories
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Table 5 (continued)
Development of Musical and Stylistic Elements
Music and Songs that Songs of Songs of Faith Developmental Stylistic Element Protect Abandonment and Love Summary Vulnerability Rhythm Syncopated, Syncopated, Syncopated, Forceful repetitive rhythms repetitive rhythms repetitive rhythms Neutral Supportive Propels and pushes Rhythms are more Rhythms support the songwriters static and empower into various soundscapes and characters Sound Effects and Sound effects are Create a protective Support and External force Ambient Textures warlike and warn space for self- enhance feelings of acting upon the the listener of exploration empowerment and songwriter danger self-love Supportive and internal
Compositional Techniques
The therapeutic-studio was the primary compositional tool used in the creation of the songs analyzed for this study37. Understanding the techniques and procedures used in creating these songs illuminates the role of the production elements in enhancing the music. The choices made for layering, manipulating, editing, and mixing sounds in the therapeutic-studio can provide insight into the resources the adolescent songwriters utilized to create their stories, voice their internal struggles, sound their external environments, and perform various identities within these songs.
37 While the presence of certain compositional techniques were influenced by my aesthetic sensibilities as described in chapter one, the sound effects and textures that were added by the songwriters during the creation of the songs reflect their lived experiences.
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Recording Techniques
Pre-recorded instrumentals. Instrumentals were used in the songs “Lost,” “My
Party,” “Who’ll Understand?,” and “Butterfly Wings.” The decision to utilize pre- recorded instrumentals to construct these songs sheds light on the role this technique can play in relation to developmental tasks in adolescence. The idea of remixing and sampling—the collage of new and old sounds, using the support of technology, to create original artistic statements—has been a cornerstone in Hip Hop from its inception38.
Therefore, sampling pre-recorded instrumentals and recontextualizing them by placing new lyrics over the music is a crucial form of self-expression for an adolescent growing up and influenced by Hip Hop culture. The experience of remixing the chosen instrumentals allowed the songwriters to be connected to their past while they simultaneously explored new paths of development. The technique of sampling provided a medium in which these adolescents could share their past, explore feelings in the present, and discover resources for future development.
Second, adolescence is a time of radically shifting emotions and music therapists must be ready to help capture and guide creative bursts from adolescents to help regulate their emotions. Using pre-recorded instrumentals allows adolescents to quickly move into their feelings so they can process and voice internal struggles by rapping and singing in an improvisatory style on top of the music. The songwriters choose the instrumentals as
38 The art of sampling can be traced back to oral traditions of blues and spirituals, in which songwriters took melodies and words from traditional folk songs and recontextualized them to sing about the troubles and problems of a new generation. The legality of sampling began to be questioned throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as the ease of distributing copyrighted music began to increase. However, many legal scholars argue that an outdated copyright law—written in the early part of the 20th century—has worked to stifle and suppress a vital art form used by young people who strive to express themselves using new media. See Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive In The Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig (2008) for a thorough review of the legal challenges facing the art form of sampling and remixing.
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they listen and respond to the affective qualities of the music in relation to the mood they want to convey. The instrumentals are listened to by the adolescent songwriters in a semi- relaxed, contemplative state—usually wearing headphones with his or her eyes shut—as he or she is asked to respond to the music in an intuitive manner through movement or freestyle word play. These improvisatory reactions are caught in the recording studio and later edited and expanded upon if needed. Therefore, it is important for music therapists who use hip-hop instrumentals with adolescent clients to know the aesthetic qualities and possible imagery and somatic experiences of the music before using them in therapy to help them connect with the music in a more meaningful manner.
Third, the instrumentals chosen by the songwriters in this study represent their preferred musical choices. As a music therapist, I view the preferred music of an adolescent client as essential information in developing an assessment of clinical needs, forming treatment strategies, and building rapport. Because the pre-recorded instrumentals are chosen by adolescent songwriters as a backdrop for their original lyrics, understanding the aesthetic components of the music, as well as how the music and lyrics interact, provides clarity on what their clinical needs are and what music experiences would best meet those needs.
Pre-composed loops. Precomposed loops were used to construct the musical backdrop in “Cryin’” and “A Girl Like Me.” They were also utilized in “Emotional
Disaster” to add various ambient textures. The use of precomposed loops in the songwriting process provided the songwriters a chance to be more hands-on in the studio production of their songs by actually using the recoding software directly. The options of precomposed loops in GarageBand reflect stereotypical stylistic qualities of various
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genres of popular music. However, because there can be an indefinite number of options and combinations in layering and editing these loops, songs created using pre-packaged loops can sound individualized and unique. Precomposed loops allow non-musicians—as many clients coming into music therapy are—to build their own soundscape, thus deepening their level of investment in the production of the song.
For the song “Cryin’,” the production process was less involved, with a piano and drum loop playing a primary role in the song. Although the production appears simple its affective impact is not. The “Delicate Piano 01” loop, along with the drum loop and thunder and rain sound effects, create a safe space for the songwriter to begin reflecting on her experience with being abandoned. Precomposed loops provide the adolescent songwriter a way to create her own sonic world to explore these powerful feelings inside of her. A “Girl Like Me” provides a more complex musical arrangement with a variety of piano loops moving across different sections of music. The singer created a more intricate musical backdrop to convey the message of empowerment and resilience. In both songs, utilizing precomposed loops allowed the songwriters to have a greater sense of agency and control, which are important developmental tasks in adolescence (Laiho, 2004).
Drum machine and MIDI synthesizers. Like precomposed loops, the use of the drum machines and synthesizers gave the adolescent songwriters a chance to be more active in the production of their songs39. It is easy for adolescent songwriters to create drum/bass patterns and synthesizer melodies and explore the myriad sound effects to individualize the sound of their songs. In this creative process, the question of how to play an instrument—a question that can frustrate adolescents in typical songwriting
39 The drum machine was chosen due to the hands-on control of the raw sonic material it provides including providing direct analog control of modulating notes, bending pitches, delaying sounds, and a vast array of other sound manipulations.
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processes—is not as important as the questions of “what sounds best represent who I am right now?” and “how can these sounds be layered in order to provide a musical setting for my narrative?” Providing production tools that easily engaged the songwriters supported their immersion in the songwriting process and increased their sense of agency, allowing them to create a musical backdrop that best suited the content and mood of their lyrics.
Live instruments. Live instruments were added in the songs “Emotional Disaster” and “Numb” Both of these songs had fully realized lyrics at the start of the songwriting process. The guitar was used to help explore possible melodic and harmonic structures that would contain the powerful themes of isolation in the lyrics. The primary songwriters had direct control over the affective qualities and musical elements that I played on the guitar. Providing live instrumentation allowed the adolescent songwriters to have an objective musical mirror voicing possibilities of what their challenging emotional states might sound like.
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Table 6
Clinical Function of Recording Techniques
Recording Techniques Clinical Function Pre-Recorded Instrumentals Exploring the past in the here-and-now
Affective-receptive experience to help regulate emotions
Using the songwriters’ preferred music Pre-composed Loops Provide autonomy and agency for the songwriters to deepen the level of investment in the production of the song Drum Machine Autonomous production and creation of the song
Increase agency for creating the song Live Instruments Exploring and voicing emotions
Production Techniques
Filters, echo, reverberation, compression, and distortion. Sound was manipulated by using filters, echo, reverb, and distortion in order to enhance the musical and lyrical content and propel the narratives. The use of a filter creates the illusion of a sound becoming thinning and disappearing down a narrow tunnel. It is caused when some frequencies are cancelled, while simultaneously other frequencies are increased
(Hodgson, 2010). They can be achieved in GarageBand by choosing a predetermined setting, or on the drum machine and synthesizer by turning down the cutoff knob while simultaneously turning up the resonance setting. This sound is featured on songs like
“Reek Mugga” (1:44) and “Emotional Disaster” (“No, no, no” at :50 and 2:10). Here the illusion of disappearing mirrors the manic states of “Reek Mugga” who has no boundaries in his movements, and the sense of falling into a cave of hopelessness in
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“Emotional Disaster.”
Echo is used throughout the album on both the vocal and instrumental tracks. Echo is created when the initial input signal is repeatedly routed back to its source causing the output signal to be cyclically fragmented. Delay is often used in shout-outs such as the ones at the end of “Lost” and “Reek Mugga.” It is as if the songwriters in these songs elude conformity by fragmenting their voices as they exit the song.
Reverberation, or reverb, occurs when the sound decays and bounces around the walls of the air molecules. This creates the illusion of space within the sounds of the song
(Hodgson, 2010). Reverb is used in every song, especially within individual vocal tracks and the songs’ final mixes. The addition of reverb can be seen as providing space for the adolescents within the soundscape of the songs. This relates directly to an adolescent’s developmental struggle of balancing freedom and containment (Aigen, 2005a), with reverb allowing the freedom to move and breathe within the sonic spaces of the song.
Conversely, the use of compression creates less space within the sonic textures of various tracks that build each song. Hodgson (2010) explains compression:
Compressors thus compress the distance between a waveform's peaks and valleys, which is to say, they compress the dynamic range of audio signal, while limiters limit the peak amplitude of audio signal to an absolute decibel value (Chapter 2, section 2, para. 4).
Compression is often combined with bass reduction in many vocal tracks, especially those that use the “Live Performance” preset in GarageBand. This reduction of bass and introduction of compression enhances the affective qualities of being trapped in tight spaces, which reflects the affective qualities of such songs as “Darkness,” “Emotional
Disaster,” and “Numb.”
Sound engineers qualify any change in the audio signal of a waveform as distortion,
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even though casual listeners hears distortion primarily as a sharp noise produced when the volume is turned up too loud (Hodgson, 2010). Distortion is featured primarily in two songs, in the vocals for “Darkness” and the electric guitar in “Emotional Disaster.” In both of these tracks, amplification was increased to produce a musical voice that is screaming within the mix of the song. Distortion creates a lo-fidelity signal, masking the clear and natural high-fidelity sounds. Seen metaphorically and through the lens of adolescent development, distortion can be viewed as the voice of damaging emotions and thoughts (lo-fidelity) that are blocking clarity and health (hi-fidelity). In both “Darkness” and ”Emotional Disaster” underlying anger, rage, and confusion bubble underneath the subject matter. It might have been too overwhelming to truly voice this pain authentically, and so the use of distortion allows for their heartache to be released in a contained and creative manner.
Layering and mixing. The craft of layering and mixing a song lies in thinking of the soundscape as a three dimensional space, creating an aural setting for which the narrative can emerge. Sounds are layered in a way that create dynamic tensions in the songs; volumes are lowered and raised, tracks are panned across the left and right stereo channels, and the bass, middle, and treble frequencies are adjusted to find the right balance within the overall mix. The goal is to create a headphone space where the listener can sonically travel through the various textures and sounds, receiving various somatic and visual images along the way.
When layering and mixing vocals on top of pre-composed instrumentals, care was taken to find the right balance in volume and frequencies in order to give the listener the illusion that the instrumental and vocals tracks had always been together. More complex
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mixing techniques occurred with songs that were created using precomposed loops, live instrumentation, and the drum machine. In songs like “Darkness,” “Numb,” and
“Emotional Disaster,” panning and volume edits allowed for dialogue between the musical and lyrical elements of the song. For instance, in “Darkness,” vocals without distortion are at first buried in the mix to signify the songwriter’s descent into hopelessness. In “Numb” and “Emotional Disaster,” instrumental voices move into the distance corners of the left and right channels of the stereo mix, as if the musical voices of hope and self-love are calling from beyond and reaching out through orchestration.
These songs demonstrate that the craft of layering and mixing can both help adolescent songwriters explore various musical paths to voice their inner struggles, while also providing them a sonic setting to place these conflicts within the aesthetic whole of the music production.
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Table 7
Production Techniques
Production Techniques Clinical Function Filters Expressive of falling, thinning, and disappearing Echo Expressive of fragmentation Reverb Expressive of space and room to breath Compression and Bass Reduction Expressive of being trapped and confined in tight spaces Distortion Expressive of emotional pain Layering and Mixing Create dynamics amongst the aesthetic elements
Explore, create, and arrange a musical self-portrait
Recording Vocals
A majority of time was spent recording and mixing vocals for most of these songs. The production techniques of pitch-correction and pitch-manipulation, as well as doubling and layering voices reveal deeper understandings of how the voice is tied to self- expression within these songs.
Pitch-correction. Pitch-correction, often referred to as auto-tune40, is used in many of the songs analyzed in this study. Pitch-correction digitally pulls notes that fall out of tune with the key of the song into their correct pitch. Critics of pitch correction suggest that computerized manipulation of the voice is deceptive and dishonest. However, many artists in hip-hop and electronic dance music have utilized pitch-correction for its specific affective quality to express isolation and detachment from emotions.
40 Auto-tune is the name of the software created by the company Antares Audio Technologies.
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The function of pitch-correction in propelling the narratives of these songs is two- fold: First, in Songs of Abandonment, pitch-correction is introduced to evoke and enhance the isolation and numbness expressed by the songwriters. In “Cryin’,” the rapper uses pitch-correction to create the illusion that the songwriter is masking underlying sadness and crying on the inside. In “Numb,” the songwriter’s isolation and self-abandonment is more severe; thus, pitch-correction-combined with echo, reverb, and tremolo-creates the illusion that the songwriter is singing from deep within a cave of hopelessness.
Second, in Songs of Faith and Love, pitch-correction is utilized as functional production tool to help the songwriters practice performing their new sense of self within the world. The fragile growth of self-esteem needs support and nourishment as it begins to bloom. Pitch-correction provided these songwriters a way to musically rehearse being confident and fully realized adults by putting on their headphones, turning on the microphone, and allowing themselves to sing freely and without care of hitting a wrong note.
Pitch manipulation. Pitch manipulation occurs by decreasing and increasing the frequencies of the voice to create the illusion of another character appearing in the music; this is stylistically common in rap music. This technique is first introduced in “Lost” where a higher-pitched voice introduces the “Flavor Gang” before they start rapping.
This sound of this voice suggests an underlying frailty that is conversely in the midst of uncaring and tough persona found within the music and lyrical content. The song
“Darkness” explores the creative possibilities of voice manipulation, with the songwriter purposefully creating a monstrous voice that dwells within a world of hopelessness without light. Both examples demonstrate how voice manipulation allows songwriters to
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give voice to challenging feelings that are hidden inside of them.
Layering and doubling vocals. Layering and doubling vocals is a common studio technique that adds prominence to the vocal tracks (Hodgson, 2010). Many studio performers look to replicate the exact pitch of previous vocal takes when doubling and layering. However, a careful listener to the songs analyzed for this study can often hear the differences between the various takes. These “mistakes” are valued as essential elements so that the listener is a witness to the songwriters’ internal processes. For example, at 2:25 of “Emotional Disaster” we hear the songwriter’s doubled vocals begin to split, as if the singer’s emotional world is fragmenting and falling into pieces. In
“Darkness,” doubled and tripled voices actively propel the narrative, creating dialogues among the various characters portrayed in the song. At 2:22, the “clean vocals” reach out from the distorted vocals and split, as if the natural voice of the songwriter is trying to break free from distorted feelings. After that moment, the voice of “darkness,” the clean vocals and the distorted vocals layer to tone and chant with each other, a symbolic integration of the various struggles within the internal world of the songwriter. Last, in
“Butterfly Wings,” the songwriter uses vocal layering to help strengthen and support her expressions of self-love and personal transformation. The vocals are integrated and yet there is a sense of uniqueness within each one. For example at 1:58, an alert listener can hear the doubled vocals singing the melody, while underneath the harmony the singer
”coos.” This effect enhances feelings of freedom expressed by the songwriter; it is as if all the internal voices that have been fighting inside have been released and given the promise of new more meaningful life.
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Table 8
Techniques for Recording Vocals
Recording Vocals Clinical Function Pitch-Correction Expressive of emotional distance and detachment
A functional tool to practice being in pitch; rehearsing identity
Pitch Manipulation Give voice to challenging and unconscious emotional content Layering and Doubling Integrate and balance conflicting internal struggles
Affective-Intuitive Qualities
I started the analysis of each song by moving in a spontaneous manner to develop an affective-intuitive relationship with the music41. This proved to be a fertile starting point to understand the musical elements and compositional techniques that my body was or was not responding to. It also helped bring me into the somatic world of adolescence.
Moving multiple times to each song helped uncover my responses to the music, which in turn revealed deeper meanings of the songs in relation to the internal struggles in adolescence.
The Role of the Body
Adolescence is a period of development where physical and hormonal changes can cause extreme bodily discomfort and sexual confusion. These already troubling feelings can be enhanced when trauma and abuse occur, often causing an adolescent to avoid emotional
41 The analyses contained within this section were influenced by my aesthetic sensibilities and clinical orientation as described in chapter one. Hip-hop has been noted for its physicality and its ability to help dancers feel connected to their own feelings and to others around them (Sylvan, 2002). In addition, as a practitioner of the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music I have learned how to utilize my body as a source of knowledge and understanding about music.
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pain by detaching from the body, holding one’s breath, and tightening up muscles
(Cortright, 1997). Rap and hip-hop have been noted for its physicality, and as a result the music becomes a medium in which adolescents can experience their bodies in a manner that is safe and contained (Sylvan, 2002).
While moving to these songs, I found that certain areas of my body were influenced by the music more than others. Experiencing the music in this way provided insight to how popular music can provide adolescents a way to cope with emotional pain that is held within the body. In addition, various parts of my body played specific roles in managing emotions that arose during the music experience.
Extremities (hands, feet, head). I found myself focusing my awareness on my feet, head, and hands while moving to the songs in Songs that Protect Vulnerability. My hands, feet, and head were used to protect me from entering into my body where more challenging feelings were waiting. Movements in my extremities were frequently uncontrolled and lashed out at the world around me. These movements allowed me to move further into various characters suggested by the lyrical content, such as the uncaring warrior who is moving through an apocalyptic soundscape. My stance would be bound in a fighting pose, as if I was anticipating some form of abuse and protecting myself from being powerless and vulnerable. My uncontrolled and bound movements within my extremities allowed me to avoid being contained by musical elements that suggested more painful emotions.
In Songs of Faith and Love, I often found myself opening my hands and feet in a way that welcomed the music, as it brought feelings of self-love and empowerment deeper into my body. Here, my stance was open and free, often reaching upwards
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towards the sky. My hands and feet felt more balanced and in control, able to be both grounded and free within the ethereal qualities of the music.
My extremities were often the first parts of my body to move to the repetitive rhythms found within the drums, pianos, and guitars. When textural elements entered into the music—such as deep bass tones or ethereal, open synthesizers—my hand and feet often fought against their affective qualities. It is as if movement in the extremities helps to protect against possible threats to one’s core similar to how the extremities sacrifice themselves to protect vital organs when the body is caught in frozen temperatures.
Core (abdomen and groin). Textural and sonic elements of the music would often invasively enter into my abdomen, evading my extremities. This happened within the
Songs that Protect Vulnerability and Songs of Abandonment. The painful and tense feelings expressed in the vocals, as well production elements of distortion, panning, tremolo, often made me feel sick to my stomach or entered into my abdominal area in a way that evoked feelings of falling into bottomless hole of hopelessness.
I coped with these challenging feelings by detaching myself from the music in two ways: First, in Songs that Protect Vulnerability, I avoided emotional pain by moving into various personas that allowed me to escape my authentic feelings. Second, I often froze, stopped moving, and/or curled up in a fetal position when moving to Songs of
Abandonment. This reaction is similar to how a person might respond to feelings of depression and hopelessness, by dropping out of daily activities, having low motivation towards everyday tasks, and becoming confused and numb to external and internal stimuli.
Chest and heart. The chest and heart often represent areas of the body that open
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the door to feelings of self-love and encourage further spiritual movement (Taylor,
1995)42. While moving to Songs of Faith and Love, I felt openings to my chest and heart as feelings of self-love and empowerment expanded and grew. In “Who’ll Understand?,” the repeated guitar felt like a ladder coming out of my chest, helping to guide me through hopeless feelings. In the song “Love,” my stance remained open and vulnerable to the light that entered within me. I protected this light by hugging myself and holding the love
I felt deep within my heart.
Dualities in my body. My body listening experiences heightened my somatic understandings of the dualities that occur in adolescence. In many songs, I often struggled balancing freedom versus containment. My experiences moving to “Reek
Mugga” highlight this duality. On one hand, my body felt the need to move to the contained and repetitive rhythm and slight interval movements of the bass, while on the other hand I felt the urge to break from my confined space and enter into the wildly modulating synthesizers in the song.
The split I felt between the bound rhythms and the free ambient textures in the upper registers of the orchestrations often caused feelings of frustration and confusion.
This was most noticeable in “My Party,” which provided a sparse and minimal soundscape. The lower registers contained deep bass sounds, while the upper registers soared with pulsating and staccato synthesizer melodies. The lack of a middle ground left me feeling vulnerable, as if there was no place to hide. On the other end of the spectrum,
“Darkness” left me confined to the low end of the orchestration, trapped and helpless.
Often piano parts, playing primarily in the middle registers, provided a feeling of
42 People who dance to hip-hop and electronic dance music often relate moments when they have felt a deeper sense of self-love, which has connected them to a greater spiritual power (Sylvan, 2005).
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safety, a place where I could seek solace within the orchestration. This occurred in songs like “Cryin’” and “Who’ll Understand?” The more balanced the orchestration became the more the split healed. This particularly occurred in the last two songs, “A Girl Like Me” and “Butterfly Wings.” In “A Girl Like Me,” the orchestration felt more grounded and assured, rather than lost or ethereal and flighty. “Butterfly Wings” contained the most balanced orchestration, with high, low, and middle frequencies equally showcased within the music.
Another duality facing my body was that of being detached versus grounded.
Synthesizers and ambient textures left me wanting to escape my body and lose myself within the ethereal soundscapes of the music. This occurred in the song “Love,” in which the swirling synthesizer left me feeling lost within the clouds and not grounded.
Meanwhile, the pitch corrected vocals of “Numb” and its panning effects left me feeling detached from my body and lost within a void of nothingness.
I felt most grounded and stable during “Who’ll Understand?” and “A Girl Like
Me.” Both songs provided a good balance within the orchestration that allowed me to move through and embody emerging feelings of hope and self-love. “Butterfly Wing’s” integrated and full orchestration allowed me to feel the stability needed for flight. Feeling this integration deep within my body left me with feelings of celebration and joy, which I did not experience in any other song.
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Table 9
Development of Affective-Intuitive Qualities
Affective- Songs that Songs of Songs of Faith Developmental Intuitive Protect Abandonment and Love Summary Elements Vulnerability Somatic My extremities My core feels My extremities are Protecting inner Experience protect feeling heavy and tense open to the music feelings open emotional pain to internal I detach from my My chest is open experiences body to escape to receiving self- emotional pain love and nurturing Avoiding emotional pain accepting self- love Affective Qualities Uncontrolled and Confused, lost, Empowered, self- Fighting lashing out helpless and love Helpless hopeless Indulging Fighting stance in lower extremities Musical Qualities Heavy bass and Distorted, Integrated Threatening but pounding drums overproduced orchestration and simple musical qualities- supportive musical Overwhelming Sound effects and elements and complicated ambient textures Integrated and create apocalyptic supportive and threatening environment
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The Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics
This section looks to highlight the function of music in supporting the lyrics of the songs analyzed in this study to illustrate how the music is used to meet the developmental and clinical needs presented within each grouping of songs43.
Songs that Protect Vulnerability
The music provides a setting in which songwriters can explore various personas within the lyrics. The songs within this category showcase songwriters who rap about accessing power and control despite the harm it might do to themselves and others around them. Each songwriter creates an impenetrable soundscape filled with sirens, missile blasts, pounding drums, and bouncy synthesizers that float above the other elements. The songwriters move through these apocalyptic soundscapes unharmed by putting on personas that are uncaring, unpredictable, tough, aggressive, and unconcerned with boundaries.
The music reveals hidden emotions not found in the lyrical content. Although the lyrics often describe the spoils of partying and obtaining power, fame, and money, the music reveals more subtle, internal struggles for the songwriters. In “Lost,” a soft piano line, human whistles, and an acoustic guitar reveal more natural voices that are enveloped by the pounding percussion and sharp synthesizers. The softness of these instruments is not expressed in the lyrics, which focus on obtaining wealth and money through violent
43 The emphasis in this study placed on the relationship between the lyrics and the music stems from the development of Hip Hop culture. At its inception in the mid-1970s, the DJ played the primary role in creating the musical backdrop for people to dance. Rappers were introduced soon after, but their role was to be the master of ceremonies (MC) in order to get an audience excited. Soon, the rapper and the DJ’s role became symbiotic, and although the rapper now takes the primary role in hip-hop the two still play a vital role for one another. The DJ creates the musical soundscape in which the rapper shares his observations, struggles, and perspectives (Chang, 2005; Sylvan, 2002). The music within Hip Hop culture has always played a vital role in supporting and enhancing lyrical content.
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and impulsive actions. “My Party’s” sparse and minimal orchestration leaves the listener feeling vulnerable and exposed, sentiments that are not expressed in the lyrics, which focus on partying without concern. “Reek Mugga’s” music struggles between the need to be constrained and the need to be free. The songwriter meanwhile does not show this struggle outwardly, instead asking the music to “turn me up” in order to elevate his status and power. The contradictions between the music and lyrics suggest that the songwriters might be hiding and protecting vulnerable emotions in order to prevent emotional pain from surfacing.
Songs of Abandonment
The music offers possibilities to explore and move through challenging emotional states that the songwriters expose in their lyrics. The songs within this category evoke strong emotional responses towards themes of being abandoned and abused. Lyrically, each songwriter appears to be frozen within his or her own emotional states. In “Cryin’,” the songwriter reaches out to a loved one but her cries go unanswered; in “Emotional Disaster,” the songwriter is left emotionally devastated after his feelings of love go unrequited; in “Darkness,” the songwriter sings from within a deep cave of hopelessness; in “Numb,” the songwriter has completely detached from her body and emotions in response to sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
Many adolescents have trouble regulating and naming emotions, often becoming so overwhelmed that their response may be to detach from their pain (Laiho, 2004). The music offers opportunities to name and explore challenging emotions. In “Cryin’,” the piano voices the soft, delicate sadness that the lyrics suggest and that the songwriter has yet to fully embody. In “Darkness,” aggressive rhythms help support the voicing of the
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songwriter’s anger and allow him to express his rage outwardly in a manner that is contained within the syncopated beat. In “Emotional Disaster,” the music offers a contained space within the orchestration to help the songwriter slow down the emotional rollercoaster he finds himself on. In “Numb,” the music supports the songwriter voicing her detachment by not providing drums. A lone synthesizer is offered to the songwriter to begin voicing frozen feelings of pain and isolation.
The music intensifies the lyrical content by utilizing studio effects. The songs in this section have the most production in terms of utilizing sound effects to enhance the feelings expressed in the lyrical content. The use of studio techniques allows adolescent clients to explore various sonic textures to voice internal struggles in a manner that is engaging and creative. In ‘Cryin’” and “Emotional Disaster,” rain and thunder sound effects help set the overall atmosphere, each with different affective responses; in
“Cyring’,” the mood is more contemplative and reserved, while “Emotional Disaster” the atmosphere is more tense and filled with angst. In “Darkness,” voice manipulation provides a narrative that voices the songwriter’s internal struggles and demons. Last, in
“Numb,” pitch-correction and stereo panning intensify the feeling of disconnection and detachment from the songwriter’s emotional core.
Songs of Faith and Love
The music partners with the lyrical content to support the songwriters’ blossoming feelings of self-love. Songs in this category contain music that supports and matches the mood of the lyrical content, and allows the songwriters to voice their feelings without becoming lost within the music. Syncopated rhythms groove without pulling the songwriter down into negative affective states. Piano, guitar, and synthesizers support
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feelings of empowerment, hope, and self-love. The atmosphere of the music, supported by ambient textures, harmonic progressions, and soaring melodies, remains hopeful and determined. Overall, the music combines with the lyrics to support emerging feelings of self-love, empowerment, and faith.
The music provides balance, integration, and stability to allow feelings of self- love and empowerment to expand and grow. The orchestration—with its balance of bass movement, mid-range instruments, and high synthesizers—provides the stability needed to allow for expansion of hope, empowerment and self-love. For example, in
“Who’ll Understand?,” a piano plays half note rhythms in the middle register to help provide steady movement out of hopelessness and towards the “pretty light shining up in the sky.” In “Love,” high synthesizer sounds are contrasted with a steady rhythm and harmonic progression within a major key to keep the songwriter grounded while connecting with powerful feelings of love. “A Girl Like Me” features steady piano progressions that support the lyrical themes of empowerment, strength and self-love.
Finally, “Butterfly Wings” provides a full orchestration that supports stability needed to take the full flight into transformation.
Vocal melodies play an integral role in voicing the lyrical themes. The stable and balanced orchestration provides each songwriter a safe setting to explore his or her own unique melody. Therefore, melodic development plays an important role in these songs to help each songwriter embody feelings of strength, self-love, personal power, and faith for a better future.
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Table 10
Summary of the Interaction between the Music and Lyrics
Songs that Protect Songs of Songs of Faith and Vulnerability Abandonment Love • The music • The music offers • The music provides a setting possibilities for partners with the to explore various exploring lyrical content personas within challenging the lyrics emotions within • The music the lyrics provides space • The music reveals and stability for hidden emotions • The music feelings of self- not found in lyrics intensi ies the love and lyrical content empowerment to and heightens the grow emotions
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CHAPTER 10
A DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL OF SONG ANALYSIS FOR THE SONGS IN THIS
STUDY
Introduction
The purpose of the present chapter is to examine the songs utilizing a developmental framework related to psychological and spiritual development. Fowler’s (1981/1995) stages of faith development offer connections between the results of the song analyses and the challenges of psychological development in adolescence. The developmental model contributed to a music-centered model of musical and developmental growth as seen in the songs created by the songwriters in this study. This model illuminates strategies that music therapists can use in a therapeutic songwriting experience to aid adolescent development.
Fowler’s framework can shed light on the psychological, developmental, and emotional journey taken by the songwriters within each grouping of songs: Songs that
Protect Vulnerability, Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love. Within each stage, clinical needs, developmental tasks and trails, and rewards will be identified in relation to Fowler’s stages. Fowler looked at the development of faith across the lifespan; he discussed how the emergence of faith is not linear and adults can be stuck in or revert to infant, early childhood, adolescent, and young adult stages at any point in life. The songwriters in this study are all adolescents; however, their songs reveal songwriters who are at various stages of growth in their development.
It is reasonable to ask why Fowler’s developmental model (1981/1995) is relevant since he focuses on religious faith development. Aigen (2008) notes that many religious
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scholars have a broadly construed notion of religion in which the contact with the sacred is foundational. Popular music provides adolescents a vehicle through which they can make contact with the numinous (Aigen, 2005a, 2008; Sylvan, 2002, 2005), and as a result it can be a medium in which spiritual transformation takes place. Hip Hop’s artistic elements provide a path for people who are oppressed and marginalized to rise above their depressed states, a feeling that is spiritually transformative (KRS-One, 2009;
MacDonald & Viega, 2012; Sylvan, 2002). This study views the journey of adolescence as a transformation of consciousness from childhood to adulthood that includes a spiritual journey towards self-understanding. The results of the study uncovered the spiritual and transformational journey of the songwriters within the arts-based narrative Rising from the Ashes. Utilizing Folwer’s theory is consistent with the major elements of this study.
Analysis of Songs in this Study as Related to Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development
Fowler’s pre-stage and stage one—Undifferentiated Faith and Intuitive-Projective
Faith—relate to Songs that Protect Vulnerability; stage two—Mythic-Literal—relates to
Songs of Abandonment; stage three and four—Synthetic-Conventional and Individuative-
Reflective—relates to Songs of Faith and Love (see Table 11).
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Table 11
Relationship Between Fowler’s Stages of Faith and Song Categories in this Study44
Fowler’s Stages of Faith Songs Song Category Pre-stage: My Party Songs that Protect Vulnerability Undifferentiated Faith
Stage One: Lost Songs that Protect Vulnerability Intuitive-Projective Reek Mugga Songs that Protect Vulnerability
Stage Two: Cryin’ Songs of Abandonment Mythic-Literal Emotional Disaster Songs of Abandonment Darkness Songs of Abandonment Numb Songs of Abandonment
Stage Three: Who’ll understand? Songs of Faith and Love Synthetic-Conventional Love Songs of Faith and Love A Girl Like Me Songs of Faith and Love
Stage Four: Butterfly Wings Songs of Faith and Love Individuative-Reflective
Pre-Stage: Undifferentiated Faith
Successful transition from Fowler’s (1981/1995) pre-stage into stage one, Intuitive-
Projective, is dependent upon developing mutuality. The foundations of trust, hope, and love necessary for faith development start here. However, if an infant is neglected and abandoned, faith development can become delayed or disrupted. Fowler (1981/1995) summarizes some of the risks at this stage:
The danger or deficiency in the stage is a failure of mutuality in either of two directions. Either there may emerge an excessive narcissism in which the experience of being “central” continues to dominate and distort mutuality, or
44 Folwer’s (1981/1995) stages five and six—conjunctive faith and universalizing faith—are not represented here. This is due to the advanced, mature, and transcendent worldview these stages represent. While stage four- individuative/reflective faith- represents the era of young adulthood, I will argue that “Butterfly Wings” presents a more adult vision of self-love. In this sense, her transformation symbolizes the developmental achievement of moving from adolescence to adulthood.
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experiences of neglect or inconsistencies may lock the infant in patterns of isolation and failed mutuality. (p. 121)
These issues can be seen in the song “My Party,” which illustrates a struggle in the developmental stage of trust versus mistrust as the narrator isolates herself to escape emotional pain caused by her abandonment and abuse. The narrator in “My Party” is left to her own devices within the apocalyptic soundscape of the music. As she describes her descent into drinking and drugs, she isolates herself in order to escape emotional pain.
She does not trust her environment or others. The songwriter is stuck between the high synthesizers and the low bass tones in the orchestration, both of which are perceived by her as threatening. Being left without guidance, the songwriter chooses to isolate and shelter herself within her own narcissism and reject everything around her including her own feelings. As a result, the foundations of self-love may be developing but have yet to be born. The songwriter must feel safe within her surroundings before trust can develop and she can successfully transition to stage one.
In “My Party,” the primary need expressed is for safety, in the face of fears of being vulnerable, exploited, and exposed. A clinical strategy for working with a songwriter in this stage would be to establish rapport and trust and guide the songwriter towards developing lyrics related directly to the aesthetic components of the music. If successful transition is completed the songwriter of “My Party” will gain from developing the coping strategy of reaching out for help when needed and trusting that it will arrive.
Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective
This stage is filled with imitative, fantasy filled play. The adult world plays an influential role in influencing the beliefs, stories, and moods of a child in this stage. Supporting imaginative play helps to build a child’s trust in an intuitive understanding of the world,
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which is central to the development of faith. The freestyle wordplay of “Lost” and “Reek
Mugga” reflects the intuitive and projective experiences of a child.
The songwriters in “Lost” and “Reek Mugga” are highly influenced by their favorite rappers. They seek to imitate, and are influenced by, the mood, style, and attitudes of these artists. In addition, they seek the power and control that these rappers project in their music, which can help to counter the powerlessness and helplessness that they experienced as children. Therefore, they act randomly and without boundaries to avoid having to confront these feelings. They choose and create musical backdrops that help propel them into the persona of their favorite artists and escape from feelings that could be a perceived threat to the defenses they have built. Each song wrestles with underlying sexual tensions and violent and destructive imagery. Additionally, each rapper displays an egocentric self-awareness common in children at this developmental stage, presented within their shout-outs and self-declarations of being powerful.
In both “Lost” and “Reek Mugga,” the primary need of the artists is to feel a sense of power and control over their environment and internal conflicts. The primary fear is feeling powerless and helpless, and understandably, defenses are built to avoid and escape these feelings. Although the random word play of freestyling provides them a sense of control and power over this unconscious material, it comes without self- reflection and logical reasoning needed in subsequent stages of faith development. The gift of this stage is the birth of imagination and the development of intuition. The role of the music therapist would be to provide unconditional positive regard for the songwriters while supporting their craft of freestyling.
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Stage 2: Mythic-Literal
In this stage, linear narratives are constructed within the stories of children, reflecting their internal conflicts. The characters in their stories feel as if they deserve their fate, and that they are helpless in the face of an all-powerful force within their narrative. The strength within these narratives is that a new level of self-reflection emerges, as the storytellers are able to give coherence to their life experience, which leads the way to the abstract struggles in stage three.
The songs within the category Songs of Abandonment fit within this stage. Each songwriter begins to reflect on his or her experiences of abandonment and abuse.
However, within both the lyrical content and musical/compositional elements the songwriters remain stuck by external forces that oppress them and keep them down within feelings of hopelessness and despair.
In “Cryin’” and “Emotional Disaster,” the songwriters seek solace from the sound of thunder and rain at the beginning of each song. The songwriters need distance from the storm to begin to give meaning to their experiences of feeling abandoned and hopeless.
The musical and compositional elements in both these songs offer room for further exploration. However, in “Emotional Disaster,” the songwriter refuses this call and remains unaffected by the offerings of the music. Likewise, in “Darkness,” the distorted and manipulated voices bury the protagonist and leave him in a bottomless pit of despair.
The songwriter takes this metaphoric narrative as a literal representation of his experience in the world. The songwriter is unable to move beyond self-imposed imprisonment that was handed down from his internal voice of “darkness.” It is as if the voice of “darkness” within him is a real, all-powerful creature punishing him and forcing him to stay out of
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the “light.” “Numb” represent a transition into stage 3, synthetic-conventional, but still remains in stage two. The compositional elements of pitch-correction, stereo panning, and echo swirl around the songwriter as she constructs a narrative of her experience of abuse. A lone synthesizer emerges from the orchestration, offering her guidance and movement through her affective state of numbness, which the songwriter seems to accept as she moves into being able to trust again. Traits of stage three emerge in her narrative in terms of confronting her past in order to move forward towards a more meaningful future.
In each of the songs in this stage, the primary need for the songwriters is to begin creating a sense of self by taking past experiences and turning them into coherent narratives. This is a fragile moment in the development of self-love and faith as there is a deep fear of disintegrating into the void of hopelessness, despair, and nothingness
(numbness). Here, each songwriter is looking for a savior who can supernaturally rescue them from their hopelessness without realizing that this power is within each of them.
The music therapist’s role during this stage is to be an authentic and a patient witness to the songwriters’ experience without trying to rescue or push them towards change. The music therapist can help guide the songwriters towards discovering internal resources by working with them in the development of lyrics and the production of the music. The reward from this stage is that songwriters are beginning to voice their personal experiences. This skill is expanded upon in stage three, as each songwriter works through internal conflicts towards the development of self-love.
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Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional
In this stage, self-love develops in the midst of more complex interpersonal relationships. Here, a person synthesizes values and beliefs in a manner that confronts past experiences. As Fowler (1981/1995) describes,
the emergent capacity of this stage is the forming of a personal myth—the myth of one’s own becoming in identity and faith, incorporating one’s past and anticipated further in an image of the ultimate environment unified by characteristic of personality. (p. 173)
The songs, “Who’ll Understand?,” “Love,” and “A Girl Like Me” represent the qualities of this stage. The songwriters begin to synthesize their beliefs and past experiences in order for a new identity—separate from their past abuses—to emerge.
In “Who’ll Understand?,” the songwriter reflects on his experience in a way that confronts the abuse he faced as a child from his caregivers; this is voiced within the militaristic musical elements of the song. This confrontation leads to a new perspective on life. In “Love,” the songwriter reflects on a relationship that brings her powerful feelings of love. Being in this new sense of love allows her to reflect on her past and push away the feelings and people that have been a negative influence on her life. A new sense of self emerges in which she can begin to believe in herself. In “A Girl Like Me,” the songwriter synthesizes her positive attributes and begins to stand up for herself. This stance of empowerment strengthens her resilience and aids in the discovery of her lost innocence. The music in each of these songs partners with the songwriters to help them confront the people who have abused, neglected, and abandoned them in the past, while at the same time it strengthens their convictions and belief in themselves. As a result, a new interpersonal relationship with music is formed, as the music, lyrics, and voice of the
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songwriters integrate in a positive step towards solidifying their newly formed feelings of self-love.
In each song, the primary need for the songwriters is to begin to embody emerging feelings of empowerment and self-love. As they begin to productively confront the past, each songwriter fears being drawn back into patterns they are trying to escape.
The role of the music therapist in this stage is to encourage and support deeper self- reflection on how the songwriters’ past has influenced who they are now and explore what they hope to become in the future. The task of this stage is to establish the foundation for an adult identity steeped in self-love, self-respect, and empowerment.
Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective
This stage is an extension of stage three, reflecting the transition of late adolescence into adulthood. In stage four, a person fully commits to continued growth and development. In addition, a new worldview of faith emerges in which a person realizes his or her impact on a larger community. Symbols begin to become more embodied and brought directly into one’s identity.
“Butterfly Wings” reflects qualities seen in stage four. “Butterfly Wings” not only voices the songwriter’s transformation, but it also offers acceptance and mentorship for others who have shared similar experiences of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. She also announces herself to the world as if she is aware that her transformation can be used towards the betterment of others in the world. This song is a declaration of self-love.
However, the unease and uncertainty of transformation is still present, as heard in the relationship between the optimistic lyrics and the unresolved harmonies.
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The primary need for songwriters in this phase is to feel grounded and stable, while also having enough space to spread their wings and fly. Here, the role of the music therapist is to allow for more freedom within the songwriters’ self-directed goals, while also providing a continuous safety net so that they are aware that they will be caught if they fall. The danger at this stage is the return of a “second narcissism” similar to what is found in stage one. Fowler (1981/1995) elaborates on this point:
Its dangers inhere in its strengths: an excessive confidence in the conscious mind and in critical thought and a kind of second narcissism in which the now clearly bounded, reflective self overassimilates “reality” and the perspectives of others into its own world view. (pp. 182-183)
In addition, if songwriters do not continue to feel safe and supported as the transformation into adulthood takes shape, disillusionment can set in as complexities in later stages unravel. However, the rewards of this stage are powerful in that successful movement through this stage can lead towards a fully realized, meaningful adulthood that is based in self-love and self-worth. Other rewards include access to a sense of belonging to a larger global community, providing mentorship to others in the community, and a greater sense of the interconnectedness of all things in the natural and spiritual realms.
Developmental Model of Therapeutic Songwriting for Adolescence
This section synthesizes Fowler’s theory with the findings of this study to provide a model of understanding the clinical use of therapeutic songwriting when working with adolescents who have suffered abuse and trauma. Three phases of development have been identified: Imitation, Developing Self-Reflection, Developing Self-Love. In addition, musical traits are identified to highlight possible therapeutic songwriting techniques that can be utilized in guiding adolescents through each phase towards an ultimate goal of an empowered sense of self-love in adulthood (see table 12).
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Table 12
Developmental Model of Therapeutic Songwriting for Adolescents
Songwriting Phase Fowler’s Stage of Faith Musical Development
Phase 1: Imitation Pre-stage: Undifferentiated 1) Simple accompaniment Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective 2) Identifying with favorite artist 3) Little to no melodic development 4) Lyrics that are produced intuitively and contain projective unconscious material
Phase 2: Developing Stage 2: Mythic-Literal 1) The songwriter uses the Self-Reflection music consciously to propel the narrative of the lyrics 2) Musical elements enhance and illuminate internal struggles 3) Lyrics name and explore challenging emotions 4) Characters and symbols in lyrics act upon the songwriter 5) Melodic elements emerge but detached from songwriter’s voice
Phase 3: Developing Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional 1) Melodic elements embody Self-Love Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective songwriter’s voice 2) Harmony provides stability and support for development of self-love 3) Ambient texture support narrative and symbolic representations are connected to songwriter’s lyrical content
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Phase 1: Imitation
In this early phase of songwriting development, adolescent songwriters imitate and identify with their favorite artists. Songwriters protect inner turmoil and emotional pain by creating lyrics and music that are powerful and heedless. Songs are created through improvisational play, such as the use of freestyle rapping or the improvisational creation of beats and soundscapes using various technologies. The creation of lyrics and music do not appear to be connected with an awareness of one’s self. Instead feelings are identified through the experience of other artists.
Lyrical themes often relate to issues concerning the acquisition of power and fame through any means necessary. Lyrical imagery may be unrestrained, filled with non- sequiturs, and contain violent and sexual imagery. Little to no melodic development is presented in the songs while harmonic elements remain simple and underdeveloped. The rhythm may be overly powerful in the mix.
This early phase contains many positive attributes that are beneficial towards developing the songwriting skills needed in the second phase of self-reflection.
Unrestrained vocal wordplay is foundational in developing the craft of rapping, and playful exploration of various music instruments and equipment can develop into an interest in learning more about songwriting. As a result, the music therapist’s primary role is to help the songwriter acquire the resources and skills needed to utilize the music towards self-exploration when this stage arrives. The music therapist does this by first building a rapport with the adolescent songwriter that is based in unconditional positive regard and acceptance. Second, the music therapist should be an empathic listener and
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consider the inner turmoil and hidden messages that lie underneath the personas with which the adolescents are currently identifying.
Phase 2: Developing Self-Reflection
During this phase the adolescent songwriter begins to create a song that has a linear storyline and contains music that reflects unconscious feelings. The thoughts and feelings that are explored in these songs may be raw, and characters may emerge within the lyrics and music that explore and enhance the unregulated emotions of adolescence.
Often, these characters act upon the songwriter, leaving the narrator feeling defeated, hopeless, and powerless.
A melody may emerge although it is often underdeveloped, moving in small half step intervals, and detached from the “voice” of the songwriter. Harmony and rhythm is simple and repetitive so that emotional pain can be contained and explored safely.
Compositional techniques used in recording the songs can be utilized to enhance and dramatize feelings that are still unconscious to the songwriter. These aesthetic elements entice the songwriter to listen to the song multiple times in order to reflect on the emotional worlds that the song has to offer.
Strong feelings may arise in the session that require support from the music therapist without trying to rescue or push the songwriter towards resolution or solutions.
These feelings may contain destructive thoughts that suggest self-injurious behaviors such as suicidal ideations and cutting behaviors, or disclose a past physical or sexual abuse not revealed to others. Therefore, the music therapist must be aware of ethical responsibilities in providing the songwriter support, while reminding them that
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information will be shared with the treatment team or authorities if a duty to warn is present within the lyrical and musical contents.
The benefit of this stage is that prolonged, focused, and creative engagement is introduced to the therapeutic process, which in turn deepens songwriters’ relationship to the music. Being within the paradox of feeling enjoyment while exploring painful and disturbing feelings can bring about the transition into the next phase, which is taking ownership of one’s unique voice. The music therapist’s role in this phase is to nurture emerging resources through authentic listening and provide guidance in the songwriting process by offering possible harmony, ambient textures, or other instrumentation. The music therapist must be careful not to overwhelm songwriters with too many options out of feeling the need to rescue, but rather offer options that help guide their self- exploration. Trust and rapport must be solidified before providing such options, and the music therapist must be willing to let ideas go if rejected by the songwriter.
Phase 3: Developing Self-Love
During this phase, songwriters demonstrate insight into past struggles, work towards developing solutions for the future, and begin to embody feelings of self-love. These feelings may first emerge as traditional love songs. As a songwriter professes love for another, he or she may gain insight into past problems. Songs structures and production can range from the simple to the complex, and the musical elements and lyrical content are integrated and support each other.
Most notable in this phase is the development of melody as a purposeful extension of the songwriters’ voices. Melodies may include large intervallic leaps and fast rhythmic runs that help express the songwriters’ soaring emotions. Harmony and
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rhythm are used to provide a stable ground for the melody to develop. Instruments and ambient textures in the upper registers may provide space for feelings of self-love to grow and take flight. The music may also express empowerment with rhythms and harmony being expressive of the stability needed for the songwriters to stand on their own. In addition, the lyrics may reach out and offer mentorship and guidance for others who have gone through similar experiences.
As powerful feelings of self-love and empowerment emerge, and as the songwriters begin to embody these emotions, the music therapist’s role is to provide a safe space for expansion and growth. The music therapist must allow for the songwriters to have more autonomy in the production of their songs; therefore, the music therapist becomes more of an engineer who helps to capture the songwriter’s emerging voice. Last, the music therapist must be aware over time of any destructive patterns that might return to threaten the developing self-love of the songwriters. Songwriters might move back to phase one (improvisational play) or phase two (exploration of the problem) if this happens.
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CHAPTER 11
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
This chapter45 explores the possibilities of a Hiphop perspective in music therapy, which crystallized from the findings of this study. Implications for future directions of research and clinical practice are discussed utilizing a Hiphop perspective. These directions include areas of education, training, and clinical practice for music therapy clinicians who utilize therapeutic songwriting for adolescents similar to those in this study.
Developing a Hiphop Perspective in Music Therapy
A vital aspect of Hiphop is its openness to diversity, blending creative styles and genres, and utilization of whatever materials are available at the time of artistic creation
(MacDonald & Viega, 2012). This stylistic feature has been referred to as a bricolage effect (Dyson, 2007). The development of a Hiphop perspective in music therapy
(re)mixes and samples various developmental theories, music therapy theories, and scholarship of Hip Hop culture, including street knowledge. The result of this study offers a final element to this bricolage, faith development and transformation of Spirit
(see Figure 52).
45 Throughout the section, Spirit, World, Soul, and Self, Love, and Light are capitalized to highlight their spiritual and transpersonal connotations.
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Figure 52
Hiphop Perspective- Bricolage Effect
Figure 52 represents the blending of various theoretical perspective and theories that go into the creation of a Hiphop perspective where the ultimate result is the transformation of Spirit. Engaging in the bricolage elements of Hip Hop culture creates a Humanistic path of transformation of Spirit and consciousness. This goal can also be seen asPsychology the purpose and intent of arts-based research (Finley, 2008). Therefore, the theoretical orientation and research design utilized in this study mirrors both the results of this study Rap/Street and the cultural intent of Hip Hop. By engaging in creative expressionKnowledge we are voicing
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ourselves in the world and connecting with our past, which in turn nourishes a greater sense self-love.
Transpersonal and integral psychology discusses the power of voicing one’s authentic self in order to uncover deeper sources of collective wisdom, which then animates our Soul and creates transformational change in the World (Cortright, 1997;
Wilbur, 2002). Likewise, Hiphop has been defined as “our unique Spirit, our unique collective consciousness, the creative force behind Hip Hop’s elements” (KRS-One, p.
80). Creatively engaging in Hip Hop is a way of voicing one’s authentic self in the world
(to be Hiphop), which in turn cultivates a relationship with “the Great Spirit, the Great
Event. It is the light of our World” (KRS-One, p.81)46.
Utilizing the spiritual dimensions of Hiphop within music therapy practice is appropriate, especially when working with communities whose preferred way of being in the world is rooted in Hip Hop culture. Therapeutic songwriting can provide a powerful medium for adolescent clients to voice themselves in the world and embody their own myth through the songs they create. This study highlighted that therapeutic songwriting within a Hiphop perspective can play an important role in understanding the mythic and internal lives of adolescents as they journey towards adulthood.
Method for Analyzing Songs Written by Adolescents within a Hiphop Perspective
This study offers music therapy clinicians an arts-based method of understanding songs written by adolescents from within a Hiphop perspective. This method consists of the design elements outlined in chapter three. Combining body listening with remixing the
46 For more information about the transpersonal dimensions of Hiphop see Sylvan (2002) and Viega (2012). Aigen (2008) discusses the spiritual dimension of popular music in relation to music therapy, which is relevant to the current discussion of the transpersonal elements of a Hiphop perspective in music therapy.
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original songs represents the primary method towards building an affective-intuitive relationship with the songs created by adolescent clients. These two elements work cooperatively to help uncover the inner struggles and developmental challenges of the original songwriter. Subsequent analysis of musical, lyrical, and production elements of the songs can help enhance a music therapist’s understanding of the significance of the songs related to adolescents’ psychological and spiritual growth.
Remixing the original songs is the centerpiece of this method. As discussed in chapter three, the practice of remixing originates within creative practices of Hip Hop. By remixing the original songs of adolescent clients, the practitioner is choosing particular elements within the songs to reflect on, in which to be immersed, and recontextualize by identifying somatic and aesthetic reactions to the original songs47. The goals of this activity are to identify the clinical significance of the songs, deepen one’s empathy towards the song and songwriter, and gain self-awareness of thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the song. Adolescent songwriters can also utilize the remix method of song analysis in therapy. Here, the music therapist would have adolescent songwriters remix their own songs to clarify, focus on, and recontextualize particular feelings that emerged in the original song.
47 Remixing the original songs of adolescent clients can be compared to another heuristic method of analyzing session content in music therapy, the reimaging technique developed by Dr. Kenneth Bruscia (1998b). Bruscia designed his method for practitioners of the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music to explore and understand the connections between the client and therapist’s inner world of unconscious feelings, thoughts, and images. To accomplish this, the therapist chooses meaningful imagery scenes from a particular client’s session. Then, with the aid of an experienced Bonny Method practitioner, the therapist enters into those images using the same music experienced by the client. However, whereas Bruscia’s method is to uncover and identify countertransference and transference that unfold in the therapeutic relationships within the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music, this method looks to develop an affective-intuitive relationship with the original songs created by adolescent songwriters in order to develop insight into, and empathy for their lived experiences
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Considerations in Developing a Music-Centered Songwriting Assessment for
Adolescents with Adverse Childhood Experiences
The results of this study offer foundational elements for developing a formal assessment tool that will enable music therapists to analyze the aesthetic components of the songs created by adolescents to better understand their developmental needs for healthy identity formation. This assessment tool would help music therapists interpret, describe, and evaluate the songs in a way that would benefit the treatment. Additionally, music therapists would be able to implement songwriting techniques that would meet the individualized needs of each adolescent. Last, this assessment could provide music therapists with a tool to disseminate clinical information to parents, treatment team members, and other health care professionals.
The results of this study supports the view that songs created by adolescent clients provide vital clinical information and are not just the byproduct of the therapeutic process. By assessing the aesthetic components of a song, clinicians can categorize it in relation to the stages of faith development proposed by Fowler (1981/1995). In addition, the developmental phases of Imitation, Developing Self-Reflection, and Developing Self-
Love could help therapists use individually tailored therapeutic songwriting techniques.
Some songwriting assessments have been developed for working with adolescents.
Dalton & Krout (2005) developed a Grief Process Scale (GPS) to evaluate the effectiveness of songwriting interventions in guiding bereaved adolescents through the grieving process. Goldstein, (1990) developed a songwriting assessment tool—based on the Beck Hopelessness Scale—to determine feelings of hopelessness in depressed adolescents. What I am proposing differs in that I would like to devise an assessment tool
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in which the clinical artifact of the music therapy process, the song, functions as a primary source of clinical information. John Carpente (2012) has devised a music- centered assessment to help profile and treat children, adolescents, and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, called the Individual Music-Centered Assessment Profile for Neurodevelopmental Disorders (IMCAP-ND). The IMCAP-ND examines various musical domains, as well as the development of relational play that occurs in improvisational music therapy, to understand clients’ musical social/emotional development. The assessment tool that I am proposing would be similar to the IMCAP-
ND in that it would look at various aesthetic components of songs created in music therapy to determine the developmental needs and challenges of adolescents.
Education and Training
The knowledge garnered from this study has implications for educating master’s level music therapists in developing clinical skills, advancing professional development, and enhancing personal development. First, for developing clinical skills, section 4.2 of the
American Music Therapy Association’s (AMTA) advanced professional competencies states that music therapist must “utilize comprehensive knowledge of human growth and development, musical development, diagnostic classifications, etiology, symptomatology, and prognosis in formulating treatment plans
(http://www.musictherapy.org/members/advancedcomp/). This study highlights and draws connections between adolescent and musical development, focusing particularly on songwriters who have experienced abuse and trauma. This understanding can help train music therapists in formulating music therapy treatment plans oriented to assisting transition from adolescence to a meaningful and adjusted adulthood.
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Second, for professional development, section 7.7 of AMTA advanced professional competencies states that music therapists must “use different methods of musical analysis for client assessment and evaluation.” This study developed an arts-based approach to analyzing songs written by adolescent songwriters, which can help attune music therapists to the lived experience of adolescents. This can help train music therapists to evaluate and assess the clinical needs of the adolescents they work with by equating musical processes with clinical processes. Furthermore, arts-based analysis can increase music therapists’ self-awareness, which relates to section 8.1 of AMTA’s advanced professional competencies that states that the music therapist ought to “utilize self- awareness and insight to deepen the client’s process in music therapy”
(http://www.musictherapy.org/members/advancedcomp/).
Last, section 7.8 states that music therapists will “adapt and select musical material for different musical cultures and sub-cultures.” This study explored the aesthetic elements of songs created by adolescents who identify with Hip Hop culture and suggests that their creative choices have clinical implications for assessment, treatment, and evaluation. Therefore, music therapists can learn how to use the aesthetic components and production elements of hip-hop purposefully to meet specific clinical and developmental needs of clients who identify with Hip Hop culture
(http://www.musictherapy.org/members/advancedcomp/).
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Future Research
What we are interested in is a provision of a new perspective that makes it possible for those interested in the phenomena the research addressed to have a productive heuristic through which a deepened understanding can be promoted. In that sense, our aspirations are far more modest that those who seek to replicate in prose fact, nothing but the facts. The facts, deconceptualized as they often are, are hardly ever adequate for telling the whole story. (Barone & Eisner, 2012, p. 3)
Hip Hop and arts-based research share similar values including diverse artistic engagement, aesthetic knowledge, social justice, community building, and subversive infiltration of hierarchal structures in society (Barone & Eisner, 2012). When casting arts- based research and Hip Hop side-by-side, their marriage seems fated. In this study, arts- based research methods were combined with heuristic analysis to gain insight into the significance of songs created by adolescent clients who identified with Hip Hop culture.
The next logical step from this study is to create an arts-based action-participatory research group of adolescents who identify with Hip Hop culture and who have experienced multiple traumas and abuse. The research group would create songs meaningful for them with the intent to perform their songs in various settings; the purpose would be to encourage dialogue and critical thinking within the community about the issues facing adolescents in our society. A study like this would help reveal the meaning of the songs for the adolescent songwriters, as well as the meaning of the song when they listen back to the song. This would enhance the findings of the current study, which looked to understand the meaning of the songs as revealed in the aesthetic components of the songs and as experienced by only the researcher.
The results of this study open up other avenues for future research. First, qualitative longitudinal studies could be devised in which adolescent clients revisit their songs
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throughout their various developmental stages moving into adulthood. The original songwriters could reflect upon their songs’ meanings and aesthetic components in relation to their own growth. This may also provide insight into the role these songs play in clients’ lives outside of the therapeutic environment. In addition, arts-based research could be combined with longitudinal qualitative studies by having the original songwriters remix their own songs as a way of recontextualizing their meanings throughout each stage of their development. Therefore, the journey of a song across various developmental stages could be performed in a way that would give voice to their struggles across a lifespan.
Additionally, research coalitions can be built across various therapeutic disciplines and populations to gain empirical insight into the benefits of therapeutic songwriting. A research bricolage can be develop in which quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research designs are employed to gain a full understanding of the songs, the aesthetic components across various musical styles and genres, their meaning for people within various health-care settings, and techniques for therapist to aid in clinical and developmental needs for the people with whom they work. Building research coalitions can promote awareness by providing a larger arena in which the songs of clients can be heard and experienced by as many people as possible; as a result, once marginalized voices become the primary force of change in society. This study plays an important role in building foundational evidence towards understanding how the aesthetic components of songs created in therapy can relate to the clinical and developmental needs of clients, specifically adolescents who have experienced abuse and trauma and identify with Hip
Hop culture.
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Epilogue- I am Hiphop!
I find myself at the end of a transformational journey that has brought me into the sonic worlds of the songs analyzed for this study, as well as into the metaphorical depths of adolescence. Returning from this journey has increased my commitment to promote arts- based research, Hip Hop culture, a Hiphop perspective in counseling, and therapeutic songwriting techniques when working with adolescents who have experienced trauma and abuse. This journey started many years ago when I began to utilize the aesthetic elements of Hip Hop culture within a music therapy setting, thus deepening my relationship with rap music. I began to decode the lyrical content of rap songs, make sense of the musical elements and production techniques in hip-hop, learn more about the historical and cultural roots of Hip Hop culture, and reflect on my own privilege and power in society as a Caucasian male. However, I still felt like something was always missing; I always felt like an outsider, as if the music, although interesting, was not made for me.
A powerful realization came to me in the course of this study: that the creative elements of Hip Hop culture offer a way of understanding my own suffering, accept and respect the truth my own unique voice brings to the world, and connect me to the larger human struggle for peace. Hip Hop culture offers me creative experiences in which I can continuously reconnect to this greater purpose. I embody Hiphop by creatively bringing this consciousness and awareness into my being and out into the world, specifically through my work as a music therapist.
Along with my expanded awareness, I am now left with the task of bringing this knowledge out into the greater community of people who work with adolescents
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including music therapists, social workers, community organizers, ministers, psychologists, counselors, teachers, parents. My goal is to communicate the healing qualities of being within Hiphop, not doing hip-hop. Here, a greater sense of empathy and unconditional care for the adolescents we work with can be developed; we see our youth as essential to developing and maintaining a peaceful world. Every child and every adolescent has the Light of Hiphop within him or herself, even if it has been dimmed by abuse, neglect, and abandonment. It is our responsibility as healthcare workers to see past the challenging behaviors and evocative language of our adolescent clients in order to help them recover their inner Light so that their butterfly wings can grow and soar into new worlds filled with possibility, faith, and hope.
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APPENDIX A
INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL
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APPENDIX B
EXAMPLES OF DATA COLLECTION
Song Analysis #2 April 7th, 2012 Emotional Disaster
STAGE ONE BODY LISTENING
Data Analysis PRE BODY LISTENING “What am I learning about the emotional qualities of the songs As I begin to stretch, I notice that I have shortness of from my body listening breath. I feel heavy and tense. I am aware of how experience?” anxious I feel. I have difficulty adjusting to the temperature of the room. My throat feels like it is closing and I try to clear it. Though I have the mat to
lie down on, I am too anxious and need to stay standing. My skin feels itchy all over. I turn the music on. [I AM FEELING ANXIOUS. I CAN IMAGINE THAT THIS IS A FEELING FOR MANY
TEENAGERS WHO ARE ENTERING INTO SONGWRITING FOR THE FIRST TIME MIGHT EXPERIENCE- JUMPING OUT OF THEIR SKIN.]
BODY LISTENING
:00-:18 I feel the rain pouring on my head. I try to The thunder and rain effect seem cover my head to protect me. I cover my face and try overpowering and I want to to hide. I notice the drums but can hardly move to the protect myself and hide. I cannot reveal myself to anyone. beat. :19- 42 His voice enters and I am completely The flat affect of the voice reveals overwhelmed by emotion. I begin to cry. I cannot so much pain that it is move to the rest of the music, his voice is the only overwhelming. I begin to cry. The voice is doubled, which element I notice. enhances this effect for me. :43-1:17 The chorus, “I’m an emotional disaster” drops me to the floor. I have to lie on the mat to
recover. The chorus ends and I am able to sit up and gather my feelings. I stretch my legs and take a deep breath.
The drums and am-G-F bridge 1:18-2:03 The bridge is am-G-F. I take in the chorus allow me to move and escape and drums, begin to move my head, and “air” these feelings for a while.
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drum with my arms. I lean back and listen to the words. 2:04-2:24 When the chorus comes back I begin to sing a melody. For the line “I can’t take it anymore,” I stand up in defiance. I am bouncing to the beat with
my hands on my heart. I feel like I am protecting my heart from being hurt again. 2:25-3:05 I say the lyrics without melody-the lyrics
By the last chorus I feel defiant and feel so true that they do not need to be adorned with feel anger rise. However, the song’s anything else. I begin to move more to the music. I drum drop out and so do the vocals, begin to pound in the air and for the first time the which does not support these feelings. drums and guitar move me. The outro (coda) leaves me feeling 3:06-3:59 The drums leave and only the guitar, protected and sheltered from the keyboard sounds, and guitar solo remain. I turn it up pain. By the end I feel lost and as I am surprised that this part exists. The drums disconnected from the depth of pain experienced by the songwriter. return and hold me. I move back and forth. I begin to feel more lost in the music. The feeling is swimming in embryonic fluid (the synth and repetition of the beat and harmony). 4:00-End The guitar begins to fluctuate in rhythm and I feel like I am on stage. As the music fades I notice that I am all alone and have left him behind. I say to myself, “Where is he?”
After Body Listening I am still clearing my throat. I note how detached I feel from the songwriter at the end. I have a desire to know just the voice on the recording and to strip away the music.
Summary of Body Listening Experience At the start of the song, the thunder and rain effect feels threatening and overwhelming bringing with it feelings of shame and wanting to hide. The voice enters and carries with it extreme pain, despair and heartache. The song is so sad that it paralyzes me and I want to detach from these feelings. The other instruments (guitar, ambient textures, and drums) disappear [DETACHED] in the weight of the words. The percussive progression of the guitar during the bridge (am-G-F), as well as the drums, helps to relieve some of that weight by providing a danceable moment. The words reenter and their monotone delivery begs for melody in order to help move out of the deep pain. Once again, the other instrumentation disappears. The coda provides a respite with a lead electric guitar, ambient textures, and drums. However, I feel isolated, as if I am in a womb. The music feels far away and detached from the core pain suggested in the monotone lyrical delivery.
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STAGE 2 REMIX COMPOSITION
After the body listening experience, I feel detached from the words and want to immerse myself in just the songwriter’s voice. I feel like I want to strip away all the other orchestration to get a deeper understanding/sense of the affect of his voice. I start by asking myself the question, “What are the vocals expressive of and how can I explore these feelings more fully?” I start by editing all other instrumentation from GarageBand besides his vocal tracks. His vocal tracks consist of two takes, both recorded in same octave for an enhanced layering effect. Also left was his background vocals, “no, no, no,” which had filter and produces the illusion of falling in a cave.
Title: My Heart Can’t Take It Anymore
Materials
1) Korg ESX Electronic Sampler 2) Layer #1 Improvised on a bass drum, manipulating the pitch, cutoff, resonance, reverb, and modulating frequencies. 3) Lay #2 Improvised with a sub frequency tone (a G and D). Added to provide more weight and depth to the sound.
81 BPM- a continuous sound improvisation with lyrics in the foreground.
Reflections on the Remix
The bass drum becomes the heart, heavy and “bleeding all over” (reverb). The bass sounds hollow and palpitates at odd times. The rhythm stretches and becomes irregular. The sound thins and becomes week before ending abruptly. The sound improvisation helped to enhance the depth of pain that is expressed in the lyrics. While listening back to the remix, I get a sense of impending danger and anger bubbling under the surface. It is this anger that is not as prevalent in the original composition. For me, I get a sense that the anger will turn towards self or explode towards someone else. In this version, I can hear him breath; his breathe short and tired.
Mandala
After completing the remix, my body still feels anxious. I feel like drawing in order to let these feelings out. I start with black pastels and move to red. I press and smear the pastels and it feels like a release for me. The red in the upper portion of the paper comes down and begins to look like headphones. The image of the songwriter comes to mind, using music to isolate oneself and stew over these painful emotions. It is the kind of isolation that is dangerous if not allowed to be expressed.
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STAGE 3 Music and Lyric Analysis
Song Title: Emotional Disaster Key: C, 81 BPM, 4/4 Length: 4:24
The top portion of the GarageBand score reflects the musical soundscape. Little dynamics occur in the arrangement of tracks. [LIKE FLAT AFFECT OF VOICE]
Track 1 and 2: This is the rain and thunder sound effects that open up the song and sets the tone. [THE RAIN AND THUNDER ARE EXPRESSIVE OF DANGER AHEAD AND NOT THE REFLECTIVE ISOLATION THAT I HEAR WHEN THIS EFFECT IS USED BY SOME OF THE FEMALE SONGWRITERS]
Track 3 and 4: I recorded the guitar parts. Track 3 is the rhythm guitar and track 4 is the improvised lead guitar using Am pentatonic scale. The rhythm guitar has a chorus effect that was used to add a soft tone, while the lead guitar has distortion. [BOTH GUITAR PARTS OFFERS A QUALITY OF COMFORT BEING OFFERED BY ME AS THE THERAPIST. THE CHORD STRUCTURES HARKEN BACK TO MY OWN YOUTH AND PERHAPS I AM COMMUNICATING, “I UNDERSTAND?”]
Track 5 is the primary drumbeat, using the loop “R & B Beat 6.” The songwriter chose this beat. The loop provides a simple backbeat that is syncopated and danceable.
Track 6 and 7 are the ambient textures. Track 6 is the loop “Deep Electric Piano 1,” which repeats throughout the song. The loop is a descending C and Am, which compliments the guitar harmony.
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Track 7 is an improvised synthesizer performed by the songwriter [DONE AS AN INTERVENTION TO HELP DEEPEN HIS CONNECTION TO THE MUSIC]. An effect was added that pans the sound to the left and right stereo channels through the song. The effect is “spacey” and “druggy.” [NUMBNESS OF FEELINGS THROUGH MEDICATION OR SELF-DETACHEMENT]
The bottom portion of the GarageBand score reflects the vocal lines. Tracks 8 and 9 are the songwriter’s vocals for verse 1, chorus, and bridge. They are doubled to enhance the impact of the words [A THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTION TO GET HIM TO GO DEEPER INTO THE FEELINGS]. Track 11 is an overdub of verse 2. [ALL VOCALS ARE OVERDUBBED TO PROVIDE THE SONGWRITER CHOICES AND INSPIRE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE SONG]
Track 10 is the background vocals of “no, no, no, no.” A filter is added to enhance the “crying” aspect. [I AM NOTICING THAT I HAVE BEEN STUCK IN THE SADDNESS WHEN PERHAPS HE WAS LOCATED IN THE ANGER]
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Below are the lyrics of the song, with the addition of the chord progression. The lyrics are the songwriter’s, while I added the harmonic structure. The juxtaposition is presented here to better understand what I was offering.
Emotional Disaster- Guitar Chords and Lyrics
Rain and Thunder intro Lyric Analysis Verse 1
Verse 1: The pain of unrequited C C/B Am love. My heart is sore
F F/A G It’s bleeding all over
C C/B Am (It) wants to die for something it cannot have
F F/A G So for that my tears hurt even more
Chorus F G
Chorus: Warning, giving-in I’m an emotional disaster F G
And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no) F G
I’m an emotional disaster F G
And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no)
Break F/ G/F/G
Bridge
Am F G To much stress and pain in my life
Bridge: No control over life- Am F G vulnerable and waiting for Different things going on rescue. Am F G
My emotions out there in the open G (hold)
Just waiting for someone to grab for an instant
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Verse 2 C C/B Am Verse 2: Loss of self in order to be rescued. [ABANDONMENT] And I’m struck by the emotion of love F F/A G Wanting to be their all and everything
C C/B Am But to be their everything
F F/A G I have to hide myself from what I want us to be
Chorus F G I’m an emotional disaster F G And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no) F G I’m an emotional disaster F G And my heart can’t take it anymore (no, no, no) F G I’m an emotional disaster F G And my heart can’t take it anymore F G I’m an emotional disaster F G And my heart can’t take it anymore
Outro: Repeat a Bridge-Verse-Chorus-Bridge structure with improvised rhythmic strum patterns on the guitar and inversions.
Lyric Analysis- The lyrics are an expression of unrequited love. The songwriter is devastated that this girl will never reciprocate his love. The songwriter’s feelings are so intense that he cannot take it anymore. He feels like he cannot even express these emotions and that he has to hide and be something he is not.
THEMES: Unrequited love, needing rescue, abandonment
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Summary Interaction of Music and Lyrics The melodic and harmonic layout of the song centers on the I-IV-V-vi chords, a common song structure in popular music. Melodically and harmonically, intervals and harmonic patterns descend. The exception is the improvised synthesizer by the songwriter, which is ascending in a step-wise manner. The vocals remain monotone from the musical backdrop. Though the vocals are layered and phrased on top of the music, the tonality of his voice appears emotionally detached from the musical and lyrical content. The lyrics express unrequited love for a girl. However, the lyrics go deeper expressing the songwriter’s need for rescue, emotional vulnerability, and the danger of totally abandoning his sense of self. Musically, the song offers comfort, safety, containment, and even a voice for the sadness underlying the lyrical themes. However, the detached tone of his voice may also underlie unreleased anger, which needs to be vented.
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Song Analysis #5 April 26th, 2012 My Party
STAGE 1 BODY LISTENING
I start off the body listening overwhelmed by the stress in my life. I have not been taking care of myself, and notice I that I am feeling all this stress in my body. I note that my core emotion is “scared…scared out of my mind.” [THE FEELINGS THAT I HAVE HERE FEEL VERY CONNECTED TO THE SONGWRITER’S- THAT OF “LEAVE ME ALONE.” WHEN I FEEL OVERWEALMED, I BECOME DISTANT, DETACHED, AND DEFENSIVE. THESE ARE CORE FEELINGS IN THE SONG AS WELL]. In order stretch, I choose “Mojo So Dope” by Kid Cudi [IN THIS EXPERIENCE, I USE OTHER PEOPLE’S SONGS TO AID IN MY ENGAGEMENT- GETTING INTO CHARACTER. LATER I USE RIVER CUMOS COVER OF “I CAN’T STOP PARTYING.” I do so to “prepare this mask and feel what it is like in there.” Moving into the body listening, I do not want to lie down. I am anticipating the song and I am feeling jittery and scared.
First listen
I cannot get a sense of where my 00-:30 As the music begins I am bouncing to the high synth body is in the music. I want to bounce but cannot, so I cower and the bass drum. I want to move forward and announce from the music. myself as the songwriter does at the start of the song
The signals and synths create a [NOTICE THE EFFECT SHE HAS ON HER VOICE HERE frightening environment and I IS DISTANT AND DETACHED]. However, I remain cannot move through it. cowered in the corner of the room.
:31-:35 I begin dancing to the beat. I have to find something The missile effect announces the to protect me. The delay and ominous synths in the bass drum- I burst through. foreground of the music signal something bad is about to
happen.
:36--48 I put my head down and wait for the downbeat of the next phrase. When I do, the bass drum and cymbal instantly
break down my wall. To protect myself, I call upon a heedless character within myself that is ready to fight if
needed. As I step forward, I feel confused as to what I should do in the music.
:48-1:01 A backwards cymbal enters into my body, tingling from my head and down my spine. I open up and the bass is
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Backward cymbal – moved head down through spine there to move me. However, I am left with no support and I am but still feel confused…. confused again. I move back in the corner. I am left with some soreness in my neck.
1:02-1:15 At the end, I begin to connect to the primary beat of The bass and snare combination connects me- the song, which is held in the combination bass and snare. They they need each other. I find feel like they need each other and I am able to move into the the perfect movement to get me in character. character. [THOUGH I AM IN CHARCTER, I AM STILL FEELING SCARED. IT IS AS IF THE BASS AND DRUM
SUPPORTS THIS FEELING WHILE THE MELODIC SYNTH AND SIGNALS SUPPORT THE DANGEROUS
ENVIRONMENT.] I feel like I cannot show my fear as I move forward [THIS IS A COPING STRATEGY FOR SOME. THE
ABILITY TO PUSH AWAY FEARS TO MOVE FORWARD, AND PUSH THROUGH. HOWEVER THE COPING SKILLS
EXPRESSED IN THIS SONG CAN BE SEEN AS NEGATIVE, I.E. DOING DRUGS AND DRINKING TO DETACH].
nd 2 listen
1:16-2:20 The song repeats and the high synth enters through my head again. I feel as though I am putting on my mask of
aggression and toughness. I rub my face. A sound effect of a The high synths signal missile exploding brings the bass drum. The bass drum move danger, I put on my mask. through my arms knocking everything over in its path. I am able to move my feet with it. My body is open to the beat. I explore
The bass/snare drum this movement and move further into character. I stay connected enters into my arms and to this character throughout the song. At one point, I lift up my legs. I knock everything over. shirt and raise my hands as if to express “don’t mess with me.”
I open my body in a defensive stance. 2:20- 2:28 I move back to my corner for a moment, behind the music stands. It is as if I need a quick retreat from the music. As
I retreat, I feel scared. I need my mask (THE MUSIC AND THE SYNTH) in order not to feel vulnerable.
I need to retreat for a moment- being in this 2:29-2:50 I move towards the camera to announce that I feel character is too intense for scared…I need someone to confide in. It comes across as a secret me. I must tell. However, soon the missile reenters and the bass drum starts. I bend down avoiding the missile and when I get up the
bass drum is there…I feel like I am taking on the role of an abuser. [ABUSING MYSELF, AND ABUSING ALL AROUND
ME].
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The character bounces and knocks around without care 2:51- 3:35 I remain in character- acting out the lyrics, bouncing, of who is around and moving my hands in a knocking motion. I feel lost in the character now- no escape.
3:35- End Being fully into the character, I stop and begin to move towards my remix. I am struck by the isolation I feel. The drums- the aggressiveness- the sirens- it feels scary to me. I state out loud, “It is a party but there are a lot of dangers.” I want to move to just guitar. My feeling is that I can connect to the feels of being isolated, scared, and lonely in the midst of a party. I want to play back her lyrics and hear them with just a guitar- within the context of feeling isolated and scared.
Summary of Body Listening Experience
Instrument Bass and Synth Siren and missile effect- Snare (melodic/rhythmic) backwards cymbal Body Arms and Through head- down Surrounding outside of body- legs- open spine and close body (mid section) Affective First- Creating a mask- Frightened- paralyzed fear quality detached alternative persona Aggression Musical Very deep Delay, filter, and quality sub bass – reverb-panning around Sound effects that create snare tinny speakers. Bounces in atmosphere. and lots of upper register but is reverb upfront in mix.
The music is minimal, sparse, and vulnerable. The high synth and snare sounds are delicate. Sirens in the background create a frightening environment that I want to cower from and not confront within my body. A missile sound effect announces a bass drum. The music paralyzes my body, leaving me with a choice to either detach (flight) or be aggressive (fight). I have to create a tough, heedless character to attempt to move through this apocalyptic soundscape. Integrating the bass and snare in my body helps bring the character forward. What emerges is a reckless, isolated person who is knocking down everything in his way, while also retreating from everything around him.
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STAGE 2 Remix Experience
In my body listening experience, the aggressive character was salient within the musical soundscape and movements. I wanted to explore the more vulnerable/scared character that is hiding within that soundscape. To do so, I moved to my guitar. I asked myself the question, “What is the essence of the character she is portraying in the song and how do I relate to this character?” I wanted to sing her words with my guitar and convey underlying feelings not overtly present in the original. What emerged was an image of a Hell’s Angel biker walking into a bar to the soundtrack of a Johnny Cash song. Thought this is a different cultural environment than the original song, there are similar underlying feelings present. I became excited and needed to express these feelings quickly [THIS IS EXCACTLY HOW THIS PARTICPANT WAS WITH HER SONGS]. I had a huge burst of energy moving into the remix.
Title: Leave me Alone, I’m Scared BPM: 115 Key: E minor 4/4
Intro Em G- Em G (x4) I’m back
Verse 1 Em G Em G Walk up in that party all these people on my dick Em G Em G Walk into the bar you know I’m bout to take a sip
Em G Em G Getting filthy rich can buy what I want Em G Em G I’m a mean motherfucker and I ain’t giving a fuck
Em G- Em G (x2)
Verse 2 Em G Em G Walk into my party getting freaky on the ground Em G Em G We took another round and we took another round
Chorus
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Am Em Who party my party Am Em let’s party let’s party Am Em who party- my party D7 let’s party- let’s party
Em- G (x2)
Verse 3 (same as verse above) I’m feeling kind of groovy Feeling wasted like the movie I tuning all you out Cause I’m all about my business Smoking Dutchess rolling up I’m ‘bout to smoke a blunt I’m on all Petron I’m like leave me along
Chorus Who party my party let’s party let’s party who party- my party let’s party- let’s party
Who party my party who party my party Who party, my party Let’s party, let’s party let’s party let’s party let’s party let’s party
End on vamp between Em-G- continuously get louder and faster until it crashes down at the end.
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Summary of Remix Experience
The song reinforces feelings that emerged from the body listening experience. My remix still sounds delicately tough and isolated, while also sounding defensive and on the verge of chaos. The song reminds me that when entering into a difficult and potentially harmful environment, no matter where you are, you cannot go through it being vulnerable. You have to go through it with a sense of confidence, as well as having the awareness a dog that has been wounded and is ready to bite anyone who gets close. Any perceived attack must be met with force, the kind that is uncontrolled, sudden, and aggressive.
Mandala Experience: “The Poison Covers it Up”
After exploring the remix composition, I am still left with feelings of fear and I need grounding by exploring a mandala. The colors chosen seem to be explosive and filled with poison. They are covering up all that is fearful. I realize that the fear is so big that it is too much of a threat to face it. Thus, an aggressive, violent persona must be taken on to protect the psyche.
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STAGE 3 Music and Lyric Analysis
Lyric Analysis
1. Announcement of the aggressive person (in the background- coming forward) 1. I’m back
2-4 Inflated sense of self- Lifestyle 2. Walk up in that party all these niggas on my
dick 3. Walk into the bar you know I’m bout to take a sip
4. Getting filthy rich can buy what I want 5- Character comes to life- “Mean, spoiled, 5. I’m a mean spoiled bitch and I ain’t giving a bitch” fuck
6-7 More lifestyle- inflated sense of self 6. Walk into my party getting freaky on the ground
7. We took another round and we took another round
8. Who party my party 8-11 Isolated and insulated. 9. let’s party let’s party 10. who party- my party
11. let’s party- let’s party
12-13 Not feeling like self- 12. I’m feeling kind of groovy 13. (Inaudible) like the movie 14-18 Isolating herself- numbing to 14. I tuning all you out emotions 15. Cause I’m all about my business 16. Smoking Dutchess rolling up I’m bout to
smoke a blunt 17. I’m on all Petron
18. I’m like leave me along
19-25 Isolated and insulated 19. Who party my party 20. let’s party let’s party 21. who party- my party 22. Let’s party- let’s party
23. Who party my party 24. who party my party 25. let’s party let’s party let’s party let’s party
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Summary of Lyric Analysis
The author narrates her night out at a club where she is the life of the party. The narrator is the center of attention. She describes herself as “mean,” “spoiled,” and a “bitch.” She appears to be numbing herself with alcohol and marijuana, progressively feeling more “groovy.” She appears to push others away “leave me alone,” isolating herself and living through her own party.
Musical Analysis Coups 2 battes [Explicit] La Resis, Nordybon, Typit, Cac, Fayaxx Released 2010 (track 2) on the album, “Go Fast” BPM around 85 Cut Time 4/4
Drums
Characterized by a strong down beat, the snare is on the 2 and 4 throughout the song. The bass drum bounces off of each down beat, its bouncy delay creating syncopated hits on the 3rd and 4th beat. The bass drum is strong and low, creating a large sonic resonance.
Melody
The melody is carried in the synthesizer. It bounces [THE SYNTH AND THE BASS DRUM SEEM TO CARRY A SIMILAR FUNCTION] with the bass drum and percolates throughout the song. It descends in a loop.
Ambient Effects
Sirens Sirens occur throughout the piece, creating an environmental effect that evokes danger or a warlike environment.
Missile Launch A missile launch sound effect announces the bass drum. This enhances the warlike atmosphere that the sirens introduce.
Backwards Cymbal Crash This effect announces each new phrase. It appears to take place of the missile launch sound effect as a way to introduce each new phrase.
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Summary The musical production of this track is hollow and minimal. The sub-bass and ambient effects produce an empty, apocalyptic soundscape. The addition of [THIS IS WHERE R. MURAY SCHAFER’S WORK COULD BE USEFUL! HE TALKS ABOUT SIGNALS AND SIGNS TO WATCH OUT FOR IN SOUNDSCAPE] sirens, and missile launch effects heighten this musical portrait. The snare drum and synth create a foreground battle that one walks through aurally in the production. This musical scene stands in contrast to the lyrical content, which on the surface is focused on escapist feelings in a party lifestyle.
Summary of Interaction Though the lyrics describe the songwriter’s escape into a partying lifestyle, the musical backdrop is anything but a party. The music is hollow and minimal. Sirens and a heavy bass drum create a backdrop for an empty, apocalyptic soundscape. The synthesizers float and bounce on top of this soundscape as if they are defiant and refuse to be pulled into the bottomless pit of the bass drum. A portrait of the songwriter emerges as a girl who escapes into an isolated and numbing world of partying to cope with the devastation around her. This devastation is environmental as well as emotional. The songwriter dawns an aggressive, insensitive, and isolated mask to maneuver through apocalyptic soundscapes that are both within her environment and within herself as well. However, looking closer one might hear the devastation of destroying the self through excess. This destruction appears to be caused by feelings of fear, especially fear of the sonic environment of the music production. The lyrics look to create an aggressive persona in order to move through the apocalyptic soundscape. This coping skill might not be healthy but it is based on pure survival.
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APPENDIX C
EXAMPLE OF CROSS COMPARISON SUMMARIES
SECTION 1 Songs That Protect Vulnerability
LOST Musical Elements 1) Vocal qualities are monotone, rhythmic, and fast tempo without rests 2) Freestyle has double entendres multiple uses of single words 3) Rock-like drums focusing on the downbeats and rhythmic synthesized textures 4) Harmonic textures in synthesizers- i, V, II
Compositional Techniques 1) Simple production and arrangement 2) Vocal effects at the start of the song- a higher pitched voice introducing the artists
Affective Qualities 1) There is a sense of urgency in the tonality of the vocals 2) Drums, guitars and synthesizers are felt in the extremities of the body- head, feet, hands. 3) Sexually and physically awkward 4) I protect awkward feelings by acting randomly and do not care about anything or anyone else around me 5) Sense of overconfidence in the drums and synthesizers
Character Summary: The character that emerged from my body listening experience was someone who acted out randomly and without care for others to hide and protect extremely awkward feelings. Core feelings of shame and powerlessness emerged, revealing sexual and violent fantasies that are dealt with by externally acting overconfident, overly playful, and defensive.
Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics The rappers fantasize about achieving power and control. This power and control comes at the price of self-destruction. The music supports this desire through its ethereal, detached, musical qualities while also providing a powerful backbeat. The human elements of the music—the whistle and acoustic guitar—represent hidden messages of vulnerability and fear that are not outwardly expressed in the song. Last, each rapper is highly influenced and imitating their favorite rappers. This allows them to both get into character while also gaining skills needed for self-expression.
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MY PARTY
Musical Elements 1) Melodies in synthesizers 2) Low rhythmic bass tone and cymbal crashes 3) Signals- sirens and missile 4) Rapping is monotone, 16th note rhythm
Compositional Elements 1) Minimal production 2) The synthesizers carry delay, filters, and reverb- they move around the left and right channels of the stereo 3) Intro and outro have a “telephone effect” with echo and compression
Affective Qualities 1) Fear- sirens, missile, and other sound effects 2) Detached from fear moving towards defiance and anger in the synthesizers and tone of her voice
Character Summary I have to create a character that is tough, uncaring, and indestructible in order to attempt to move through this apocalyptic soundscape. Integrating the bass and snare in my body helps bring the character forward. What emerges is a character who is careless, reckless, isolated.
Interaction between the Music and Lyrics Though the lyrics describe the songwriter’s escape into a partying lifestyle, the musical backdrop is anything but a party. The music is hollow and minimal. Sirens and a heavy bass drum create a backdrop for an empty apocalyptic soundscape. The synthesizers float and bounce on top of this soundscape, defiantly avoiding the bottomless pit of the bass drum. A portrait of the songwriter emerges as a girl who escapes into an isolated and numbing world of partying in order to cope with the devastation around her. The songwriter puts on an aggressive, insensitive, and isolated mask to maneuver through apocalyptic soundscapes that are both within her environment and within herself as well.
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REEK MUGGA
Musical Elements 1) Syncopated beat 2) Scratching percussion 3) Random arpeggios modulating in various frequencies 4) Bass line that moves up and down in half steps 5) Vocals are monotone and 16th note rhythms
Compositional Techniques 1) Simple and minimal production and effects 2) The vocals have minimal reverb 3) Using the “telephone” effect at the start and some long panning echoes at the end for effect 4) Modulating frequencies in the drum machine that transform into siren signals
Affective Qualities 1) Moving between extreme highs and lows 2) My body fights against being grounded and balanced 3) I become a “pain in the neck” as I fight conforming to the beat 4) My body has no boundaries and I fear a complete loss of self
Character Summary Reek Mugga, the name of the song and the artist, identifies with his favorite artist Roscoe Dash and tries to imitate that artist’s persona. In slang terminology, Mugga means having everything that other people want, while Reek is the nickname of the artist. The character that emerges is a person who has inflated his status and has anything you want- “pocket full of mugga.” He is someone that peoples both adore and hate. He inflates his ego to protect himself from the feeling grounded, stable, and secure because his ground is fragile and not trustworthy.
Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics The rhythmic and harmonic textures in this piece keep the songwriter contained within a small space (grounded syncopated beat, staying on the tonic and moving up only in half steps). The random arpeggios move frantically around and then turn into sirens, as if the songwriter wants to immediately and urgently burst out from his contained space. The lyrics present the songwriter as someone eagerly ready to escape the confines of his daily life by taking the role of his favorite rapper who has access to fame and power. He wants to music to help in this escape. As he moves “higher,” he realizes that people are jealous of him. The arpeggios appear to help with this. However, the music also grounds him in his space. The arpeggios blend and become sirens towards the end of the piece, perhaps signifying that if he is unable to escape soon there might be trouble ahead.
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SUMMARY OF SONGS THAT PROTECT VULNERABILITY
Musical Elements 1) Syncopated drum beats 2) Each song is freestyle rapping 3) Vocals that are monotone, fast tempo, 16th note rhythms, and little breath support 4) Synthesizers make up harmonic structures 5) Signals and sound effects (scratching, missiles, explosions)
Compositional Techniques 1) Simple, minimal production 2) Voice effects on introductions and at the end of each track
Affective Quality 1) Fear in the bass drums and sound effects (sirens, missiles) 2) Small intervals create a feeling of confined space that I want to escape from 3) Disconnected from middle range instruments and acoustic sounds 4) False confidence within the synthesizers and otherworldly sounds 5) Hiding from painful emotions located in the core of my body 6) Move to my extremities (head, feet, hands) as I freeze emotions deep within my body
Character Summaries All the songwriters’ appear to be coping with internal, emotional conflicts and environmental dangers by putting on a persona that is cocksure, overconfident, and heedless. The songwriters seek out power, fame, and control to compensate for the powerlessness and lack of control they have experienced in their lives. They are each protecting themselves from being vulnerable and exposed by acting randomly, without regard for boundaries, and isolating themselves.
Interaction between the Music and the Lyrics This first section is titled Songs that Protect Vulnerability due to dualities found in the interaction between the music and the lyrics. On the surface, the lyrics appear superficial and overconfident with the songwriters striving to achieve power and control without regard for others. The music narrates a more complex story where the dualities of adolescence are revealed within the songs’ musical soundscapes. The music supports the songwriters’ escape into a new persona, while also revealing their vulnerability. The speed, tonality, and monotone rapping of these freestyles expresses a sense of urgency to their expression. It is as if they are trying to escape threats within their environment, as well as powerful feelings within themselves of anger and hopelessness. Each instrumental provides a repetitive syncopated beat and contain small melodic and harmonic intervals; this creates a confined space that each songwriter is appearing to escape. Synthesized textures provide an ethereal, liminal escape. Sirens, missile, and deep bass tones create an apocalyptic sound environment in which the songwriters have to create a new persona that is uncaring and without boundaries in order to survive. Natural elements within some songs such as piano, handclaps and acoustic guitar, are hidden in the mix of the music. It
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is as if they have to go into hiding in order to protect themselves. Each song provides shout-outs at the start and end of each song announcing their presence and signaling their exits. It is as if they have to inflate their presence in order to preemptively protect themselves from being vulnerable.
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APPENDIX D
MANDALAS
#1: Black Overtakes Red- From “Emotional Disaster”
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#2: Burnt Colors- From “Who’ll Understand?”
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# 3: The Poison Covers it Up- From “My Party”
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#4: Fuck the World, Blood, Death, Poison- From “Darkness”
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# 5: Thawing- From “Numb”
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APPENDIX E
QUESTIONS GOING INTO REMIX COMPOSITIONS
Song Questions Analysis 1: Cryin’ “What do my feelings of longing, sadness, and emptiness, tell me about the songwriters experience?” Analysis 2: Emotional Disaster “What are the vocals expressive of and how can I explore these feelings more fully?”
Analysis 3: Butterfly Wings “What does being in the dream feel like? How can I support her being in that space?”
Analysis 4: Who’ll Understand? “Can I rebuild the musical foundation from scratch and make it my own? In the process, can I discover a resource or find aid in the music that I was not finding in my body listening experience?” Analysis 5: My Party “What is the essence of the character she is portraying in the song and how do I relate to this character?” Analysis 6: Darkness “What is dying and decaying and how does this relate to this song?”
Analysis 7: Lost “What do the words ‘confused,’ ‘lost,’ ‘awkward,’ ‘random,’ tell me about the inner- lives of the rappers in this song?” Analysis 8: Numb “What are the missing pieces that I am feeling or not connecting to in the body listening experience?” Analysis 9: Reek Mugga “What are the feelings associated with having extreme high and extreme lows? Basically, what is it like to not have boundaries?” Analysis 10: Love “How can I best support and nurture feelings of love that are emerging without questioning or judging it?” Analysis 11: A Girl Like Me How can I support and voice these new feelings of self-love that are emerging?”
Analysis 12: Butterfly Wings (Reprise) “How can I support the feelings of celebration and new growth that have emerged in my body listening experience?”
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APPENDIX F
DEFINING CONCEPT ALBUM IN RELATION TO THIS STUDY
In his doctoral dissertation, Montgomery (2002) performed an extensive study that analyzed and defined the idea of concept albums as a particular artistic format in popular music. The concept album is an artistic creation in popular music in which a songwriter or band creates a sequence of songs to convey musical cohesion and thematic unity. It is not a collection of songs but rather a unified expression of the artist(s) who create the album. Concept albums typically have three components: First, is a narrative arc in which themes emerge and are explored in the songs. Second, concept albums engage in social concerns and are a product of the historical and cultural movements within the time period they are created. Third, the aesthetics of the concept album align with the values of the counterculture from which it springs.
A concept album is meant to be both a musical composition and socio-political statement, which is then socially constructed by the listeners of the album. This is because the narrative of the concept album might not always be obvious to the listener but instead has to emerge from within the listener’s own engagement with the album
(Letts, 2010). Lett’s (2010) proposes three types of concept albums: First is narrative where the plot is more explicit to the listener. Second, is thematic where musical motives, instrumentation, genre, and lyrical themes give the album cohesion and unity for a unified statement. Third, is resistant where there is a non-explicit plot, musical discontinuity, and the lyrics appear to purposely avoid thematic unity.
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APPENDIX G
HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL OVERVIEW OF HIP HOP IN RELATION TO THIS
STUDY
This is why the hustler’s story— through hip-hop—has connected with a global audience. The deeper we get into those sidewalk cracks and into the mind of the young hustler trying to find his fortune there, the closer we get to the ultimate human story, the story of struggle, which is what defines us all. (Jay-Z, 2010, p.19)
The music and culture of Hip Hop emerged from Trenchtown, Jamaica and the New
York City borough of the Bronx in the 1970s (Chang, 2005; George, 2005). Both areas represented communities that were economically, politically, and socially marginalized.
The youth gangs that materialized in these neighborhoods became an unlikely source of creative energy spawned by the need to have their voices heard, even if it had to be done subversively. The four creative-arts elements of B-boying48, graffiti, MCing (otherwise known as rapping), and DJing became the foundation of Hip Hop culture. Each modality grew organically and challenged traditional hierarchical structures of authority. Chang
(2005), in his sociological and historical review of Hip Hop, notes that many gang members turned away from violence and began to focus on community activism and education once they became involved in music49.
Although hip-hop is popular across global audiences, much of the discourse regarding the influence of hip-hop in society is delimited to its influence on African-
Americans, especially that of urban “ghetto” culture (George, 2005; Rose, 2008). Rose
(2008) views the public conversation on hip-hop as polarized with critics and supporters
48 B-boying is often associated with break dancing but is also referred to the overall dress and style of a person who identifies with hip-hop culture. 49 One of the more famous examples is former gang member Afrika Bambaataa who began a musical collective called Zulu Nation, which was equally interested in social justice as they were in creating music.
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alike providing exaggerated, biased, and unsupported claims regarding its perceived positive and negative influence on Black culture. However, most authors agree that the narratives in Hip Hop provides a greater story of post-civil rights struggles for African
Americans and the story of an artistic medium’s rise from an underground to a powerful commercial and political force worldwide (George, 2005; Rose, 2008). George (2005) summarizes how narratives in Hip Hop are tied to the greater sociological story African
Americans living in a post-civil rights America:
[Hip Hop America] chronicles a generation coming of age at a moment of extreme racial confusion—in these years since official apartheid was legislated out of existence and de facto segregation grew—that has been grappling with what equality means during the worst economic conditions from the underclass since the Depression…But, most profoundly, [hip-hop] is a product of schizophrenic, post-civil rights movement America. (pp. xi-xiv).
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APPENDIX H
AESTHETIC EVALUATION
Barone and Eisner (2012) elaborate on the general criteria for evaluating arts-based research through its aesthetic including issues of incisiveness, concision, coherence, generativity, social significance, evocation and illumination:
1) Incisiveness refers to the researcher’s ability to get to the “heart of a social issue”
without getting “swamped with details that have no inherent significance and do
little to increase the cogency of the research itself” (p.148). For this study, I move
right into the lived experience and developmental struggles of adolescence by
engaging artistically and heuristically with the original songs created by the
songwriters.
2) Concision refers to the minimal amount of words needed to expand upon the
artistic results, providing the person engaged in the research with a heuristic
understanding through the arts. Although the artistic product of my analyses—in
the form of a concept album—is elaborated upon through narrative and subsequent
analyses, it is my belief that readers who are interested in arts-based research can
engage with the concept album to garner significant understanding of the meaning
of the original songs.
3) Generativity pertains to the ability of a research report to invite readers into the
artistic experience, which in turn brings them associations related to the topic of the
research. The artwork is meant to be a vehicle that has the capacity to reach others
and encourage reflection and dialogue. Engagement with the results of this study is
intended to provide the reader a heuristic experience in which he or she can draw
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his or her own meaning from the results and further the dialogue pertaining to
adolescents who have suffered trauma and abuse and Hip Hop’s role in health-care.
This can be accomplished through the reader’s listening experience of my remix
compositions, reading the narrative for the concept album in chapter eight, and
engaging with the song analyses. By engaging in the results from multiple
perspectives this study offers the reader various avenues for engagement and
understanding of how the aesthetic components of the songs reveal the lived
experiences and developmental challenges of adolescence.
4) Social significance refers to how the results impact societal and cultural issues
that are explored in the study. The results of arts-based research should not be
trivial and dismissed by the reader but instead its significance should be made clear
and be felt.
5) Evocation and illumination refers to the feelings evoked by the reader when
engaging with the results and how these feelings shed light on the topic and
phenomenon studied in the research. This study offers the reader multiple
opportunities to engage with the artwork within this study including the original
songs, my remix compositions, written narrative in chapter eight, musical scores
and excerpts, clips of the GarageBand files.
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APPENDIX I
REFLEXIVE TEAM: PROCESS AND FEEDBACK
The reflexive team was contacted twice for participation: First, after six songs had been analyzed utilizing body listening and remixing the original songs, and second, after the last song was analyzed. Each member received two separate remix compositions along with their matching original songs. Additionally, each member was given suggestions for how to engage with the songs:
1) Each member began by reading the material provided for him or her regarding
the first original song. This written material provided the team members with
basic information about the original song including lyrics and how the song
was created.
2) After reading the material, each member listened to the first original song
3) Afterwards, they then listened to the remix composition that was inspired by
the original composition.
4) They noted any reactions regarding the relationship between the original song
and the remix composition contained fully within the artistic product of the
remix.
5) Next, they read the written material for the remix composition, which
described my process of recreating the original song.
6) They listened to both the original and remix songs again a second time.
7) Then they reflected on the two questions:
After examining all the materials what connections do you notice between
the two songs? In other words, in what ways is the content of the
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remix/composition grounded within or related to the content of the original
product?
Does listening to the remix/composition give you any insight in the original
piece that is not in the write-up I have provided? If so, please elaborate.
8) They repeated steps 1-7 for the second pairing of songs provided them.
9) Their answers to the questions provided were then sent back to me via email.
Reflexive team members’ responses suggested that my design and results were trustworthy. Each member noted connections between the remix compositions and the original songs. Although some reflexive team members found listening to the music alone challenging in terms of hearing connections, they each found the additional written narrative helpful in clarifying and enhancing the connections I found between the two songs.
Their responses encouraged me to continue with my analysis methodology and research design for the second round of analysis. Even though their responses did not change how I approached the analyses, their feedback was helpful in assuring that there were connections between the two songs. For instance, in response to the song
“Darkness,” one team member reflected on the song by sharing her images while listening. Below are her written responses via email:
Original Song: Darth Vader, Star Wars, dark scary, laughing, upbeat, contrasted by words, pulled me in to the vortex, stop, echo, hopeful rap, humming (bees), Darth Vader comes back, icky, eerie, rhythmic, the beat continues…leaves me with a sense of incompleteness/uneasiness.
Remix Composition: Darth Vader, words, laughter, humming, beating, contrasted earlier by peaceful, meditative, interludes, healing chants, echoes, vibrations, shorter piece than Song A, ends with a resolution.
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Another team member shared the following regarding the original song “Butterfly
Wings” and its remix composition.
I found in her original version, there was a more lightness to the song, like a butterfly that is vulnerable but wants to rise above everything. I did not feel that with the remix. I definitely sensed more of the phoenix, a transformation through the repetition, it was heavier, still optimistic but with something dragging her down. I liked your own voice as a support as if you were encouraging her not to give up. I saw this as a contrast to her version where she had made it. So related but you made more of the struggle than she does.
During the second round, responses from the reflexive team were similar to before. Some team members reported they could feel the therapeutic connection between the original songwriter and myself as the music therapist, a quality that did not appear in the first round. This is interesting because it demonstrates the listeners’ ability to connect to the lived experiences of the songwriters in a way that is meaningful for them. For instance, one reflexive team member noted, “Clear crisp, hopeful and strong finish. Healing words/sounds. I get a real sense of a deep connection between the songwriter and music therapist/researcher.” Another team member noted,
I liked when you entered in and out with the short vocal phrases like "Just believe". Here it was supportive, collaborative, but also I sensed you were celebrating her strength, like a parent watching a child stand on his own two feet for the first time, sharing in the joy and the significance.
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APPENDIX J
OVERVIEW OF FOWLER’S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
Fowler’s developmental theory of religious faith (1981/1995) was inspired by Piaget’s
(1950/2001) theory of intelligence development, Lawerence Kohlberg’s (1981) stages of moral development, Erik Erikson’s (1968/1994) stages of identity development, and
Daniel Levinson’s (1978) understandings of the transitional eras in human development.
Fowler built his stages of faith development by analyzing interviews with people who described their relationship with faith and he synthesized them within stages inspired by
Erikson and Levinson (see Table 13).
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Table 13
Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development
Fowler’s Stages Erikson Psychosocial Stages Levinson’s Eras
Pre-stage: Undifferentiated Faith (Infancy) Trust vs. Mistrust
Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective Faith Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (Early childhood) Initiative vs. Guilt Era of infancy, childhood, and Stage 2: Mythic-Literal (School years) Industry vs. Inferiority adulthood
Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional Faith Identity vs. Role Confusion (Adolescence)
Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective Faith Intimacy vs. Isolation First Adult Era (Young Adulthood)
Stage 5: Conjunctive Faith Generativity vs. Stagnation Mid Adult Era (Mid-life and beyond)
Stage 6: Universalizing Faith Integrity vs. Despair Late Adult Era ______
Stages one through three represent the developmental eras of infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Fowler’s stages of faith development begin at a pre-stage called undifferentiated faith. He equates this stage to infancy, where faith development depends upon the trust, hope, and love shared within the symbiotic relationship of the baby and his or her primary caregiver. In this stage, faith emerges from the trust a baby has that his or her basic needs will be met for survival. Stage one, intuitive-projective faith, is typical of the imitative, imaginary play of early childhood. In this stage, self-awareness emerges, as does awareness of sex and death. This stage sets the foundation for self-reflection and allows for latter understanding of how symbolic images and metaphors relate to human experience within the natural world. Stage two, mythic-literal, is where imaginative play
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from stage one transforms into literal and concrete construction of faith. Here, justice is based within reciprocity. In addition, imaginary characters created in play take on human characteristics that can deeply affect the emotional world of the child. In stage three, synthetic-conventional, literal interpretations begin to conflict and clash with the development of more complex understanding of the world. In this stage, identity and faith depends on the expectations and judgments of others. Faith formation happens internally in a way that the person is not yet objectively aware of his or her own personal myth.
Fowler summarizes, “While beliefs and values are deeply felt, they typically are tacitly held—the person “dwells” in them and in the meaning world they mediate” (p.173).
Stages four through six mark stages of faith development throughout adulthood. In stage 4, individuative-reflective, a person takes ownership of his or her own beliefs and attitudes, and accepts the responsibility for moving out in the world and the impact he or she can have on others. Stage 5, conjunctive faith, is developed when people begin to reclaim and reintegrate parts of themselves left behind in childhood and adolescence. A deeper sense of self is voiced and a person accepts that he or she lives within a world of paradox and strives to integrate the opposites in his or her life. Fowler describes stage 6, universalizing faith, as a rarely achieved, mature vision of faith where one accepts their responsibility of making the transcendent a reality of life on earth for the greater good of humanity.
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