Music and magic between the ears

I'm fascinated by the links between the arts, mental health, and severe mental illness, and have been fortunate enough to be able to explore these in my work, including a stint as Associate Editor for Culture on this very magazine. It's a dynamic area to be involved in – interdisciplinary, experimental, often high risk, almost always high reward (although not necessarily in the ways predicted at a project's outset). I'm constantly looking for new opportunities to take this work in different directions, and so a year ago I applied to the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account to fund a Residency at BBC Radio 3. 

The aim of the Residency was to bring together music, mental health and mental illness in new ways, building on previous research. Over the past year I've contributed to a range of Radio 3 outputs, including a Words and Music on altered states (my other research passion is drugs, alcohol and addiction), and a Music Matters on music and mental health.

The jewel in the Residency crown for me though has been a programme for Radio 3's Between the Ears slot, called Scoring Mental Health. It will be broadcast on 14 May, and then available online as a podcast. 

It started when I was looking for music which illustrated popular portrayals of electroconvulsive therapy treatment, for another programme on Radio 4, Shocking. I found screeching strings and blaring brass, and it got me thinking about how mental health more widely is portrayed musically in popular culture, particularly instrumentally. Without lyrics telling you what you are supposed to feel, what can music tell us about the experience of mental ill health?  

I listened to scores composed or selected to illustrate films about mental health and mental illness (some of the most obvious being One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, Girl Interrupted), and read up on the psychology of film scores, particularly the work of psychologist Jonna Vuoskoski in the Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo. It turns out that film scores are composed and selected to induce high emotions in the audience, so the emphasis is on effect on the listener rather than creating an accurate portrayal. As I listened I was struck by which emotions were invoked in me – overwhelmingly it was fear, instability and anxiety, perhaps with something sweepingly uplifting towards the end, presumably to tie in with particular film narratives of recovery and redemption. I wondered how much the composers and selectors of these soundtracks and scores had consulted people with lived experience of poor mental health and severe mental illness.

From this was born the idea for Scoring Mental Health. My Residency included some funding for projects and events, and so I was able to bring together composer Gawain Hewitt with experts by experience from the Bethlem Gallery, the Mental Fight Club, and the King's College London Centre for Society and Mental Health). The aim was for them to work collectively to co-compose some new music, in whatever forms emerged.

Gawain and I worked together on how to run the project, settling on a focus group with people with lived experience to understand what they felt needed to be included in musical portrayals of mental health and mental illness, followed up with four music making workshops with those experts by experience. Gawain was a natural choice for this – I had seen him run workshops with people with severe mental illness before, most notably as part of the City of London Sinfonia participation project, Sound Young Minds. I knew he would create a safe space for participants to express themselves as they wished, and with as little hierarchy and division of roles as possible. 

The next step was to get Radio 3 on board. Working with Rami Tzabar and Adrian Washbourne of independent production company TellTale Industries we wrote up the idea and presented it to the Radio 3 Commissioner. He liked it, and commissioned us to tell the story of the process and the resulting compositions for a programme in the Between the Ears slot.

Around 20 people came to the focus group, which Adrian recorded for inclusion in the programme. It was lively, vibrant and dynamic, and some key themes emerged – that mental illness wasn't just about despair and despondency, or mania and psychosis. It was also about monotony, control and lack of control. It was about isolation and disconnectedness. Crucially, for many it was cyclical, with periods of hope, recovery… some even described beauty. People described their mental health as fast and slow, silent and noisy. The variation of experience was striking, and we knew all these facets needed to be represented in whatever music was created.

The focus group then informed how Gawain structured his workshops, and the various workshop formats allowed him to use different techniques with the different groups. For the Mental Fight Club workshop we expected around 12 people, but 30 turned up to the space which had been arranged for us at St James Garlickhythe, a beautiful church in the City of London known as 'Wren's Lantern'. We all piled into the nave, along with Gawain's instruments – lots of percussion, a keyboard, a one-stringed cello he'd made from a bit of old banister, as well as a whole host of electronic devices he'd loaded with music making apps he'd created himself. We also held an online workshop, which meant that people who could not leave their homes because of their illness could contribute. Plus we held two workshops at my university, King's, one for people with no prior music making experience, and one for those who had some sort of musical background. 

The results were stunning. Magic happened at these workshops. Some participants brought their instruments. One came from his hospital ward, accompanied by his care team. One brought an egg whisk, and then demonstrated the range of noises she could make with it, describing how those noises said something about her own experiences of mental ill health. Music making devices and instruments were swapped and played, with the group deciding with Gawain in what directions to take the music making. Adrian and I ran around with microphones to record what was happening, again for inclusion in the programme, but also so Gawain would have an audio record to inform his compositions.  

Excerpts from the resulting compositions, as well as the focus group, workshops, and interviews with participants, can be heard in Scoring Mental Health. I think it's a beautiful listen, casting a new light on mental illness. It could not have been made without the generosity and collaboration of all involved, too many to mention here, but all who wanted to be named are included in the longer credits on the BBC webpage.

Sally Marlow is Professor of Practice in Public Understanding of Mental Health Research at King's College London and BBC Radio 3 Researcher in Residence

Image: Stephanie Bates, Bethlem Gallery

Listen to the programme now.