‘We all come together… we just love the feel of the music’

Do you consider yourself 'musical'? What does 'being musical' actually mean to you? If you feel you're not, what made you feel that way? Were you told this earlier in life, and then never considered pursuing any type of musical activity? If you do consider yourself musical, have you ever reflected on how your musical experiences have shaped you as a person? 

Personally, music has always been a big part of my life. I have been playing violin since I was a child, and I sang in church and school choirs. Yet I never thought much about my own personal and musical development or why most people around me were not playing an instrument. I now know that, statistically speaking, I was something of an anomaly. I was raised by a single mother and grew up in a small town, famous for high crime rates and low socio-economic status.

This is a profile of a pupil who is not particularly likely to participate in music education (e.g. Gill, 2020; Southgate & Roscigno, 2009). But thanks to my parents' support, I managed to find my way into this prestigious world of Western classical music and expensive instruments. And now I realise that in a very special way, the presence of music throughout my education is partially responsible for the fact that I ended up working on a PhD in music – making myself my favourite case study. 

In this piece, I will take you on a journey that will hopefully make you realise the power of arts, and how making creative spaces more accessible and inclusive can have a positive impact on our society as a whole.

Music as a powerful tool

I started my PhD research journey with a sour feeling about the lack of appreciation for creative skills that I have encountered throughout my own education. I was determined to continue the legacy of Sir Ken Robinson, espoused in his TED talk, on why being creative is extremely important for human development. As a choir and orchestra child, I appreciated that there were many benefits of creative engagement, specifically in relation to well-being and community, but I had little understanding of how these benefits translate into psychology or why they are important.

Addressing these questions, I worked with professor of developmental psychology at University of Sussex, Robin Banerjee, who connected me with a collective of music education hubs in the south of the UK – the Alliance for a Musically Inclusive England (AMIE) initiative, led by the music education hub for Brighton & Hove and East Sussex known as Create Music, and funded by the Arts Council. I mainly worked with inclusive ensembles for young people with special educational needs and music production workshops specifically set up in areas with low socio-economic status to target young people from such backgrounds. 

I visited the sessions often, and these visits ended up being much more than just research. I was often able to borrow one of their violins and participate in the session. That took me right back to my orchestra days. I realised this was an extremely important part of my research, as I became part of the groups I was studying, not only enabling me to experience what I was researching for myself but also to build rapport with the young people and practitioners, who were, rightfully so, protective of their intimate spaces. These connections enabled me to interview young people, their parents, and music practitioners. I also asked music practitioners to complete surveys about individual young people's progress from the time when they first joined the group to at the time of completion (on average 10 sessions later) as well as session reports after each session. 

Throughout this work, I identified that making music can have a positive effect on people on the individual (intra-personal) level, specifically in relation to well-being, as well as on the social (interpersonal) level, specifically developing social skills and confidence. Digging deeper into the 'whys', I developed a model that identified potential underlying psychological processes and environmental elements which encourage such developments. It was interesting how young people were using music as a tool of self-exploration and self-expression. They have done this through lyrics-writing as well as non-verbally, using instruments and tech. As self-expression is often limited to language in day-to-day life, expression through music-making was a powerful tool of expression for those non-verbal. 

"You could create a happy piece and a sad piece and […] the audience would know the difference, if [one] played it to them […] I think music's most of how I express myself and how I'm feeling." – young person (taken from Levstek & Banerjee, 2021)

Additionally, the music session structure was also an important factor. All music sessions I visited were 'person-centred' or 'youth-led' – the term used in education when teachers adopt the practice based on the pupils' wishes and needs. This session structure is quite unique, as traditional Western music education is often syllabus-led. But here, music practitioners adjusted their practice based on what the young people wanted to learn – if a young girl wanted to learn how to rap, they would bring in a female rapper, or if someone was not feeling particularly up for a challenge, they would put on some karaoke for them. I observed that this gave the young people a sense of autonomy and ownership of their creative experiences. And it appeared that this sense of ownership was specifically valuable in light of restrictions in other areas of their lives. For example, the quote below – of my favourite in my research history – demonstrates how important this can be.

"And I think there is something also around the choice and ownership, where for the young people, generally people with disabilities, a lot of the choice, that we all take for granted is taken out of life. So, while we can offer choice through the music, it's… it really matters, like, it's big. […] So, there is a thing about choice and opportunity that in so many aspects of someone's life with a disability, potentially more so with physical disability and there is a lot of dependency. And actually, when someone can improvise in a genre that they love, it's you know, it's really important."- staff member (taken from Levstek & Banerjee, 2021)

These two observations fit nicely with the access-awareness-agency (AAA) model of music-based social-emotional competence, proposed by Suvi Saarikallio (2019), one of my personal favourite music researchers. Her model suggests that music has a positive emotional and social impact because it allows one to explore and access their emotions, become more aware of them, and in turn, have a stronger sense of agency or control over them. 

'Everyone can connect with the music'

Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, I observed that the social aspect of these music sessions was also important. Particularly, music practitioners played an important role in guiding young people's learning process and validating their progress. They adopted a unique adult role in these young people's lives that were neither parental nor educational but somewhere in between. Again, this appeared especially important when young people did not have positive adult roles that would validate their experiences or abilities elsewhere. What is more, this was echoed throughout the whole musical community. There was this sense of togetherness and connection despite the differences. One young person put it beautifully, saying:

"Everyone can connect with the music and when everyone's in that room, there's so many different backgrounds of people, and they all love music in a very different way but when we all come together and play something we just all love and enjoy, we just love the feel of the music and it's just a really special moment." – young person (taken from Levstek & Banerjee, 2021)

These observations fit well within the self-determination theory developed by Deci and Ryan (2000). They proposed that in order for a person to grow in a certain environment and for the environment to have a positive influence on their well-being, their basic psychological needs need to be satisfied. These are the need for autonomy (sense of ownership and agency), competence (sense of ability and validation), and relatedness (sense of connectedness and belonging). In combination with the access-awareness-agency model, these theories conceptualised four main psychological mechanisms through which music can have a positive impact on one's well-being, confidence, and social skills: through self-expression, autonomous engagement, validation, and community. 

Based on these observations, music engagement appears to play a unique role in young people's development, especially when young people are unable to access such psychological experiences of self-expression, autonomy, validation, or community elsewhere. This leads to an important question when discussing such benefits – does everyone has equal access to such spaces, and if not, why? 

The influence of schools

At the start of my research project, my idea of a typical young musician fluctuated between two opposites, from a student who struggled at school and found comfort in music-making, to the 'star' student whose parents enrolled them into piano classes as soon as they learnt how to walk. I conducted some analyses of the Department of Education data in collaboration with the Brighton and Hove City Council. Young people with stronger academic profile and/or from affluent neighbourhoods appeared to be significantly more likely to select creative subjects as part of their GCSEs in comparison to less academic pupils and/or those from neighbourhoods low in socio-economic status. This finding was also observed by Gill (2020) on a national level. 

What is more, we observed that schools can also influence pupils' engagement with music. We worked with the local music education hub for Brighton & Hove and East Sussex – Create Music – who provided information about schools in the Brighton & Hove area (with school identities anonymised), such as the number of pupils from schools that attended their extra-curricular instrumental lessons (subsidised and unsubsidised), number of their music teachers visiting the schools etc. Due to the small number of schools, we were unable to conduct any statistical analyses.

However, the trends observed suggest that the extent to which the schools engage with their local music education hub (e.g. participating in performance events or teacher training opportunities) is connected with the number of pupils who select music GCSEs. Furthermore, schools with above the average number of music GCSE students for the area also had a substantially higher number of students who participated in extra-curricular individual music lessons, but only when those lessons were paid in full. The trend was the opposite for those accessing subsidised music lessons. This suggests that pupils' academic performance, financial status and ability to afford private music lessons affects their likelihood of engaging with music education at school, which is technically free and available to all. 

These observations are extremely important to consider in light of the range of benefits we have observed for pupils that engage with music. It appears that those who might benefit the most (e.g. those with the lack of support, validation, or community) might also be less likely to be able to access such opportunities in the first place! I believe this is the most important takeaway message from my PhD work, and certainly creates a compelling case for why there should be more inclusive creative spaces, like those organised by the Alliance for a Musically Inclusive England (AMIE). 

Something special

Engagement with music is not a magical tool that will make everyone's lives better. As highlighted earlier, autonomy is an important psychological mechanism that contributes towards the development of positive outcomes – forcing children to engage with music when they do not want to can undermine this. Having said that, I would like to believe that there is something special about music which cannot be easily replicated in other environments, especially its role in non-verbal self-expression and its power to bring people together.

If you earlier thought you are not musical, I hope you now have a better idea why you might think that way. Perhaps you even feel encouraged to challenge these beliefs and learn a new instrument. For those who would consider themselves musical, perhaps you now feel more appreciative of those orchestras you attended (and perhaps hated just a little bit) as a child. Doing this research has certainly made me realise that I probably would not be writing this article if I hadn't picked up that violin as a six-year-old. What's your own story? Please get in touch, I would love to hear it.

Dr Maruša Levstek, Audience Insight Research Fellow
StoryFutures
Royal Holloway, University of London
Twitter: @LevstekMarusa

Key sources

Deci E.L. & Ryan R.M. (2000). The 'what' and 'Why' of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behaviour. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. 
Gill, T. (2020). The relationship between taking a formal music qualification and overall attainment at Key Stage 4: Research report. Cambridge Assessment.
Levstek, M. & Banerjee, R. (2021). A Model of Psychological Mechanisms of Inclusive Music-Making: Empowerment of Marginalized Young People. Music & Science, 4.  
Saarikallio S.H., Vuoskoski J. & Luck G. (2014). Adolescents' expression and perception of emotion in music reflects their broader abilities of emotional communication. Psychology of Well-Being, 4(1), 21.  
Southgate, D.E. & Roscigno, V.J. (2009). The impact of music on childhood and adolescent achievement. Social Science Quarterly, 90(1), 4–21.