“Time, Rhythm, & Harmony (Social & Emotional)”
-by Simon Falkner
I lower the volume with a signal from my descending hand and as the music quietens, ask one more time for the group to focus on their collective tempo; to hold their rhythm steady and try to avoid speeding up. Not an uncommon scenario for many musical facilitators and certainly not for me in my regular work with young people and adults impacted by trauma and struggling with emotional regulation, but in this instance, I was working with a group of professional counsellors and psychologists who similarly were struggling to hold their tempo steady and found themselves, time and again, playing faster, pulled along by an unconscious drive to race forward.
What is interesting to me in my combined work as both a musical educator and counsellor is the connection between this natural tendency to increase tempo musically and the speed that increasingly dominates people’s daily lives with all the changes, and many challenges, that induces socially and emotionally. Is there potentially a causal relationship between the way our lives are increasingly dominated by the linear movement of time, rushing forward, to the ticking of the clock and this tendency I am increasingly witnessing in the music I facilitate?
Music education is increasingly used as a conduit to engage people of all ages, in social and emotional learning (SEL). The flexibility and creative opportunities of arts-based curricula make them one of the few subject areas compatible to the many young people and adults who struggle with mainstream academic learning. For many young people school is no longer a safe and welcoming place; whether because of gun violence, online bullying or simply the dullness of desk-based learning, young people are increasingly avoiding school, acting out or staying home. In the USA home schooling increased by over 60% in the years between 2018 and 2023 with similar results found across western countries (Slater, Burton & McKillop, 2020; Jamison et al, 2023).
The experiential nature of many music programs replicating the traditional learning practices of many indigenous cultures, gives them a real-world relevance and authenticity, and has been shown to increase student engagement, improve learning effectiveness and enhance work and life skills (Burch et al, 2019). The social aspects of participatory music, playing or singing in harmony with others, make it ideal territory for assisting people struggling for social belonging and inclusion and helping develop and practice the social skills that support this connection. For the many young people with neurological differences, or other differing abilities, these issues of connection and inclusion are often the central challenges of their variance. For the educator and therapist, numerous analogies exist for linking musical experiences to life and its many challenges that can be used to support young people.
Among the most challenging issues being experienced by young people today are the rapidly growing levels of anxiety and other associated mental health conditions. Even before the COVID epidemic child anxiety levels were on the rise and since then they have more than doubled, leading to a situation where in many western countries over 20% of school age children are managing anxiety conditions (Benton, Boyd & Njorge, 2021). Similarly, adult rates of anxiety and depression have also grown significantly since the epidemic. In music-based SEL programs one of the central focuses to address anxiety is drawn from the connection between music and time and an exploration of the coercive way modern perceptions of time, punctuality, speed and competition dominate our lives, and the ‘hurry sickness’ that results.
Using analogies that link our experiences in the Drum-circle we can:
- Look at the value of slowing down a rhythm – and how that impacts our awareness generally and in particular that of our relationships, both within the music circle and in real life
- Look at how slower tempos require less energy and allow us to relax a little more, while at the same time giving us additional room to learn and master more challenging tasks
- Look at how leaving more space/time between the notes leaves more space for others to be heard and for relationships to be made
- Look at how leaving more space/time leaves more opportunity for adaption and adjustment when things are changing round us
- Look at how leaving more space/time allows room to bring in new elements, understandings, perspectives, etc.
- Practice playing more slowly and sparsely while resisting the temptation to rush in and fill the space, as a cue to emotional regulation
- Explore how we can accommodate those who struggle to keep time – ‘who are out of time’
This last point is a particularly sensitive one with many music educators, but so important in the context of social and emotional education. On many music education forums members consistently pose the question – how can I help my students connect in time? And of course there are many strategies that can assist – auditory cues, visual cues, kinesthetic or tactile support. However, very few people explore the importance of learning to accommodate people who struggle with timing with the focus always on changing them. When we think about how often in life we don’t quite get our timing right and don’t quite fit in, the importance of being tolerant and understanding becomes all too clear. With the neurodivergent, and others with different abilities, this concept of tolerance and understanding is vital to helping them find their place in the world; and music education through analogies such as these offers a gateway to this awareness.
Working across Indigenous Australia has given me clear insight into how different perceptions of time exist and cause ongoing conflict and hardship in the quest for cultural integration. There can be no greater symbol of cultural dominance and oppression than forcing one model of time upon another culture whose perception is radically different, yet this is exactly what has happened to peoples around the world since the ticking clock started to dominate society at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and people’s time became money (Griffiths, 2004). In Aboriginal Australia, time is subjective and contextual. Time is evident in the daily (Circadian), monthly, or yearly cycles of nature. Aboriginal peoples view time as circular not linear. In a linear understanding of time history is cut off, the past, dead and gone. For Aboriginal people the past is ever present – there is an ongoing interrelationship between past and future.
Our modern obsession with speed and punctuality is associated with stress, high blood pressure, ulcers, and failing immune systems (Rudd, 2019). Modern perceptions of time and the ideology of speed undermine relationships and threaten the future of humanity itself as we rush forward with little time to consider the ramifications of our actions. Travelling slowly has many advantages; time to reconsider, make adjustments, gain greater perspective and insight. In working cross-culturally within a ‘2-Way Learning’ approach, there is much that can be learned from an appreciation of Indigenous perspectives of time.
In the driving rhythms of a percussive music circle, modern perceptions of chronological time, moving irrepressibly forward, can disappear, replaced with an immediate awareness of time as now, in the moment. Too often in life we are working or moving towards something and unaware of experiencing and celebrating where we are in the present. When we play music together joy often erupts from the shared exuberance of the creative experience, particularly where there is freedom of expression, as in improvised music. These opportunities for people to step out of the racing current of time are critical but increasingly rare. Time off or time away from the linear march of progress is being constantly reduced as working hours increase, holidays and festivals decline and children spend less and less time engaged in spontaneous and imaginative play.
Yet even in the uplifting experience of a community drum circle we can often see the encroaching allure of speed undermine the potential outcomes, both musical and social & emotional. In the music circle the faster the rhythm becomes, the louder people play, and the more connection dissipates. The pull towards speed in everyday life and its consequences are increasingly replicated in the music I observe in my practice. As we travel faster our autonomy disappears and it gets harder and harder to shift our rhythm – we get locked into this forward momentum and spontaneity reduces. We don’t have the time to adjust nor to incorporate change – we plough forward unrelentingly. Correspondingly, it becomes more difficult to play slowly and softly. Slowness is commonly denigrated in modern life – associated in economic dogma with a lack of productivity and inefficiency. ‘You snooze, you lose’ and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are common drivers in business and in the social lives for many in today’s competitive society. People are increasingly impatient when they have to wait; wait for an outcome, wait for attention, wait for an answer, and this impatience is another driver of stress, increasing frustration and reinforcing negative emotions (Al-Arja, 2023).
In rhythmic musical play it is fairly unusual to hear the groove disappear altogether; volume may decrease, tempo slow but still the pulse continues and it won’t be long before we are in full flight again. Stepping off the rhythm train, away from the pulse, takes bravery but often provides some of the most rewarding experiences in group music making and is particularly useful in reflective, therapeutic group work where analogy can speak to the challenges and benefits of similar steps in real life. Here it is that flexibility, fluidity and responsiveness can flourish. Percussion circles with a diverse range of instruments, especially those that resonate such as chime bars, are particularly useful in this context, and facilitate a strengthening of relationship and dialogue through the deeper listening entailed.
How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So it is in the music of men’s lives.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
For now has time made me his numbering clock
My thoughts are minutes
Shakespeare – Richard II
Our modern relationship with time, in the name of progress, money, consumerism and power has left us caught on a treadmill to an unsustainable future on both an individual and global scale. Music offers us and those we teach and support an opportunity to step away from this narrow perception of time, restore some balance and gain awareness of what is being sacrificed and what may be recovered. Research has demonstrated that music with a slow steady rhythm may provide stress reduction by altering inherent body rhythms, such as heart rate and blood pressure (Thaut and Hoemberg, 2014). Similarly, we recognise that reducing the pace of our busy lives and restoring balance with other aspects of time – time for self, time for friends, time for family, time with nature – may provide the antidote to the stress and anxiety so many of us live with.
1/10/2024
Simon Faulkner
Rhythm2Recovery”
