Local Spotlight Speaker: 'Born with the gift of a song inside'- a creative journey : personal reflections on song creation, identity and neurodiversity affirming music therapy
| Saturday, September 7, 2024 |
| 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM |
| Rooms 3&4 |
Speaker
Ann Lehmann-Kuit
Local Spotlight Speaker: 'Born with the gift of a song inside'- a creative journey : personal reflections on song creation, identity and neurodiversity affirming music therapy
Abstract Overview
‘We are born with the gift of a song inside’
Do you remember singing to yourself as a child? Humming to yourself in nature? Singing as you were engaged in imaginary play? Making up words and music in a flowing stream of consciousness?
This is song creation- being in flow- the integration of unconscious and conscious, coming home to ourselves. When we ‘open the door’ to our own creativity, we reconnect with ourselves.
As music therapists it is an honour to journey alongside our participants- making music, sitting in silence, sharing our stories- celebrating diversity, creativity and resilience. When we collaborate in improvised music making, we discover connections, a sense of belonging, new parts of ourselves and perhaps, parts of ourselves we had forgotten.
‘I’ll show you around and you’ll see you don’t need a key to explore the beauty in here’
My research on song creation adopts an arts-based, adapted longitudinal research methodology (incorporating autoethnography) to share neurodiversity affirming perspectives and creativity. Over a decade ago we asked our 12-year-old participants to reflect on creativity, autism and music therapy in our music therapy sessions. Evan shared ‘music therapy is good for autistic children. It encourages people to be themselves’, with classmate Golden adding ‘creativity is being yourself’.
It’s a feeling that you just belong
Reconnecting with Golden and her classmate as young adults in our music focus group, Golden shared that for her song creation was her “way of releasing”.
‘You’ve been here before now- this home is yours to explore’
We are musicking in exciting and challenging times. As a Zimbabwean born, neurodivergent music therapist of Norwegian descent- diversity, inclusion and belonging are themes that have personal significance. Different perspectives can shape how we see the world - embracing the call “nothing about us without us” through strengths-based neurodiversity affirming approaches with participants as research co-collaborators.
Show them all – the sound of our home
In collaborative song creation we tap into innate musicality and individualised passions in a process described by Clive Robbins as “energy, love, resourcefulness, expressive freedom, presence of being” (Lee, 2012). Sharing this process is advocacy.
References:
Lee, C. (2012). “The singing will never be done” In memory of Clive Robbins. Voices- A world forum for music therapy, Vol. 12 No. 2 (2012)
Nilsson, B. (librettist & composer) & Jarman, P. (arranger). (2014), Sound of our home [Composed for treble & SAB choir with piano]. Jarman Music.
Do you remember singing to yourself as a child? Humming to yourself in nature? Singing as you were engaged in imaginary play? Making up words and music in a flowing stream of consciousness?
This is song creation- being in flow- the integration of unconscious and conscious, coming home to ourselves. When we ‘open the door’ to our own creativity, we reconnect with ourselves.
As music therapists it is an honour to journey alongside our participants- making music, sitting in silence, sharing our stories- celebrating diversity, creativity and resilience. When we collaborate in improvised music making, we discover connections, a sense of belonging, new parts of ourselves and perhaps, parts of ourselves we had forgotten.
‘I’ll show you around and you’ll see you don’t need a key to explore the beauty in here’
My research on song creation adopts an arts-based, adapted longitudinal research methodology (incorporating autoethnography) to share neurodiversity affirming perspectives and creativity. Over a decade ago we asked our 12-year-old participants to reflect on creativity, autism and music therapy in our music therapy sessions. Evan shared ‘music therapy is good for autistic children. It encourages people to be themselves’, with classmate Golden adding ‘creativity is being yourself’.
It’s a feeling that you just belong
Reconnecting with Golden and her classmate as young adults in our music focus group, Golden shared that for her song creation was her “way of releasing”.
‘You’ve been here before now- this home is yours to explore’
We are musicking in exciting and challenging times. As a Zimbabwean born, neurodivergent music therapist of Norwegian descent- diversity, inclusion and belonging are themes that have personal significance. Different perspectives can shape how we see the world - embracing the call “nothing about us without us” through strengths-based neurodiversity affirming approaches with participants as research co-collaborators.
Show them all – the sound of our home
In collaborative song creation we tap into innate musicality and individualised passions in a process described by Clive Robbins as “energy, love, resourcefulness, expressive freedom, presence of being” (Lee, 2012). Sharing this process is advocacy.
References:
Lee, C. (2012). “The singing will never be done” In memory of Clive Robbins. Voices- A world forum for music therapy, Vol. 12 No. 2 (2012)
Nilsson, B. (librettist & composer) & Jarman, P. (arranger). (2014), Sound of our home [Composed for treble & SAB choir with piano]. Jarman Music.
Biography
Ann Lehmann-Kuit (she/they) is a PhD candidate, lecturer, music therapist, event organiser and performer. Ann was one of the first three Creative Music Therapy graduates from Western Sydney University, studying under Robin Howat. Ann has worked at the Golden Stave Music Therapy Centre, Wollongong Conservatorium of Music and currently, Creative Therapies Tasmania, using a Nordoff-Robbins based improvisational approach. As a proudly neurodivergent music therapist and emerging academic, Ann is passionate about advocating for more neurodiversity affirming music therapy research and practice, following the call “nothing about us without us” - which recognises that no research or policy should be decided without direct consultation of those with lived experience. This is evident in their Research Master’s thesis titled ‘Song creation – a resource for life? The neurodiversity affirming potential of improvised song creation’, and subsequent AJMT article co-authored by Dr Michelle Catanzaro and Dr Alison Short “It’s my way of releasing I guess”: A longitudinal neurodiversity-affirming study sharing the perceptions and collaborative song creations of two autistic former music therapy participants. Ann is the artistic director of a children’s festival and runs a multicultural music project called Jam n Bread. She lives in Fingal, Tasmania with her daughter, husband, kelpie and cat. As the Local Spotlight speaker for the 49th Australian Music Therapy Association National Conference, Ann will be sharing their research, describing a longitudinal, neurodiversity-affirming project, including the song creations and reflections of autistic former music therapy participants and also song creations from Ann as a neurodivergent music therapist/researcher.
