4. EXPRESS – self-expression and creativity: “Share how you feel”

These types of activity may be useful when children and young people are feeling troubled or anxious but struggling to express this verbally. Using music as a way to project their feelings onto something else may help them to open up about their experiences.

4.1 What does the music sound like?

These activities help expression through means other than words. Encourage the children and young people to describe pieces of music through visual aids such as types of food, scenery etc.

Show them sets of images (such as in the examples below), play them pieces of music and ask them to choose which image best describes it – for example:

 

  • What food is the music?
  • What scenery is the music?

 

  • What season is the music?

 

You could listen and watch these music videos with children and young people to support them with – and give them ideas for – this activity:

  • Plants (growing/moving):

 

  • Music describing a river:

 

  • Music describing the summer:

 

4.2 Writing lyrics

Choose a song that is familiar to the child/young person. Then, using this song as a base, have a go a creating new lyrics which are more personalised for the child/young person. You could do a seasonal theme – like Halloween or the summer holidays – or you could do a particular interest like pets, foods, sport or favourite characters etc. Once the new lyrics are created, find a backing track for the song on YouTube and have a go at testing/performing the new lyrics.

To begin with, try using a song with repetitive lyrics and just change a limited number of its words. Then, as the child/young person becomes more experienced with this activity, gradually increase the amount of new lyrics they create whilst expanding into less repetitive base songs.

 

4.3 Matching emotions to music

Allow the child/young person to identify an emotion from emoji examples for their current state of mind.

  • Can they choose a song from the playlist which represents how they are feeling?
  • Do they want to stay with this music or change it?
  • As an option, they may wish to choose a different music track to help them move to a different emotion.

 

FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN – Feelings Song: a song to help them think about their emotions:

4.4 Create a playlist

Create a playlist of music (from various artists and genres) which helps the children and young people to process and boost their emotions. They could help create the list, including some of their favourite songs. NB: Don’t forget to check the suitability of the lyrics for the children’s/young people’s age group before including each song in the playlist – this can usually be done quite quickly using an internet search – e.g. ‘[Song name] lyrics’.

4.5 Mood tracks (using Charanga’s YuStudio Digital Audio Workstation)

  • Use YuStudio on Charanga to allow children to create/compose a ‘Mood track’ – this is a song which represents a particular mood like angry, sleepy, energized, calm…
  • Students have the benefit of working with headphones so are in a secure place – they can share their music with others if they wish but also have the comfort of working in their own ‘bubble’.
  • Eventually, they could create their own ‘mini album’ – they could even create visual artwork to accompany it.

Here are some basic guides on how to access and use YuStudio in Charanga:

A webinar on how to use YuStudio is available on Charanga (log-in required)

YuStudio – The Basics (Charanga: log-in required)

Set up guide for adding classes to YuStudio in Charanga