Creating the right vibe with music.
I get 'frisson' when I hear music (it's a real thing!).
Another year in the Gregorian calendar rolls over to start anew and for me this time of year is quieter professionally and a holiday period personally. It’s always a quiet time in the university from the usual student buzz of a new semester, but administrators and educators are all busily planning and setting up for the year ahead. I am busy booking creative workshops and doing my best to prioritise the many concurrent and competing creative wish list of projects that consume my mind with equal parts of fresh energy and mild overwhelm. The calm before the February storm of new plans, new students, new beginnings, and perspectives with that hopeful feeling of being one or two steps further along than this time last year. I know it is an arbitrary and at times unhelpful ‘fresh start’ for me and my little one woman show, December was still busy sending off art t-shirt orders, booking workshops for well into 2024, admin tasks, and all the very few festive activities I chose to partake in.
Some of the conversations I have been having with other creative friends over this time has reaffirmed to me the importance of setting the right atmosphere for creative work or play. These thoughts are not new, and I wrote quite deeply on the topic in my postgraduate research and thought there is no point harbouring my work in a cloud-based folder and never be discussed again. I was fortunate to be able to analyse and deeply reflect on my arts-based teaching practice in community learning environments, turns out the ‘vibe’ I create for my workshops and presentations is a critical aspect to the success of my programming for diverse groups of all ages. Let’s talk about the element of music and sounds.
A song can remind me of a time that has passed, a person, a pet, a holiday, a dream, a part of me that has moved on, catapult me back to being a kid, and so on. In the same way it can make me feel instantly sad, it can uplift me just as quickly without apology, the atmosphere has changed. When the day has been either frantic or relaxing, I like to listen to music as I cook as an end of day reset if you will (provided I’m not competing with other chaotic sounds in the house then it doesn’t work!). Not any just any music. Certain musical tracks or genres can really set my mood up for the day/evening, at times it can turn a happy moment into a sorrowful one. Sometimes I also just need complete and indulgent silence (impractical and hard to obtain). I am one of those humans who easily gets goosebumps and deep chills with the right sound (or any other aesthetic experience), it is a phenomenon called frisson. Robert R McCrae from the Laboratory of Personality and Cognition, Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging in Baltimore states that “Aesthetic chills are transient emotional responses to music or other experiences of beauty” (McCrae, 2007). If you are curious, you can continue some research into this intriguing feature of mine that I have only learned of its power and definition in the past year.
Self-guided creative connection workshop
I have decided to extract some tracks from one of my popular playlists I use for high pigment ink workshops and invite you to have a listen and intertwine some of your favourites to make about a 30–40-minute playlist.
I challenge you to play this revised playlist (wherever you like to stream music) as you partake in an individual vernacular form of creativity like gardening, cooking, performance, music, mindfulness, and movement and observe what happened to your overall feeling of wellbeing through physical responses, thoughts, and feelings during the activity. You might like to do this with a friend later and observe how the conversation flows between you.
Draw, write, or record an audio note a summary of how you felt as a self-reflection.
Playlist
Springy (Springy - Single), Pantone
Making Contact (Making Contact - Single), Snazzy
Lond Plane (London Plane - Single), Luc Brooks
Changes (Changes - Single), Jem Cassar-Daley
Suffering (Lost in the Dream), The War on Drugs
Still Life (Still Life - Single), Wildflower Trio
After All (CDW - EP), Charlotte Day Wilson
I would love to know more about your experience of this activity and if you feel compelled to share you might comment below or reach on in the chat.
References
McCrae, R.R. Aesthetic Chills as a Universal Marker of Openness to Experience. Motiv Emot 31, 5–11 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-007-9053-1