“The intention of this workshop is to help you discover that your words alone can inspire anthems and expressive melodies.”
- Kyshona Armstrong
About the Healing Power of Music
Proven by science
“An extraordinary opportunity is at hand—by fully integrating the arts into health-building activities that are accessible to all, we can foster individual health and wellbeing, strengthen our communities, and fulfill a human birthright.” -
- NeuroArts Blueprint, 2021 Report “Advancing the Science of Arts, Health, and Wellbeing”
Music and the arts can help achieve personal and collective well-being, and these artistic interventions can lower the burden and cost mental health challenges, addiction, stress, and trauma. As quoted in NeuroArts Blueprint’s 2021 report, which was produced in partnership by Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics and the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine & Society Program:
“Arts in all of their modalities can improve our physical and mental health, amplify our ability to prevent, manage, or recover from disease challenges, build more equitable communities, and foster wellbeing through multiple biological systems.”
In addition to the scientific evidence acknowledging the healing power of music, music is inherently human. It’s a source of comfort, an intrinsically understood, uplifting, stabilizing force.
Simply put, music is transformative.
And it can work in tandem with traditional practices to improve mental health, prevent disease, manage stress, and create clearer pathways to wellbeing. By incorporating music and other arts practices and experiences, we can apply proven therapeutic methods in an accessible way and tailor them to best address the needs of the legal community.
Writing your song
As part of our 2023 Wellness Institute, the Healing Power of Music will be a topic of exploration and an exercise in creative expression. Through small-group songwriting sessions, facilitated by Kyshona Armstrong and instructors from Your Song, attendees will have the opportunity to write their stories, explore their experiences, and collaborate to create music that heals and restores. No musical background is required nor expected. This is an opportunity to delve into an alternative therapeutic practice in a comfortable, safe, and collaborative space.
Music reflects mood and story. It can provide solace or respite. More often than not, many of us turn to music as a way to clear our minds, reset for the day, and find encouragement. In this workshop we will explore our creative minds and place the musical message in your hands.
Throw out the stories that you have been told—that you have no voice for singing, that you’re not a poet, or you're not musically inclined. The intention of this workshop is to help you discover that your words alone can inspire anthems and expressive melodies. Within this process, the mission is for you to find a creative community with your peers, give yourself permission to play, and write a song that you can call upon in your own times of need.
During this therapeutic songwriting workshop, we will divide into small groups to write songs of encouragement, empowerment, and truth. Each group will have a professional songwriter as your guide. No musical experience is necessary, just the willingness to create, explore, and contribute to the conversation. It is not our goal to write a hit song. This is more about the process and how we can improve our wellness through play and creative writing while we express our feelings, thoughts, and needs and encourage positive communication between individuals as we work towards a common outcome: Your Song.