Exploring a Music-based Intervention Entitled "Portrait Song" in School Music Therapy:

Music and Lyrics

Researchers examined the multi-faceted ways in which words and music interact in improvised songs and instrumental music (e.g., Ansdell 1995; Baker et al., 2009; Brown & Pavlicevic, 1997; Lee, 2003; Streeter, 1999; Turry, 2006). Some therapists/researchers based their conclusions on an analysis of the lyric content mainly (e.g., Bailey, 1984). Others advocated an 'absolutist' position, promoting the importance of musical analysis both in clinical and research work (e.g., Ansdell 1995; Brown & Pavlicevic, 1997; Lee, 2003). Streeter (1999) objected to the 'absolutist' position proposing an integrated approach, and Turry (2006) likewise emphasized the fusion of words and music for maximum therapeutic benefit:

However, we recall that music consists not only of words and music but of multiple semiotic systems. Music includes visual and gestural systems, in addition to words and sounds. Inaudible and non-verbal communication affords information for the music-centered therapist. The relative importance of any semiotic system (verbal-audible-visual) can fluctuate according to changing therapeutic conditions and needs while considering songs for therapy.

Compositional Teamwork

As noted above, researchers have found advantages in collaborative songwriting. However, theorists presented problems compositional teamwork generated (Abra, 1994; Barrett, 2014; Gromko, 1996; Moran & John-Steiner, 2004). Abra (1994) considered personal disparity, dominance struggles, controversy, and unreachable consensus within compositional teamwork. Moran and John-Steiner (2004) witnessed problems of "impatience, ownership, conflict, and unfriendliness" (p. 19) caused by collaborative composition. Gromko (1996) found that questions during side-by-side-with-researcher compositional work "often led participants to places where they would otherwise not have gone" (p. 49). Barrett (2014) concluded that collaborative composition is fraught with disagreements, tension, and contradiction.

However, these disadvantages in compositional teamwork were detected by teachers/researchers rather than music therapists, at mainstream institutional settings rather than clinical settings. In music therapy settings, conflicts could be considered important and helpful in advancing children towards interpersonal improvement. Aigen (1997), for example, found that periods of conflict among clients and between clients and therapists led to enhanced cohesiveness and individual growth among adolescents with developmental delays. During a year-long process of group music therapy, the participants developed an individualized repertoire of songs that reflected the interpersonal process at each stage of development. This shows that the context of research settings can significantly influence the extent and capacity of children's self-expression and disclosure (Smith et al., 2005).

This research focuses on a songwriting practice implemented in specific therapeutic school settings in Israel. Unlike the studies cited above, the "Portrait Song" practice is declared non-collaborative. It is wholly created by the therapist (lyrics and music) and taught by rote to target clients for therapeutic purposes. Studying this technique in specific Israeli school settings may contribute to a research area with scarce information.

Class Observations

The researcher grew interested in therapeutic aspects of songwriting implemented in educational settings. Taking on the role of a passive observer, the researcher focused on collecting data through extended fieldwork (Gay et al., 2011). Seven class observations, 50 minutes each, and three school concerts about one hour each were observed over the course of two school years (2018/2019, and 2019/2020). The researcher followed an ideal expressed by Zaare (2012): "Observers are not evaluators or intruders who come to assess how well a teacher teaches, but peers who come to learn from classroom events" (p. 611). All field notes were written on-site and compiled after leaving the settings.

Unstructured Interviews

Data collection relies on face-to-face informal interviews with the therapist/composer to elicit information about her educational and therapeutic perspectives, goals, and past experiences. Six interviews (of 90–120 minutes each) were taped and later transcribed, coupled with phone calls and email conversations.

Audio and Written Sources

Data included tape-recorded songs, videos of "Portrait Song" sessions, musical scores, and written documents: schools' published material and the therapist syllabuses, abstracts, and notes. This data was often used as a starting point for subsequent class observations.

Respondent Validation

Lerner read through the data and analyses and provided feedback on the author's reflections and interpretations of her responses.

Reflections: End of the Year Event as a Termination Process

Music therapy authors stressed the importance of implementing a constructive termination process in music therapy to accelerate clients' therapeutic growth (Fortune, 1987; Hudgins, 2013; Wheeler et al., 2005). As a termination event, the end-of-the-year concert was important not only for presenting in public the children's achievements but introducing a new educational challenge, singing on stage for the first time. Thus the therapist turned the termination process into a constructive learning experience, a learning step rather than a stop.

Reflections: A Stimulative Song and Teacher Modeling

Expressing joy through songs is a universal phenomenon from ancient biblical times,^vup to the modern hospital and balcony songs,^vi performed during the 2020 corona-virus pandemic (Clinch, 2020; Janglo News, 2020). Researchers have noticed that "singing is a spiritual practice—it offers the possibility of transforming energy—to have an experience of your whole self" (Bepko & Kresten, 1993, p. 118). Joy is an experience that is emphasized by Nordoff and Robbins (2007). They point out how important this state is as a trigger for self-actualizing experiences that are transformative for clients (Turry, 1998).

Two songs of contrasting temporal patterning––the fast "Rejoice" and the slower "Friendship"––had a different effect on the children's body language. The simulative "Rejoice" made children more alert, while the slower "Friendship" relaxed their singing, making them look rather soothed. It has been confirmed that singers and listeners experience optimistic and melancholic moods with stimulative and sedative musical stimuli, respectively (e.g., Biller et al., 1974; Smith & Morris, 1976). "Temporal patterning seems to have, through either development or evolution, the capacity to evoke a variety of experiential states" (Bharucha et al., 2006, p. 143).

By showing intense enthusiasm while demonstrating the way "Rejoice" should be performed, Lerner practices teacher modeling. Her demonstration was coupled with verbalization about the song's lyrics (a cognitive element) to make the musical interpretation clear and learnable. Through modeling and verbalization, the music therapist enabled transitions in both demeanor and musical expression, from alert expression to apparently rejoicing in "Rejoice." Influential music educators^vii and psychologists^viii have long advocated teacher modeling as a powerful research-based tool to enhance music education (Dickey, 1992), particularly with performing ensembles (Haston, 2007). It is endorsed that a good public performance is not only the performers' chance to be esteemed but can lead to positive feelings of competence and self-efficacy in the long run.

Reflections: Social Functioning

While the singing session was under Lerner's control, the verbal session that followed was conducted without specific guidance, a condition that sparked interactions and new relational possibilities. Bailey (1984) asserted that songs have the potential to establish human contact and provide a framework for enhanced communication, "as singers and listeners alike can relate to the self-expressive qualities of songs" (p. 7).

There was no consensus about the aesthetic-musical value of each of the concert songs. "Music is often supposed to affect judgment and evaluation… no two children have the same opinion and taste" (Scherer & Zentner, 2001, p. 373). Children in group therapy "benefit from learning to both compete and compromise, to fight and settle fights, and to bargain and to compromise" (Grundblatt, 2016, p. 25).

While discussing the song "Friendship," children related to its verbal content. The lyrics of the song evoked contrasting affective and emotional outcomes: "emotional involvement is inevitably part of any musical interaction" (Rolvsjord, 2005, p. 98). For some children, the song was "fun!" (Marius) and evoked "a good feeling" (Shirley); for others, it caused "sadness" (Regina) or seemed "weak" because "you can't dance to it" (Barack). The different emotions that were elicited by the song "Friendship" stem from different personalized connections to its verbal content. The song became a means "to transcend everyday reality and contact the transpersonal spiritual dimensions of life" (Austin, 1999, p. 143). The children discussed the way friendship as a concept is relevant to their personalized social life and expressed their feeling about having (or not having) friends. Some children identified joy through the song as the verbal message met fulfilled social experiences in their lives: "I have a real friend" (Shirley); "I like playing Knights with my friends" (Marius). Other children identified sadness when the verbal message met unfulfilled social functioning: "the song speaks of something that you don't have" (Regina), and "there is a girl who doesn't want to be my friend." Thus discussing "Friendship" became a personalized, emotion-eliciting event, "a direct way to contact and express intense feelings" (Austin, 1999, p. 143). Bailey (1984) stated that "personalized connections to songs are important to the development of the therapeutic process" (p. 11). "It is in the responding to others that a person communicates his or her individuality and by so doing shapes and develops his or her self" (Robbins, 1991, p. 57). NRTM therapists affirm that songs offer an opportunity to understand the linkages of musical processes with psychological processes (e.g., Turry, 2009).

When referring to the song "Rejoice," children related to the rhythmic aspects of the song rather than the verbal content. While translating rhythmic aspects into physical/corporeal movement, they unanimously preferred fast over slow tempo and the song "Rejoice" over the song "Friendship": "Rejoice is rhythmic… I like to dance to this song" (Barack); "in the gym, we exercise fast" (Regina). "Inner Motion" is a core experience of music (Repp, 1993), while "movement and dance are natural human responses to music, particularly rhythmic music" (Crowe, 2004, p. 17).

Reflections: Children's Improvisation

Lerner, as an able improviser, grasped Regina's dream and started a new "Portrait Song." Her musical ideas were spontaneous and professional. Such acute, active listening was exactly what Nordoff and Robbins brought to music therapy, the "Creative Now" that Robbins discussed (Ansdell, 2010, p. 283). Although Lerner asked for no involvement in her improvisation, Regina's involvement occurred spontaneously as a self-initiated activity. Regina echoes the minor-third melodic motif and the syncopated pop rhythms, thus turning a declared non-collaborative songwriting approach into a collaborative activity. Regina's "Poop-Pop" improvisation demonstrates collaboration through modeling, as Zimmerman and Ghozeil (1974) suggested: "The child's responses will be altered as a result of his observation of the model's performance" (p. 440). Baker (2015) assumed that with the support of a therapist, by illustrating improvisation, and by other methods (like FITB and parody) "strategic songwriting can function as a preparation for original songwriting" (p. 108).

Reflections: The Observer's Insights

Although Lerner's/Regina's "Dog Song" was forgotten and never completed, it revealed the potential of spontaneous collaborative songwriting. Observational studies (e.g., Allright, 1988; Gebhard, 1999) give the observer insights that are sometimes not observed by the music teacher/therapist when he or she is actively engaging in work.

Reflections: Types of "Portrait Songs"

Lerner's song production is of two types: "Community Songs," such as "Rejoice," which convey messages of hope and optimism "for everyone"; and "Personal Songs," such as "Friendship," for specific recipients to meet their individual needs. In fact, "Community Songs" of hope and optimism are common throughout history. "Hope" ("Hatikva"), the Israeli Anthem, is one example: "Our hope is not yet lost; the hope that is two-thousand years old; to be a free nation." Songs that invoke hope have many psychological benefits for human well-being, including health and cognitive outcomes (Fredrickson, 2001). The individualized "Portrait Song" type is a purposeful song, composed for specific recipients to teach, heal and improve their conditions. Still, there is the intention for individualized "Portrait Songs" to become "Community Songs," through choir singing, concert performance, and recordings. Thus over time, the song "Friendship," which had been composed for Roy and David, became a community song for the concert choir (Vignette 1) and other singers and listeners. Lane (1988) suggested that patients' songs can be used to support other patients who identify with the lyrics.

"Through this activity, they transformed," said Lerner, showing confidence in the power of "Friendship" to bring about behavioral transformation in Roy and David. However, it is not always easy to distinguish between enabling patterns of behavior and transforming them. 'Enabling' can be described as a situation where the music therapist helps the client through a song, but it cannot mean transforming, solving, or making autistic behaviors go away.

Reflections: Children's Verbal Sharing and the Use of Metaphor

Based on "The Jungle Book" (1894), the work of the English novelist Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), the song "Dreaming of a Jungle" reflects Roy's fantasy; his solidarity with Mowgli's character, the free human-cub raised in the jungle. Roy's metaphor and Lerner's symbolic language convey Roy's situation unobtrusively through a non-threatening "Ballade" that "mirrors Roy's situation." The employment of Roy's words "When Baloo played with Mowgli" at the beginning of the song demonstrates once again (as in Vignette 5) the thin borderline between declared non-collaborative songwriting and children's involvement through self-initiated verbal sharing.

Lerner gave voice to Roy, a child who had been "historically silenced or marginalized" (Brantlinger et al., 2005, p. 199). She expressed great attention, appreciation, and acceptance for Roy as a "wonder child" (in the lyrics) who had never been in focus as now when a second song was composed for him and about him; a through-composed song in A-minor, with piano harmonies modulating chromatically in broken chords, reflecting a dream: "a kid…that always dreams … " When Roy encountered the song for the first time he firstly focused on the lyrics. According to Baker et al., (2009), it is the lyrics that the clients will listen to and relate to, therefore in songwriting, the focus should always first be on the lyrics.

Roy benefited greatly by his second "Portrait Song". He became "more cooperative" and never ran out during Lerner's lessons. The importance and efficacy of song-based work to promote personal growth is well-supported in music therapy literature (e.g., Aigen, 1997, 1998; Baker et al., 2008; Edgerton, 1990; Lindberg, 1995; Nordoff & Robbins, 2007; O’Callaghan, 1996; Ritholz, 2014; Silverman, 2011; Turry, 2014).

Reflections: Psychomotor Training

By singing the song "Dressing" and acting out the movements, Lerner was guiding Jeff to a higher state of physical functioning, wishing to maximize his sensory-motor independence, and reduce frustration and fear of physical failure. The lyrics and the music––a swaying 6/8 meter, harmonic transitions (major-minor), and a gradual tempo change (accelerando)––coaxed Jeff's participation and coactivity. The music binds the words and actions into a complete experience through the binary form (introduction-action). By singing and acting, Jeff moved gradually from slow to more active sensory-motor functions and thereby could overcome physical and mental restrictions. Researchers confirmed that motor and mental coordination can be improved through musical experiences (Aigen, 2009; Hatampour et al., 2011; Stephensen & Baker, 2011; Turry, 2014). Turry (2014) stated: "Improvised songs can establish a particular quality and then by shifts in elements such as tempo and dynamics change the energetic experience for the client" (p. 359). Aigen (2009) examined the relationship between tonal motion and physical motion in NRMT improvisations and songs. He showed how compositional decisions related to the tasks of clients in achieving physical motion. Jeff's documented lesson shows how a student manages to cope with physical (and mental) restrictions through a songwriting music therapy intervention.

Reflections: The Conjunction of Words and Music

"The Comet Song" is a song in which both the lyrics and the music (vocal and piano parts) function together to portray Rachel's behavior and personality as observed by the therapist. Throughout the song, Rachel is compared to a (musical) star that can be watched but not reached. The star metaphor not only adds poetic interest but precludes from direct reference to social disconnect. Rather than directing desirable class behaviors, the music copies the tempo and rhythms of Rachel's "rolling-like-a-cat movements via a dotted-note melody in 12/8 meter and persistent triplets "rolling" in the piano accompaniment.

Types of "Portrait Songs"

"Portrait Songs" are of several particular types: (1) "Community Songs," which instill a general sense of optimism and hope ("Rejoice"); (2) "Social Songs," which are tailored for specific recipients with targeted social goals ("Friendship"); (3) "Metaphoric Songs," which mirror a child's situation in a metaphoric, non-threatening, unobtrusive way ("Dreaming of a Jungle" and "The Comet Song"); and (4) "Action Songs," which push children beyond physical restrictions through acting out instructions. Individuals are influenced by the "Portrait Songs" beyond the individualized sessions since all types of "Portrait Songs" turn into "Community Songs" via group teaching, choir singing, public concerts, and recordings.

The Therapist Role in the Songwriting Process

Lerner's skills as a composer entail unique professional musicianship and years of compositional experience in and beyond the field of music therapy. She is both the lyricist and composer of her "Portrait Songs." She emphasizes a non-collaborative approach: "I do not let children compose my songs" (Vignette 6). Nevertheless, children demonstrate a natural impulse to improvise and self-initiated collaborative songwriting (Vignettes 5, 8).

The Verbal Content of the "Portrait Songs": Making Audible Students Voices

Children's authentic verbatim is often voiced in the lyrics. The compositional process begins with writing the lyrics, characteristically conveying targeted therapeutic contents, such as optimism, friendship, physical challenges, and other empathic messages with a sense of purpose. By using metaphors and poetic language, messages are often conveyed artistically and unobtrusively (Vignettes 8, 10).

The Musical Content of the "Portrait Songs"

Lerner's "Portrait Songs" are in the form of a Romantic period (19th Century) lied. Like a lied, a "Portrait Song" consists of two semiotic systems: music (voice and piano accompaniment) and language. This genre is paramount for Lerner. She declares: "For me, a lied is a natural mode of musical expression, an intuitive language. As a composer, I strive to reach the highest possible aesthetic level." The songs are professionally notated. The structure is usually strophic. Melodies are mostly kept within a 5-6 note-range so that children can sing them. The piano accompaniment is frequently based on broken chord figurations, tonal modulations, and chromatic progressions. The music never lacks a tonal center or key. In setting lyrics to music, verbal meanings are supported by various levels of the music, such as tempo, meter, rhythm, key, harmony, melodic flow, dynamics, articulation, expression and musical structure. Different tempi, rhythms, melodic contours, and harmonic progressions convey a whole gamut of emotions, such as hope, jubilation, joy, sadness, yearning, frustration, and desire.

Interrelations between Teaching, Composition, and Music Therapy

Music teaching, composing and therapy are intertwined and progress as in a "spiral scheme": the encounter with students is a source of inspiration for writing songs, songs become a pedagogical tool for music teaching and therapy, which creates a new source for writing a new song, and so on (Vignettes 7-8). Group lessons focus on promoting fundamental music-making skills through modeling and illustration (Vignettes 1, 5). Recipients (and peers) learn to sing the songs by ear being accompanied by the music therapist on the keyboard.