MUSIC AND CREATIVITY:
• I’ve been told I can’t sing–and have no music background. Can I really participate?
• I’m a life-long connoisseur. What can SongwritingWorks offer me?
• I can see how people can write lyrics, but the melodies?
• What kinds of songs do people write?
• What happens to the songs once they are written?
• Have you published any songs?
HEALTH AND WELL-BEING:
• Are there health benefits to writing original songs? How do elders benefit?
• What about the benefits for young people?
• What makes Songwriting Works™ unique from other kinds of group music and songwriting activities?
• Is Songwriting Works a form of music therapy?
• How is Songwriting Works different from Music Therapy?
• Do music therapists and Songwriting Works facilitators ever collaborate?-
SONG WRITING AND MEMORY FITNESS:
• Can Songwriting Works be effective with older adults with dementia?
• How can songwriting benefit memory retention?
YOUTH & INTERGENERATIONAL:
• Can you incorporate Songwriting Works into classroom and after-school programs?
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TRAININGS and GETTING INVOLVED:
• Does one need to be a professional musician to facilitate the process?
• Is there a role for “non-professionals”?
• How can caregivers and other health professionals benefit from the training?
• What will caregivers learn?
• Is cultivating awareness a key to enhancing creativity?
• How can I get involved with this kind of project where I live? 
I’ve been told I can’t sing–and have no music background. Can I really participate?
Yes! We’re all born with musical and creative intelligence and a natural curiosity. When we’re young we make stories and art out of our imaginations. We learn through experiment, improvisation and play. We move, dance spontaneously, hum and sing to ourselves and others without self-censorship. This spirit of creativity stays alive in us as we age. Even if it's dormant or unexpressed –it's never too late. With encouragement great things are possible. Creative aging research is proving that music and art-making boosts health, improves memory, and can add years, as well as fun, to life.
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I’m a life-long connoisseur and I love the classics. What can Songwriting Works offer me?
Those with strong music backgrounds find new and surprising aspects of themselves arise in the collective Songwriting Works process. Concert pianists who never before composed may find themselves freed up to improvise. Music professionals may discover new skills as the group makes associative leaps in words and images. Participants compose in a range of genres including folk, classical choral, rock, gospel, Jewish, hip hop, and jazz. There’s always more to explore and learn.
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I can see how people can write lyrics, but the melodies?
When given the opportunity to sing our thoughts, to put melody to poetry, surprising
things happen. The invitation activates the brain’s neural pathways as storehouses of musical and verbal language, and memory, are tapped simultaneously. This opens the way for spontaneous musical expression often surprising the very person who comes up with a musical line, rhythm, or starting note of a song.
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What kinds of songs do people write?
The Songwriting Works experience is always powered by the participants. Themes and genres of music reflect the concerns, imaginations and cultural heritage of those present. To date songs topics have included: nature, freedom, regional history, grandchildren, peace, love and romance, surviving hardship, travel, the seasons and holidays, outer space and a wide variety of personal and collective memories. Tributes to world leaders, beloved places, and local heros are common.
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What happens to the songs once they are written?
Our aim is always to compose memorable and meaningful songs that can last and be widely shared. As songs are completed, an audio copy is digitally recorded, ideally in performance with participating songwriters. The host site or agency may make copies available to individuals and/or arrange for a community recital or larger performance. Over time a body of work may come together in a CD or DVD project.
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Have you published any songs?
Yes. The debut CD of Singers & Songwriters of the Jewish Home San Francisco is available on this site. A number of other songs have been recorded and more shared in live performance and via radio, internet, and film reaching international audiences. This website will continue to feature downloadable new and archive recordings each month, some available for the first time, or here exclusively.
Visit the Song/Gallery to listen and the Catalog to purchase.
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Are there health benefits to writing original songs? How do elders benefit?
Yes. Scientific studies prove direct physical, cognitive, social, and spiritual benefits for older adults who regularly participate in deeply engaging creative arts programs. Research is proving there are many good reasons to restore art and music-making into daily life.
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What about the benefits for young people?
Arts participation has been linked to increases in retention, depth of understanding, test scores and life skills, with measurable decreases in violence, depression, and isolation.
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What makes Songwriting Works™ unique from other kinds of group music and songwriting activities?
The Songwriting Works™ process holistically engages individuals and groups via words, music, rhythm and imagination in composing a song that is fully their own. As their original songs take shape, participants transcend apparent barriers of physical, cognitive, cultural, and educational difference to create a group work that affirms each person’s natural intelligence.
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Is Songwriting Works a form of music therapy?
Not exactly. While group songwriting has clear benefits for the body, mind, and spirit, it is not a form of music therapy, per se. Songwriting Works™ is “therapeutic” in part because it seeks to restore the enlivening experience of singing one’s own song to individuals and to the culture at large.
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How is Songwriting Works different from Music Therapy?
While professional music therapists design and prescribe client-specific activities to address specific therapeutic goals, Songwriting Works’ focus is on the potential for enhanced creativity between individuals and the collective. Songwriting Works facilitators are professional songwriters trained to use the songwriting process to maximize group interactivity, increase listening, verbal and musical skills, and open the way for the creation of an authentic body of original work.
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Do music therapists and Songwriting Works facilitators ever collaborate?
They may. Songwriting Works facilitators and certified music therapist share a common intention: to help people heal through music. While there are important distinctions and strengths to each method, collaboration and exposure to each others’ skills and philosophy of approach can be mutually beneficial for participating professionals, and for their fields. Songwriting Works trainings serve as a resource for musicians of all kinds, and for anyone wishing to use music in service to health and community.
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Can Songwriting Works be effective with older adults with dementia?
Absolutely. Participants with cognitive impairment have been part of the Songwriting Works experience since its beginnings in 1990. The process allows the person with memory loss or other deficits to engage interactively as a creative equal with the facilitator and with family, friends, staff, or volunteers who are present in the process. This can be profoundly life-affirming for all involved.
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How can songwriting benefit memory retention?
Researchers in memory and “brain fitness” are finding that “use it or lose it” rings true for ongoing retention of cognitive health and prevention of memory loss. There is strong anecdotal evidence that older adults diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease who engage in original music-making can create and retain new musical and verbal information even if they have short-term memory deficits.
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Can you incorporate Songwriting Works into classroom and after-school programs?
Yes. Songwriting Works’ primary focus with youth is intergenerational songwriting. Workshops take place in K-12 classrooms, senior centers and health facilities. Judith-Kate Friedman and associates also design on-going and one-time youth-only songwriting programs held in classrooms and after-school centers. Songwriting Works’ principles can be integrated into established music, arts, and pedagogical curricula (K-graduate level).
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Does one need to be a professional musician to facilitate the process?
Yes. Songwriting Works™ facilitators combine professional performance, composition and teaching experience. In 2008-09 Songwriting Works plans to offer certification trainings. Professional musicians and music therapists with composing, performance and teaching backgrounds, and others with comparable skills, will be eligible for these trainings.
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Is there a role for “non-professionals”?
Absolutely. Community members – who are neither music/arts professionals nor trained caregivers – make a difference through their creativity, caring, and service every day. In fact, the majority of music/arts and healthcare professionals, teachers, clergy, volunteers and others are not performing musicians. In its mission to restore music-making into everyday life, Songwriting Works offers trainings and support on the use of Songwriting Works principles and tools for all those who are interested. Professionals and non-professionals alike are welcome to contact us and to volunteer.
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How can caregivers and other health professionals benefit from the training?
Songwriting Works offers Mind Alert and other trainings to increase the quality, efficacy, creativity, and satisfaction of caregiver’s interactions with older adults, including those with memory loss. Songwriting Works also offers respite programs for professional and family caregivers. CEUs are available for some programs. For more information contact: at 360/385-1160.
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What will caregivers learn?
Every interaction with our clients or loved ones is an opportunity to affirm them as whole human beings, regardless of what we may or may not know about their life circumstances or medical diagnoses. Honoring others is a natural capacity which we access in ourselves, along with compassion, acceptance, and the passion that fuels advocacy and supports mutually meaningful exchange. Songwriting Works trainings offer tools and ‘nuts and bolts’ techniques for enhanced listening, self-renewal, cultivation of awareness and of leadership – to affirm the creative, resourceful voice within every caregiver.
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Is cultivating awareness a key to enhancing creativity?
Yes. It may be hard to remember this at times – but we all belong. We can draw confidence from this fact as caregivers, as human beings, and as musical beings. The more we explore, claim, develop and use our creative intelligence, the more we encourage our clients by our example.
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How can I get involved with this kind of project where I live?
Songwriting Works holds workshops and trainings at sites and conferences throughout the U.S. and Canada. We are also working toward developing a residential training program in beautiful Port Townsend, WA that will provide in-person and long-distance (internet based) learning opportunities.
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