We returned to York Festival of Ideas on Saturday 7th June with our talk ‘Making Sound Waves: Musical Transformations.’

We last spoke at the festival in 2015 as part of our 20th Anniversary celebrations and we were delighted to be back for our 30th!

In this talk, our Founder Lesley Schatzberger, music therapist Aby Vulliamy and community musician Tom Sherman discussed the important role Jessie’s Fund has played in giving children access to both music therapy and creative music-making. It included audio clips of one child’s journey through music therapy and video clips of specialist music practitioners working with children and young people, as well as opportunities for the audience to try making music without verbal instructions or commentary.

In her section, Aby spoke about how in music therapy ‘the basis of everything that we do is trying to tune in to the feelings behind the body language, the words, if there are words. And the little most limited movement or the huge movements, the massive feelings.’ Her case study of Edie demonstrated how music helped her overcome frustrations with her memory and focus since having seizures: ’’so in music, she felt confident, powerful, like she could succeed, like she knew what was supposed expected of her’. Tom gave an insight into our work in specialist schools settings from his many years of running projects for Jessie’s Fund. He told us ‘I like to think of it as being the architect of a shared musical experience but one who’s not entirely sure what they’re about to build. So that’s where the improvisation comes in. And of course it’s a collaborative process… So when I’m working with young people doing music, I’m aiming for them to experience being steeped in music. Being steeped in music that reacts and responds to them yet exerts no pressure or expectation.’ He also shared how crucial the training element that runs alongside our work with the children and young people is: ‘ So really we want we want to demonstrate you don’t need to be a highly skilled musician to deliver an effective music session if you can incorporate some key things, non-verbal communication, singing, and this idea of the unfolding of what you’re doing, the pacing of it, so that you’re ensuring again that time and space for the young people you’re working with to process, react, and interact with what you’re doing… Do what you’re doing already, but do it musically. Do it in a musical way.’

You can watch the event on the Festival of Ideas YouTube Channel.