The Healing Power of Art
Art frames our lives, whether one is composing an opera or a poem for a loved one’s birthday. It helps us access the taproot of meaning, not merely on a cognitive level, but also on the emotional, symbolic, spiritual --even the physical levels of understanding. It illuminates and refines our insights, gives shape to lessons learned. It gives us tools for appreciating the blessings in our days, and the deeper purpose of our challenges. Because making art requires a deliberate and conscious effort, it moves us from passive reflection to active engagement with our lives. It declares that this moment, this sensation, this experience matters. By definition, to dare to tell one’s story is to declare that it is worth telling, that one’s journey has significance and weight.
Unfortunately, making art in our artistically disenfranchised society (as opposed to cultures where people make art as part of their daily existence), is a willful act that often feels presumptuous to the layperson. Such a choice is all too often short-circuited by self-censorship, undermining the lay writer’s natural creative impulses. Using art in order to speak from an authentic core requires honesty and courage, even more so when the artwork is born of vulnerable personal material, and requires deep self-revelation. If this process is nurtured and guided with sensitivity, then the fear that one’s artwork will be trite or inadequate then falls to the wayside, because the very nature of its truth gives it integrity and weight, a dignity that often touches on the sacred. Telling one’s story, clearly and with conviction, especially in the face of that self-censorship, is inherently healing and a profound tool for living. Therefore, art belongs not only to the aristocracy of professionals, it is a human birthright.

The Voice of The Songwriter
Writing lyrics is a process that requires distillation of meaning. As Margo Fuchs says, “Poetry is essence, density”. It assists the lay writer in developing a message that is clear and focused. The structural rhythm of popular music encourages the development of clear simple forms --AABA, or verse-chorus-verse-chorus. The writing of a chorus requires us to decide what is most important to say, and therefore worth repeating. It encourages us to return to a clearly chosen central point. Song Midwifery most frequently works with short, concise song forms. It is possible, and sometimes downright easy, for a lay writer to form a song that feels satisfying, whole and complete, in only four lines, to craft a message that speaks directly from that taproot of meaning.
The vocabulary of music carries meaning in ways beyond the tools of language, in the physicality of rhythm, volume, timbre, line, harmony and repetition. It touches us on multiple levels of memory, below and behind the constructs of our conscious mind. If these lyrics were merely spoken, not sung, they might sound like superficial doggerel and be dismissed. But add a melody to those four lines and they take on presence --the rousing energy of anthems, the grandeur of hymns, the undeniable grace of lullabies.
These forms works best on a therapeutic level when they are simple and direct. Like a musical vitamin they can nourish and heal us, to inspire at times of difficulty, to facilitate grieving at times of loss, to reveal feelings that have remained hidden until they were clearly articulated. They move us through the fog of confusion and self-doubt, into clarity and commitment, into the continuous unfolding of the spirit.

Diamond in the Rough
Song Midwifery liberates the lay writer. Michelangelo said that his statues were already present in the marble, he only needed to chip away the excess stone to reveal them. Song Midwifery starts from the premise that the song already lives in the heart of the client, waiting to be revealed. Very frequently, after the melody initially emerges from speech inflection, clients begin to spontaneously create their own beautifully expressive melodies, graceful rhyme schemes, their own clear, organic musical structures. Whatever their previous experience, people discover that they “speak” songwriting more than they know.
The role of the Song Midwife is to facilitate their creative process, to help them open up their sense of possibilities, as well as narrow their focus until they find the core of what it is they want to say. It frees up the silent songwriters who have so much to say, so many soulful insights and so much love to express from their own unique perspective.
There are so many people in this world who have never been heard in full cry, who have never told their true story in all its rich depth and color. There are so many people who have never heard their own unique voices giggle and croon, whisper and shout, yodel and warble, declaim and versify. Song Midwifery calls these voices to arise in full bloom, it welcomes them with joy and gratitude as they bravely toss their anthems to the mountaintops.

The choir of the earth is not yet complete until we hear from every last one.

© 2004 Louise Cloutier, all rights reserved.
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