"In 2016 Lisa Tregale (then Head of Participation at BSO) said to me something along the lines of ‘the reason you're an associate of the BSO is that you are bombproof’. This has stuck with me. My first reaction to this was ‘damn right I am!’. And just to be clear, she was damn right, and I am. But the implications have stayed with me since then, churning around my head. What she meant was that I could go into any group, any age, any mix of people and create something meaningful with them using music as the catalyst. That’s quite a statement, and I am proud of it."
Get ready for some honesty!
In this episode Neil confronts some of the anxieties associated with being a 'Bombproof Musician', working as a freelancer and how you balance the anxieties with your authenticity.
He discusses Music for Life with Wigmore Hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKBy50oAPbY&ab_channel=WigmoreHall
and how that led to leading the music and medicine project Music for a While with the BSO: https://www.ahsw.org.uk/projects/music-for-a-while/
Followed by a conversation with amazing music leader and facilitator and fellow BSO Associate Samantha Mason: https://www.samanthamason.co.uk/
Thankyou Sam!
Music Listing:
Theme Music from The Leaves of the Trees. Composition by Neil Valentine, recorded live in Winchester Cathedral.
Performers:
Neil Valentine – Viola, electronics, composer
With: Sophie Raven – Flute, Claire Yates – Viola, Jeremy Leverton – Electronics
The Swan – recorded live at ABC Concerts in Winchester. Pippa Rans – Cello, Duncan Honeybourne - Piano
SGT Peppers & The Apocalyptic Eliminator - Southampton Family Orchestra. Project led by Neil Valentine with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Southampton Music Hub. Recorded live in Turner Sims, Southampton.
Day and Back – Last Light. Composed, performed, produced by Neil Valentine
Episode 3: The Bombproof Musician – Bricolage & the Darker Side
In 2016 Lisa Tregale (then Head of Participation at BSO) said to me something along the lines of ‘the reason you're an associate of the BSO is that you are bombproof’. This has stuck with me. My first reaction to this was ‘damn right I am!’. And just to be clear, she was damn right, and I am. But the implications have stayed with me since then, churning around my head. What she meant was that I could go into any group, any age, any mix of people and create something meaningful with them using music as the catalyst. That’s quite a statement, and I am proud of it.
FADE/The Swan from ABC Concerts in Winchester
The curious thing about this phrase ‘The Bombproof Musician’ is that I really feel I can go into any group of people and help them make something meaningful. That is not to say I will force people; you cannot force people to engage. This is one of the wonders of music as it does not require engagement to be powerful. You do not need to ‘do it’, music travels into your brain via your ears and through the vibrations in the air and unless you block your ears you cannot stop it. A musician who conjures something out of nothing can begin to break down the toughest barriers and unlock the tightest locks through taking advantage of this loophole into the brain, bypassing whatever the participants anxieties or worries are as the soundwaves glide effortlessly around any resistance into the ears and onto the brain where music can work its magic.
When you take the well documented power of music with its ability to reach the brain of any who hear it. The Bombproof Musician uses the fact that everyone loves to hear a beautiful melody such as The Swan or a fun jaunty dance like The Sailors Hornpipe. If you can use this avenue and mix it with a huge toolbox of musical games/ideas alongside the confidence, patience and energy required then you can be bombproof too.
FADE
Bombproof musicians can be any kind of musician, they are not fixed to a genre. In the UK we have developed a strand of music leader which we call the musical animateur, or workshop leader. These people are not only expert musicians in their trained specialism but they have an incredibly wide experience base of working with all kinds of experience. They know deeply that experience supports experience. Every experience I have had as a musician supports the experiences I am having as a musician today. And these experiences support the ones I will have tomorrow. Who I am now is supported by every session I have ever led, every concert I have ever given or been to, every mistake I have ever made. I am fortunate enough to have worked with some of the best workshop leaders in the world, seen them up-close, stolen their ideas, seen them fail and recover. I have also worked in an incredibly wide range of situations leading music and I noticed very early on that experience does indeed support experience. Learning how to teach violin in a primary school was helping me not just conduct a junior orchestra, but how to lead a session with reception students and how to write songs with teenagers. The lessons I learnt about using my voice, my body and face when working with teenagers were put into practice working with young families or running training sessions for Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts
teachers. I learnt that I was going to learn in every situation, and it was the getting out there that was the most valuable.
Southampton Family Orchestra – SGT Peppers & The Apocalyptic Eliminator
Another way to look at it is that I have become excellent at using what I have in from of me, with the people who are in the room. When I lead music making my brain is not making judgements about this or that person (of course I cannot stop it doing that at other times!), I am seeing people as people. And music as music. And then I let my instincts go with the flow. I have led enough sessions with enough people to know pretty much within the first few seconds how a session is likely to go. I have pivoted and changed course enough times during sessions to back these instincts when they kick in.
That doesn’t mean I do not get it wrong. I do. What it does mean is that I have got it wrong often enough that I know I can get myself out of getting it wrong. To quote the great Miles Davis - "It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong." This is true in music leading. You may choose an idea, game or activity which doesn’t land with a group, but the way it doesn’t land tells you a lot about them and supports you reaching into your toolbox for something you are confident will work.
FADE
I had this experience recently. I was leading a session with teenagers who live in care. I knew nothing about them beyond that. I had an idea for writing a song together, and they kind of went with it. But as soon as it came to them singing, they shut down. Luckily in the next room we had a set of African Drums. I knew that they wanted to engage but were very anxious about how their voices would be perceived by their friends. And I combined that with the simple truth that everyone likes to bang a drum. We had a great rest of the session.
Another term has been used in academic circles to describe this, the Bricoleur. Day and Back – Last Light. Stewart Hase describes the bricoleur as a person who “uses whatever materials are at hand in a creative and resourceful way. Bricolage is also seen as involving trial and error, learning as you learn more about the situation at hand. Adaptable and able to use existing resources together in new ways, the bricoleur is ultimately a pragmatist, unbound by specific dogma or ideology and adept across a range of domains. The bricoleur is no well-meaning amateur but an expert, often in many areas, from which he or she can draw on his or her experience and use it in novel ways.”.
The Bombproof Musical Bricoleur, that has a nice ring to it, I think I’ll keep that.
This is all very well but being telling yourself you are Bombproof doesn’t mean you always feel bombproof.
A common experience for musicians is the response from participants, friends, audience members of: ‘your work sounds so great. You’re so lucky you can do what you love’. And most of the time that is true. We get to make music for a job. Side note: Most musicians do not get even close to paid enough for their expertise and benefits we bring. However, the financial impact of freelance music making is for another time and I do get paid, which is a good thing.
Some of the time it is not true that I love what I do. There are some types of sessions which bring up huge levels of anxiety, doubt, and insecurity for me. The type of work which does this the most is the work I have done in hospitals, mostly in elderly care wards. FADE. Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts
I have delivered over 100 sessions in hospitals over the south, mostly in elderly care but also in children’s wards and in general adult wards. The work began for me through Music for Life, a project that works with elderly residents of care homes with dementia. The musician team uses improvisation to engage with patients, bring them to the present, go past their difficulties and see who is behind it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKBy50oAPbY&ab_channel=WigmoreHall
As you can see this is incredibly rewarding work. I got a lot out of it, engaging with residents, going beyond what was thought possible with a resident, unlocking their experiences alongside those of the staff they work with.
This work led me to lead Music for a While, a research project with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Arts and Health South West in hospitals across the south of England. https://www.ahsw.org.uk/projects/music-for-a-while/
I visited hospital wards in three hospitals regularly over a period of a year.
Here I am going to be honest. Out of all the work I do and have done, this work fills me with the most insecurity, anxiety and doubt. The drive down would be one of stomach-churning worry as a series of doubts ran repeatedly through my head. When I arrived, I would do my best to still these voices and put on the coat of Bombproof Musician. Despite my best efforts they would follow me around all day.
Here are some of the regular questions and thoughts which I cannot shake when it comes to this work:
- • Am I really any good at this?
- • I am intruding here
- • I am wasting their time
- • They are humouring me.
- • It would be much easier for us all if I went home
- • Is it worth it?
These are all based in self-doubt that my work (and by extension – me) are not good enough.
I see the incredibly busy lives of nurses and carers, the work they put in, the long hours alongside the pain of patients who wanted to be left by themselves and I see with real clarity the intrusion that live music can be.
Of course, I also saw some amazing things. I played to a patient who died about 15minutes after I had moved on, I was part of their process of them leaving this world. I helped a patient who had dementia find some centring through the music sung by Frank Sinatra which I played to him. He calmed down and would no longer roam the ward in a confused and anxious state freeing up staff time to focus on other patients. I played in many wards and rooms where Sailors Hornpipe or something similar would have patients, family and staff singing, clapping and even dancing along. No matter how positive, joyous or well received these doubts would still rise with new venom.
Upon reflection there are a few things that have fostered these anxieties.
- • I was just making it up. o I have had no formal medical training. I created what I did through making it up each day. I visited a dialysis unit without any guidebook saying, ‘this is how to make music in a dialysis unit’. I just went with my gut.
Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts
- • I work predominantly alone as a musician in these situations o Even though I would often have a staff member with me, musically and professionally I was working alone. I did not have anyone I could bounce my worries/anxieties off.
- o I was ‘Bombproof’ remember. Feeling these insecurities was not part of the plan.
- • It is emotionally exhausting work o The work was so intense and emotionally exhausting that I wanted to close the book after each day rather than reflect on the success/difficulties.
Perhaps one of the key differences between this work and the other community work was that this work was more ‘me doing the music to them’ rather than it being collaborative. I would take my viola with me around the hospital and basically perform and play in wards and try to respond as I saw best. The music would waft through the wards and lift the atmosphere for most, but for some it would be intrusive. Ward Sisters sometimes would see me as an inconvenience when the day was busy. I was another factor which was they didn’t want to have to weigh up in the complex and difficult task of managing a busy ward. ‘Not today’ was a regular response when I put my head round the door, which was of course fine. When you combine that with the insecurities it became a reinforcement of what part of me believed to be fact – that I wasn’t right for this place, that my work (and me) was not good enough.
These doubts stop me being fully present, from bringing my whole self to the work. I cannot dive into the music, see the energy and the sparks or feel the flow. Partly because it is there in a different form, but mostly because I am carrying something which gets in the way. Ultimately, I will be bringing these doubts with me into all the sessions I do however only in music and medicine work do these doubts take hold and are not washed away in the flow of a session.
Theme Music from Leaves of the Trees
I know the work is valuable, and I have brought lots of positivity into the world through doing it. Many patients and staff have had their mood elevated through live music changing the atmosphere of a ward. As one doctor said something along the lines of: ‘You do not give it in pills or drips, but your music is medicine just the same’.
Looking forward I do not see myself doing much of this work again before I am able to work through the insecurities. And that will take energy and time as well as finding the motivation and space to do so. And if I am brutally honest, I do not think I will find any of those things soon.
A large part of me wants to keep the fact that I can do the work, because of what it says about me to others but without doing it. It adds to my professional persona of being the Bombproof Musical Bricoleur which I present to others rather than it what it feels like, my Achilles heel.
Followed by a conversation with Samantha Mason, associate of the BSO, composer, facilitator and music leader Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts
Music Listing:
Theme Music from The Leaves of the Trees. Composition by Neil Valentine, recorded live in Winchester Cathedral.
Performers:
Neil Valentine – Viola, electronics, composer
With: Sophie Raven – Flute, Claire Yates – Viola, Jeremy Leverton – Electronics
The Swan – recorded live at ABC Concerts in Winchester. Pippa Rans – Cello, Duncan Honeybourne - Piano
SGT Peppers & The Apocalyptic Eliminator - Southampton Family Orchestra. Project led by Neil Valentine with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Southampton Music Hub. Recorded live in Turner Sims, Southampton.
Day and Back – Last Light. Composed, performed, produced by Neil Valentine