• 16

    NOV
    2011

    Posted at 18:26

    These Tiny Things

     

     

    A part of the project not mentioned here so far, though central, is the work we have done directly with children.  This has acted as a model for staff members, who have observed, participated in and, finally, run sessions.  The needs, and the strengths, children have revealed in the groups has formed the basis of the training course and the development of the project.

            Although the thirty children participating in music sessions have shaped the project, the sessions themselves are the hardest thing to write about.  Perhaps the difficulty comes because things that feel significant are small moments, miniscule shifts, glancing, provisional interpretations and glimpsed possibilities – nothing definite.  Each child responds moment to moment in his or her own particular way.  It is hard to generalise and perhaps that’s the point. 

            Music therapists tend to write about their work through case study examples; I am starting to see why.  If it is impossible to generalise – and when it comes to human interactions perhaps it should be – case studies at least allow us to be specific and definite about the unfolding of a particular therapeutic relationship.  In a similar spirit, I wanted to mention a few tiny things that have stayed with me:

               

    An autistic boy spends most of the first three sessions at the back of the hall, usually taking an instrument with him.  We try to stay in musical contact, responding to sounds he makes and using his name.  During the fourth session, he is able to take his place in the circle.

               

    A young woman with little speech, who staff members describe as generally unresponsive outside the music room, joins in with a familiar Georgian song.  As it ends she lays a palm across her breast bone.  ‘Guli,’ she says.  Heart.

               

    A small girl called Mari spends most of the first session hiding her face with her arm, as if blocking out strong sunlight.  She refuses all instruments and, thought she shows keen interest in what is going on, any attention sent her way leads her to hide her face again.  By the fourth session, she reaches out to take and play instruments offered to her and, at times, makes clear eye contact.

               

    A group of five children who share a lack of confidence and a tendency to silence spontaneously develop a musical game.  We pass an imaginary object around the circle, which changes shape from person to person, ‘speaking’ for the child.  In one child’s hands it is a scary monster, growling, in another’s it becomes a cat, miaowing.  The children are engaged, laughing and delightfully creative.  During the following session this game develops quite naturally into a group vocal improvisation, where each child has a voice and can experiment within the game’s structure.

     

    Though moments like this are just a start, their significance is felt by staff attending sessions.  The women see the children’s usual behaviour day to day, so they are alive to any new responses.  They are quick to notice if a child becomes more vocal, or seems less anxious, or begins to take more initiative. 

            One of the carers tells us she has seen a boy who lacks confidence in the classroom introducing a musical name game to his classmates.  Another tells us that a girl she has worked with during music now seeks eye contact with her when they pass in the corridor.  She feels this is a sign of a developing relationship, sustained between sessions. 

            The more these women see what music can offer here, the greater their enthusiasm to develop the work.  We begin to talk about how the sessions might change over time, and about potential therapeutic goals for children.  Staff commitment is vital because the success of the project depends on these busy carers and teachers choosing to continue the work despite the extra pressure this will put on them – and on the school’s resources. 

            We are in Georgia for three weeks, only long enough to see glimpses.  We are hopeful, but every seeming development for a child feels provisional; we don’t have time to explore and test our hunches. 

            We plan to offer support, both virtually from Scotland and through regular follow-up visits.  In between times, staff at the school will need to hold a sense of what’s possible, not only to give the work shape and direction but also to motivate them to continue. 

     

    When we were planning this project, I had all sorts of grand ideas.  I hoped we would be able to facilitate an exchange of knowledge between those engaged in traditional Georgian practices of healing through song and professional music therapists in the UK.  The reality has been different from the plan, less neatly poised, and I hope this is because we have responded to the context and to actual need.   

            Perhaps the best thing we can do in a short project like this is to recognise and draw out the skills these women already have.  Many of them have worked at the school for several years and have a wealth of experience in caring and teaching roles.  They show an ease in their interactions with children, a good-humoured confidence and sharp intuitive sense.  We bring a specific way of thinking about music and about nonverbal interaction, one that prioritises listening over directing, and shared creativity over authority. 

            Though not in the way I had imagined, this project has been a real exchange between cultures.  We have learned as much as we have taught. 

            I hope and believe this is just the beginning.      

     

  • 02

    NOV
    2011

    Posted at 17:17

    Roots in the invisible

     

    A literary friend in Edinburgh says most projects, and most things in life, go through the same three stages - a beginning, a muddle and an end.  Right now here in Georgia, we're in the middle of the muddle. 
            The weather has been cold and drizzly.  Dreich.  Around Thea and Irakli’s place, the streets have turned to a pale, muddy sludge.  Georgians we meet shiver and huddle around heaters, saying it’s not usually this way in October.  Full of the cold myself, I thought I might lose my voice.  It’s holding out so far, but I am sneezing, sniffing and sorry for myself.  
            We ran a Therapeutic Music Day yesterday for interested people from various organisations, a rich day with lots of discussion and enthusiasm, but somewhere in the middle of it I forgot what the point was and came home confused and ratty.  
            Later, walking, we passed the aftermath of a car crash a few minutes from the school and now anarchic Georgian driving doesn’t seem so funny.
     
    Today is Sunday, a day off.  I put on all my jumpers and take the Metro into central Tbilisi, with some of the Guldani mud still smeared on my boots.  On the way I make a rare detour into the realm of retail therapy, buying a beautiful green scarf in Akhmeteli bazaar.  Now I sit in a French-style cafe near Freedom Square, where a bored-looking accordionist plays Flight of the Bumble Bee and Je Ne Regrette Rien by the big front window.  Surrounded by expats with laptops, I drink coffee, eat eggs and try to write my way out of a bad mood.
    A Georgian psychologist and musician who came to the event yesterday told us about a community arts project she once tried to set up in a Tbilisi orphanage.  She abandoned it after a few sessions, because a lack of support from the school director meant that staff and children did not value the project.  She said if she had been foreign, it would have been a different story.  
    I remember Georgian song workshops in Edinburgh, where the presence of a teacher from Georgia seemed to offer something authentic, new, and a little bit exotic.  Otherness draws us.  I am beginning to see how I idealise Georgian culture, projecting onto Georgian people I meet qualities I believe I lack.  So, I can see how a Georgian orphanage might welcome a foreign project but not see the worth of a project offered locally.        
            I order a Bloody Mary.  I don’t like the idea that our project might be going well because we are foreigners.  To be wanted because of our difference feels like being misunderstood.  It also feels like shaky ground, as if we could put a foot wrong and reveal ourselves flawed, and bring the whole thing crashing down.  
            It reminds me of this boy I knew when I was seventeen, who thought he was in love with me.  I was flattered, until I had my nose pierced and he acted like I had kicked him in the shin.  Then I realised it was an idea he loved, not me at all. 
     
    In the middle of last week it occurred to us to ask each other why we had decided to run this project in Georgia, and not in Pilton, or Wester Hailes.  Certainly for me there is the excitement and challenge of working in an unusual context, the adventure.  There is at least the possibility that we will learn something from being out of our comfort zones.  
            It is more than this, though.  I went to sing some Georgian songs at someone’s home last night and was haunted by them all the way back on the Metro.  It was the music that brought me here, and not only its otherness.  There is something deeply familiar about these songs and I can’t get enough.  And then there is this tradition of using music for healing, and a possible connection between it and music therapy.  More than a need for an adventure, what has brought me is a sense of connection to this culture, a kinship.  
            Our roots are in the invisible.
            On the way here I popped into the Armenian church.  A singer and organist were rehearsing out of sight and I sat down to listen.  People came and went, lighting candles or putting them out, greeting each other, and wandering from icon to icon.  Two women came in and hung two lengths of white fabric to make an aisle.  A few minutes later a bride and groom arrived, followed by a wedding party with their cameras flashing.  
            Out of nowhere an old woman stood in front of me, short and bent.  She asked if I was married and when I said I was not, she put a hand on my head and blessed me, so that I will find the man of my life.    
            The need for connection is ancient and known to us all, as is the need for otherness, for another.  In front of my eyes the well-worn ritual unfolded, making apparent invisible connections between us - as music also can.
     
     
     

  • 27

    OCT
    2011

    Posted at 11:34

    Tipping Point

     She sits in a chair, rocking violently and does not make eye contact.   On the table beside her there are chime bars, bongos, tambourine and cymbal, a lyre, and various small percussion instruments.  She looks at these but does not reach out to play them.

    This is Mzia, one of the carers attending training sessions.  She is demonstrating typical behaviour of one of the children at the school.  
            The women wanted to try this.  They wanted to show us how it is.  There is laughter as they recognise the behaviour Mzia demonstrates.  She looks brave and vulnerable up there and she also laughs, breaking out of role for a moment.  
            It’s the third of the daily training sessions.  Talking about it afterwards, Alastair and I wonder if there’s a challenge here, as if the women are starting to say, ‘see how it is for us?’
            Mzia plays the bongos in a scattered, fleeting way, stands up, then slumps back into the chair, arms folded.  Picking up the key we use to tune the lyre, she taps the cymbal three times, but stops as soon as Alastair, in the role of therapist, tries to match her rhythm.
            I worry they think that we think music therapy is some kind of magical cure-all.  
     
    Openness and energy characterise our discussions now.  The politeness we experienced in the first few days is being replaced by honesty, curiosity, and what feels like a real willingness to experiment with a new way of working.   
            These women are used to being in a teaching role, leading and directing what happens.  They are authoritative, clear-voiced and sure.  In asking them to be led by the children, we realise we are asking a lot.  
            If therapeutic music is to work in this context, these women have to make it their own, but we also have ideas and opinions.  It is tricky to get the balance right between sounding like we know something, and recognising what is already known here.  We want to draw on skills and strengths the women already have in communicating and building relationships with children.  But therapy is a different shaped container from the classroom.  Its relationships are based on eliciting responses from children rather than requiring them.    
            Some of the sessions feel chaotic.  We are also finding our feet and getting to know the children, learning to stay grounded and hold a sense of the group, and drawing children into the music.  In training sessions, we all agree that you can’t force anyone to do anything.  But there is a lot of discussion about how much we should encourage participation, how much simply make the space and wait.  
    One day, Alastair talks about the parallels between music therapy and early mother-child interaction.  He talks about the importance of staying still, so that children feel safe to explore, knowing they can come back.  Somehow, even before the translation comes, it’s clear that the women understand this.  There is a focusing, a drawing in, and quiet.  There are nods, bodies alert in chairs.  
    These moments, when they come, are electric.  
     
    We are now half way through the project.  There is some kind of tipping point and we have moved imperceptibly from thinking about beginnings to thinking about endings.  Things are speeding up.  It reminds me of the moment when summer becomes autumn and you just know it, even though you can’t say why. 
            In Tbilisi, the wind has stopped blowing and now it is getting cold.  The ocean drum got fixed with sellotape, and Alastair has had his fishing trip.  At the weekend, I took a mashrutka north to Kazbegi, where snow lies on the high ground, red apples cling to wintery branches and cows and chickens – and a few waterproofed tourists – wander in the streets.    
             As time goes on, there is a lot of energy around some of the ideas we discuss in training sessions.  The women talk backwards and forwards, not leaving space for Darina to translate.  Alastair and I end up frowning at each other, wondering when to jump in.  We are still at the ‘where’s the post office’ stage of things with our Georgian and trying to work in two languages makes things complicated at times.  It also puts a lot of pressure on Darina.  
            In sessions with children, though, our lack of Georgian can be helpful.  Apart from the simplest words and phrases, everything takes place in the music and in gesture.  This means everything is available to everyone.  It makes me realise how much of verbal communication is unnecessary, how words can get in the way of what is trying to happen (a strange thing to write in the middle of this wordy blog!).  
            Staff members are beginning to put their teaching roles to one side, working to create a space where the children feel safe to explore in their own ways.  In parallel to this, we now spend much of the time in training sessions role-playing specific situations and watching video extracts from the work with children.  This allows the women to see and feel for themselves what works.
     
            Knowing how time goes, I know that any moment now we will be in a car on the way to the airport.  Time is short.  We are already talking about what happens next, and how we can develop the project.
            Staff and children at the school are doing amazing things and we are both learning a lot from working here.  We hope the energy and enthusiasm to continue the work will continue to grow after we leave, and we have some ideas about how to support this.  
            Very happy to be here!  Many thanks for help with fundraising, donations of instruments and all your support!   
     

  • 24

    OCT
    2011

    Posted at 21:03

    A Basic Beat

     

    For three days, the wind blows like nothing I’ve known. When you’re out in it, it threatens to knock you off your feet if you turn a corner unprepared. It rattles the windows at night and hollers. I lie awake, waiting to hear a pattern in its wails, sighs and whoops.
            It’s like that at the school.  There are children in the hallways, and everywhere.  There is a comb and scrap of mirror on a ledge.  There are drawings of castles, rabbits, and apple trees, taped to the walls in classrooms and corridors.  There’s a young man who wanders around near the steps to the main building.  He always smiles and wants to say ‘hi’.  We don’t know the significance of any of it yet.  We keep on listening and hope that a pattern will emerge.  
    We spend Tuesday with Darina at the school, trying to get a sense of an ordinary day.  Every time we walk into a classroom, though, we are interesting novelties, strangers, and we change things.  
    In a first grade sports class, a small, dignified boy called Baccho makes it clear he is not going to crawl through the hoop his teacher holds unless we both do it first.  The music class becomes a performance of Georgian song and dance, with Darina, Alastair and I the audience.  In Life Skills, where they are supposed to be learning how to bake a cake, all the children turn around in their seats to look at us.
            ‘They are interested to know who you are,’ Darina says.
    ‘Quite right,’ Alastair says.
    The teachers, also interested to know who we are, ask our opinion on integration for children with special needs into mainstream education.  This is a new-ish Government policy just starting to affect the school.  Like the good unknowing therapists we are, we fudge it, asking what they think, and telling them what we know about the way it is in Scotland.
            At the end of the school day we spend ages with Darina, deciding which children it’s best for us to work with and how to structure our time here.  We want to make groups with children of similar ages and abilities.  We want to focus on children struggling with some kind of communication difficulty or emotional distress, children we think could benefit from therapeutic music.         Darina runs backwards and forwards in high heels.  It all looks complicated, then impossible.  We share out the remains of a bar of chocolate to keep us going.  Then, out of nowhere, it’s all arranged.  We will work with six groups of children, two groups per day.  One or two of the ten women who came to the meeting on the first day are assigned to each group.  They will observe and participate.  Later, they will take over running sessions themselves.  Each day will end with a training session for all the adults.
            So this is the basic beat, the rhythm and structure of our days.  The way the music unfolds is still before us, still unknown.
     
    Thea has been cooking for us each night.  We come home tired from the school and there is aubergine simmered in yoghurt, cabbage stew or spiced beans, all served up with white bread.  There are various homemade chilli and tomato sauces that appear on the table in old jam jars and water bottles.  There is Irakli’s wine, which he makes in vats downstairs and brings up a jug at a time.
    One night, Irakli has his friends round, two brothers, Roma and Baccho, electricians like him.  As we eat, we talk.  Ika tells us that he came to Tbilisi in 1993 at the age of twelve, fleeing the war in Abkhazia with his mum, sister and brother.  He tells us during a toast that his dad was killed in the war.  He mimes a gunshot, crosses his hands over his heart, and then lifts them above his head.  
    ‘With God,’ he says.
    Georgian history is littered with wars, occupations, and oppressions.  Most recently, in 2008, Russian troops crossed the border into the disputed region of South Ossetia, forcing thousands from their homes.  Many still live as refugees within their own country, in temporary settlements around Tbilisi and elsewhere.  
    We toast all the different kinds of God.  We toast Russians, Georgians, Scots, the English, and everyone.  We toast ancestors, brothers and sisters.  We toast Thea, who does not come to sit with us at the table, and their children Mari and Gio, who run in and out, sitting on laps and chatting.  
    The men do their best to get Alastair drunk, encouraging him to knock back a tumbler of wine with each toast.  
            ‘Once,’ he says, holding a forefinger in the air.  
            He drinks the glass in front of him with a flourish and they leave it at that.
            The phrasebook gets passed around again.  Irakli sings a Georgian song.  Alastair sings ‘Charlie is My Darling’.  They all go down to the cellar to inspect and stir the new wine.  Alastair comes back declaring himself a man.  Somewhere along the way, they invite him to go fishing with them at the weekend.   
    Thea and I sit in front of the computer and, with a lot of help from Google Translate, she tells me about her family and her life.  She is also a refugee from the war in Abkhazia, as are many of their friends.  She and Irakli met in Tbilisi when they were still children and married young.  She’s a graduate in something that sounds like philology, something to do with Georgian literature.  In the evenings she works in her parents’ grocery shop across the road.  
            Mari borrows my notebook and draws moons, hearts and clouds, telling me the Georgian words for each.  
     
            We are planning to work with children who struggle with verbal communication.  And here we are, struggling with verbal communication.  It’s different, of course.  There’s no version of Google Translate or phrasebook to help out for children who don’t speak at all.  But I am finding out how much you can say with sounds and tone of voice and gesture.  Without many words, there is an ease in our meetings and a sense that we are welcome.  
            From what I’ve seen, I think this ability to offer authentic welcome is embedded in Georgian culture.  A knack for hospitality seems like a pretty good basis for creating the safe space in which therapeutic music can happen.  
           I hope we’ll find a way to encourage staff at the school to bring their singing, heartfelt, family selves to work.    

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