Music & A New Outlook

CHI Diaries Entry 2

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Hello and welcome to CHI Diaries!

This is our first audio entry and today our entry is titled ‘Music and a New Outlook’

I had an experience where my mind completely flipped dispositions almost instantly once I sat at the piano and began to play. It’s happened many times actually. Maybe we’ve all had a time where we were in a certain headspace spiralling downwards, out of control, but when we tuned into a certain song or melody, that spiralling stopped and our thoughts re-focused on something a little brighter. 

Listening or creating music can really tap into our brains in ways nothing else can. It can trigger emotions, memories, thoughts - positive or negative. Creative Hope really tries to use music to influence our thoughts positively. I’ll give an example of a song we sing all the time where we used songwriting with a little humor to try and rewire a memory from negative to positive.

Once, a few years ago, I along with a few friends and family, went for a hike near the Annapurnas. We stopped at a tea shop and enjoyed the tea, as one does. The clouds broke away to reveal a stunning view of the mountains. So we stayed a little longer, ordered more tea, and continued to enjoy the view. It got late, so we ordered more tea and stayed the night. The next day, we enjoyed even more tea until we left after a satisfying breakfast accompanied by another cup of tea. In the end, each of us drank 6-8 cups of tea over the course of our stay, thinking that the tea would be the most inexpensive part of our stay. Turns out, because tea was that shop's primary revenue source, the tea was the most expensive item on the menu. To our shock, we racked up a bill of about 300 dollars just on tea. 

The unpleasant shock stuck in my memory, so I decided to imagine a scenario where tea was offered to us for free. The reimagined scenario turned into a simple conversational round that is now used in our classrooms as a vocal warm-up or a performance song all the time.  Here’s how it goes: 

So now, when the expensive tea memory pops into my brain, I also think of the voices of the children singing about free tea. My mind has another memory of delighted music classrooms. 

This is something that we really want to tap into at Creative Hope. How can we be creative with music to rewire a memory, to create new memories, to restore hope for a situation? That’s one of our driving questions. I hope we have a lot of stories to tell that can answer this question.

I actually believe that it is in alignment with the heart of God. He is creator, and called all his creation good. He is also restorer of all things good. The one who can create light in darkness. He invented music and our ability to create and respond to it. So how can we align ourselves to His story of restoration through the music we make together? 

I actually believe that one way we’re pressing into that answer is with the music book we’re creating. It’s a collection of new folksongs based on Nepali folk music. And I believe that we can start to undermine post-colonial residue and reframe power-narratives and restore confidence in identity by incorporating this book and these songs into the music classrooms that we’re a part of. 

These are big claims. I hope that in the upcoming 10-years, more about music and new outlooks will unfold and we’ll see unprecedented restoration of hope."