(swooshing sound ) ♪ Upbeat music ♪ - Hello and welcome to generation grid.

Our exciting new series, discussing solutions to issues impacting our community through the eyes of generation Z. I'm your host Elle Meth.

On tonight's episode, we're exploring the healing power of music and learning some of the science behind it.

We have an amazing panel joining me tonight in the studio, here is Edwina Maybin.

She's a singer and songwriter, program support, and administrator for Fen Powered a program at Youth on Record, and she released her album Contagious in 2018.

♪ Music plays ♪ - Welcome Edwina.

Thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

- Yeah, we also have Ariadne Ziade joining us.

She's an event producer, locally, and an intern with Girls Rock Denver.

She also happens to be a phenomenal guitarist for two local bands, Ipecac and Dolls in the Attic.

♪ Rock music plays ♪ - Thanks for being here Ariadne.

- Thank you for having me.

- And finally on the phone is today's expert Amy Sweetin ♪ Upbeat music ♪ and neurologic music therapist.

Nearly 10 years of experience.

Amy serves a variety of populations.

She's part of the research team at CU Denver, and she helped establish the music therapy programs at Denver Children's Home and Swallow Hill Music.

Thanks for joining us, Amy.

- Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

- And as a special bonus, let's take a closer look at the organizations today's panelists are representing and see what exactly it is they do.

- So Youth on Record started with a band called Flow Bots Flow Bots was a band that I'm still a part of that really wanted to make sure that we empowered our listeners and just singing songs about the power wasn't enough.

So we created a nonprofit organization FlowBots.org over the years, it developed into something that far surpassed our wildest dreams and became Youth on Record.

- Youth on Record was founded under this idea that music is powerful and that music can impact communities that music can motivate people to make positive changes in their communities.

Youth on Record is employing professional local musicians to go into the classroom and teach four credit high school classes.

♪ Upbeat music ♪ - It actually did feel more like a community.

I've been a part of like music programs for all the artists I work with were very helpful and a lot of the mentors were willing to help me in figuring out different lyrics.

And also just like helping me write music.

- I was kind of scared to go on my own the first time.

Then after that first time, I was kind of like, okay, this is something I can do.

Just learning how to expand on the things that I didn't really know, even how to start writing my first song and now recording it, performing it like that.

Those were all things that were really big for me.

(Cheering and applause) ♪ Upbeat singing and guitar music ♪ ♪ Funky upbeat rock music ♪ - One week long rock camp for girls and folks kind of grappling with our genders and we are trans and non-binary inclusive, and we've learned how to play instruments like bass, drums, guitar, vocals, keys, and beats making electronic music.

- It's a safe space.

And I think it's like, super, like- awesome to have just a safe place where you can be yourself all the time and you don't have to impress anybody and you can just rock out.

- We can all be trusted to engage in self-determination and to have our own visions, to actualize them, and rely on each other to create the kind of world that we want to live in.

- What fantastic organizations, Amy let's kick off the conversation with you for those of us new, to the idea of music therapy.

Can you explain what exactly it is you do?

- Yes.

So the clinical definition of music therapy is using music and the elements of rhythm to achieve functional non-musical goals.

So what that looks like in practice is that depending on who you are working with, the goal might be for somebody let's say with a- an intellectual or a developmental range of disabilities, we might be working on muscular function or different physical abilities.

And so we might be doing some musical tasks to work on those skills, but again, music therapy works for all different types of populations.

So a lot of my work has been also in the mental health realm and a lot of the goals that we have in mental health have to do with developing positive self-expression and developing emotional vocabulary and emotional awareness skills.

And so a lot of times where music therapy can come into that is using the way that music is so closely tied to our emotions and our psyche to help us learn awareness of what we feel and be able to give vocabulary to that.

So music therapy, essentially uses the elements of music to come in and work on skills that are not necessarily just musical, but something that applies to more parts of a person's life and their overall kind of quality of life and functionality.

- That's great.

That sounds like something we could all use in our life a little bit.

And are you Ariadne and Edwina, I'm curious as to whether any thoughts came up for you while she was explaining that?

Are you able to apply any of the benefits of music to mental health and healing to your experience?

- I mean, for me personally, I think it's always kind of been a way of journaling for me.

And I know journaling can be a really therapeutic practice for people.

With songwriting, it just feels like a more organized way of journaling maybe.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So is a lot of the music you write based on your feelings and experiences, then?

- Sometimes it can be, if I feel the need to sort of get that out of my system or maybe reflect on it a little bit more, it's definitely a tool where I can, kind of use it any time and however I want to.

- Absolutely.

And I'm sure it's really healing to share it with community and have it accepted - Definitely - and praised.

That's awesome.

What about you Ariadne?

- Oh.

Yeah.

I think music is very therapeutic for me.

I think I don't write lyrics, but the songwriting that goes into my guitar playing is definitely how I process most of my emotions, especially negative things.

And I think that having the community that goes along with it, like a band or other musicians, or even an audience is a really important thing too, for mental health, because it builds security and a community that might not be offered anywhere else.

- Yeah.

Absolutely.

Do you notice any changes to your guitar playing depending on what's going on in your life?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think I tend to go into different styles just depending on how I'm feeling.

I like playing a lot of faster stuff when I'm stressed or anxious and I really take time to slow down when I feel like I'm happy or trying to just think about how I am feeling.

- Love that.

Yeah.

And I like the feeling of community that you both kind of brought up.

Let's explore that a little more.

If you're open to that.

Can you tell me a little bit about the communities you found through these organizations that you're working with and how it's benefited your mental health and maybe other aspects of your health?

- Sure, should I go first again?

(laughter) - Sure - So on Fem Powered specifically, Youth on Record purposely wanted to create a group of young women to kind of create together, just because traditionally a lot of roles in the music industry have been held by male people.

And so they wanted to purposely create a space where women were kind of at the forefront and showing up and created as they wanted to in community with each other.

So with that, I think it not only allowed me to be a part of that community, but I think it also kind of built up some fire in me too, of acknowledging that that's the way that the industry still is and really feeling grateful for that awareness of it.

And then also that I have found a community that is purposely pushing against it.

- Awesome love that- girl power.

- What about you?

- Girls Rock also creates that community space for women in music.

And we create a community environment for non-binary youth, trans, anyone who wants to explore their gender identity more.

And I think that's something that's also important just like women in music, people questioning, or exploring their gender identity is something that's underrepresented in the industry.

And so creating that space where it makes you empowered and excited to share who you are and your identity is a very important part of Girls Rocks' message.

- Awesome.

And I just learned today that you're also, you were also part of Fem Powered, so it looks like that mission kept you going, you're still at it- - Definitely - How do the programs compare in that department?

Covered the same mission?

Like tell us what's a day in the life at Fem Powered and a day in the life at Girls Rock?

- Sure.

- So at Fem Powered, a lot of the workshops I first attended the lead Mona, She would find local creative women in the area and ask them to host workshops.

So I've been part of like a deejaying workshop, a drumming workshop, lyric writing workshop.

But through it, I was meeting a bunch of sort of like local music industry women, which I really appreciated because that sort of served as a really great networking opportunity as well as an educational opportunity.

So usually we kind of host a workshop that is focused on something usually music related or social justice related, but we've also done several workshops on visual arts and just kind of exploring intentions within art as well.

- Yeah.

Love it.

- Yeah - And what about a day in the life at Girls Rock?

And from an intern perspective, correct?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

At Girls rock, we do lots of hands-on learning to play instruments, experimenting with other instruments that someone might not typically play.

And then we also have workshops that focus on empowerment, songwriting, And just about anything that you could think of.

I think one year we had dressing for a rock show, so it focuses on the empowerment aspect.

I keep saying that word and just, it is important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- Awesome.

Cool.

And then Amy will take us back to you for a minute, from your perspective, how are music organizations like Youth on Record and Girls Rock Denver, helpful both to individuals and our community as a whole?

- In so many ways I would say they're very helpful.

I think, one of the things about- oftentimes the role that music plays in just kind of overall psychological and identity development is so big.

And while there is a lot of research on this topic, the amount of research on the specific role music plays in identity development is still so, so minimal.

And yet as individuals and as a society and as a culture, it's pretty clear that most of us can relate to music being very specific as parts of our development in different stages of our lives.

Right?

I mean, so many of us can identify very specific types of music and genres, or songs that are poignant to particular times in our lives.

And maybe they were just there to hold the space for certain emotions or things we were going through or learning, but they also sometimes kind of can almost track parts of how we develop and become who we are.

And so organizations like this, where they give people, especially younger people, space to be in a community where one, they feel safe, but also where they feel that the ability to just create and to explore creativity is open.

And that it's encouraged is such a key part of identity development.

It's such a key part of overall kind of psychological development and psychological health, which of course the more space that people feel that they have room to explore and figure out who they are.

So healthy, so much more healthy, will they be in the future.

And so organizations like this, honestly, they're key to our community and the fact that Girls Rock and Youth on Record have grown a lot over the last number of years that I've been working in the Denver community is really exciting.

And it's exciting to see that these organizations are seeming to become more known and more popular also amongst youth, again, because it it's something that I think once that fire is sort of built it continues right?

It's infectious and people get excited and young people get excited to join these types of communities, where again, they can share what they're learning and hopefully then take that back to their homes, their friends, their schools, et cetera.

- Love that.

Thank you, Amy.

And I'm curious, I love the idea of music being a catalyst to these other aspects of self-improvement and growth and healing.

That a lot of times we don't talk about.

So I'd love to know from your experiences with inside or outside the organizations, what are some skills that being involved in the music industry have given you besides music?

Ariandne do you want to start?

- Sure.

I think being at Girls Rock gave me a lot of organizational and management and leadership skills that have helped.

It's what has helped me become a bit of an event producer.

And I was able to put on an event at Blush and Blue last month, that was about empowering and it showcased LGBTQ and female fronted bands.

And so I don't think that's something I would have been able to do if I hadn't learned leadership and management skills through Girls Rock and being in bands and things like that.

- What about your experience makes you feel like you gained leadership skills?

- I think just being put in the position, joining Girls Rock as an intern, instead of a student really just skyrocketed my leadership because I wasn't following all of a sudden I was in a position where I had to be a leader.

Yeah.

And I think that was very helpful.

- Awesome.

What about you Edwina?

- Yeah, I think for me the word 'label' comes up and I think for a long time before I joined Youth on Record, I kind of very much just thought of myself as like musician, songwriter, vocalist, and kind of grouping these labels together.

And that was just who I was.

But Youth on Record has really sort of pushed my own understanding of my own capabilities.

I've found myself as, or like now coming off as like a facilitator.

And now I'm being asked to help brainstorm and create some of the workshops that we're teaching young women in Fem Powered.

So even to just like push my own understanding of what I think I'm capable of, I think this organization has done that in several ways.

For me.

- I love that.

Yeah.

So leadership, and we have just building self-confidence, we have community, mental health, Do either of you have a story that you can tell where music was your gateway to a new epiphany or a new experience in life?

Did you have any light bulb moments where you were like, oh, this is where I want to be.

- Do you want to go first?

- Oh you go first - Okay Actually, I, I do have a story that actually happened when I was 18.

I started writing songs when I was 13 and I was living in Philadelphia at the time.

I very much saw song writing as like something that was just like this personal journaling experience for me.

And I wasn't really going to do anything with it in the future.

And when I was 15, my family was actually relocated to Colorado.

And so with that, I joined a new high school.

I had no familiarity with anything around me anymore.

And songwriting became like this common thread between the two places for me.

And so my senior year of high school, I'm now in Colorado for like three years, I'm getting a little bit more confident.

I'm like still practicing my song writing.

And I really wanted to do something that acknowledged the time, and the effort, and the energy I'd been putting into this craft, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

And so I decided to enter a songwriting contest through Guitar Center online and through it, I actually ended up being a top five finalist from the 9,000 plus entered.

Guitar Center flew me out to LA and I had my first performance ever as a songwriter at the Troubadour in LA.

And so that's, that's a wild story, but that moment though completely changed my mind on how I, how I viewed something I really cared about and just watching myself put time and effort in, and then watching that result happen was completely mind changing and I've kept chasing it since.

- Awesome.

Yeah.

Stick into it.

I love that.

I love that.

What about you Ariadne?

- I don't have quite the experience Edwina has.

That's incredible, but I think I always knew music was going to be a part of my life.

I started when I was eight, just playing acoustic guitar here and there.

And it sort of just became this all consuming thing that took up every aspect of everything I did.

And it became my identity for a long time and it still is.

And I think just as I grow and learn about the industry and see different sides of it, like the recording side, or the producing side, event producing, I just know this is where I belong and this is what I want to do.

- Awesome.

I get goosebumps.

And then now that we've kind of reminisced and gotten the big picture of your experiences in the music industry, let's envision the future together a little bit.

So I love first, to know your individual visions for the future and how these experiences have leveraged that I learned a lot about you both even before filming today and you have so much going on in your life Ariadne, what did you say you were graduating for?

- I'm going to school for biomedical engineering.

- Awesome.

And do you feel like some of the skills you've gained with leadership helped you take that leap?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think it just gives me the confidence to go into something that I don't know anything about and something that is scary and new.

- Yeah.

What do you want to do with that?

In your dream world?

- I don't know.

That's the honest answer.

I'm figuring it out as I go.

- Yeah.

I support that.

Things change.

You never know.

Good for you for sticking to that.

What about you?

- So I actually just graduated from CU Denver with a degree in Recording Arts and a minor in Computer Science.

And I'd actually started working with Youth on Record, like my Sophomore-Junior year of college.

And so it hasn't felt like too much of a change yet too, cause I'm just continuing with them after I graduated.

But in terms of, I guess more longer term thinking, I definitely want to continue with songwriting and making my own music and releasing it.

But I'm also a part of this organization called Music Minds Matter.

They purposely are trying to create more space for conversations on mental health for musicians in the Denver area.

So being a part of that organization, as well as Youth on Record, I have this huge curiosity to just kind of keep pursuing sort of artists advocacy in the future as well.

- Awesome.

- Yeah - I love that.

And that really ties into my next question, which is what do you hope for, for the community and the world from this lens of music healing?

How do you want to contribute to the community and keep the experiences going for people?

What do you think?

- In terms of what I hope people would view in terms of healing for music?

I noticed during the beginning of quarantine, like a lot of people were just turning back to, including myself, returning to things like movies, and music, and things to kind of take our mind away from maybe the reality of what was happening.

And in a way I feel like that was almost like a cry for help in creativity, or in the realm of wanting to feel like a story was bigger than just your own experience.

And so with that, I think as we move forward and we remember the pandemic and the situations that has been happening in the last year that we remember, we turned to art in times of wanting comfort.

- Snaps to that.

Snaps to that.

What about you Ariadne?

- Yeah, I totally think everything Edwina said is incredible.

I think just having that music as an art, as a safety net and knowing that that's something that you can do, whether you're by yourself or with other people is important.

And I think just keeping the conversation going on how art and music affects mental health and how it can improve mental health is the most important thing to do.

- Yeah.

And it sounds like you both have a mission to keep things inclusive, which is great for the mental health of everyone around.

And Amy, one more question for you.

How would you like to see the healing power of music be experienced in the future?

- You know, I think in so many lives, the role of music being experienced by so many people can be seen and done in a lot of ways.

I think that is very much as to why I was drawn to the field of music therapy in the first place that it can play such a different role depending on what the need of a person is.

So I think, hopefully as awareness of not necessarily just music therapy, but also music as a therapeutic tool and as that becomes more and more kind of commonplace in our culture, I would hope that that is something that is spread throughout various communities so that, people reach out to music therapists for specific therapeutic goals, whether they're in a hospital setting, or in a mental health setting, or they're in schools, or people are just more actively experiencing or trying to experience creative arts for both positive self-expression, and kind of just positive ways to impact others within the community.

I think music has always been known as sort of this "universal language" And that is something that is very true, even though that phrase may sound a little cheesy, but there is something that's true to that.

And I would hope that that continues to grow and just be a part of kind of our community and the community at large in our world.

That there is awareness of, Hey, there's something that kind of binds us all together.

And if we're able to connect in these creative and artistic ways and share our emotions and share our experience through that, that hopefully that can be something that people find us a little bit more of a unifying element, kind of amongst diverse groups, amongst diverse peoples, et cetera.

- Great.

I can't think of a better way to end then, with that.

Time flies when you're having fun.

And as much as I would love to keep this conversation going all day, it's time to say goodbye, but before we go, I just want to thank our panelists, Ariadne and Edwina.

Thank you, Amy, for joining us as well.

And thank you all for watching tonight.

We're so excited to have a series like this one, allowing young people to speak their truth and to highlight the great work being done in our community.

You can find us here every Friday night or check us out online at pbstwelve.org ♪ upbeat music ♪