Award-winning family music project Mil’s Trills releases their fourth album, Let It Out!, in an urgent effort to combat stress and anxiety among youth suffering from damaging long-term mental health effects of the pandemic. The album offers children of all ages and their families original songs that include coping mechanisms to help identify, accept, and process difficult emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear. The album is accompanied by a social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum called Messy Music set to launch later this fall.
According to a recent article in The New York Times, a growing number of children under 13 are seeking emergency care for urgent mental health problems.¹ COVID-19 has transformed this issue into a true crisis with 40% of youth reporting psychological problems following the pandemic.² With Let It Out!, Mil’s Trills challenges the youth mental health crisis by engaging children in creative activities - a recommendation advocated by The World Health Organization Department of Mental Health and Substance Use who says such activities help facilitate the process of expressing and relieving fear and sadness.³Let It Out! is a collection of fifteen disco-inspired grooves, mantras, affirmations, and coping mechanisms written by Amelia “Mil” Robinson in collaboration with family musician peers primarily from the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community including Uncle Jumbo - a continuing collaboration following the duo’s hit single, Put Your Mask On - Divinity Roxx (Beyonce), Kymberly Stewart, Pierce Freelon, Uncle Devin of WEE Nation Radio and Lindz Amer of Queer Kid Stuff. It also features a number of children, including Robinson’s students, one of whom wrote the bonus poem title track “Let It Out.”
I had a chance to learn more in this interview.
How can music be so beneficial for mental health?
We are born with the innate ability to respond to rhythm and melody. It helps us process and flow through emotions by moving our bodies. Lyrics offer opportunities to connect with another person’s thoughts, and explore and define our own values. Plus, music feels good!
COVID-19 has transformed children’s mental health issues into a true crisis. According to a recent article in The New York Times, a growing number of children under 13 are seeking emergency care for urgent mental health problems,¹ and 40% of youth reporting psychological problems following the pandemic.² with The World Health Organization Department of Mental Health and Substance Use says creative activities help facilitate the process of expressing and relieving fear and sadness.³
Why is it important for kids to have tools that can help them process challenging experiences?
Everyone is different. Yet we often have a systemic way to deal with children. A one-size-fits all solution. It just doesn’t work that way. Every child has their own experience. What works for one child, doesn’t for another. What is challenging to one, may not be challenging to another.
My new LET IT OUT! album provides tools that are responsive to children’s social emotional needs. It does so through culturally-affirming messages that recognize the history and circumstances each child brings with them.
LET IT OUT! is part of a social emotional learning curriculum I developed and will be launching later this fall called Messy Music. The researched-based Messy Music curriculum prioritizes process over productivity. Our society prioritizes and rewards productivity, but productivity often does not offer room for emotions. Songs can be enjoyed and used by anyone in everyday life, and by educators with the lessons provided in Messy Music. For example, feeling angry? “Punch A Pillow”! Feeling frazzled? “Come Back to the Breath”!
Can you share a little bit about the SEL activities that will be launching later this fall?
My work as a teaching artist has enabled me to develop a curriculum and approach called Messy Music. Messy Music helps kids identify, accept, and process emotions in positive and affirming ways. It includes lesson plans, activities, and tools to support educators working with youth in 2nd-5th grades.
The curriculum embraces mistakes, feelings, thoughts, opinions - the process over product value I mentioned before. As I like to say, “Life is messy, so let’s teach it that way!”
For example, each of the fifteen songs on my LET IT OUT! album is paired with a respective lesson plan for teachers, school counselors, and music therapists to use as a tool to normalize & validate emotions in learning environments. The lessons build trust in self & others, increase confidence, build empathy, raise consciousness, and offer autonomy in learning.
In a recent Messy Music workshop, 9 out of 10 participants ages 7-11 said they felt an increase in empathy, confidence, self-awareness, cooperation, and a willingness to listen to new ideas. All participants reported an increase in creativity.
Messy Music is different from other SEL programs because it is informed and inspired by researcher, neuroscientist and author Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Messy Music also understands that innate bias is at the root of the way we see and interact with the world. It works to re-frame narratives that are more inclusive of others and forgiving of ourselves. The LET IT OUT album embraces inclusivity with a diverse cast of collaborators that allow children to see themselves reflected in the music.
Find LET IT OUT on your favorite streaming service, or for download on my website, www.milstrills.com. Watch a music video for Disco Rain, the album’s first single, at bit.ly/discorainvid.
To learn more about Messy Music visit messymusicmethod.com
An album release event is planned for Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 1pm at the Brooklyn Public Library at 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11238. All ages welcome. For more information visit the event page.
No comments:
Post a Comment