Module Two - Task 4B - A Very Special Interest

Today, in my Music class, I wanted to get the classes to listen and to think and discuss how they feel, because it’s a skill that children find so hard to grasp most of the time. 

I decided to make them listen to 5 different songs, all different and all with different moods. I picked one particular song that had inspired me before. The song is called ‘Any Other Name’ by Thomas Newman and when I have listened to it before I have felt so many emotions stir up inside me. I’ve felt sad, heartbroken, calm, uplifted and happy all at the same time and it’s probably been the only song that’s been able to do this for me before. So I thought I would include this song as well as the others to see the response it would have. I deliberately put this song after the Mission Impossible theme tune, to see the affect of the difference directly after an upbeat song. 

I was amazed by the reaction of one boy who suffers from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.) and ODD (Obsessive Defiance Disorder.) I played this song and I automatically saw his whole body language change. He became quite. And still. It was amazing how much he had connected with a song and for once wanted to be still and quiet. A complete change of character. I asked him, ‘do you like this song?’ All he did was nod. It was enough.

Later on a girl from Year One told me the song reminded her of ‘flowers opening in spring,’ with another later on saying that it had reminded him of his ‘Grandma, who had recently died.’

All from just one song.

I discussed this this evening with Jess and Eleanor on the course within our new ‘Special Interest’ Facebook group. Jess thought it was amazing that this boy had enjoyed it so much and seeing as Jess is considering mental health as her topic, I thought it was useful to share this experience with her, because a good number of children within my school have some form of Special Educational Need. Jess and Eleanor are still searching for the topic question to reflect upon and in a way this probably takes time to establish, because you firstly have to explore to find a certain direction. Jess was talking before in her own blogs about asking the wrong questions in order to ask the right ones but now I’m asking, is there such thing as a right or wrong question? Is it more a case that every question must be answered in order to establish which one is simply more helpful?!

I have also recently been contacted by my old Drama School friend, Arthur, who heard recently that I, myself, had been suffering with the state of my own mental health recently. The things he told me were astonishing. Not only did he want to see how I was, but he also wanted to tell me that he had been thinking about me recently. He told me that whilst undertaking a Meisner workshop, it had completely changed his life. And even though we were at Drama School together for two years, he felt as though he had finally, truly understood. He told me the most flattering of things, about how real I was when I was acting and telling me that he had thought of me at times when portraying truth. He admitted to me that when we were at Drama School, he always felt as if the teachers there never truly let me be who I was and that they were too busy trying to make me into something else, they were missing the raw emotion that I had to offer the whole time. 

I was amazed. This was because I had felt exactly the same way since leaving Drama School. I had always wished that they had honed in on the real ‘me’, instead of trying to perfect my natural speaking voice, or to make me more elegant in my movements. I had always felt that what I had to offer wasn’t actually good enough. And at last, someone told me exactly what I had been thinking. For once, someone else has finally seen this.

As a result of Arthur’s encouragement, I have decided to attend a workshop next Wednesday to see what it’s all about. Arthur keeps mentioning words such as ‘truth’ and ‘real’ and I can’t help but feel intrigued. I have always been an advocate for the truth in both myself and other people and I think this is why I love working with children and that this is why I am doing what I am doing. There is beauty in truth.

Below is my favourite song, ‘Any Other Name.’ 

To me, it is beautifully tragic and tragically beautiful.

This, however, is for you to experience your own feelings... whatever they may be.