CAMHS Songwriting Session

Sometimes visiting Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services can be quite a quiet workshop. A lot depends on who is on the ward and how people are feeling. However last week was a pretty loud and creative songwriting session for a number of reasons.

As I arrived there was a guy playing guitar, someone else on the computer and someone writing at a desk. As I set up it turned out that the person playing guitar was up for doing some music with me. Also the person on the computer is really into computer based music and brought over some equipment he had been using. Once we had a bit of a jam going the guy who had been writing came over to join. It turns out that we was writing some poetry.

Quite quickly, with his blessing, we started working on putting his poetry to music. Everyone participated in their own way including another patient who was providing us with rhythm.

By the end of the session we were performing a brilliant song that had been written in collaboration with 4 patients in the unit who were all continuing to do what they had being doing separately, but joined together for the purpose of writing a song.

At the end of it there was much enthusiasm and the whole place felt quite vibrant.

Sometimes it all comes together!