Trauma informed group singing
Perhaps the most required asset of a group singing facilitator is not their own singing skill, their capacity to harmonise, to teach parts, to multitask and motivate. Perhaps it’s their ability to hold space that sets them apart.
It’s ethically essential to hold group singing experiences within a trauma informed framework. And to maintain responsibility for safety as priority in all singing experiences.
I don’t buy the “this is a safe space” trope. It just isn’t. Pronouncing a space “safe” does not make it so. Even establishing all the foundations of safety doesn’t make a space safe, because nervous system activation can happen at any time, via triggers completely out of our control.
No space can be inherently safe. But, it CAN be safeguarded, and it definitely can (and should) be ethically led.
The brain is a musical organ. Music, voice and the nervous system are fully intertwined, and melody activates the limbic system so that emotions move. Add group singing to this scenario (which intensifies everything) and essentially the singing group becomes a conduit for opening people up.
This is vulnerable, wonderful, and potentially risky.
When facilitating any group music situation, we have a responsibility to protect participants and also to hold space for trauma activation, as well as potential repair, integration, reorientation and re-establishment of felt safety. And while music can be the catalyst for an unravelling, it can also be the source of parasympathetic soothedness. Which is part of the beauty and magic in it all!
Don’t get me wrong - unravellings are what I’m here for. I want them. For myself, and my community. When I picture an unravelling, I imagine a fine silver chain all tangled up in knots. Working away at getting a single piece of the chain dislodged is akin to the singing part (the work).
And the inch of chain that subsequently falls loose, is the unravelling. Yes, the chain is still a mess, but every loosening if meaningful. Every loosening changes the shape of the chain.
With trauma, the unravelling can feel freeing, or it can be destabilising. And this is why every group singing facilitator would ideally be trauma informed.
This means holding to the tenets of safety - the essence of transparency, mutuality, empowerment, collaboration. It means cultural responsibility, not as an ideal, but as an ongoing embodiment of decolonisation, neuro-affirming and intersectional inclusion. A rejection of the classism of western music.
And it requires a deep understanding of the ways the suppression and weaponisation of music and voice have caused deep shame and harm, even in the ones confident in their musical relationship.
Expecting that group singing will open us up is a must
Knowing how to guide and shape that opening determines the height of a responsive group singing facilitator
Sometimes getting it right and sometimes getting it wrong is to be expected
Modelling a trauma informed approach to all members of the community is important, and changes people
Letting music do it’s job is what we’re here for.
Acknowledging group singing as the therapeutic experience it is does not need to be scary. We are inherently designed to seek connection, to hold space, to edge our way towards safety.
Let the trauma informed necessity draw you deeper into your calling to facilitate group singing. The world needs more of it.
