Here’s a short, easy little therapeutic activity involving music and using it to navigate a little through grief. Music is a wonderful expression of art that is important to most human beings. Besides self expression, we use music to relax and comfort us in many ways. Music helps us connect with emotions, memories and often, people themselves. It can provide a tremendous space for communication so that we can deliver messages directly to the listener. You don’t always need lyrics to do this either. Sometimes, just the way the melody is constructed can tell us whether or not a song is sad or happy or angry.
There are so many genres that almost every person can connect with music in some way. And when you’re going through an emotion like grief, music can be especially soothing and comforting to our broken hearts and souls.
But…
What if all the music you used to listen to before the loss happened no longer resonates with you? Music is so powerful in the way that it holds emotions and memories. So, for example, you might cherish a song because the first time you ever listened to it was the night your late spouse proposed to you. But now that your spouse is gone, that song no longer makes you think of just that wonderful memory. You now feel the loss on top of it, which may block out a lot of the warmth you used to have for the song. And this feeling can be so sharp, like a knife twisting into your heart, that you find yourself immediately switching it off.
I knew someone in grief support group once who had to completely switch music genres after her husband died suddenly in a motorcycle accident. I think that she went from something like rock and country music and switched over to gangsta rap. She said it was the only music that didn’t remind her of him in some way. She couldn’t bear to listen to anything from before and found a new comfort in listening to only rap music.
I had a similar experience but not quite as sudden. Mine was much more gradual because my husband died slowly over a period of eight years. Before, I had listened to more R&B, pop and some rock. But at some point, maybe 2-4 years after his cancer diagnosis, I started hating all that stuff. For one thing, a lot of it just felt too upbeat. I did not feel anything remotely like upbeat. I also found that I didn’t want to hear anything with someone singing at all. I didn’t want to hear lyrics. Words made me think too much, no matter what they were about. I did not want to think. Thinking at that time brought me too much misery over our reality.
So for awhile, I didn’t listen to anything. I ignored music for a very long time because most of it made me feel bad. Then, I heard some classical music somewhere, I don’t remember when or where, and it hit someplace inside of me that made me feel totally comforted. So, I began listening to more and more classical music. The complete focus on the instruments and lack of lyrics was what I needed in that moment. That’s all I wanted to listen to.
After my husband died, I continued to find comfort in classical music. It had already been providing that for me during anticipatory grief so I thought of it almost as a friend. I eventually began to be a tiny bit okay again with lyrics but only in jazz music, especially blues types of jazz. I wound up taking a History of Jazz class as an elective when I was finishing my Art History degree and began to find comfort in Bossa Nova styles of jazz. So to this day, I still only listen to classical and jazz. All because of grief and its effect on me. I have tried to listen to other types of music again, even some of the songs I used to listen to. A few I can listen through once or twice and even be okay with it. But after that, something in me just goes completely dead and I find myself switching it off again.
There are two songs I will never be okay with hearing again. One is the special song that my late husband and I had chosen as “Our Song”. I have not listened to it even once since he died. And as of writing this, I still feel absolutely sure that I will never be able to listen to it again.
The other song is Knee Deep by George Clinton. On the night that I found out my mother had died, I was watching that movie, Good Burger, and this song was playing in the scene where they are dancing in the asylum. I had been watching the movie before I found out about Mom and I clearly remember how I was thinking to myself, “hey, Mom found this scene funny when my brother wanted her to watch that movie. And she likes that song. I should call her tomorrow and tell her I was watching it.” A couple of hours after that, my brother and my sister-in-law were knocking on my door to tell me Mom had been found alone in her apartment and had passed away.
So, now, I never want to hear that song or even see that movie ever again. To me, these are clear examples of how songs hold memories, sometimes very painful ones.
Purpose
If you have experienced change in your music tastes due to grief, the following little music activity should show you that change and also what might help you to listen to now. But this won’t happen to everyone. Maybe this activity will show you that what’s soothing to you now is the same music from before. Some people like the past memories because they can feel like a friend or at least, something familiar during turmoil. Others can’t bear these memories. Let’s find out which one you are.
What You Need
- Headphones/Earbuds
- YouTube (or your choice for music searching)
- Solitude
- Relaxing Chair
Instructions
In this activity, you are going to choose three songs. If you need to do a lot of searching for these songs, that’s good. Check out every style, especially ones you’re not familar with. You never know what might strike you in a good way. Listen very carefully to songs and make note of how you feel during them. Each song is going to tell you and anyone else that you’d like to share this with about you, your feelings and the moment in time that makes you connect with that particular song.
The first song:
Choose a song that represents you “Before Grief”. Focus on what life was like before loss came and touched your existence so profoundly. You can choose an actual song from that particular time period. You could also choose one from another time or from a movie or even one that’s popular right now. What’s important is that the melody or lyrics or something about it, overall, represents how you were feeling and what kind of person you were before grief happened.
If you have a journal, this would be a good time to write down what it is about that song that recreates how you felt and what life was like for you before. If you don’t have a journal, just writing it on a piece of paper or typing it in your computer or in the comment box below would work, too.
The second song:
This song is going to be the one that represents what you and life itself became after grief occured. What song captures the feelings and the situation you were or are in after loss? Just like the first song, it can be from that time period (for example, a song that was popular then), or it could be something else entirely. Whatever it is, when you hear it, it embodies the emotions of what grief felt like to you.
The third song:
There are two ways you can choose your last song:
- Choose a song that you find most comforting right now.
- Choose a song that represents how you would like to feel in the future.
If you haven’t paid much attention to music since your loss occurred, this last choice of song should help you find music that helps you relax and ease a little anxiety. Or you may already know exactly what music helps you do this same thing. Either way, becoming aware of what you’re listening to and how it effects you can really be helpful. It will cause you seek out more of that kind of music and you can put together some playlists so that you can consciously try to comfort yourself with the use of sound.
The second choice above on finding a song for how you would like to feel in the future may or may not be a comfortable approach. If you feel like choosing a song this way dismisses your grief rather than validates it, then I’d recommend the first choice. I personally have trouble thinking about future anything because I still sometimes feel so lost, especially when it concerns my family dreams. But I have found that some people would rather channel the grief into something that is not dealing with the present moment. So, that’s why I have included it as an option here.
My Result
As always, I like to do these activities alongside you so that you can get ideas of your own. Plus, this helps me a lot, too.
My first song:
Lovely Day (Bill Withers)
I chose this song because when my husband was still alive, he used that Pandora app on his computer or our television. And this song often played on the channel he chose. There were many others but I felt like this one just captures how I felt during that time. It was very difficult trying to maintain some sense of family while cancer hovered in the background. But we always had so much hope that things would turn out okay because we had each other. And the upbeat tune plus the lyrics in this song remind me of that. Particularly this part:
When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way
Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day
Here’s a link to Lovely Day if you care to listen.
Sometimes, I still listen to this song just because of those memories. I feel the hope in that situation even though the current me knows how it ends. You’d think that I’d run away from this song but for some reason, I don’t mind hearing it every once in awhile. And see, this is how you can never tell how grief is going to affect you.
My second song:
Swan Theme by Tchaikovsky
Some people might think this tune is a bit cliche…but as a lover of classical music, especially once grief began to really set in, no song matches what I was feeling better than the Swan Theme in the ballet, Swan Lake. The somber, dreary intense melody of this music is utterly fitting of how I felt in November 2016, when I lost my husband forever. The lack of lyrics is also spot on as there are no words for this grief.
Swan Lake is a love story that ends in doom so I think it’s especially appropriate for spousal loss.
A lot of people, even those who aren’t classical music or ballet fans, usually know this tune because it’s used so much in other things. But here’s a couple of links if you’d like to listen. If you do listen, tell me if you also think that it is fitting to the emotion of grief.
Swan Theme with ballet dancers
My third song:
Azure (originally by Duke Ellington but one of the newer versions by Gretchen Parlato is quite lovely)
This is the song that currently fits where I am in my journey. Something quiet, delicate, and possibly pleasing, though some uncertainty definitely lies there.
Here are the lyrics:
Drifting, dreaming
In an azure mood
Stardust gleaming
Through my solitude
Here in my seclusion
You’re a blue illusion
While I’m in this azure interlude
I’m not wanted
I’m so all alone
Always haunted
By the dreams I own
But though I’m tormented
I must be contented
Drifting, dreaming
In an azure mood
This just describes how I feel perfectly. Like I’m in a space that has some positives but I am always haunted by dreams and illusions. And unfortunately, I must figure out how to get used to the torment. So, I get a whole lot of comfort out of this song because it validates many feelings within me. Here’s a link to Azure performed by Gretchen Parlato, if you’d enjoy hearing it.
Now, It’s Your Turn
If you’d like to try out this musical activity, I’d love to hear what songs you ended up choosing and why. Everyone’s journey is always so completely different and each and every one can provide us with insights and comfort. One really great part about sharing with each other through this activity is the possibility of finding new music. As I’ve mentioned above, music delivers messages and allows us to connect with emotions. And music holds memories, so let’s create a new memory here by letting me and others know what songs spoke to you.
As always, supportive comments for everyone only. And take care!