Rock ‘n Roll Music Therapy Workshop

Through the power of technology, the Center for Music Therapy is teaming up with Limelight Music Productions from Glasgow, Scotland to empower musicians of all abilities around the world. The Rock ‘n Roll Music Therapy Workshop is a virtual collaboration between CFMT Music Therapists and Limelight Music artists. Together, we are providing a creative space for neurodiverse musicians from our in-house band, Paradise, to produce professional projects and share them with the world.

Digital Projects

The goal of the Rock ‘n Roll Music Therapy Workshop is to use the shared love for creating music to inspire virtual human connections. Eight musicians from both Texas and Scotland collaborated for two months, creating two original works and one unique take on a traditional Gaelic song. Special feature, Stanley Jordan, has also incorporated his world-renowned guitar sounds into the digital projects. In their totality, these digital projects are the product of over a dozen people’s creativity and talents from across the United States and Scotland. All digital projects from the Rock ‘n Roll Music Therapy Workshop will be premiered at the upcoming Global Panel.

Global Release

Friday, June 25th 2021 5pm CT (US), 11pm European Standard Time

The Global Release virtually celebrated this empowering global collaboration. The event was moderated by Dr. Raymond MacDonald, Professor of Music Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. MacDonald asked questions such as the inspiration for the two tracks, difficulties with online global collaborations, and next steps for this project.

“In The Park”

Mixed and Produced by Gordon Dougall.

Lyrics written by all.

Lead Vocals- Trey Haas and Michael Dodson

Backing Vocals- Catriona Kirk and Claire Kendrick

Bass guitar and Keys- Gordon Dougall

Djembe and conga- Mark Turnbull

Acoustic Guitar- Trey Haas

Glockenspiel, Cowbell and Snare- Michael Dodson

Acoustic guitar feature- Stanley Jordan 

Music Video- Claire Kendrick and JJ Jenkins

Our title track, “In the Park”, embodies the heart of everyone involved in this project. It was especially important to incorporate as many ideas from each other as we could in the track to make it special to who we all are. In the Park is a trippy, vibe-y track centered around the idea of a walk in the park where your surroundings are not as they seem, making you question whether it is what is surrounding you that is crazy or if the madness is within yourself. It was important that the song followed a storytelling narrative. Trey was heavily inspired by songs of Robert Earl Keen, whose discography is reflective of story-telling song writing, so we took inspiration from his work for the style of the song. An early music memory for Trey is going for a drive and hearing ‘Swerving in my lane’, a Keen song that was a huge moment of inspiration for him. Michael chose the setting of the track as a favorite pastime of his is spending time in the park with his friends and family. Michael’s descriptive imagery of the parks he visits helped us to write our lyrics in the early verses of the track.  Many of the lyrics were written directly by Michael and Trey or inspired by ideas and moments that resonated with them both. Trey and Michael collaborated on much of the lyrics together however there are moments within the track that are specific to each one of them.  An example, ‘The Western saloon, shouting and noise. Am I surrounded by cowboys?’ is inspired by Trey’s love of country songs, Robert Earl Keen and a reference to his deep Texan roots. A poignant lyric for Michael, ‘The kite tangled up in the tree, a sad shade of blue.’, is a reference to a visual image and accompanying story that Michael created, and is a motif that he frequently uses in songwriting. The lyric ‘go to my happy place’ references an exercise we did early in the project to learn about everyone’s favorite places to be, as well as lyrical nods to Scotland with the mention of the loch ness monster. Michael and Trey both provided vocals and instrumentation for the track. Michael free-styled cowbell, snare, and glockenspiel and Trey provided acoustic guitar chords. Claire supported Trey and Michael and helped them to record their parts at the Center location in Austin, Texas. 

“Hurin Da”

Mixed and produced by Gordon Dougall

Vocals- Gordon Dougall, Catriona Kirk, Claire Kendrick, Michael Dodson and Trey Haas

Bass guitar and Keys – Gordon Dougall

Djembe and bass hand drum- Mark Turnbull 

Acoustic guitar- Trey Haas

Additional percussive instrumentation- Michael Dodson 

Music Video- JJ Jenkins

Our second track, Hurin Da, is a Scottish Gaelic song. Historically in Scotland, songs such as Hurin Da would be sung to entice seals to come to the water edge to be clubbed. Not a particularly nice song for seals but a beautiful song to sing and share with each other! The words in this song are nonsense Gaelic and mean nothing, they are purely soft lulls that would pique the interest of an unsuspecting seal! Limelight uses this song a lot in their teaching and workshopping as it is a song that is accessible for those who struggle to find their confidence with singing, and it is a song that really opens people up. The beauty of this song is that it has no real time signature meaning it can be adapted and changed to work with the style of whoever is singing. We began teaching this song in the group and Michael instantly gravitated to it, leading the vocals on many occasions, and singing it in his therapy sessions with Claire. There are also lyrics from Scottish lullabies and poetry within the song, working beautifully with the cannon aspect of the track.  Trey and Michael’s spoken word verses were written by themselves in our sessions online and were inspired by musical inspirations such as *NSYNC and Robert Earl Keen for Trey and they also reference places of comfort and joy, such as the beach for Michael. Trey provided acoustic guitar and Michael provided vocals, recorded and supported by Claire.