Ruth was a third year student who had transferred from a community college in another state. She struggled with self-image that she traced back to feelings of rejection as a child. She often compared herself to other students in the program and felt herself lacking in knowledge and ability. The personal aspects of her life that Ruth shared with me were troubling. As she discussed her background story, she made sense of her experience and how she made meaning through the songwriting process.
Musical Background
Ruth sang and created songs from when she was very young. Her earliest recollections regarding songwriting were of creating songs with her brother as they played on their farm. The songs were improvised and associated with their play and with what they were currently involved in and singing at church. Music was a central part of her family life and she and her family were part of a church where music played an active role in the worship services, in Sunday school, and in vacation Bible school. Her father liked to listen to classical music on the radio especially when he was working in the yard. He had sung in a glee choir in high school and loved singing. As a family they sang together and she fondly recounted her father regularly leading them in singing folk songs around a campfire; songs like “Kookabuura” and “Froggy Went a Courtin’.”
Her mother loved music, played accordion, and encouraged all the children to go forward in music (Interview, September 21, 2012). But, the household financial situation was not strong and they felt they could not afford lessons. Ruth felt that this was a
frustration for her mother. A turning point in her story came when her older brother’s girlfriend began giving Ruth free piano lessons at age nine. The piano lessons she had taken were valuable to her in developing her songwriting approach:
But I mean after I was 10 and I'd had piano lessons and I was actually writing on piano, prior to that I was just doing melody in my mind, in my head, and using a tape recorder to put that stuff together, because I didn't see myself as able to play piano. Even though I'd tinkered around on it. So, but now, if you'd ask my mom she'd go, "Gosh! She's been playin' since she was three!" (Interview, September 21, 2012).
Rejection and Comparison as Themes in Ruth’s Life
Because she and her next older brother were separated from the four older siblings by 10 years Ruth regarded her family as two separate families. Her mother homeschooled the children and worked the farm and her father worked as a nurse. Being the youngest, she said her hopes of being a “daddy’s girl” (Interview, December 2, 2012) were never realized because he was not around as she felt he had been for her older sisters. She suggested that her father’s lack of interest in her was very significant in her development. She claimed that he had missed all of the important stages and moments of her young life. Her perception of being overlooked by her father and her comparison with her older peers carried into her teen years when she started acting out her emotional pain by cutting herself. Cutting, which is a form of non-suicidal self-injury (Nock, 2010, p. 341), became an addictive behavior for Ruth in reaction to loneliness and rejection and as an act of control over her life. Her homeschooling experience allowed her extended private time when she was able to carry out her cutting in secret. She claimed that she was able to hide her cutting from her family and friends. Songwriting was important to
Ruth in helping her to cope with her feelings and in giving her an alternative to her cutting behavior.
Rejection and comparison were themes for Ruth throughout the semester and her feelings of comparison and rejection were played out during the semester in the
songwriting survey class. She described her feelings toward her father, which provided material for a song during the semester, during her first interview. She recounted that she had felt her father had ignored her in her early years. She said that when he tried to establish a relationship with her when she was in high school instead of welcoming his interest she resisted him. She reacted in a way that that was self-affirming and
controlling. She felt empowered by rejecting her father’s attention in the same way that she felt he had rejected her up to that point. She said:
R: He was a nurse and he did crazy shifts. Um, and then in high school he started having more normal hours and really tried to get to know me more and put effort into it. But that, at that point I just totally blew him off.
I: Hmm.
R: And I was like, no you've total, you missed your chance. I am not doin' this. Um, and just really bitter (Interview, September 21, 2012).
She went on to explain with a very even toned voice how her bitterness toward her father had been pent up over years:
Yeah! Um... Yeah, 'cause I thought to myself, “Well, if I wasn't worth his time at the beginning then I, I'm not going to put myself out there again just for it to happen again [getting emotional], y'know” (Interview, September 21, 2012)?
Rejection turned into song.
There were other factors in Ruth’s background that she felt contributed to her feelings of rejection and loneliness. In Ruth’s transition from junior high to high school, two girls from her homeschool group with whom she had developed close ties went on to public high school while she remained homeschooled. They avoided her, did not return calls, and made fun of her. She felt a strong sense of rejection from the two and explained that her feelings at the time were heightened by the seclusion she felt from her friends and from her older siblings who had moved on to college and were no longer at home. She experienced a deep lonesomeness and went into depression as a result of the seclusion. She explained that one of the ways that she had reacted was negatively by cutting herself. But she also responded by expressing her feelings of loneliness and rejection in a song. Ruth lived in a rural area and during times of struggle she would go outside to experience the night sky and the beauty of her natural surrounding. She related the context from which she drew her song:
I remember being on the old steps to our old pool. The pool wasn't there actually anymore it was just the old steps. And, uh, it was about to storm. It was real windy and the skies were grey and churning. It was pretty magnificent actually. And, um, [getting more excited] it was like a perfect depiction of how I felt my life was at the moment. Just really gray and stormy out but I felt like the
floodgates were gonna open. And I was just crying out to God on the stairs, like, "God! Where are you?!" [emotional]. And, um, man I felt so much peace.. just in an instant and I don't, it doesn't make sense; not at all. And, um, I really felt like the Lord was saying, "I'm here and I am a friend when there is no other"
(Interview, September 21, 2012).
She wrote her feelings into a song that night in response to her experience. She explained how expressing herself in song was similar to the act of release and control she
experienced in her cutting:
I felt kind of abandoned at the point and I hadn't, there were some other things going on in my family too where I just felt really alone. [getting emotional] And, um, I got into cutting which is, uh, a self-harm. And I would, uh, like scratch myself or take screws and [scratches her arm] until I bled and, um, and so it was a big release. And in that same way writing lyrics, or, um, writing just even musical stuff [beginning to cry] was a way that I could have some kind of control or something because I couldn't control anything else that was going on in my life (Interview, September 21, 2012).
She described the empowerment that she felt songwriting gave her was in being able to express her feelings in her own way. She was reticent and unwilling to sing the song to me that she had created in that very private moment at the pool. She described her sense of control over her songs:
Yeah. I don't know how else to say it. Like a feeling I had some sort of
empowerment or control over like how a melody went about, or how, what words I chose to say. And I wasn't going to share it with anyone else because they would try to fix it or they would try to change it, and, um... I was just done with...
[building in emotion again} uh, I felt like no one wanted to invest time into me, so I didn't want to share my heart with anyone else either. So...I kind of buried myself in that (Interview, September 21, 2012).
The subject of her relationship with her father became a theme during one of praxis exercises. She recounted:
Yeah! Um... Yeah, 'cause I thought to myself, “Well, if I wasn't worth his time at the beginning then I, I'm not going to put myself out there again just for it to happen again” [getting emotional]. Y'know? Um, and then I went to, I did an internship down in Texas. I don't know if you ever heard of Teen Mania. But, um, I was part of that internship (Interview, December 2, 2012).
Ruth went through a transition in an internship in a different state that helped her to deal with her anger and bitterness. When she returned home she met with her father
and they talked about the distance between them but she also wanted to tell him she was willing to try and reestablish their relationship. The interview dialogue continued:
R: I was, I had gotten my angst and anger out and I really believe I gave it to God and I was like, I'm done with this and I just want him to know why. I wanted him to understand, I wanted him to understand, but I wanted him to know that I wanted to try, um, yeah. 'Cause growing up I always wanted to BE a daddy's girl, y'know?
I: Do you feel like he violated your trust?
R: Growing up? Yeah, well, hmmm. I think that would be more attributed to my mom, actually. Um, he, he was, spent a lot of time with one of my older sisters and that was kind of his, it felt like that was his girl.
I: So fav’, kind of, playing favorites.
R: Yeah, and I was just like, “I'm done.” So, I went into the conversation and I was like, “OK, huh, dad!” [chuckles] And I told him, I was like, “I feel like this happened when I was growing up.” And, um, kinda did that whole, “I feel like you thought,” Y'know [chuckles].
I: Hmmm.
R: And it was a difficult conversation to have with, y'know, a fifty-five-year-old [laughs]. And it was difficult for him to hear too. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have your daughter talk to you.
She continued:
R: …it's, it's a bit of a kind of a strange dynamic. So I goes in and, um, we both ended up crying by the end of it. Hum! Um, 'cause he's a real tender kinda guy. He's just really precious. [whispers] Ah, I just love my dad. Anyways! Um, and uh, I was like, "I'm sorry for my part because I was just really angry." [getting emotional] And I was like, "Dad, I'm so sorry that I pushed you away for years, for like five years!" [chuckles] I just wouldn't have conversations with him. He'd, like, try to get to know me and get to know my life. "What are you doin'?" Things
like this. And I was like this, "Stop bein' a nosey!" [chuckles] (December 2, 2012).
They connected on an emotional level and set out some groundwork for how they would respond to each other in an effort to be actively involved with one another. Ruth moved back to the state where she did her internship but they talked by phone regularly.
At the time of this study Ruth’s relationship with her father was on good terms. In her journal that week she described the meaning of giving voice to her feelings for her father in her song idea during the praxis exercise:
Well, we had praxis today my heart rate jumped to stupid and I began to write. I chose for my moment, safety. The relationship I chose was between father and daughter and I was trying to depict the safety that I know I feel when he gives me a hug. Now that I think about it, I completely missed the dichotomy part of this praxis. You asked me what the context of this song idea was, it was spurred from a thought I had yesterday. I was talking to Jaylin, telling her that I just wanted my dad to give me a hug. My relationship with my dad within these last three years or so has grown a lot. Growing up he was at work a lot and I though I really wanted to be a daddy's girl he wasn't available to do that. Then in high school he tried to make time for me but I was really bitter and didn't want to have anything to do with him. A few years ago, I came to terms about both of our mistakes. I had a long conversation with him, it was around Christmas time, it was a really difficult conversation but by the end it had laid a foundation we could build off of. Now, I LOVE my dad and absolutely feel the most, humanly possible comfort when he holds me. Yesterday was a really bad day and I just wanted to be home in his arms (Journal, November 8, 2012).
The song idea she wrote was centered in the metaphor of a blanket likened to the safety and comfort of her father’s hug. The larger idea drawn from her story was
acceptance and love she had recently received from her father. She indicated that her intended audience was fathers and young adult daughters. She sang her excerpt in a brash bluesy voice that seemed to demand everyone’s attention. After class one of her peers
said that he would buy the song at iTunes when she recorded it.
She wrote the scale degrees above the words to help her sing back her melody. Her worksheet showed how she had organized her thoughts around her moment, her audience, and the metaphor (Figure 2).
The lyric she sang during her presentation drew from her narrative. In her journal entry for that week she revealed she had been crying before class and had scratched out the words: “my eyes are stinging.” In her chorus it seemed as though she had returned to her younger self as she questioned her father and whether he had time to come and get her. She used tone painting as shown in Figure 2 in the first line as it descends from b on “bad” to g on “day.” The lyrics that followed expressed her desperation and longing: “Got stuck in this stupid rain/I’ve been drenched too long and I’m ready to come home.” Her opening line was set in a descending triad. The chorus was set musically with a cry starting on the upper tonic and descending to the dominant in a sighing-like figure. The chorus seems to echo from that difficulty time in her life when she questioned whether her father had time for her:
Verse
5 5 3 5 3-1 I’ve had a bad day 5 5 5 3 5 5 6 Got stuck in this stupid rain 3 3 2 2 1 1 I’m drenched from head to toe 1 1 3 5 5 3 5
And I’m ready to go home Chorus
8 7 6 5 6 7 6 5 Daddy, would you come and get me 8 7 6 6 6 5 6 5 Wrap me up, God knows I’m ready 8 7 6 5 6 7 6 5
Daddy do you have a minute
1 4 3 2-1 1 4 5 2 1 1
The Value of Songwriting and the Songwriting Survey for Ruth The Value of Expression
Ruth felt songwriting had value as personal expression and not simply for the end resultant song. She said that she had written songs since she was very young because of the restorative value that songwriting had for her personally:
There is, um, in the inspiration part of it, I guess, huh, when I sit down to write I know regardless of if it makes it big or it's a popular song or if other people like it or not; there's just value in sitting down and writing because it's, [getting
emotional] it's like healing to your soul (Interview, September 21, 2012). Later, in an effort to see whether there was any development over time in how Ruth felt regarding songwriting, in her second interview I asked during her how she felt about songwriting. She responded excitedly:
I love songwriting! [chuckling] Sometimes I hate it. I guess of recent it's been just a whole renewal of that love for it because, um, I'm going through some issues right now with... life, in general. And, um, it's just one of those ways I am able to express myself well and...[takes breath] it doesn't, it doesn't matter if it's a good song or not it's just able to get it out (Interview, October 24, 2012).
In a praxis where students were to create lyric content, Ruth drew on her own personal context. She used the analogy of the life as the sea with God as her rescuer. I brought it to her attention that she had written about this back at the pool in her yard in junior high. She responded saying, “My life is a repeating theme [laughs]” (Interview, October 24, 2012).
At the end of the semester Ruth affirmed her feelings regarding songwriting saying, “…songwriting has always been really special to me, um, in the way that it's, I, I think it's a unique way that I can express myself” (Interview, December 2, 2012). She
made it clear that she would continue songwriting. She remarked, “I'm not going to stop writing 'cause it's been a part of my life forever. Hm hm [chuckle]. Um, [soft voice] I hope I can minister to people with it” (Interview, December 2, 2012).
Self-Awareness and Self-Growth
Ruth projected the growth she hoped to attain through the presentation portion of the praxes. She struggled to explain her presentation anxiety in her first interview:
Um, so that, and um... during the class as we're going on throughout the semester I would like to [big sigh] be more comfortable in, [forcing a response] in sharing with the rest of the class. But I don't know if that is something the class is going to teach me other than having to just do it. [chuckle] Or, if it's something more on a personal thing that God is going to teach me and change my heart in this, um, and to being confident and y'know called to this (Interview, September 21, 2012). Her presentation anxiety was due to her struggle with self-acceptance and her own self-value. She had heard a sermon by the pastor at the church where she played keyboard for worship that made her think about her own self-valuation. She explained, “How it came across to me was that we don't have to be any certain way for God to love us; like