Music & Healing: Lullaby Project with Any Baby Can
ACG Music & Healing brings human connection, beauty, and expressivity to individuals facing isolation and challenge, through collaboration with a skilled and trained ACG Artist. These services are available to a wide variety of clients through partnerships with more than a dozen social service providers including hospitals, shelters, residential rehabilitation facilities, parental education and family health organizations, and veterans service providers. Learn more about ACG Music & Healing.
At ACG, we believe in the transformative power of music. Since 2014, we’ve worked with young parents in challenging circumstances to help them write personal songs for their children. To do this, we have partnered with several incredible community organizations, including Any Baby Can.
To help illuminate the power of this work, and our partnership, we’re really pleased to share the reflection below from Any Baby Can Program Supervisor, Kathryn Austin.
At Any Baby Can, we provide services for low income families that have children at risk of developing a developmental disorder or experiencing the impacts of chronic stress and poverty. We are so grateful for the Lullaby Project for helping our moms find the comfort and joy of raising a baby amidst so many societal barriers and stressors. This program empowers parents through the gift of creativity. Many moms walk into the session not feeling confident about their own ability to write a song or even express themselves creatively at all! However, each artist prioritizes helping the mom feel comfortable and interpreting their words and stories into such meaningful songs. More often than not, the moms leave the experience so surprised at what they have been able to create with the artist who “interprets” their love into something tangible that they can take home. It is through this partnership that moms grow in their confidence of themselves as parents and also in their skill sets to nurture and bond with their babies. The lullaby comforts and calms the infants, but also reflects back to the parents their own strength, creativity, and ability as a parent. Many of our moms become parents unexpectedly and experience a lot of stress around not feeling ready or knowledgeable about how to parent a newborn. The lullaby acts also as a tool for parents lost in the overwhelm of how to comfort their baby! They can always use this special lullaby that brings mom and baby back together when they are feeling disconnected.
It has been so important for our families to experience these fleeting moments of calm and joy in the hectic process of becoming a parent to a new baby. Seeing moms leave their session with their artist feeling relaxed and so in love with their baby demonstrates this program has a deep impact on families and deserves to be supported financially and promoted nationally. Thank you for your consideration in funding this important project!
Kathryn Austin, M.Ed., LPC-S, NCC
Program Supervisor- No Estás Solo Counseling Program
Any Baby Can
Listen to a recent lullaby from this project, Love Will Live In You by Sydney with Daniel here.
Music & Healing: Water Child by Crea with Arnold Yzaguirre
ACG Music & Healing brings human connection, beauty, and expressivity to individuals facing isolation and challenge, through collaboration with a skilled and trained ACG Artist. These services are available to a wide variety of clients through partnerships with more than a dozen social service providers including hospitals, shelters, residential rehabilitation facilities, parental education and family health organizations, and veterans service providers. Learn more about ACG Music & Healing.
Since 2014 we have partnered with Carnegie Hall to create the Lullaby Project, a collaboration through which our Music & Healing artists are paired with a mom (mostly), in a shelter, hospital, prison, or with a social service partner, to write a personal song for her child or children.
The artist and mom spend hours together, usually over the course of about a month, talking and writing about hopes, dreams, and fears. The resulting ideas are distilled into lyrics, and the song is made.
My experience with the Lullaby Project was both exciting and intimidating. I'd been a musician my whole life up until my pregnancy really, so while Im not unfamiliar with the song writing process, its not something I'd ever been able to see through to the end. Writing and recording the music then the vocals all in one shot was definitely a big deal! But working with Arnold felt so seamlessly easy. He was encouraging every step of the way. It never dawned on me that making original music could feel that easy, and when we were done I still felt on some level that I couldn't say I had written a song (blame the perfectionism in me). He heard me express that and said, "all music is is a few chords and a feeling. You had the feeling, you wrote the words, found a melody, and thats what every song is." Now, months later, I've been singing more around my house, playing my piano again, and generally feeling more creative when before I was too nervous to try being musical again. -
I do want you to know as the manager in charge, this is an amazing program. What you all do is wonderful and I'm so grateful I got the chance to experience it and make something for my child that has absolutely no shelf life.
Cha-Cha real smooth,
Crea
Water Child was made by Crea with Arnold Yzaguirre as part of the Lullaby Project. Vocals by Crea. Listen below:
https://youtu.be/E9clhIt6RRY
Music & Healing: Love Will Live In You by Sydney with Daniel Fears
ACG Music & Healing brings human connection, beauty, and expressivity to individuals facing isolation and challenge, through collaboration with a skilled and trained ACG Artist. These services are available to a wide variety of clients through partnerships with more than a dozen social service providers including hospitals, shelters, residential rehabilitation facilities, parental education and family health organizations, and veterans service providers. Learn more about ACG Music & Healing.
Since 2014 we have partnered with Carnegie Hall to create the Lullaby Project, a collaboration through which our Music & Healing artists are paired with a mom (mostly), in a shelter, hospital, prison, or with a social service partner, to write a personal song for her child or children.
The artist and mom spend hours together, usually over the course of about a month, talking and writing about hopes, dreams, and fears. The resulting ideas are distilled into lyrics, and the song is made.
Love Will Live In You was made by Sydney with Daniel Fears as part of the Lullaby Project. Vocals by Sydney. Listen below:
Listen to another lullaby from this project, Water Child by Crea with Arnold here.