The aim of this arts-based research study was to experience, analyze, and gain insight into songs written by adolescents who have had adverse childhood experiences and who identify with Hip Hop culture. This study investigated the aesthetic components of eleven songs including their musical elements, the compositional techniques, the affective-intuitive qualities, and the interaction between the music and the lyrics. An arts-based research design, rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop, was employed to gain a holistic understanding of the songs. My artistic encounters and subsequent analyses of the songs revealed the complex inner struggles and developmental challenges for adolescents who have experienced extreme trauma. Three groupings of songs emerged: Songs that Protect Vulnerability, Songs of Abandonment, and Songs of Faith and Love. Each category reflects a different stage of developmental growth for the songwriters. Employing Fowler's (1981/1995) stages of faith development, a music-centered developmental model of therapeutic songwriting with adolescents is proposed in this study. This model consists of three therapeutic songwriting stages: Imitation, Developing Self-Reflection, and Developing Self-Love. The implications for this study include developing an arts-based method of song analysis for students and professionals, developing a music-centered therapeutic songwriting assessment, developing a perspective for music therapy practice and research rooted in the ethos of Hip Hop, and developing longitudinal arts-based research studies that track the life of songs across various stages of developmental growth. / Music Therapy

The purpose of this study was to explore the emergence of subject-ness among children in the context of a world-centered elementary general music class. I addressed this purpose through the creation and implementation of a curriculum project in which young children engaged in lullaby songwriting. In so doing, I sought to explore curricular and pedagogical alternatives: namely, curricular purposes beyond functional literacy and pedagogical approaches with relational potential. This curriculum project was enacted alongside children (ages 5–6) participating in three classes of kindergarten general music in the elementary school at which I taught at the time. I framed this study using Biesta’s (2021b) domains of educational purpose and, in particular, the notion that teaching has the potential to encourage children to be(come) subjects in their own lives, rather than objects in the lives of others. Furthermore, I relied upon world-centered education (Biesta, 2021b) in this study as a means of addressing a “grown-up” (p. 51) orientation to subject-ness in which the subject is “in the world and with the world, and not just with themselves” (Biesta, 2020b, p. 37, emphasis in original). To realize this framework, I invoked three supporting concepts: project-based teaching (Dillon, 2023a), dialogic pedagogy (White, 2016a, 2021), and compassionate care (Hendricks, 2023). For this study, I assembled a critical educational action research design drawing upon Somekh’s (2006) principles of action research. The progressively iterative nature of this three-phase project was initially influenced by the self-reflective action research spiral (Kemmis et al., 2014), which I later adapted into the action research trellis—a visual framing in which inquiry is illustrated as potentially growing in divergent and unpredictable ways. Data collected as part of this action research study included video observations of our enactment of the curriculum project, focus group interviews with children, an individual interview with a kindergarten teacher, my research journal entries, and various artifacts, such as lesson plans. I conducted a thematic analysis of the data (Glesne, 2016) which yielded three overarching themes: snapshots of emergent subject-ness in childhood focused on care, resistance, and dissent; pointing as an invitation to explore subject-ness, including the myriad ways in which this pointing manifested and facets of the curriculum project which contributed to this pointing; and the reflexive gifts of teaching, including “philosophical play” and teacher-student “connections” (Research Journal Entries). I situated the implications of these findings in terms of both curricular and pedagogical reimaginings.

Depuis les débuts des études sur la chanson, plusieurs chercheurs ont pu déterminer que l’âge d’or de la chanson québécoise comprenait la production chansonnière des années soixante et soixante-dix. C’est en filiation avec cette époque culturellement engagée et collective que la chanson du tournant du millénaire s’établit. En effet, après le creux musical des années quatre-vingt au Québec, un groupe reprit le collier de la chanson engagée au début des années quatre-vingt-dix. En défendant les marginalisés de la société et en se faisant le porte-parole de ceux-ci, les Colocs ont contribué à l’acceptation sociale des chômeurs, des sans-abris, des sidéens, des dépressifs, et autres laissés pour compte de la société. En s’attaquant à des problématiques socio-politiques graves, le groupe permet de les voir sous un autre angle et de créer une mise en perspective chez les victimes. Par l’utilisation de procédés ironiques, les Colocs parvinrent à installer une distance entre les problèmes et leurs victimes. En majorité auto-ironiques, les chansons du groupe révèlent en plus une ironie de situation, aussi appelée ironie du sort. En parallèle aux Colocs, d’autres artistes des années quatre-vingt-dix et deux mille offrent des chansons engagées au caractère ironique, et permettent une comparaison fructueuse. Dans l’optique de dédramatiser des situations potentiellement catastrophiques et d’élaborer une forme de critique sociale engagée, les Colocs ont créé une production chansonnière où l’ironie primait. / Since the early studies on songwriting, several researchers have determined that the golden age of Quebec songwriting included productions of the sixties and seventies. It’s in affiliation with the collective spirit of those years that the new protest song of the millennium settled. Indeed, after the hollow musical eighties in Quebec, a band took the lead of the protest song in the early nineties. By defending the marginalized people of society and making themselves their spokesmen, Les Colocs have contributed to the "empowerment" of the unemployed, the homeless, AIDS victims, the depressive and other left out of society. Addressing socio-political issues, the group let us see them from another angle and create a new perspective for the victims. Through the use of ironic processes, Les Colocs managed to install a distance between problems and their victims. Mostly self-ironic, their songs also reveal an irony of situation, also called irony of fate. In parallel to Les Colocs, other artists of the nineties and the early years of the new millenium offer songs with an incurred ironic character, and allow a meaningful comparison. In order to defuse potentially catastrophic situations and develop a form of social critique, Les Colocs have created a production where songwriter’s irony prevailed.

Syftet med studien var att bidra till ökad kunskap inom låtskrivningsundervisning. I studien undersöktes hur låtskrivning kan bedrivas på olika utbildningsnivåer. Med en hermeneutisk vetenskapssyn och ett sociokulturellt perspektiv genomfördes en kvalitativ intervjustudie av fyra deltagande lärare som undervisar i låtskrivande på grundskola, gymnasium, kulturskola, folkhögskola och högskola. Resultatet gav en inblick i dessa fyra olika lärares praktiker och synsätt och kan ses som relevant för yrkesverksamma musiklärare som vill utöka sina kunskaper i låtskrivningsundervisning i relation till kreativitet. Utifrån tidigare forskning om musikskapande, undervisning och kreativitet presenterades ett mångfacetterat resultat där lärarnas syn på och medvetenhet kring kreativitet ansågs påverka den undervisning som bedrevs i större utsträckning än vad lärarnas egna låtskrivande antyddes göra. Lärarens betydelse, vikten av medvetenhet kring kreativitet som företeelse, att synliggöra skapandeprocesser och att kommunicera dessa med eleverna går också som en röd tråd genom resultatet. Svårigheterna i att bedöma låtskrivande i olika kontexter framkom utifrån studien som ett ämne för vidare forskning.

Este trabalho estuda a obra de Itamar Assumpção, investigando os principais procedimentos de composição musical utilizados, bem como a relação que possuem com suas vivências pessoais de aprendizagem musical e teatral. Sua obra promove algumas sínteses de materiais musicais e poéticos da tradição popular brasileira e internacional, referencias que são reelaboradas no processo de criação de suas canções. São demonstradas e analisadas a confluência e a atrelagem que existe entre a ação da performance e oito matrizes composicionais identificadas ao longo das diferentes fases de sua obra. / This paper studies the music of Itamar Assumpção, exploring not only the compositional procedures employed, but also their relation to the artist\'s musical and theatrical life experiences. Assumpção\'s work harmonizes musical and poetic material from the Brazilian and international popular tradition, a synthesis that is reconstructed in the process of songwriting. This paper demonstrates and analyzes the confluence and interconnection between the act of performance and eight compositional structures identified throughout different phases of his work.

Este trabalho estuda a obra de Itamar Assumpção, investigando os principais procedimentos de composição musical utilizados, bem como a relação que possuem com suas vivências pessoais de aprendizagem musical e teatral. Sua obra promove algumas sínteses de materiais musicais e poéticos da tradição popular brasileira e internacional, referencias que são reelaboradas no processo de criação de suas canções. São demonstradas e analisadas a confluência e a atrelagem que existe entre a ação da performance e oito matrizes composicionais identificadas ao longo das diferentes fases de sua obra. / This paper studies the music of Itamar Assumpção, exploring not only the compositional procedures employed, but also their relation to the artist\'s musical and theatrical life experiences. Assumpção\'s work harmonizes musical and poetic material from the Brazilian and international popular tradition, a synthesis that is reconstructed in the process of songwriting. This paper demonstrates and analyzes the confluence and interconnection between the act of performance and eight compositional structures identified throughout different phases of his work.

Depuis les débuts des études sur la chanson, plusieurs chercheurs ont pu déterminer que l’âge d’or de la chanson québécoise comprenait la production chansonnière des années soixante et soixante-dix. C’est en filiation avec cette époque culturellement engagée et collective que la chanson du tournant du millénaire s’établit. En effet, après le creux musical des années quatre-vingt au Québec, un groupe reprit le collier de la chanson engagée au début des années quatre-vingt-dix. En défendant les marginalisés de la société et en se faisant le porte-parole de ceux-ci, les Colocs ont contribué à l’acceptation sociale des chômeurs, des sans-abris, des sidéens, des dépressifs, et autres laissés pour compte de la société. En s’attaquant à des problématiques socio-politiques graves, le groupe permet de les voir sous un autre angle et de créer une mise en perspective chez les victimes. Par l’utilisation de procédés ironiques, les Colocs parvinrent à installer une distance entre les problèmes et leurs victimes. En majorité auto-ironiques, les chansons du groupe révèlent en plus une ironie de situation, aussi appelée ironie du sort. En parallèle aux Colocs, d’autres artistes des années quatre-vingt-dix et deux mille offrent des chansons engagées au caractère ironique, et permettent une comparaison fructueuse. Dans l’optique de dédramatiser des situations potentiellement catastrophiques et d’élaborer une forme de critique sociale engagée, les Colocs ont créé une production chansonnière où l’ironie primait. / Since the early studies on songwriting, several researchers have determined that the golden age of Quebec songwriting included productions of the sixties and seventies. It’s in affiliation with the collective spirit of those years that the new protest song of the millennium settled. Indeed, after the hollow musical eighties in Quebec, a band took the lead of the protest song in the early nineties. By defending the marginalized people of society and making themselves their spokesmen, Les Colocs have contributed to the "empowerment" of the unemployed, the homeless, AIDS victims, the depressive and other left out of society. Addressing socio-political issues, the group let us see them from another angle and create a new perspective for the victims. Through the use of ironic processes, Les Colocs managed to install a distance between problems and their victims. Mostly self-ironic, their songs also reveal an irony of situation, also called irony of fate. In parallel to Les Colocs, other artists of the nineties and the early years of the new millenium offer songs with an incurred ironic character, and allow a meaningful comparison. In order to defuse potentially catastrophic situations and develop a form of social critique, Les Colocs have created a production where songwriter’s irony prevailed.

O principal objetivo deste trabalho é, primeiramente, o levantamento de versões brasileiras para canções de Bob Dylan e, posteriormente, a análise das letras dessas versões. A intenção é compreender como os compositores brasileiros fizeram a leitura do compositor americano. O resultado mostra um quadro com 46 versões, realizadas no período de 1968 a 2008, que se referem a três períodos da obra de Bob Dylan, antes, durante e depois do que o biógrafo Robert Sheldon denominou Primeiro Ciclo Rock. Os dados permitem separar dois grandes grupos de compositores brasileiros: um contém aquelas versões feitas a partir dos álbuns pertencentes ao Primeiro Ciclo Rock de Dylan, gerando a estatística de mais de 52% dos casos, e o outro contém versões que focaram nas outras fases do músico. / The main purpose of this research was to collect Brazilian versions of Bob Dylan’s songs and analyze both Portuguese and English lyrics, searching for evidences on how Brazilian songwriters have interpreted Dylan’s work in their cultural context. Results show a table with 46 Brazilian versions made from 1968 to 2008. They were analyzed according to what the biographer Robert Shelton called Rock Cycle. Statistics show more than 52% of those versions referring to pre-rock cycle and rock cycle, aiming the musician’s production from 1963 to 1965, mainly. This paper analyses Brazilian version lyrics in comparison to original lyrics.

This essay examines how reference music can be used as a tool to fix weaknesses within my own songwriting and production process. The weaknesses were found by analysing feedback from other students on my own music. Four reference artists were then analysed with the intent of finding solutions to these weaknesses. Four new songs were then written and produced by implementing the solutions from the reference artists into the creative process. The results were mostly positive, as the songs had improved on various issues found in the feedback analysis. However, the method restricted the creative process in some occasions rather than inspiring it. The reasons for this are in part due to the choice of reference artists and which aspects of their music were in focus for the analysis. / I detta arbete undersöker jag hur referensmusik kan användas som ett verktyg för att stärka svagheter i mitt eget låtskrivande- och produktionsprocess. Svagheterna hittades genom att analysera feedback från andra studenter på min egen musik. Därefter analyserades fyra referensartister med syftet att hitta lösningar på dessa svagheter. Fyra nya låtar skrevs sedan och producerades genom att implementera lösningarna från referensartisterna till den kreativa processen. Resultaten var mestadels positiva, eftersom låtarna förbättrades på olika svagheter som hittades i feedbackanalysen. Metoden begränsade dock den kreativa processen i vissa tillfällen snarare än att inspirera den. Anledningarna till detta beror dels på valet av referensartister och vilka aspekter av deras musik som analyserna var inriktade på.

O principal objetivo deste trabalho é, primeiramente, o levantamento de versões brasileiras para canções de Bob Dylan e, posteriormente, a análise das letras dessas versões. A intenção é compreender como os compositores brasileiros fizeram a leitura do compositor americano. O resultado mostra um quadro com 46 versões, realizadas no período de 1968 a 2008, que se referem a três períodos da obra de Bob Dylan, antes, durante e depois do que o biógrafo Robert Sheldon denominou Primeiro Ciclo Rock. Os dados permitem separar dois grandes grupos de compositores brasileiros: um contém aquelas versões feitas a partir dos álbuns pertencentes ao Primeiro Ciclo Rock de Dylan, gerando a estatística de mais de 52% dos casos, e o outro contém versões que focaram nas outras fases do músico. / The main purpose of this research was to collect Brazilian versions of Bob Dylan’s songs and analyze both Portuguese and English lyrics, searching for evidences on how Brazilian songwriters have interpreted Dylan’s work in their cultural context. Results show a table with 46 Brazilian versions made from 1968 to 2008. They were analyzed according to what the biographer Robert Shelton called Rock Cycle. Statistics show more than 52% of those versions referring to pre-rock cycle and rock cycle, aiming the musician’s production from 1963 to 1965, mainly. This paper analyses Brazilian version lyrics in comparison to original lyrics.