Songs and Songwriting as Transformative Learning Experiences: Three Singer-Songwriters Reflect on Their “Soul Work”

Abstract

This study investigates how songs and songwriting can facilitate transformative learning experiences. Semi-structured interviews conducted with three professional singer-songwriters from different backgrounds helped define how songs and songwriting can nurture one’s soul work, that is, emotions individuation, dialogue between conscious and unconscious, and self-perception and self-understanding. According to these singer-songwriters, songs are psycho-sounds, an intimate space where one can train their emotional side in that they can transport the listener into others’ inner states, thus acting as unmediated emotion-laden images of one’s soul. Songs are defined as parallel universes that facilitate emotional connection between people, generations, and cultures, offering a sublime and mystical dimension intended as the connection to one’s heart. Songwriting favors autoanalysis practices that result in gained inner clarity, energy shifting, and perceived cellular transformation. A prolonged exposure to the emotional aspect of the songwriting craft can thus support the flourishing of intrapersonal intelligence and favor empathy between people.