Let’s rock: The means and meanings of participation in a music therapy rock band

Participants and setting

In this study, which took place between September 2013 and June 2016, I examined the experiences of the Smooth Criminals, a rock band composed of five young adult members and four facilitators/assistants. The members included Tim, Alana, Adam, John, and Dylan, all of whom were between the ages of 16 and 21 at the beginning of the study. Tim was a White male, 21-year-old Beatles fan and Bronie/fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Alana was an accomplished White female athlete aged 18 and a self-described “Disney Fanatic” and “Belieber”/Justin Bieber fan. Adam was a 16-year-old White male in high school and the band’s resident jokester. John was a stoic 18-year-old White male, a skilled multi-instrumentalist who enjoyed chatting about Marvel’s Avengers and Star Wars and often arrived late for practice sessions due to numerous therapies. Dylan was a Black male of 17 years in high school with dance moves to spare who was always ready to get down to Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars, and Ozzy Osbourne. Each member had been diagnosed with developmental disabilities. These diagnoses gave them access to the band experience, which is paid for primarily through nationally supported healthcare plans (e.g., Medicare and Medicaid) and/or the private health insurance of their parents/guardians. Parents, grandparents, guardians, or service providers bring band members to the after-school band practice.

The members’ participation in the band was a form of group music therapy with the goals of (a) learning and performing music that is meaningful to members, (b) connecting with peers, and (c) developing communication skills and fluency. Facilitators—Kelly and Karen, certified music therapists; Sam, a music therapy intern; and me, a white, male, disabled music educator and researcher in my early thirties, at the time of the study, acting as a volunteer in the band—structured the therapeutic aspects of the group. Music therapists determined therapeutic goals for the group and individual members, however, I was not a part of their planning and was not specifically notified of how the music therapists would work toward these goals. The band met weekly for an hour to socialize and rehearse at a music therapy clinic near a major university in the Southwest (United States). The family members and care providers who brought the young adults to the music therapy clinic and, while waiting during the sessions, shared stories, told jokes, played games, and even crocheted together in the hallway outside the dedicated rock band room.

The Smooth Criminals are the second ongoing music therapy rock band hosted by the clinic, which at the time of writing hosts up to 14 bands. The clinic provides traditional, one-on-one music therapy in which music is used systematically by board-certified music therapists to achieve individual behavioral, emotional, and physical therapeutic goals; small group therapy related to early intervention, addiction and recovery, and hospice; pre-clinical internships for music therapy students and continuing education opportunities for local board-certified music therapists; and a group music therapy rock band program informed by community music therapy. Music therapy in the United States is defined by the American Music Therapy Association (2024) as “the clinical [and] evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program. Music therapy interventions can address a variety of healthcare & educational goals, and many people can benefit from music therapy services.” While clinical goals for each participant may inform some practice sessions, the ultimate focus was to grow as a band to connect with others and perform for the public, hopefully challenging stigma and stereotypes related to DP/PwDs by those who engage with the participants of community therapy and the music they create.

The Smooth Criminals began in 2011 with Dylan, Adam, and John, who attended high school and self-contained special education classes. In 2013, just before the study began, Alana and Tim joined the group. Alana was later asked if she would like to join a third rock band with a female member, but she refused, saying, “This is my band.” As data collection came to an end, Tim prepared to transition into another band, and a new member joined the Smooth Criminals at rehearsals.

The band met each week in a dedicated room equipped with electric guitars, a bass guitar, keyboards, amplifiers, microphones, speakers, and a drum set. Members selected and performed all the musical repertoire, some identified by the members and others suggested by the facilitators based on the members’ areas of interest. This included songs by Survivor, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Jackson, and Bruno Mars, with a healthy helping of songs from cartoons such as Frozen, The Lion King, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Each band member played a different instrument and/or sang, often rotating roles between songs. The general approach to music-making favored developing ever-evolving, idiosyncratic, and workable covers of songs. These covered highlighted members’ strengths and helped them work toward therapeutic or personal goals. Members communicated in ways that favored nonverbal modalities and using idiosyncratic language that evolved as the group took on different songs and grew more and more together. All members of the Smooth Criminals sang, often selecting songs with the facilitators to connect with goals they may have been working on in private music therapy sessions or through other therapeutic interventions. In another example, members might be guided toward different instruments to help them practice fine motor or gross motor movements and motor planning, as identified in their therapeutic experiences or as observed by the therapists in band practice. Facilitators offered structures for learning songs and supported their playing and singing during sessions and concerts.

Data generation

I began working with the Smooth Criminals as part of a doctoral class project (September 2013) and then as a volunteer (January 2014–June 2016), ² based on personal identities, previous work, and scholarly interests related to DP/PwDs and popular music education. As a disabled person experiencing mental health distress for all of my adult life, as a popular or vernacular-based musician since childhood jamming with my family and playing guitar or bass in numerous bands, and as a teacher with deep experiences working with DP/PwDs in music learning spaces and some familiarity with approaches to music therapy, I was particularly drawn the Smooth Criminals and the rock band program, in general. This led me to develop an intrinsic case study to help me understand the goings-on of the group and the meanings of participation for those involved.

I developed a data generation protocol involving video recordings and field notes of 105 weekly sessions/ and three concerts; one 20-min semi-formal interview with each band members each year of the study, totaling 15 interviews (band member interviews took place as pull outs during practice sessions); a total of six 20-min semi-formal interviews with music therapists/interns occurring at the beginning and end of the project, two questionnaires for family members sent out during the second and third years of the study with a total of eight responses, at least one from each family; and a research and bridling journal documenting reflections and personal wonderments throughout the entire study. This study was approved by the music therapy clinic and my university’s institutional review board.

I sought informed assent from band members along with consent from their legal guardians, therapists, interns, and family members. As part of the assent/consent process, I shared in print and verbally over the course of a few weeks that I would be generating data anytime that I was in the rock band area, including before and after sessions. I regularly reminded participants of this and reminded them that they could request any conversation be left out of the data. I took field notes when not directly participating during weekly sessions. I developed an interview protocol based on a passing game the group often played as a weekly icebreaker. Members seated in a circle tossed around a ball, stopping when one of the therapists paused the background music. At each stop, the therapists asked members questions I supplied. I transcribed the members’ responses to the questions each week and generated follow-up questions for the following week. In addition to these weekly interview activities, I interviewed each band member at least once a year and interviewed new interns after a few months of participation. I shared questionnaires with parents/guardians, asking questions similar to those that I asked band members and therapists/interns.

Data and analysis

I reviewed data biweekly, using a priori organizational codes related to the guiding questions of the study to identify practices used by members, statements of meaning or preference, roles, and times in sessions and performances during which the members appear either enabled or disabled. I then employed axial coding to combine common or connected ideas uncovered within the organizational codes (Saldaña, 2021). I used a recursive process of data generation and data analysis, coding written data, journaling on tentative findings and themes, and developing follow-up questions. I analyzed data while generating additional data, writing my way through as I attempted to make meaning of the experiences. The multiple data streams provided what Yin (2011) calls a “nested arrangement” (p. 82), each data stream providing information that I used to confirm, deny, or refine tentative findings. I shared these tentative findings with participants as a means of member check, continually refining answers to my research questions. Member checks and a nested arrangement provided me with a way to triangulate findings. Throughout the study and specifically in analysis, I worked to bridle (Dahlberg et al., 2001; Vagle et al., 2009) my own perceptions of any intersections between participants’ experiences and my own as a disabled person. My research journal also included bridling prompts and commentary as to avoid having my own preunderstandings cloud the ideas and experiences of the participants.

Theme 1: The band as a space for community and care

The experience of being in the band afforded members of the Smooth Criminals a space to develop and experience community in and around music. The vignette below demonstrates a typical scene where the members build and rely upon their sense of community and care during music-making.

The band started playing “All is Love” with Alana on drums assisted by Karen, and Dylan and Tim on keys supported by Sam. Both John and Adam sang while I played guitar and Kelly played bass. There was something off, and Alana could not find the beat. Adam turned around and cheered her on, clapping an arrhythmic time out. Dylan focused as John sang the first verse. Tim pounded on the keys, barely keeping with the groove established by the rest of the group. He smiled at Dylan and Sam before giving a thumbs up to Adam. In the middle of phrases, John turned to me and said, “Sing with me.” The group barely kept it together musically, but certainly laughed and cheered each other on.

Many of the members developed strong social bonds with one another through their participation in the group, and I observed that they were mutually supportive of each other. Dylan was regularly the cheerleader, though Adam took on the duties in the example above. They cheered each other on and celebrated individual and group successes, as evidenced during a backstage pep talk before a performance at one of their concerts:

“Ooh, smooth, we’re smooth,” Dylan said, “we’re gonna rock it!” Adam answerd with an excited, “Yeah!” Alana offers up high fives. As the group was called to the side of the stage, Tim looked at his bandmates and said in an enthusiastic, low grumble, “Let’s rock!” At the end of their set at a packed venue, the group members hugged, all except John who has already gone off stage, his face adorned with a full smile.

This sense of community and mutual care was also visible weekly as the group gathered with families and caregivers outside the rock band room:

Alana cheerfully greeted each member as they arrived in the hallway. Dylan gave hugs or fist bumps all around before sitting down to eat his customary pre-practice Pop tart. Tim entered, smiled, and began to ask everyone how their day had been. Adam popped through the clinic door, guitar case slung over his shoulder. He chuckles before saying, “Dylan” with a melodic upward major 3 ^rd lilt in a somewhat accusatory manner. The two hug before Kelly arrives in the hall and says, “We can go in.” All of the members—save John, whose caregiver arrives perpetually late—stand up and walk hurriedly toward the rock band room door. “Oh, boy, oh boy,” Dylan said to no one in particular as he trailed behind the others, “My band!”

The use of words such as “my,” “our,” and “we” to describe the band implied a sense of individual and shared ownership of the group. During this study, John was the only member who did not share similar expressions. This may have been due to his persistent late arrival, often missing the first 15 min of the hour session time dedicated to socializing and communication. Yet, John’s mother took pleasure in the community that extended beyond the immediate group and into the hallway during sessions. She and Alana’s grandmother traded crochet techniques and chatted about their days, often asking Dylan and Adam’s college-aged caregivers about their trips and classes. Alana’s mother noted one day during an informal chat:

We’ve got as much of a family out here as they do in there [pointing toward the rock band room]. I just love these people [pointing a crochet needle at the other adults in the hallway]. I love hearing about their days, their problems. We have fun sitting together at concerts and going out to eat afterwards.

These expressions of community and care connect with the community music therapy foundational praxis within which the group operates.

While the feeling of community and mutual care was palpable, not all members shared these feelings in the same way or to the same extent, particularly Tim and, to a greater extent, John. Tim, the oldest and newest group member, appeared to feel like a part of the community but rarely verbalized it. John regularly hung out at the periphery of sessions and social engagements, often repeating words to cartoon episodes and movie songs to himself. John’s late arrivals and limited engagement in verbal social communication made his feelings about the community within Smooth Criminals challenging to discern. He certainly displayed an affinity toward the other band members, especially at performances, often offering high-fives after play-throughs of songs.

Theme 2: The band as a space to play with and construct personal identity

The space created by being a Smooth Criminals member enabled members to play with identities, construct themselves, and share with others who they are and who they want to be. Specifically, concerts and sessions provided members a space to develop identities and senses of self not constrained by socially imposed identities/positions based on their diagnostic labels and/or observable characteristics and behaviors. Sessions and concerts provided spaces to try on and try out identities and possible selves. Some members emulated specific musicians, adopting their gestures and characteristics as potential or possible identities, such as when Dylan mimicked his hero, Bruno Mars, replicating his dance moves, gestures, and vocal timbre. Other band members experimented with identities by drawing on stereotypical depictions of rock instrumentals, elements of other band members’ personalities, and sources from their lives outside of band sessions and concerts. For example, Adam acted out “Adam the rock guitar god” when he had an electric guitar or bass guitar. Adam lifted his hand in the air at concerts, displaying the devil horns sign, and stuck out his tongue like Kiss’ Gene Simmons in between strums. The members also provided each other with models for potential identities. For example, after Adam tried out his “rock god” persona to high praise and laughter from the entire group, Alana displayed similar, if subtler, rock goddess actions when it was her turn on guitar. John was the only member who did not demonstrate observable identity play within sessions or concerts.

Sessions began with a social circle indicative of a foundational dedication to opening spaces through and around music for members to interact. The members turned these and other conversational times into chances to share details of their lives, abilities, and potential selves. During one opening circle:

John joined our customary opening social circle while Adam shared a joke with Dylan who was showing off some new dance moves in the center of the group, “Knock, knock,” “Who’s there,” “Tacoman!” Meanwhile, Alana chatted with Sam, the music therapy intern, about her latest athletic award and how excited she was about going home to groom her puppy. Tim turned and talked to Karen and me about an upcoming business merger he said he would handle. “Are you messing with us?” I ask, as Tim lights up. A “yes” is barely audible from Tim in between his giggles. As he gained his composure, he said, “I’m going to study law at the college soon, business law: mergers!” John turned to Karen and told her about the latest Avengers movie.

During these times and in interviews, band members shared their goals, interests, and identities, never mentioning diagnostic labels or how disability explicitly informed who they saw and wanted others to see them.

Opportunities to perform in front of others provided a stage for participants to make their personal identities visible or adopt socially validated identities, such as larger-than-life “rock star.” The positive social responses participants experienced impacted how they felt well after concerts. For example, Tim shared excitement over his feelings about himself weeks after a concert, stating, “I sing and people smile . . . I feel strong singing.” Tim’s participation in the band, including at big performances, also shaped how other saw them, including his mother who noted, shortly after Tim’s first big performance, “Something’s different since the first time he was on stage. He’s not just my little boy who has spent most of his days in different therapy sessions . . . he’s a rock star to me.” Rather than being known in association with their diagnostic labels such as having “developmental disabilities,” the band members presented other aspects of themselves, aiding a more complex and nuanced portrayal of their lives that was more on their own terms. Within the confines of the band, band members did not refer to their diagnostic labels; instead, they used their successes and personal preferences as direct markers of their identities. These labels, however, granted them access to the band and friends who might share the same or similar labels.

Theme 3: Adaptations and accommodations used to support the band members

The music-making practices of the Smooth Criminals are facilitated, in the truest sense of “making easier,” by all involved in the band. The facilitators leveraged color-coded lead sheets and stickers often. Beyond that, the adaptations were highly idiosyncratic based on the needs of the member, the song, and the particular day: one approach might work for one member on one song for one day but never work again. Members also adapted instruments, tools, and approaches on the fly, showing personal and song-specific self-accommodations. The way Smooth Criminals approached adapting music, techniques, and communication was constantly in flux, with the same adaptation rarely materializing the same way twice. Below, I describe some of the common adaptations and accommodative approaches of the Smooth Criminals.