Facilitating The Young, Creative Mind

Working on the plugin project at Parkview Clinic was a privilege, not only because of the staff I worked alongside, but because of the profound energy that I felt from being around the young people.

Up until this project, I hadn’t fully realised how much creative potential oozes intuitively from the young mind, particularly in environments where expression can feel limited or closely monitored. It was a true privilege to see this revealed, ever so discreetly in some cases, but always profoundly.

I think of “minimalist might” when expressing music as a powerful tool for drawing this out. Whether it is a MIDI patch that modulates on its own or a Splice sample that ‘just works’, there are countless paths to creating interesting art, and facilitating this at Parkview often meant reassuring the young person that the path they were pursuing was trustworthy, even if it felt unconventional or unfinished, with ever-evolving potential.

That, broadly, is the wonderful truth of art, and it always felt meaningful when a young person realises it for the first time. My hope is that this ripples out beyond music, influencing how they approach challenges and self-expression more broadly.

Towards the final weeks of the project, I began working with a young person on GarageBand (iPad). This took a slightly more holistic approach to making a song, with the aim of enabling them to jam, record, and eventually export their ideas not just as a songwriter or singer, but essentially as a producer. With GarageBand software being ever more powerful and compatible with iPhones and iPads, it felt empowering to introduce this person to an ‘instrument’ in their pocket and I believe they enjoyed the fact that they weren’t reliant on somebody else accompanying them with guitar, etc.

Educationally speaking, the early introduction to thinking about DAWs has a massively scalable nature, lending itself to other creative software workflows and frameworks, as well as transferable problem-solving skills, building opportunities for the future, but even more simply, a sense of personal ownership and independent growth, which I imagine may feel distant when admitted to closely monitored mental health institutions.

This is something I would absolutely encourage in future for some of the young people, equipping them to develop skills without the total dependency on somebody else’s (e.g. piano or guitar accompaniment) while being able to build up a tangible sense of their own project.

Despite this, the ranging, eclectic nature of every week and every ward meant that some of the most meaningful and developmental moments were had simply while sat on a beanbag chatting to the young people about music and their interests. Having the flexibility and openness to adapt in this way played a big part in developing strong bonds with individuals, associating the sessions with low-pressure, welcoming warmth, and inclusive stimulation.

Written by Toby Marriott, Plugin Project Young Music Leader, Parkview Clinic