Songwriting as a transformative practice: A heuristic inquiry into the songwriter's experience of creating, recording, and performing original popular songs

This qualitative heuristic study explored the subjective experience of transformation resulting from the practice of songwriting. In semi-structured interviews, 6 men and 6 women, aged 35-69, described their experience of songwriting and discussed 1 song whose composition and sharing had had significant personal impact. Participants were predominantly White, well-educated, and had spiritual orientations divergent from mainstream religions. They had written an average of 315.4 songs over a mean of 36.3 years. Thematic content analysis revealed 6 primary themes. Two foundations of the practice---Connecting (related to the process of songwriting) and Communicating (related to the content)---were directly transformative, while also enabling 4 other transformative outcomes: Wellbeing, Affirmation, Personal Growth, and Making A Difference. Participants reported a variety of cocreative and transpersonal experiences in the process of creating, recording, and performing their songs, arising from Connecting with cowriters, listeners, influences not physically present (e.g., other artists), and spirit. Songs afforded participants a language superior to speech for Communicating, which facilitated Expressing Feelings, Sharing Self, and Sending A Message. Personal Growth occurred through songwriting as a result of Processing Experience to make meaning of painful material, and gaining increased confidence and self-knowledge (Empowerment). Some participants reported Song Theme Evolution over their lifetime, moving from songs focused on personal catharsis to songs intended to inspire listeners. The most emphatically articulated theme was Making A Difference in others' lives; songwriters were profoundly moved and validated to learn of the positive effects their songs had had on listeners. The findings strongly affirmed models of transformation in the expressive arts literature. Neither Ferrer's participatory philosophy of spirituality nor Washburn's triphasic model of transpersonal development was able to account for the full extent of songwriters' reported experiences of psychospiritual transformation.