Group Songwriting with Garageband

“The Zones of Regulation” song, originally entitled “The Dub Color Feeling” song, was written by a group of middle school students who were out-patients at a school for behavioral health. The students co-wrote all of the lyrics in a collaborative fashion with the only prompt of “let’s write a song about feelings.” The lyrics reference Leah Kuyper’s Zones of Regulation (2011), and illustrate a creative understanding of that curriculum.

            The music was composed using GarageBand by the music therapists over the course of four sessions in which the students agreed they wanted the song to have a dubstep style, and the music therapists gave them multiple options for instruments and sounds. The students then took turns practicing singing melodies to the music, which the music therapists recorded themselves singing once the melodies were solidified. These sound files are shown in the original GarageBand layout above, which is an example of what recorded music looks like.

            This song was and still can be a great tool to help label and understand feelings and emotions, especially when co-treating with others who use Kuyper’s Zones of Regulation curriculum.  

Reference

Kuypers, L. M. (2011). The zones of regulation: A curriculum designed to foster self-regulation and emotional control. Social Thinking.