Making music helps us feel better!
“I have literally arrived feeling like the world is collapsing and gone home feeling like I could climb a mountain! How does it do that? I want to bottle it, that’s for sure.”
A Little Notes mum of 2
This feedback is a brilliant summary of what so many families tell us: making music makes them feel a whole lot better.
Mental Health Awareness Week 2025
The theme for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK is community and we’ve been reflecting on how important community is to us. We spend much of a Little Notes session in a circle, where children discover that they are part of a music-making team. They strengthen relationships as they make music with their friends and family group. We make music together, building social skills as we join in with one another’s ideas and listen together to make one big sound. Even as we travel on our “rollercoaster” or play musical statues, we’re watching and listening with the rest of the team and a lot of laughs and giggles on the way!
Making music together
Each week, our “special piece” brings an opportunity to explore beautiful music together. As we do this, children discover that music can help them to express how they’re feeling. A jam session with percussion instruments helps us learn how good it feels to play along with others. We can safely express strong emotions by joining in with the beat or creatively improvising independently. Children discover a safe, non-verbal outlet for their emotions especially when it’s sometimes tricky to express them with words. We’ve noticed quite how much adults absolutely love to join in with a jam session too: it’s a lot of fun and brings so much joy!
Music helps us relax and reduces anxiety
At the end of each Little Notes session, everyone finds a comfy space in the room to have a lie-down and rest together. It’s such a special time and we love to see even the busiest, most-active child enjoying these moments, alongside others. When we listen to calm music (and at Little Notes this is always played live), our body’s cortisol levels are lowered. This helps children to relax and reduces anxiety: such important life-skills and wonderful to establish them at the start of life.
Increasing confidence and self-esteem
One of our favourite moments is the very end of each session, when we take a little moment with each child to give them their sticker and remind them of something particularly positive that they brought to the session. Perhaps they played with the pulse, did some crazy dancing or tidied away their streamer: we’ll award a sticker, increasing their confidence and self-esteem.
Lavishly pouring out the benefits
A recent report published by ABRSM states that 80% of people say that music is key to their mental health and well-being. 84% of young people recognise the important contribution of music to their mental health.
We are thrilled that we can introduce music to so many very young people every week.
We might not be able to bottle it, but we can lavishly pour out all the benefits week after week in our sessions.