Active Music Making as a Route to Diminished Social Anxiety among Adolescents - A Pilot Study

In this article, based on the pilot study Active music creation as a way of reducing the social anxiety of adolescents, we have explored the importance of music on the minds of adolescents and how this knowledge can be used for the emotional literacy of adolescents who participated in the study. In the first part of the article, we focused on adolescents and the development of an adolescent brain, and what music means in this crucial period of development. Furthermore, we focused on the music and its positive effects on the human brain, and how we can connect music with the teaching of emotional regulation. Music has always been what connects people since the voice itself is the first contact with the musicality that surrounds us from the conception onwards. The voice itself carries all emotional nuances, it communicates in what physical and emotional condition a speaker is and offers a bridge between "us" and "others". A group of adolescents who participated in our study learned to use their voices as a tool that offers emotional support. Through the exercises of cultivating this inner strength (their voice), they also learned emotional regulation, strengthening the sense of "self"; they were learning who they were, exceeded the expectations they had about themselves, and at the same time enjoyed themselves and built their own expression in the group. We also explored how we can use singing and instrumental techniques for therapeutic purposes, although our research was not intended to examine the effects of music therapy. Nevertheless, when creating singing and acting workshops for adolescents, we realized that our goal was achieved. Using the voice and learning with music were used as a therapeutic intervention in working with young people and the levels of social anxiety and restraint were shown to have decreased.