Flow, identity, achievement, satisfaction and ownership during therapeutic songwriting experiences with university students and retirees

A within-subjects study of non-music major university students and retirees aimed to measure the extent of flow, sense of self, achievement, identity, satisfaction and ownership experienced during the creation of personally meaningful songs. Twenty-six participants randomized into three groups created three artefacts (lyrics only, song parody, original song) each facilitated by a trained music therapist. Flow experiences during song creation were strong, and when compared with previous studies, were substantially higher than for sporting activities, dancing, yoga and performing music. Original songwriting yielded more meaningful songs when compared with lyric writing and song parody. We determined that there was a significant predictive relationship between the degree of flow experienced and the meaningfulness of the song creation. We conclude that song creation experiences generate high levels of flow in young and old participants and the degree of flow achieved predicts how meaningful the artefacts will be post-creation.