Songwriter Profile: Stephanie LeavellHealing Sounds

Repetitive. Grating. Empty. Children’s music descriptors don’t apply when it comes to singer-songwriter and music therapist, Stephanie Leavell. As she puts it, “As a parent myself, it’s got to be pleasing.”

With early memories of coloring books at her rock band parents’ gigs, Leavell was surrounded by all aspects of music at a very young age, although her chosen pursuit was unique. After seeing a picture of a harp in a newspaper at age five, she voiced her desire to play and, still committed to the endeavor two years later, her parents bought her a harp and she began lessons with a local philharmonic player.

Writing started with instrumental songs on the harp, with Leavell learning to play the guitar, singing and songwriting more regularly in her teens. Her parents’ DIY recording studio in the basement inspired her first album in junior high. Says Leavell, “I sometimes wonder if my singing tone was impacted by hours and hours behind the harp before I was even singing… my whole childhood is me behind a harp to some extent.” 

As an introvert, she found it difficult to share her own music with others, and it wasn’t until music therapy entered her life in a class at Berklee (after initially pursuing harp studies and music business) that things clicked and she realized that being a music therapist was a way to create music without the focus being on her.

“It was easier to think of the things I would tell kids, that I tell my own daughter, and the things that I want kids to be able to tell themselves,” admits Leavell. Her mentorship at Massachusetts General Hospital—and seeing a reduction in children’s pain and anxiety—led to work in hospitals, clinics, and schools.

Working as a music teacher at her daughter’s preschool brought the challenge of trying to simultaneously keep the attention of 24 little ones, and after moving home to Idaho during the lockdown, she started a music therapy program at her local hospital. Often seeing children starting chemotherapy at just two or three years old, with no ability to process complex feelings (and no ability to express language), she connected at a heart level, allowing the experience to be somewhat less traumatic as kids got time to be creative and find an avenue for self-expression. “They used to get anticipatory nausea, anxiety and pain before coming in,” reveals Leavell. “There’s singing, dancing, playing, and joking around. It’s a break from medical intervention. The brain is more focused on music than it is on pain.” Creating a safe space for youngsters navigating the unimaginable, they ask for her by name.

Therapy sessions—in addition to being soothing and emotive—leverage multiple communication points to help kids to process and interpret the song’s message. Vocals match the lyrics, cadence, melody, rhythm and movement to engage each child’s brain at their own level of development (including various stages of trauma and neurodiversity). “Some kids process the rhythms, some are more focused on the melody,” she says. “The more I stack those, [the more] a song is crystal clear, the more successful the kid is going to be.”

Leavell founded online educational platform Music For Kiddos in 2017, sending out a “song of the month” to newsletter subscribers and providing a library of about 500 educational resources used by schools, parents, music therapists, and early music educators. Her latest recording project, Made to Bloom, includes her vocals, guitar and harp—with the addition of a guest mandolinist and percussionist—and is comprised of top “song of the month” selections from the past five years. 

Nominated for 2019’s Children’s Album of the Year for debut Move It, Move It!, 2020’s Children’s Song of the Year and a finalist in 2021’s International Songwriting Competition, Leavell won 2020’s American Music Therapy Association’s Songwriting Competition for “School’s A Little Different This Year.” 

Contact elizabeth@waldmaniapr.com

Experience stephanieleavellmusic.com

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TikTok’s teenage filter has us confronting our own mortalityPeople on TikTok are getting emotional over an AR filter that makes you look like a teenager. Juxtaposed one beside the other, the filter shows you as you are, and then a version of you that has perfectly smooth skin and a strange youthful innocence.
The filter has sparked a surprisingly wide range of emotions.
“I had not seen her in a very long time,” wrote a TikToker in a post with over 500,000 views. “Yes… I cried.” In a video with 1 million views, another user wrote, “This filter gave me the ability to finally speak to my younger self,” reflecting on how much she had grown since leaving an abusive living situation.
At the same time, others have filmed TikToks making fun of dramatic reactions to seeing a “younger self,” while some people joked about how being a teenager doesn’t mean you have flawless skin — it probably means you can’t keep your acne under control.

@kasiadollka
omg my dad’s reaction to the #teenagefilter made me tear up
♬ The Freshmen – The Verve Pipe

We know that social media can make us feel bad about our appearance. Only in this case, instead of comparing ourselves to others, this filter drives us to compare ourselves to who we were in the past. Still, it’s a warped sense of reality — you probably didn’t look like a baby cherub as a teenager, and you might have wrinkles now… but you’re probably a lot more well-adjusted with a lot less chemistry homework.
But for many users, it’s not the baby-smooth skin that makes them feel emotional. Rather, the filter spurs a sense of grief over the regrets they have about not enjoying life when they were younger, or the hard decisions they’ve had to make as an adult. A lot of these videos are set to the song “The Freshmen” by The Verve Pipe (which shockingly is not the same band that wrote “Bittersweet Symphony”). The brooding 90s alt rock song has an apt chorus for the emotions that are bubbling up for Gen Xers: “For the life of me I cannot remember/What made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise.”

@uhhhuhhunney
Lived in the past for about 30 seconds or less. To think about the last time i looked so young and what i had endured up to that point. It seemed like my smile never lost its life but that sparkle in the eye had already been gone for so long. 20 years past and even more endured i wonder what will be in 20 more years. #teenagers #teenagefilter #teenagelookfilter #teenagerfilter #abuse #domesticviolence #death #surviving
♬ The Freshmen – The Verve Pipe

Though these TikToks are sentimental, this is far from the first time that an AR filter or app has gone viral to show us what we looked like in our youth, or how we might look when we’re old.
Just months ago, fantastical AI-generated avatars were all the rage, though that trend has died down considerably. And every so often, a filter that makes you look like an animated Disney character will predictably go viral on Snapchat or TikTok, keeping our brain worms entertained for a moment until we get bored again.
These AR filters are more prone to going viral, though, since there’s a smaller barrier to entry — you don’t have to download a new app, which is reassuring given the shady history of many viral photo editing apps. Some photo apps have been found to be vectors for malware, while in other cases, users have worried about what happens to the photos they upload into these apps. These concerns came up around Russia-based AI editor FaceApp, which later had to clarify in a statement that it might store updated photos in the cloud for “performance and traffic reasons,” but that most images are deleted within 48 hours.
Some users may have security concerns about TikTok regardless — but TikTok claims that it is not collecting or storing our biometric data when we use these AR filters.
In any case, as you idly scroll through TikTok, just remember: We are all going to die one day!

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TikTok’s teenage filter has us confronting our own mortality by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

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