Scoring Mental Health

The meaningful sound of mental illness evoked by personal stories, and new musical works co-composed by Gawain Hewitt and a group with a lived experience of mental health conditions.

What does mental illness sound like? Popular audio representations of mental illness are often discordant or otherworldly, designed to evoke strong emotions like fear or anxiety. Yet those with mental illness often describe other sounds which are meaningful to them and their experience, reflecting monotony, lack of connectedness, repetition, silence, control, and lack of control.

Radio 3’s Researcher in Residence, Professor Sally Marlow of King’s College London, asked composer and sound artist Gawain Hewitt to work with a group of people with lived experience of mental illness to co-compose new work to explore a whole spectrum of symptoms and changing feelings that words alone cannot do justice. Through a series of music-making workshops, the team found new ways to express their experiences using musical instruments, voices, apps, and everyday extraneous sounds in an ambitious attempt to break through the language barriers of mental health.

The result is an exhilarating series of short musical works moving from optimism tinged with uncertainty, to deep disquiet, that weave intimate personal experiences with the acoustic and electronic sounds and music that have evolved from these workshops, to capture vividly how mental illness resonates to those who are mentally unwell.

Devised and curated by Sally Marlow
Producer: Adrian Washbourne
Sound mixed by Giles Aspen
A TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3

Composers: Gawain Hewitt with
Michelle Baharier, Stephanie Bates, Lavinia Black, Rashima Black, Rick Burgess, Cruella Dot, Daisy, James Downs, Dorothy Dunn, Cameron Durdy, Tania Gergel, Barrington Gordon, Nicky Heinen, Sarah Hill, Cassie Lovelock, Tiffany Pitts, Sonia Thompson, and members of the Mental Fight Club.

Accompanied by Matt Maguire, Sub principal viola, City of London Sinfonia.

Supported by Verity Buckley, Madison Wempe, Katie Lowis

Image by Stephanie Bates

With thanks to the Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account, the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London, Bethlem Gallery and Mental Fight Club.

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